Unintended Cultivator

Sen thought that Misty Peak might follow him, but a glance backward showed that she had either left or hidden herself with one of those nigh-impregnable fox illusions. I wish I could learn that, thought Sen. How many problems would that let me just flat-out avoid? It was a pleasant fantasy. He saw himself just strolling through that monster horde and walking into the ruins. No fighting. No disaster. Easy. Of course, if he could just learn it, he expected that Laughing River would have taught him. The man might be dying, but he wasn’t anywhere close to death’s door. If spending a little time to teach Sen would have vastly improved their odds of success, it seemed rather unlikely that the fox would have rushed them out to try to do it a much harder way with much lower odds of accomplishing their goal. I guess I can’t be good at everything, thought Sen a little mournfully.

After giving it a little thought, he concluded that one probably needed to be born a fox to use the illusions they did. Either that, or you needed very specific qi types at your disposal. While Sen had several qi types available to him, he suspected that he didn’t have all the ones he would need. He had shadow qi, but reason suggested that light would play some role in the process. He didn’t really understand light and had never cultivated for it, but he recalled Uncle Kho mentioning that color and light were related somehow. It had sure seemed like the illusions that Misty Peak used involved colors. Hadn’t she blended right into the background?

Sen chased a few more idle thoughts on the topic but soon dismissed them. What he was doing was little better than guessing, and that was foolish at best when it came to matters of qi and cultivation. If he really wanted to know, he should just ask one of the foxes. Of course, that presumed that Laughing River didn’t kill him in a fit of rage for bringing up the elder fox’s supposed participation in a mass slaughter of nine-tail foxes. No, that shouldn’t be problematic at all. Given how cagey the other one had been, Sen doubted that she was going to reveal fox illusion secrets to him. Not that he could blame her for that. It’s not like they were friends, and even friends often held secrets like that very close. He might very well go the rest of his life without getting any answers to those questions.

As he made his way back to the galehouse, he found himself increasingly disappointed by the good sense of the local spirit beasts. He thought he caught telltale signs of a few of them, but none were brave enough to attack him. Probably as nervous about drawing the attention of that horde as I am, thought Sen. However, the horde had seemed oddly disinterested in anything happening in the forest. He and Misty Peaks hadn’t thrown around a lot of flashy techniques when they fought, but he’d certainly used a lot of qi for some of what he did. He had to imagine that she was throwing quite a bit of it around as well, even if he hadn’t been able to sense it. He reminded himself to add that problem to the list of things to ask Laughing River about if the fox didn’t kill him. Still, they were close enough during that fight that the beasts and spirits in that horde should have been able to sense what was happening. Their total lack of apparent interest was odd.

Sen supposed that, on balance, it was good luck that they didn’t seem to care what happened in the forest. It boded well for him completing his formations with minimum disruptions. Assuming that the fox woman didn’t decide that killing him was the most efficient way to solve her problem. Unfortunately, Sen could see quite clearly that removing him was the most efficient solution to her problem. If she could do it without killing him, that seemed to suit her. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t fall back on the whole killing Sen plan if he didn’t just leave on his own. If she did turn up again, he’d have to see if he could talk her into letting Li Yi Nuo go. He thought he’d sold the fox woman on the idea that the sect cultivator was of no value to her goals. Given the circumstances, keeping Li Yi Nuo would be an unprofitable inconvenience for Misty Peak. That might be a good enough reason to simply release her. It could also be a reason to simply get rid of her. He’d have to cautiously sound the fox woman out if they crossed paths again.

Sen was surprised to find the galehouse empty when he got there. It seemed that Laughing River might have actually gone out looking for the trail. Maybe he’d even found it. Sen felt a little surge of hope. It would make his future life much less problematic if the elder fox managed to retrieve Li Yi Nuo. It would also be nice if someone else cleaned up a problem for once, thought Sen knowing it was wildly unfair and inaccurate even as it passed through his head. He wasn’t wholly responsible for this problem, but he’d certainly played a part. He also knew that other people had cleaned up his messes for him before. He couldn’t feel too put upon if it fell to him from time to time to fix problems he hadn’t really caused. He did think it probably was fair if he complained about it in the confines of his own mind. When the fox returned alone, Sen struggled to hide his disappointment. The fox, ever sensitive to social cues, picked up on it anyway.

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“I honestly did try to track them down,” said the Fox in an unnecessary defense. “Misty Peak is adept, even for a fox.”

“You warned me it probably wouldn’t work. It just would have been one less worry about if you had found her. I know I’m always happier when I can move something off of my plate.”

“Yes, I expect that’s true. Still, you seem rather distracted. Did my fair granddaughter pay you another visit?”

Sen had hoped to put the conversation off for a little while longer, but he supposed it wouldn’t be any more palatable in an hour.

“She did. She told me a story that I think we need to talk about.”

The fox’s expression didn’t change, but Sen still got the distinct impression that Laughing River was suddenly and profoundly tense. He gave Sen a long look, as though he could read something from Sen’s posture. Laughing River gave a curt nod as he walked over to a chair and sank into it slowly, looking more like an old man than Sen had ever seen before. The fox was very quiet for several minutes before he looked over at Sen.

“I expect the story goes something like this. I called for a gathering of the fox’s elders and then sold them out, resulting in almost all of them dying. So, I’m a traitor and deserve to die for it. Something along those lines?”

“Something like that,” agreed Sen.

And?”

“And what?”

“What did you decide?” asked Laughing River.

“I didn’t. I’ll tell you what I told Misty Peak. I’ve only heard one version of this story. This is too big of an issue for me to just accept the first thing someone tells me about it. So, I’ll listen if you want to tell me your version of what happened.”

The fox lapsed into an uncomfortable silence while staring off into the distance. However, Sen suspected the fox was staring into a distant time, rather than toward a distant place. A shudder ran through Laughing River, and then he started to speak.

“I imagine the bare bones of what she told you was mostly true. I did summon the other foxes. They did all die. It just wasn’t any kind of betrayal on my part.”

“No? So, what did happen?”

The fox gave Sen a sharp look at that question. “You really have to ask? After all those years with that ghost panther, did you ever ask her what happened to her people?”

“I did, but the situations aren’t exactly the same now, are they? Unless you and your granddaughter are the very last nine-tail foxes in the world.”

The fox grimaced. “No, I guess we didn’t have it quite as bad as they did. Of course, there were a lot more of us. They seemed content just to wipe out the strongest of the foxes. I suppose they figured that it would just be too hard to track down all of the foxes. We’re too good at hiding.”

“So are ghost panthers from what I’ve seen.”

“It’s not the same. Ghost panthers were good at sneaking around and not getting noticed, but they were always ghost panthers. It limited the way they thought. Foxes could be anyone or pretend to be anyone. We can slip into human cities and blend in. It’s hard to kill spirit beasts who look and act just like everyone else in a crowd. We could just disappear.”

“You have to admit that it doesn’t look good that you were the only one to survive that particular massacre. It rather paints you as an accomplice.”

Laughing River gave Sen a look so hard that he leaned back from the nine-tail fox.

“Who said I was the only survivor? I wasn’t the only fox who made it out alive. I made sure I wasn’t the only one. I only managed to save a dozen or so. I wanted to save more, but the numbers they sent after us… It was all I could do. I cut those bastards down by the dozens, but it just wasn’t enough.”

Oh, this is not good, thought Sen. He could feel himself getting pulled down into someone else’s problem like he’d been caught in a whirlpool. The elder fox might be lying, but it was a strange choice for a lie. It stood to reason that someone, not Sen if he had his way, but someone else could check to see if those foxes were still alive or had been after the supposed betrayal.

“Someone convinced Misty Peak that you were the only survivor. She believes it.”

Some part of this didn’t add up for Sen. How could Laughing River not know that this story was going around about him?

“No wonder she’s been hounding me for all these years.”

“How is this new to you?” asked an incredulous Sen. “How could you not know about any of this?”

The fox took a long, long time to respond. “I never went back.”

“To the other foxes?”

“How could I? How could I face them?” demanded the fox in a voice made unsteady by barely controlled emotion. “How I could face their children when I failed them all so badly? They were better off without me.”

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