Chương 45: Toll the Death Knell, II

Wu Hao pushed open the tent flap, refusing to hesitate as he entered, and looked around to distract himself. Father wasn't at his desk, the way that Wu Hao had seen him the last time. Instead, he sat on a mat that had been laid in an open space, decorated only sparsely for Father's usual - a single scroll had been set up to hang from a stand, with characters that Wu Hao couldn't actually read across its surface. The rest of the tent was more or less clean but bare, and he supposed that made sense.

It hadn't been much time since Father had arrived, after all. The calligraphy set hadn't been unpacked, for instance. Father had had at most time for a cup of tea, which was sitting on the ground next to the mat, still slightly steaming despite being empty of liquid. A faint hint of fragrance ran through the tent, which was too subtle for Wu Hao to identify. Not qi, then. The mat itself, too, looked to be of high quality and comfortable.

Father was sitting on it cross-legged, eyes opened, leaning slightly forward as he watched Wu Hao come forward, his robe a deep red. Father looked the same way Wu Hao always saw him, though now he saw him in the muted light of the tent at mid-morning, instead of the flame-lit night. The scars on his face seemed faded, though never invisible. He still hadn't shaved, stubble growing on his chin that he'd normally kept clear. Even sitting, Wu Hao thought he managed to loom.

And, of course, next to him was standing another Honor Guard, who was Father's servant of the hour. It was 648, a boy that Wu Hao barely even recognized. He had a vague memory of speaking with him, at some point? That was a dozen lives ago. For the first time, Wu Hao took a good look at Father's face. He looked, in a word, tired, in a way that Wu Hao hadn't bothered to notice before. His eyes seemed to droop somewhat, his general appearance slightly more unkempt.

Wu Hao wondered if maybe it was because of the defeat that Ke Jiaming had said he'd subjected Father to. He'd always hated a loss of control, and what was a greater loss of control than having to surrender to someone else?

"Speak," Father said, breaking a momentary silence.

"You said you had important information." Wu Hao nodded. He hadn't actually expected to get this far, but he did his best not to betray that on his face.

"You're working with the Heavenly Demon Cult," Wu Hao said bluntly. Father went still. His tight qi control slipped for an instant, leaking his surprise to the air, but then Father clamped down on it.

"Explain," Father ordered.

"Tomorrow," Wu Hao said, "You'll send Bai Jing to free a prisoner, as a test. Correct?" Father's eyebrows raised a fraction and he rose smoothly to his feet. His expression wasn't guarded - he looked as easily, completely confident as per usual - but there were bursts of qi that spoke of his surprise. Not just that, though, there was something else there. Father was unsettled, Wu Hao realized. He didn't understand what was happening, which meant that he wasn't in control.

"A test?" Father asked, pacing openly now. His eyes occasionally flicked back to Wu Hao.

"Yes."

"What is your purpose in telling me this?" Father asked suddenly, running his hand through his beard.

"I want to know," Wu Hao said, and then a flash of brilliant inspiration struck.

"And so does my master."

"Your master?" Father muttered.

"You mean..." He trailed off - deliberately, Wu Hao thought. But even if he knew it was supposed to be a trap and Wu Hao put on his best wry smile.

"The First Elder of the Diancang Sect," he said. Father drew a ragged breath, looking around reflexively as if Ke Jiaming was simply waiting around the corner, ready to strike, but when the cold snap failed to materialize Father's eyes snapped back to Wu Hao's. There was only a single instant in which Wu Hao could smell a sudden rush of cinnamon, and he realized that he must have made a mistake. And then Father struck, like a viper's bite.

His hands clamped down around Wu Hao's neck, lifted him up into the air like he weighed nothing at all. Fingers dug into his neck, and Wu Hao wheezed reflexively.

"You dare to lie to me," Father seethed. His face was only inches away from Wu Hao's, and he'd well and truly released his qi now. It was raging around him like a storm, lashing out at the things in his tent uncontrollably. The hanging scroll was flapping as if buffetted by gale winds, the calligraphy tools had been smashed into the ground, and 648 had frozen in place, fighting to keep himself anchored to the ground with a pale face. Veins bulged in Father's neck and his arms.

"I will ask only once more," Father hissed.

"Explain." Wu Hao tried to speak, but Father's hands were squeezing his neck so tightly that he couldn't. He slapped the side of Father's arms, trying to get him to understand that he couldn't speak even if he wanted to, but Father didn't loosen up. Black spots appearing in the side of his vision, Wu Hao forced qi into his hands. Panic made him miscalculate how much he needed and angry red blisters erupted all over his arms, but he did manage to wrench Father's arm free just enough that he could speak.

"What gave me away?" he rasped.

"Your master is the Moonlight Spear Supreme?" Father whispered, allowing Wu Hao enough space that he gasped out a few quick breaths.

"You? He didn't take me seriously, and yet you dare to be so arrogant as to think he would see anything in you? You, an ignorant brat, barely out of his diapers?" Wu Hao wanted to laugh, but only managed to gurgle an indistinct noise. After all, even if it was only for a moment, Huo Shanliang and Ke Jiaming both seemed to have seen something in him.

"How did you even know his name at all?" Father asked.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Doesn't matter," Wu Hao managed.

"You're making a big mistake." But that had been the wrong thing to say. Father's qi spiked again, the scent of cinnamon now so thick that Wu Hao couldn't smell anything else. It wrapped around him as Father's fingers clenched, and then he was flung down into the ground hard. He hit the mat, felt bone snap, and rolled uncontrollably as he slammed into the hanging scroll. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Footsteps came closer while he lay there in a daze, and Father's hand tore the hanging scroll off of him. He looked even more furious, face red with anger and hate. With an immense effort he forced himself back into control, his qi cutting off to retreat back into his skin as Father tried to calm down.

"Hold him," he commanded to 648, who nodded once and pounced. He tore Wu Hao up from the ground, slamming his arm into the side of Wu Hao's ribs, and Wu Hao felt a stab of utter agony rock through him. With grim familiarity, he noticed that his arm was broken again as well. As 648 pulled his arm roughly behind Wu Hao's back, he almost blacked out. Then Father slapped him, full-on across the face. He didn't bother to enhance his strike with qi this time - the only intent there was to humiliate, to hurt.

"Tell me," Wu Hao rasped.

"What's the point of sending out the others on missions? Will any of them ever come back?" Father's look couldn't have been any more disgusted, and it took Wu Hao a few breaths before his spnning head calmed down enough to realize why. In Father's mind, he had to be exhibiting empathy, a notion to be stamped out wherever it was found. Father began to speak, rethought, and then a cruel light came into his eyes.

"Target practice," he said.

"What?"

"Huo Shanliang had a great deal of disciples," Father said, slowly.

"They had killed before, but never against opponents who fought back. They weren't ready for war. They needed blooding, and they needed sacrifices to take for their own arts."

"Targets," Wu Hao whispered. That had been all they were. Targets - easy first kills, barely a challenge, but enough to wet their knives.

"I suggested it," Father said, mouth drawing up into a cruel smile as he saw that his words were hitting home. Wu Hao struggled, in a frenzy of motion, but he couldn't get loose. 648 held him so tightly that he couldn't move at all, and no matter how much he tore at the other boy's hands or arms, tried to hurt him to get free, he offered not the slightest human reaction.

"They are deathsworn," Father stated.

"If they die ten thousand deaths, they should be glad they're allowed to die them for me!" The words struck Wu Hao like a lightning bolt, so much so that for a moment he stopped moving, and 648's arms tightened their grip. Wu Hao grunted, unwilling to let Father see him scream in pain. Father rang the bell, and 589's impassive face peeked into the tent a moment later. A ripple of delight ran through his qi as he saw Wu Hao struggling.

"Grab the torture tools," Father commanded.

"I'll make him talk." 589 nodded and ducked out again. Right then and there, a plan snapped into perfect clarity, like it was presented to him on a silver platter. It was clear to him, now, what the only course of action left was. All paths to the future had been narrowed down to where they would lead either to an agonizing death or a life barely worth living, sometimes both. Father would not tolerate anything else, nor would he allow Wu Hao to ever grow.

He had to escape - not just from day to day, but from this entire wretched present. If the world was determined to steal his future, then his only option was to take back his past.

"No," Wu Hao said quietly.

"Death can't stop me anymore, Father. I don't fear it." He gave a bloody-teethed smile to Father, who stared at him as if wondering where this madman had come from.

"In time," Wu Hao stated, "Death will fear me." Wu Hao gave another few half-hearted kicks, just to make sure that 648 was holding him tightly still. Then, once he was sure that he was sufficiently trapped, he smiled.

"Goodbye, Father," he said.

"I would have preferred that you'd called the Uncles for this." He laughed, then let his qi run free, pushing a strand as fast as he ever had until it'd burned through all four of the tent pegs that he'd strapped to his arms and legs. He'd prepared them as a threat, but there was nothing left for him here, nothing else he needed. The qi coiled, and he felt it bunch together in the way that he'd come to dread that now felt like a relief. The tent pegs were at their limits, rocks perched high above a cliff face.

Wu Hao pushed it further, until each of the pegs was sizzling with power, and then pushed them beyond that limit. Father must have somehow noticed, because in that same instant the smell of cinnamon speared through Wu Hao as Father's hand slammed into his chest and began to wrestle control of Wu Hao's qi away from him, but he'd noticed too late. Much too late. The pegs exploded in one staccato burst, a rippling bang that swept out from Wu Hao's body and tore through his body.

He accepted the pain, though, soared above it in the certain knowledge that it was only momentary, and even shredded by the impact he kept his eyes wide and staring as Father tried to tear himself away again, but all Father had accomplished was to have reached Wu Hao just in time to take the worst of the blast. The rest of it happened so quickly that Wu Hao's eyes couldn't even see and the pain took away his senses.

When they faded back in - slowly, with ringing in his ears like a constant bell tone - he saw Father, frozen there. Blood gushed from wounds to his hands, to his chest, to his face, bits of metal and wood stuck inside his skin. 648's arms fell to his side, two lumps of meat, and Father breathed, heavily, like a mad bull. His one working eye - the other had been ripped away by the explosion - stared into Wu Hao, the hate coming through clearer than anything else Wu Hao had ever read in qi.

It was the last thing he saw, and he would have smiled to see it, if he could have. But then he passed into a welcoming darkness, ready to start anew. After all, he had work to do.