Роберт Асприн - Forever After

Gelfait itself, as he entered the village, appeared to be covered in a light fog. As he strode down the streets, the fog cleared in an area roughly twenty feet in diameter surrounding him. Where it did cling to something, it outlined men, women, children and animals. They appeared perfectly animated and almost ghostly in their aspects. He realized, as he first recognized one man and then another, that he was seeing the people who lived in Gelfait and that the warriors who had borne Anachron had all come home.

As have I . That thought startled him, yet crystallized thoughts into action. Gar felt within himself a peace he had never known before. He decided it was the same peace that death through Tian-shi-sheqi conferred, and while it did not necessarily herald his death, it did leave him ready for it. And ready for what I must do here to earn it .

Gar entered the shattered temple and bowed to the man standing across the open apse. “Udan Kann, thus I face the spider in the heart of its web.”

The older man, whose long, gray hair had been gathered back into a ponytail, did not return the bow. “Pariah, you have perverted the gift I gave you. It is now time for your transgressions to be punished. I demand hingu-cor .”

Gar raised an eyebrow. “Only hingu-cor ? I have acknowledged the title hingu-Grashanshao . We should engage in hingu-Gracor .”

Udan Kann shook his head. “Technically speaking we cannot because hingu-Gracor is to death.”

“Afraid I will kill you?”

“Hardly.” Udan Kann pointed at him. “You wear Anachron, and I mean to have it. I know that if its bearer is slain, the amulet vanishes and passes into the hands of the previous bearer.”

“Prince Rango.”

“Indeed. This I wish to avoid.”

“You mean Kalaran wishes to avoid Rango having the amulet.”

“You merely need to know that I desire it.”

Gar brought the amulet out from within his tunic. “Then here, I will give it to you.”

“Your offer is most kind, but I prefer to win it through combat. I take pride in my work.” Udan Kann stretched his arms out wide and flexed his fingers. “This hingu-cor will remind the world who is the true hingu-Grashanshao .“

“That title is yours, Udan Kann.” Gar shrugged, “But that fact will not stop me from killing you.”

“Never thought it would, but this will.” The older man smiled with the cold cruelty Gar had long ago come to think of as more affected than real. “If I die in this fight, or you delay me enough that I vanish with Gelfait, my henchmen will destroy all the little farming villages like Torfay throughout this district.”

Gar stiffened. “Destroy? Do you care to be more specific?”

Udan Kann hesitated for a second, then frowned. “Fire, slaughter, midnight raids, and the like. The usual stuff.”

“Not locusts or famine or an overabundant harvest that produces so much that laborers die in the fields bringing more grain to silos that burst as do their hearts?‘

“I hadn’t thought to make it that much of a production, really.”

Gar shook his head. Had you only seen the true way to destroy them … “ Hingu is a perversion, and you perpetuate it. You give me no choice but to kill you.”

“The dreams of the young so often go unfulfilled.”

“And the illusions of the ancients sour into mortification.”

Slowly the two men began to circle each other. Udan Kann slithered into the Viper form and Gar held himself back in the Mongoose defense. Both knew they were posturing, yet both acknowledged the lethal capability of the other. Tiger and Wolf, Eagle and Wasp, Ant and Aardvark, they slid through the most basic animal forms as if reassuring each other that they had not forgotten their training.

As Udan Kann shifted from Ant to Antlion — the proper wrist rotations and four-part posture adjustment being a work of art requiring a decade of study — Gar darted forward and caught Udan Kann in the breastbone with a Spearpoint Blow. The posture adjustments rendered the strike feather light, and Udan Kann parried him high. Bringing his fingers together into a Firetalon Touch, he let his fingertips ricochet from Udan Kann’s forehead, then he bounced back and assumed the Tarantula Wasp counter to Udan Kann’s Antlion.

The older man staggered back for a moment, then blinked his eyes. “You broke form, Pariah.”

‘Tes, but I got you.“

“Touches are for hingu-cor among children.” Gar’s old master snarled, then brought his elbows in toward his ribs, perfecting his Antlion. “Of course, you have ever been the child, Pariah. Had you applied yourself, had you truly learned what I had to offer, that blow could have killed me instantly.”

“And most crudely and grotesquely, too, I imagine.”

“Of course.”

“Not my style, that.” Gar slowly smiled. ‘There is more to the world than what you have to teach, Udan Kann.“

“And much you have yet to learn, Pariah.” Udan Kann swept in, contorting his body into the King Crab position. His right hand shot out and delivered a nasty pinch to Gar’s left thigh. “My faithful students know you must make every touch count.”

Gar jumped back and tested his leg as the wave of pain faded into numbness. “Pain for pain I can give.” Gar launched his left foot into a Gouge-lack, but all he caught was Udan Kann’s ponytail. The elder fighter ducked below the strike and countered with a two-fingered Agony-needle to the inside of Gar’s thigh.

Gar fought the pain, but his weakened right leg slowed his retreat. Udan Kann swept in and pounded a Steel-hammer Punch into the sorian cut over Gar’s ribs. A Cleaver-chop came down on the torn shoulder and the twin waves of pain collided in the center of Gar’s chest.

Gar should have retreated, but he stood his ground and smashed a Hand-lance Blow to Udan Kann’s ribs. Flicking his right hand up, Gar snapped a finger against the tip of Udan Kann’s nose, then stabbed Fork-fingers at the elder man’s eyes. Udan Kann countered with a Handwidth Parry that stopped the Eye-gouge but irritated his tweaked nose. Snarling angrily, he brought his right hand up in a Spearpoint Blow aimed at Gar’s midsection.

Gar saw the blow and had time to move from it, but did nothing. He felt the pressure build against his flesh. Blood vessels ruptured in the skin and bruises spread to his taut abdominal muscles. Udan Kann’s fingernails pierced his tunic and his skin. With the speed and experience the older man possessed, he could have pushed on through and ripped a handful of Gar’s liver out before the pain even began.

Udan Kann spun away and screamed in frustration as he flicked blood off his fingers. “Foul!”

Gar staggered back as sweat boiled into the open wounds on his body. “You want to kill me. Do it.”

“Yes, I want to kill you, but later. After I have Anachron. After I do what I must. I will come back for you.” He glanced over his shoulder toward the west and the setting sun. “I will not be trapped here for all time, Pariah. I will have the amulet and be away from here. Later I will return with it and kill you.”

“Or die trying.”

“Enough. You are done” Udan Kann came in full force, employing the Most Dread Tsunami series of attacks. As his former master came in, his limbs blurring through a flurry of feints and strikes, Gar realized that as a student the attack would have destroyed him. Tian-shi-sheqi allowed him to see the cycle of the forms and to detect the rhythms in it. Had his limbs all been working, he could have dismantled it and Udan Kann in the process.

But Tian-shi-sheqi also told him it was unnecessary to do so.