Chapter One hundred ninety-eight (Patreon)

Around him, the humans relaxed, though the horses’ eyes rolled, showing the whites around their dark irises.

“Wolves,” Raff said, shrugging his shoulders to loosen them. His hand was on the hilt of his sword, but he hadn’t drawn it yet. “If they’re not starving, they won’t attack, and there should be plenty to eat this time of year.”

Lianhua nodded, but her eyes were fixed on the largest wolf. It was a male, and he stood shoulder and head above the next largest, which was a female. The other four were significantly smaller, with the outsized paws of pups who were still growing.

A softly glowing core hung in the abdomen of the male wolf, pale yellow and grayish-blue ki slowly cycling through the heavily muscled body. When the wolf’s eyes met Kaz’s, he felt an unexpected sense of connection, though no visible exchange of ki took place between them.

The female looked at her mate, then at Kaz. She had no core, and neither did any of the puppies, but there was calm intelligence in her gaze, and she briefly dipped her nose before nudging the large male. He chuffed, looking at each of the humans, before meeting Kaz’s eyes again. A moment of silent communion passed, and then the six gray-furred beasts vanished back into the bushes, chasing the fleeing rabbit.

Raff’s hand fell from his weapon, and he glanced at them all before clicking his tongue and tapping his heels to his horse’s sides. The animal began moving again, though its tail twitched nervously and it continued casting glances at the nearby foliage. The other horses and Kaz’s mule followed after with very little encouragement.

The encounter had taken less than a minute, but Kaz couldn’t shake the feeling of connection he’d had with the male wolf. It was nothing like the deep bond he felt with Li, but it was much more personal than the mental communication he’d experienced with Heishe. What had just happened?

“Kaz?” Lianhua said, and he looked over, finding that her horse had dropped back beside his mule. Kyla and Mei drowsed in front of her much the same way Li was fighting sleep in front of Kaz, and the human female’s hand gently stroked the puppy’s ears just as Kaz drew his fingers along Li’s sleek scales.

“Yes?” he asked warily, wondering if she was going to take him to task again.

“Did you… Was there anything… odd about that wolf?” She tilted her head in the direction the wolves had run.

Kaz nodded. “The large male had a core. Earth and wood.”

She made a sound of relieved comprehension. “There was so much ki in the mountain that it affected the way I sense ki. I wasn’t certain if what I was sensing was real. It was a fairly weak core, but the fact that it had two elements would explain-”

He tilted his head as she stopped, his ears turning toward her. “Explain?”

Lianhua sighed. “It was weak enough that I wasn’t certain it was there, but what I did sense was very… familiar. That would make sense if we shared two elements.” Her expression was almost wistful as she looked after the wolf.

Kaz blinked. Since he had all five kinds of ki, he ‘shared elements’ with every creature who used power. This was the first time he’d ever felt such an instant connection with any of them, however, including Li.

“Does sharing elements matter?” he asked.

She nodded. “I told you once that part of the reason why my grandfather selected Gaoda and Chi Yincang to go on this journey with me was because we shared some of the same kinds of ki. That allows us to combine our power, becoming stronger than any of us individually.”

Kaz remembered. He also remembered that as the person in control of their combined ki, Lianhua had fairly glowed with power, while Gaoda and Chi Yincang only grew more and more exhausted. Lianhua had only been able to take Chi Yincang’s white ki, leaving his black untouched, but she had both of Gaoda’s elements, which meant he was utterly drained by the time the shield they’d created to keep out the fulan spores had come down.

Which reminded Kaz of something else. Lianhua had to use a rune to take Chi Yincang and Gaoda’s ki, and even then they had to work together to create their temporary link. On the other hand, everyone and everything seemed to be able to take Kaz’s power, with or without his permission.

So far, only Lianhua had figured it out, but once he was surrounded by humans, at least some of whom would probably know how to cultivate, what were the odds that he could prevent them from draining him dry, possibly without even realizing what they were doing?

Li looked up at him, distracted from her enjoyment of the warm sun now peeking through the clouds and Kaz’s gentle stroking. <I’ll bite them,> she told him firmly. <If anyone tries to take your power, I’ll bite them really hard.> She sent him an image of herself, grown to massive proportions, chomping on an offending human, after which she tossed her head back and swallowed him down.

“No eating people,” Kaz reminded her absently, but she just sniffed, turning away as she stretched her long neck out along the mule’s back. They had had this conversation many times before, and by now Kaz was almost entirely certain that she was only teasing him by continuing to suggest it.

Lianhua’s eyes grew large, and she nodded vigorously. Then her eyes flicked toward the pouch hanging at Chi Yincang’s waist, where the tiny figurine of Gaoda waited to be returned to life. Her lips twitched, and instead of telling the dragon that eating people was definitely not a good idea, she said, “Some cultivators actually keep beasts from whom they can take ki. It’s possible that if I captured that wolf, I could use his power if we developed such a bond.”

Kaz opened his mouth, and Lianhua held up her free hand. “Not that I would! Such bonds are usually formed when the beast is very young, not after they’ve reached maturity. It’s very difficult for most people to find an animal with that close of a match, though. Still, it’s not easy, and there are sometimes unforeseen consequences.”

Kaz looked down at the dragon with whom he shared an undeniable link, and wondered if he had somehow accidentally formed such a connection with her. If so, what ‘consequences’ could there be, other than being able to share thoughts and memories?

Before he could ask, Lianhua said, “The beast’s life is almost always extended. Sometimes indefinitely. But when it’s not, the human has to suffer through the loss of their companion, and depending on the bond, that can be devastating. For this reason, some people try not to become emotionally attached to their animals, but it rarely works. Either the bond simply doesn’t form, or when the animal dies, the human suffers anyway. For this reason, and others, the practice has become less common in recent years.”

Kaz drew his finger down Li’s neck. “What happens to the animals if the person they’re bonded to dies?”

He could tell from the look on Lianhua’s face that he shouldn’t have asked, but she quickly held up her hand again. “I’m almost certain that what you and Li have isn’t the same thing,” she said hastily. “Otherwise, I would have told you about it.”

She paused, grimacing. “Well, I would have planned to tell you about it. We’ve been so busy I’ve barely even been able to teach you any runes. I keep hoping for a quiet moment to get started, but there just aren’t any. At least not any where one or both of us aren’t already exhausted or overwhelmed.”

That was fair, but Kaz and Li both continued to look at her expectantly. Things weren’t likely to get much calmer with a large group of armed humans chasing after them.

She drew in a breath. “All right. So, a bond is formed when a human or demihuman cultivates regularly around an animal who shares their ki affinity. When I-” She shot a sidelong look at Chi Yincang, who seemed entirely occupied with watching the trees around them and clinging uncomfortably to the back of his horse.

With a flick of her fingers, Lianhua traced the ‘obscure sound’ rune on the back of her hand, and ki pooled in it. A push of power flowed out of her, and Kaz could see and feel it more clearly than ever before. It didn’t block his sight at all, but he was aware of it as if the human had dropped a blanket over them.

“When I took your power while I was cultivating, I thought at first that I had formed such a bond with you,” she said bluntly. She saw the protest rising in him, and shook her head. “Yes, I know you’re not a beast, but that was the only thing that made sense. Since then, however, I’ve seen everything from a ki cannon to a staircase take your power, and I’ve formed a hypothesis.”

Kaz waited, but now she looked distinctly uncomfortable. Finally, she burst out, “The kobolds have to have been created for some reason. Some purpose. I suppose it’s possible that whoever Nucai’s Master was, he simply wanted to experiment for his own sick reasons, but everything I’ve seen, everything written in Zhangwo’s records and Princess Tiyang’s book, everything indicates a plan. I don’t know what the end goal was. Perhaps we never will. But I do think that kobolds, or at least some kobolds, were meant to power the mountain, or perhaps just the Master, like some kind of living ki crystal.”

This was Kaz’s opening to tell her about Qiangde. Because of the ancient dragon’s memories, Kaz knew that the kobolds were simply a way for Qiangde to learn more about cores in an attempt to reach the mortal plane. Yes, he’d certainly had some secondary use for them, as evidenced by his brief conversation with the other dragon at the very beginning of the memory sequence, but whatever that use was had been a distant second to the burning desire Qiangde felt to escape their world and become even stronger.

He hesitated too long, however, because another voice interrupted them. They both looked at Kyla, who was well within the space covered by Lianhua’s rune, and must have heard everything they said.

“You’re right,” the puppy said, looking over her shoulder at Lianhua. “Before the Voice stopped speaking, many of us were called to give ourselves to the Tree. The cores of the chiefs were passed down to their daughters, so that their power wouldn’t be lost, but the Voice commanded others of the chief’s line to offer their cores, claiming that they were a necessary sacrifice to keep the mountain safe.”

Her hand lifted to her throat, as if she could touch a necklace that didn’t yet exist. “It was in Chief Tegra’s books. No one but the chief and her heir is supposed to read it, but I did. Special stones were added to the necklace of every female who was being considered as a possible chief. The stones came from the Tree, and once they were around someone’s throat, that kobold could be called.”

Her fingers fell, and she lifted Mei, cuddling the fuergar, who snuggled into the embrace, pink and white whiskers quivering in clear concern. “It was rare,” Kyla went on, “even in the time of the Voice. Only one in ten were called, if that, and usually only when they began to grow old, and their puppies had pups of their own.”

One in ten. That number was familiar. Kaz and Li examined a memory together. Ghazt, offering an injured Kaz up to the Tree, where Kaz was remade into something else by Nucai. He’d lost his memories of his earliest years, that happy time when he, Katri, and their parents had lived away from Oda, Vega, and the machinations of the Great Tribes.

When Kaz was returned to his parents, physically if not mentally intact, a necklace had come with him. Ghazt had started to put it on Kaz, but Rega had snatched it and put it on instead.

Kaz frowned, examining the memory more closely, as if it was a series of paintings in his mind. Not this one or this one, but here… Yes! Clutched in his father’s arms, staring up at the blue and yellow crystals in the ceiling of the cavern where the Tree grew. Ghazt was running, and as he did, his necklace bounced off his chest, each bone and claw sharply defined.

Including five round beads carved with runes. Wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. They were small, nearly lost among the large teeth of a dengyu, an incredibly rare and deadly stealth hunter only found in the mid-levels. Still, there was no doubt in Kaz’s mind that he’d seen them.

Forward through the images, flipping from one to the next like pages in a book, Kaz found another image. Rega, cradling Kaz close after he’d been returned. Her own necklace was smaller, almost delicate, with only polished stones and brightly colored gems strung on it. But no rune-carved stones. At least not until she put on the necklace meant for Kaz.

Why? She was the daughter of the Magmablade chief. She had managed to avoid getting those beads herself, probably because she had insisted that she didn’t want to be chief. Did she know what they did? Or did she simply know that if it was placed around Kaz’s neck, it could never be removed, and someday it might force him to return and offer himself to the Tree.

No. Not the Tree. Nucai. Having felt the presence of the beings in the Tree, and spoken to Nucai, Kaz was certain of that. The gold might not be kind, but it wasn’t calculating and cruel either, and the blue had a gentleness to it that reminded Kaz of Rega herself.

What did it all mean? Why hadn’t Rega simply crushed the stones, instead of slipping the necklace around her own throat? If Nucai was the Voice now, had he always been? That didn’t seem right, somehow. Nucai wanted out of the Tree, perhaps out of the mountain, and he had been using Kaz’s family and his people to achieve that end. But it would have been easy enough for the original Voice to simply tell the long-ago kobolds to destroy the Tree.

Nucai was limited in ways that the original Voice hadn’t been. He could communicate with those who came to him directly, or perhaps he was able to hear Ghazt because Ghazt wore the beads? In any case, it was clear that he couldn’t speak to all of the kobolds. From the stories Kaz had heard, the Woodblades and the Goldblades were devoted to the Tree, the Voice, and the mountain itself.

His whirling mind stilled. Was that why the Woodblades had had to die? Nucai said he’d been manipulating the kobolds. For how long? Were the Woodblades too strong, too beloved, too devoted to the ancient ways to allow the Tree to wither away? Had Nucai convinced Vega to kill them, removing the last impediment to his escape? It had taken more than a decade before it even came close to working, but what was time to a being who was already a thousand years old?

Li nudged him from his useless introspection as Kyla continued.

“There’s a special building in the city, where only the chiefs are allowed to go,” the puppy told them. “There’s something they have to do there, though even Tegra wasn’t willing to say exactly what it was. Toward the end of her life, she went a little mad, I think. In the beginning, she wanted to destroy whatever was in that building, but by the end, the very idea terrified her. She said we should flee the mountain, but it must stand.”

“Did she say why?” Lianhua asked, almost whispering.

Kyla shook her head, sitting up a bit straighter and rubbing her eyes with her fists, like a puppy half her age. “That’s why I said she had to be a little mad. She claimed that if the mountain fell, so would the world, but even I know that can’t be right.”