22. Romance of the Tower pt2

  The bottle neck on the eighty-fifth floor was brutal. A platinum path cultivator stood before me, summoning a dao avatar the size of a building. The massive ape chased after me with a pole that was part of the avatar itself, which changed length and weight upon its wielder’s command.

  It was faster than me. It was stronger than me. It beat me brutally until, in desperation, I tried an attack which I hadn’t considered before.

  I put half of its head through a waygate and closed the gate on top of it. The cut was clean, and the ape’s head fell apart.

  I turned to the platinum path cultivator.

  “I can do that to you next, if you don’t get out of my way,” I threatened.

  “How did you do that?”

  “I’ll show you exactly how.”

  Then I walked calmly passed him to the elevator, shooting him a meaningful look.

  “I concede,” he said.

  I placed my hand on the handprint scanner and waited for the doors to open, which they did a moment later, despite the booing and the hissing of the audience that was being broadcast through the screens from all around Duke Doe’s demesne.

  I had only fifteen floors left to climb. None of the remaining floors required that anyone accept a regular challenge, and the defeated moved down a floor at every defeat. Nobody wanted to move down to the eight-fifth floor and fight that monstrous monkey once again.

  But I had fifteen super-challenges saved up.

  I slid into the machine that they used to evaluate the damage of a cultivator after a battle and allowed the mortal servants to do their work. I knew that I would survive.

  Silently, as the nutrient fluid flooded the tube, I broke through to the platinum path.

  I did not celebrate my success. I did not broadcast it to my fans, or to my backers, or to my opponents, but rather quietly consolidated my gains before lowering my apparent cultivation back to the diamond.

  I would hide my strength until it was time to strike, like an asp coiled and waiting.

  For the next bottleneck.

  The ninety-ninth floor.

  ~~~~~~~

  Lahri watched with a sickened expression as her master was beaten half to death several dimensions away. The ape swung its staff like a dancer wielded a baton, but every time it impacted with the floor or the walls or the ceiling of the tower, it caused a boom that shook the entire structure. A structure meant to contain exactly this sort of fight.

  And her Master was taking direct strikes from that, despite his agility. Despite his grace. Despite his overwhelming elemental mastery, for all of the techniques that he launched at the beast were defeated by that damnable staff.

  And then out of nowhere the ape was defeated, its head cut in twain by forces that nobody understood.

  Lahri didn’t know what happened, but she tightened her grip on Arjun and Farun as their master walked past the gatekeeper.

  “He won, right?” she asked. “He just had to defeat the avatar?”

  “This fighter is known for his physical weakness,” Prince Yema explained. “The typical strategy to defeat him, which of course is carefully concealed from anyone who hasn’t faced him a handful of times, is to ignore the ape and go after the cultivator. After all, most of the time, it’s a mere effort of will to re-manifest a dao avatar.

  “Not one like that,” Farun said. “That one takes more than effort of will. That was a dao impartment, I’ll wager. That guardian grew fat off the insights of a master. That’s why he’s guarding the eight-fifth floor instead of challenging for the top.”

  “And you got it in one,” Prince Yema agreed.

  The screen faded to black as the elevator closed behind their master, and then another fight from another tower was shown. Lahri turned away in disgust.

  “And people pay to watch this?” she asked.

  “Oh yes. Duke Doe’s entertainment crystals are extremely popular throughout the multiverse. Not only do they pay to watch, but they pay to send their children to live and die under this brutal system from entire dimensions away. It’s a matter of pride for some families to know how far one of their scions climbed the tower before succumbing,” Yema explained.

  “Disgusting,” Arjun declared, and the other two companions nodded.

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  “I agree completely,” Yema said. “Which is why I’m not going to beat around the bush any further. Let me tell you what my offer is for your master, and you may return home at your leisure. In exchange for his support in the court and swearing to me as his liege lord, I offer him the protection of my forces against Duke Loshi and a stage seven world in my demesne.”

  Arjun coughed, and Farun choked on his own tongue.

  “So generous!” Lahri exclaimed. “To what shall we attribute this offer?”

  “By establishing him as my vassal, I do not diminish him but elevate him. By offering him a world, I extend his powerbase, and as he is my vassal that means I strengthen myself. But most of all what I gain is a foothold into that old bastard’s domain, which is simply ripe for the plucking. All it will take is one overstep, one misconstrued border skirmish, and I’ll be able to launch a full blown invasion on Duke Loshi and steal away dozens of his worlds,” Prince Yema explained. “It’s simply a win-win situation.”

  “Unless you’re a mortal caught up in a cosmic war that has nothing to do with you,” Lahri said. Yema’s eyes narrowed at her, and Lahri said “Or at least I believe that is what my master will say. But we shall report your offer to him honestly and without tainting the matter with our personal opinion.”

  “Tell us more about the world you are offering?” Arjun suggested to move the conversation along as Yema continued to stare daggers at Lahri, and eventually the cosmically powerful woman nodded and pulled up a hologram of a world that looked much like Atla had before it’s ascension.

  They spoke for hours of the technical details of the offer, and three days later, the companions were sent home.

  ~~~~~~

  In my office, I was interrupted when Taimei abruptly entered. She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it, then opened it again, then closed it.

  “I’m sorry to have disturbed you,” she said at last, and turned to leave.

  “Sit,” I said. “We haven’t talked much since you left the mountain with the others, but I know when something is wrong. And I have to thank you properly for posing as Atla’s mother. I know that wasn’t an easy decision for you, and I truly appreciate—”

  ?

  “It was an easy decision, actually. You asked for help, I could help, so I said yes,” she said.

  I nodded. With the disciples, such reasoning really is that simple. “Even so, it has affected your reputation. You are seen as my concubine now, and I’ve been meaning to ask you how you felt about that? Has it caused you difficulty?”

  “Not so much,” she admitted. “Actually it’s been rather nice, as I’d been sort of fading into obscurity lately and this brought me back into the limelight. Even though it’s a fiction, having a child that’s supposedly ours being officially recognized, it, well, I’m happy to be involved in giving Atla a place to fit in.”

  I nodded. “Good. I’m glad. I—”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said. “For real. With someone else. I … I’m not sure who. It might be one of two or three men? I’m sorry, I don’t know—“

  She abruptly began crying.

  I sat there stupidly for a moment, not knowing how to comfort her.

  “Okay,” I said. “Let’s start at the top. Who are the potential fathers.”

  “Well, there’s Lukal Lukal,” she admitted. “And also Polkluk. And another man you don’t know. I’m sorry, Master, I’m a --”

  “There’s nothing to be sorry for. This should be a happy occasion. I don’t care what the gossip mongers will say and neither should you.”

  “But your dignity—”

  “I don’t care. But we should really figure out who the father is. Can you narrow it down anymore or—”

  “It’s Polkluk,” Atla said, skipping into the room. “She asked me if she was pregnant and I said yes because you said I should answer them if they asked, but she didn’t ask me who the father was so I didn’t tell her but I know it’s Polkluk because when I noticed the baby in her I checked the bloodlines and that’s how I know.”

  He continued to skip around as we processed this information.

  “Okay. So, we have a conversation with Polkluk, to see how he feels about the situation,” I suggested.

  “But I’m supposed to be your concubine! What about Atla?”

  “We can say that I cast you aside when I met Mai Mai. It’s not even a fiction,” I said, half teasing. “That drove you into the arms of your fellow disciple, who comforted you in your time of need.”

  She frowned at me, her eyes red with threatened tears, but she slowly nodded. “Okay. Okay. And if Polkluk doesn’t step up to be the father, then I’ll raise the baby by myself.”

  “If Polkluk doesn’t claim his child then he loses the right to call himself my disciple and I’ll claim it myself,” I said sternly.

  “Okay,” she said. “But let’s not lead with that okay?”

  I nodded. “This isn’t the end of the world, Taimei. It’s the beginning of one. I was overjoyed when I found out I was going to be a father, and I hope that once the … complications are figured out, you feel the same way about your child.”

  “It’s a boy,” Atla announced. “If you care.”

  “Of course I care! But I wasn’t expecting to find out for nine months.”

  “Seven months. You’ve been pregnant for longer than Mai Mai but didn’t notice,” Atla argued.

  “Atla,” I began, but instead of scolding the world-boy I just rubbed my forehead in frustration. “Okay. Let’s go talk with Tonilla and my mother first, to see if they see an angle that we missed. Then you’ll go talk to Polkluk, and after that we’ll start planning the wedding.”

  “Wedding?” Taimei asked. “What wedding?”

  “Polkluk will insist on it, if I’m not mistaken,” I said with a grin. “And I will be most honored to accept the duty of officiating as the world-father and also the master to both of you.”

  ?