The Space Rodeo
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License to Cultivate Bk 4 Ch 9
🕑 Added 2025-03-04 13:00:09 +0000 UTCStanding on the docks at the base of the Riceflower, Chang-li shivered in the pre-dawn air. His heavy pack hung over his shoulders, and he had another sack beside him. Joshi, on the other hand, was traveling light with a bag slung over his shoulder that looked half empty.
The barge they would be taking bustled with activity as dockhands loaded it with the upriver cargo. Even with the disruption the tower eruption had caused, trade continued. Vardin City was an important hub on the trade network. Two different rivers flowed into the lake, and one flowed out. The east-flowing river meandered past Fai-lan City until it found the sea at Golden Moon. Chang-li had come up that river on his way to Vardin City. Its broad banks were civilized for miles around, and the riverboats that plied their way up and down the Fonksai were wide, shallow barges pulled along by teams of ordinary folk.
Now he and Joshi would be heading up the Dragonspine River, a narrow, much less tamed watercourse, though the going was supposedly pretty good for the first 50 or so miles until they reached Dragon Tooth City. The boat being prepared looked very different from the one he'd ridden on before. It was narrower, only about 15 feet across, with a shallow draft. All of the sailors were armed with long daggers. At the front of the ship was a platform raised above the deck. A man stood there fiddling with a lux engine. He adjusted knobs and worked several crystals and lenses, focusing the flow of lux within the device. Techniques sprang out of the side as Chang-li watched, shining ropes leading down to the front of the ship. The man nodded and leaned back, seeming contented with his work.
"There you are!" Chang-li turned as Noren's voice boomed behind him. The Grandmaster of Morning Mist stood there, with three young Brothers of the Oaken Band. "By the way, I promised Eldest Brother Jiang you would see to their safety. They're going up to Dragon's Tooth City to establish lines of communication with a Brotherhood there," Noren said.
Chang-li eyed the men skeptically. None of them he recognized. From the weak feeling of their core, they had not taken any steps toward becoming cultivators. They seemed to be just what they looked: simple Brotherhood workers, but he was wary of entanglements.
Noren pulled him and Joshi away as the Brotherhood men scrambled aboard the ship. "Well, good luck to you both. I look forward to speaking with you when you return and seeing what you have learned," he said cheerfully. "I have a gift for you." He rummaged around in his purse before coming up with a battered black leather box about six inches on a side. He held it out to Chang-li, who took it, staring.
"What is it?" he asked. There was an image on it, stylized puffs of wind, he thought.
"You'll need that after you reach Dragon's Tooth City," Noren said cheerfully. "It won't work until you've properly bonded it, so be sure to cycle lux through it regularly. Like this." He demonstrated a simple pattern of green lux. Chang-li wasn't sure what this was about, but he accepted it anyway.
Noren clapped his hands together. "And since you will not have my expert help, I have prepared a list of exercises to practice in my absence." He produced a sheaf of papers from inside his robe. He split the pile in half and handed several sheets to Chang-li, then held the others out to Joshi, who eyed them skeptically but made no move to take them. Noren sighed, and handed the second set of papers to Chang-li as well. "Fine. You can be in charge of both of your training programs. Good luck. Once you make it to the Peak of Spiritual Refinement, be sure to return as quickly as you can. I don't know how long the situation here is going to be stable, and we'll want to be ready for our next move before full-scale war breaks out." He sounded incredibly cheerful for a man speaking about the possibility of a prism war.
Chang-li had a thousand different questions he wanted to ask and no time for any of it. From the ship, the man with the lux machine shouted, "I've hooked it! All aboard!"
"Well, there you are," Noren said. "Sounds like the helmsman has caught one of the dreamer koi."
"The what?" Joshi asked, frowning as Noren bobbed off to the front of the boat.
"How do you think they take these things upriver? The Dragonspine River’s current is much too strong to pole against. Now, the lux engineers here in Vardin City have mastered the art of capturing a dreamer koi fish. They force it upriver as far as Dragon's Tooth City. There it dies, but that allows it to spawn, and ten years later, the babies hatch and make their way back down to this lake. It's all part of the cycle of being," Noren said.
Joshi looked toward the front of the barge and Chang-li felt more than saw Magen flitting away and dipping beneath the surface of the lake. Joshi's eyes widened. "It's huge. We're supposed to ride on a boat pulled by that thing?"
"Or you can walk," Noren said cheerfully. "It's your choice. Oh, by the way," he added, just as he had turned to leave, "I understand there's slight problems with... attacks along the river, so you'll want to keep an eye out for that. They may be nothing at all to do with Prism Eri’s plans, but on the other hand, they may not.”
“What attacks —”
"All aboard," the man called again, glaring down at Joshi and Chang-li. They scrambled up the gangplank onto the riverboat.
The riverboat was crowded between the three Brotherhood men, Joshi, Chang-li, and six other passengers, all men from what Chang-li guessed were laboring backgrounds. It seemed the higher ranks would travel in more comfort than this, but Chang-li didn't mind. They sat on the railing near the back of the boat, out of the way of the crew and practiced Noren's various exercises. The boat slid along the lake, cutting through the water smoothly. Chang-li caught no sight of the Dreamer Koi fish, but the lux tendrils from the device at the front fascinated him.
It was over an hour before they reached the north end of the lake and approached the Dragonspine River. As they neared the banks of the river the helmsman steered the boat close to the short. Here several pilings stuck up from the edge of the lake and few boards were fastened to them, making a rudimentary dock. "Just got to check our lux construct here," the helmsman shouted. "It'll be about an hour if anyone wants to go ashore to eat lunch."
"You should get used to the rocking soon," another of the crewmen shouted, "but for now, this is your best opportunity." They slid the gangplank across to the simple dock and most of the passengers went ashore. Chang-li went forward instead, mounting the steps up to the little platform where the lux device stood.
The helmsman glanced at him. "No passengers up here! Oh," he bowed his head respectfully. “Young Master! You, of course, are welcome anywhere you choose.”
“You know us?”
“The heroes who helped save Vardin City?" The helmsman shook his head. "My family lives there. They owe you their lives. What would you like, sir?"
"I was just wondering how this particular lux construct works," Chang-li said.
"Huh, well, I can't tell you details, not being a cultivator myself. You'll probably know better than I will how it works,” the helmsman burbled. "But see here," he beckoned Chang-li to come and stand beside him. "There's this set of controls here that I only have to use when I'm catching a Dreamer Koi. We have several different kinds of lures mounted around the lake. There was one near the docks of Vardin City that usually has a Dreamer Koi hanging around near it. When it's time to hook up a Koi, we get near a lure and activate this control here. Then I hook it up with these. The engine is tuned and sealed by the harbor master before we ever leave town, and it can't be messed with until the Koi has been released. Since you won't find a Dreamer Koi anywhere but Riceflower Lake, that would pretty much mark the end of our trip. If we lose it we have to float back down here and get another." He laughed, even though Chang-li didn't think any of that had been a joke. "This device is powered by a 5th grade lux crystal."
Chang-li nodded. The Tower Cull at Broken Moon City had yielded many freshly harvested lux crystals collected by the Empire's lux technician. The share of reward Chang-li had been granted had been the equivalent of several dozen tier five lux crystals. So this was an expensive device, but not too uncommon.
The crewman leaned over the device and grunted. "Looks like it's in good working order. The harbormaster warned me with the elevated lux levels in the province that we may experience some instabilities. He was hoping that the most likely outcome would be it would take us less time to reach Dragon's Tooth.”
"It's usually a three-day journey?” Chang-li asked.
The crewman nodded. "Yes, we pull up along the bank at night. There's no navigating the Dragonspine in the dark. Too dangerous."
That matched what Chang-li had learned previously. He and Joshi would accompany the boat as far as Dragon's Tooth. The small city there had a waystation rather than a cultivation tower. Waystations were a wonder of lux engineering that allowed cultivators to restock their lux away from towers. Chang-li was looking forward to visiting one for the first time. He thanked the helmsman for the information and went back to the rear of the barge. Checking his bags, he took out Noren's cube and channeled lux at it, wondering what it was for. In a few days, no doubt he'd find out.
The afternoon passed uneventfully as the barge proceeded upstream, pulled by the dreamer koi. Chang-li thought he saw a rainbow-hued fin slip out of the water, but he caught no more glimpse than that. The passengers played dice or tiles, slept, argued amongst themselves, or in Joshi and Chang-li's case, practiced cycling patterns. It was relaxing after the past week or so of frantic activity, but he was eager to be in Dragon's Tooth and headed onward. He didn't have room to take out his maps and work here on the barge, and he felt a reluctance to expose his secrets to anyone. So, he just read through Noren's notes, frowning.
"It says here," he reported to Joshi as he perused the first page of the sheaf meant for him, "that you should practice using the Way of Boulders backward.”
“That makes no sense,” Joshi snorted. "Here." He held out his hand, and Chang-li handed over the papers. Chang-li watched as Joshi flipped through them, pausing every now and then to frown. "I do not know if this master of ours is a genius or a charlatan."
"I was going to go with both," Chang-li said.
"Hmm. We've seen little proof of his own strength," Joshi pointed out.
"I told you what Min said," Chang-li replied, "about how he saved her and the brotherhood from Tower beasts there at the end."
Joshi didn't reply. Chang-li left it at that. He didn't want to get into an argument. He was fairly certain Joshi, like him, was just a bit stir-crazy.
As dusk was falling, the crew made preparations to bring the barge in to land. They edged toward a rickety dock and a pair of huts on the bank of the river. Clearly, this was a usual stopover. The crew was shouting and waving, but no one appeared from the huts.
Joshi was tense. Chang-li picked up on it quickly. They both rose, watching the landing approach.
"There's something wrong?” Chang-li asked the nearest crewman, who paused, then bowed deep to him.
"Young Master, they should hear us and have come out by now. We're worried something has befallen our trading partners here."
"Want us to check it out?"
"We would be most grateful." The man bowed nearly to the waist.
Joshi was already at the railing. “Go and see,” he said, to Magen. The lux creature darted ahead across the water.
Chang-li cycled, checking his lux reserves. They were nice and full, more than enough to last until he reached the waystation. Now he infused his legs with lux, and as Joshi leapt from the barge, he quickly followed.
The other passengers shouted after them, but Chang-li ignored them. One powerful leap took them both to the riverbank. Then they rushed upstream, Chang-li ready to draw his sword at the first sign of trouble, Joshi cycling red and orange lux preparatory for using his gauntlet.
They reached the pilings and dock and the two huts, which stood in a clearing surrounded on three sides by dense forest. By now, twilight draped the forest in darkness. Beneath the branches, deep purple shadows and odd silvery twinkles of light beckoned. Chang-li felt uncomfortably nervous. Something about the lack of lux in the air and the wild setting disturbed him, a born and bred city dweller. Joshi cupped his hands and hollered, "Come on out, we're friends!"
Meanwhile, Magen was buzzing around the huts. The lux creature disappeared inside, then popped out again. "There's people in there hiding," Joshi reported.
"They're afraid of us?"
Joshi strode across to the hut in question. He pushed on the door; it didn't budge. "They've got it barred inside," he said. "I'll just punch through it."
"We can try something better," Chang-li said, hurrying forward. He pictured how a bar would fit across the inside of the door, then wove in a strand of red lux with a hook at the far end. Once it was through the door, he hardened it and jerked it upward. His makeshift prybar dislodged the wooden beam inside, and at a touch, the door swung open.
Realizing he might just have further frightened terrified and desperate men, Chang-li summoned a ball of undefined yellow lux to his right hand and held it up. We're not here to hurt you," he called. "We're licensed cultivators with the emperor's own blessing, here to find out what's wrong."
Someone inside cried out, "They're lying!"
Someone else said, "Shh." A man stepped forward. He clutched a wood-cutting axe in his hands. He was stocky, ruddy-faced, with a solid peasant's beard on his chin. He reminded Chang-li a bit of some of his dockworker uncles back in Yellow Sky City, the same sort of calloused hands, broad features, and stubborn honesty. He wore well-patched work clothes with neat stitching holding the newer patches on the ragged edges, so Chang-li guessed he might have a wife somewhere, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he made out only six men and a young boy in the hut.
"Who are you?" the man with the axe demanded in a rasping voice.
"I told you, we're licensed cultivators from the Morning Mist Sect. We've left Vardin City this morning on our way north to Dragon's Tooth."
"They could be telling the truth," someone behind croaked. As Chang-li got a better look at all of them, he realized they were pale and shaking. These men were terrified and probably hungry and thirsty. The way they spoke sounded like people who hadn't had a drink in days. But there was a river just outside. That made no sense.
Chang-li spotted a bucket by the hearth, which was cold and covered in ashes. He sent a questing tendril of lux to retrieve it. One quick glimpse of what was inside, and he set the bucket back down, shuddering. Instead, he used the technique to pick up a kettle beside it, then retrieved it to the obvious astonishment of the people here.
"They really are cultivators," gasped someone at the back.
“I think they need water," Chang-li whispered to Joshi. "Should I or—"
"I'll go," Joshi said, taking the kettle and backing out of the hut. He left Magen behind. Chang-li let out a small sigh. He was used to his friend, but the enormous bald barbarian clearly had put these men even farther off their ease because the one with the axe relaxed just a little, his knuckles looking less white.
"So, from Vardin City? Did the governor send you to put an end to this?"
Chang-li hesitated. He needed them to trust him, but he certainly didn't want to lie, nor did he really want to give Min's brother credit he didn't deserve. "We were on our way north and noticed something amiss. We've got a boat here ready to tie up."
"The barge?" That was one of the men at the back of the room. "Is it that day already? We've lost track of time since the night the sky broke and they came."
Joshi returned just at the end of that with a kettle. He passed it to the men, who raised it to their lips, each taking a turn to drink deep.
"Who came?” Chang-li asked. Had they merely been hiding this whole week because of the lux display in the sky, the night of the tower breach?
"Horrible things," one of the men recounted. "Spiders from the forest the size of small ponies, some of them, and worse, the beasts had lux abilities. They took two of us that first night, and they've been coming back every night since. We didn't dare leave this hut. We hoped the governor would send people to protect us."
"Escaped tower beasts, do you think?" Joshi asked Chang-li.
"Possibly natural beasts influenced by the surge of lux," Chang-li said thoughtfully. "With the fluctuating levels the tower was giving off before the emperor fixed things, it's entirely possible one area might be much more strongly affected. Remember those rats we fought on Petal 37?"
"My shins remember them," Joshi muttered. He turned to the people. "Get out there and help the barge. They'll have food for you, no doubt. We'll take care of these spiders if they come."
It didn't seem like the dock hands were going to be any more use, so Chang-li left them. "What do you think?"
"I think this is the perfect opportunity to train," Joshi said and conjured his gauntlet around his hand.
"We won't be able to refill in lux until we reach the waystation. That's two days away," Chang-li warned.
"Then we shall have to do it efficiently. Let the crew know that if they leave without us, they'll have to explain to Eldest Brother Jiang why."
