Book 3: Chapter 2: Shelter

There were blurry spots of semi-conscious, semi-lucid understanding in Sen’s memory. He vaguely remembered being thrown over a shoulder. He recalled someone throwing him into a bunk. Then, it was just intermittent flashes of storm noises and people yelling about things. Mostly, though, it was darkness and pain. He’d hurt himself with that stunt on the deck. It had been necessary to save everyone, to save the ship, but he was paying a price for it. Flashes of agony would tear across his skull. Pain would shoot out into his body from his dantian. In his occasional lucid moments, Sen wondered if he’d finally pushed too hard, too far, and permanently injured himself. It would be terrible timing if he had. He had far too many people looking for him. Then, those thoughts would slip beneath the still waters of unconsciousness.

When he finally woke up, really woke up, Sen found himself curled up on a bunk, his cheek wet from a puddle of drool that formed on the pillow from his partially open mouth.

Nothing like waking up with a bit of dignity

, he thought. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, then grimaced as he tried to wipe his cheek clean. His head still hurt and his dantian was still sending out stabbing reminders that something was off there, but he pushed those concerns aside for a moment. The cabin was still intact, which meant that the ship was likely still intact. There were none of the sounds he associated with a storm. The ship also wasn’t bucking and heaving. It seemed they had found shelter, or the captain truly proved his superior skill and kept them afloat in the full fury of the storm. Satisfied that nothing in the outside world required his immediate attention, Sen tried to reassert normality in his personal world. He retrieved some water, soap, and a cloth from his storage ring. Then he stripped out of the robes that smelled none-too-fresh to his nose and washed himself down. He felt the hard brush of stubble on his face but didn’t plan on putting anything razor sharp that close to his skin until he felt a little better.

Satisfied that he no longer stank like a goat, Sen sat down on the bunk and did what he’d been avoiding. He looked inward. He wasn’t terribly surprised by what he saw. The qi in his dantian was completely out of balance. Water qi took up nearly half the available space for the misty environmental qi he typically used. Some of that would need to go and be replaced by other qi. Slowly, he bled some of that water qi away, letting it drift back out into the environment. Once the balance of qi types was restored, or mostly restored, he noticed something odd. There was something new floating around in his dantian.

It wasn’t compressed liquid qi, nor was it pure, differentiated environmental qi. Instead, it was a ribbon of something else, some other kind of qi he didn’t recognize. It floated in a ring around the outer edges of his dantian. He gently, oh so very gently, poked at it. The ring of new qi vibrated gently at his prodding, but it didn’t otherwise do anything. Sen let out the breath he’d been holding. He’d have to spend more time investigating that strange ribbon of qi, but it didn’t seem like it represented a problem that needed immediate attention. Simply offloading some of that water qi had made him feel a lot better, but he wasn’t healed by any stretch of the imagination. He could see that he’d strained his qi channels. He could also see spots in his body that had been damaged by his hastily constructed technique.

It seems like I get injured every time I need to do something new in a hurry

, he complained to himself. He wanted to tell himself that the answer was to stop throwing techniques together at the last second, but life didn’t seem to work that way. He was depressingly certain that he would keep having to do similar things unless he decided to go into secluded cultivation. The idea was more tempting than he’d admit out loud to anyone. The closer he got to core formation, the more difficult it became to avoid using liquid qi for techniques. Simply finding his own mountain to retreat to, as Uncle Kho had done, would solve the one problem. He’d be able to focus on his cultivation until he reached core formation. Of course, if he did that, he had the uncomfortable feeling that he’d be sacrificing any possibility of moments of enlightenment for the duration. He couldn’t figure out how he knew that it would go that way, but he knew it all the same.

Deciding that was a problem for another day, Sen headed to the galley. There were a few sailors there, and Sen studiously ignored the awed looks they gave him when he walked in. He didn’t want their awe, or their adoration, or anything else from them. He just wanted tea. The cook saw him and started to offer a bow, but Sen waved that off. He’d helped the man out enough times at the stoves that Sen had hoped they’d moved beyond such things, but he’d been wrong, apparently. The cook looked uncomfortable but stopped bowing. Sen asked for tea, and the cook immediately set about making a fresh pot. While he was tempted to stop him, Sen decided that fresh tea wasn’t too much of a reward for his stupidity. Once the cook brought the tea over, Sen sat in contemplative silence for a time. He didn’t try to solve any problems or work out the secrets of the universe. He just drank tea and let himself be for a little while. He might have also done a bit of quiet cultivation and soaked up some of the fire qi from the stove in the room, along with other bits of environmental qi. With healing to do, he’d need those later. Feeling more fortified and ready to face the trial of dealing with other people, Sen returned the teapot to the cook and went up on deck.

While things had been almost calm below decks, things were a flurry of activity on deck. After squinting for a moment in the bright sunlight, Sen could see that the ship was anchored. Walls of rock stretched high overhead on two sides, while a pleasant-looking beach backed by thick forest was off to a third. There was a narrow opening in the rock walls that faced out to the ocean.

I guess we made it to that cove, after all

, thought Sen. It was actually a rather beautiful little spot. Sen put the cove on the new mental list he’d started of places to consider building a little retreat from the world. After a few moments, Sen noticed that all the noise on deck had ground down to a heavy silence. Looking around, he saw that everyone was staring at him. That was something he found deeply uncomfortable, so he looked around for someone,

anyone

, he knew. He noticed Lo Meifeng, who had a hand on her hip.

“Well, look who finally decided to stop napping,” she said with a bit of a smirk.

“Everything was so calm and quiet. It seemed like a good time for one,” he answered.

“Get back to work!” bellowed the captain.

All of the sailors flinched as though they’d been hit and returned to their work, although more than a few kept giving Sen surreptitious glances. Sen sighed. He supposed that was what happened when cultivators did things that looked impressive. Considering that he’d collapsed immediately after, he was a little perplexed by their reactions. If he’d thrown up that water bubble and then casually walked away from it, that might have warranted the looks. Lo Meifeng had started to walk over to him but veered off when she saw the captain doing the same thing. The older man approached Sen like he wasn’t entirely sure how he should act around the cultivator. Rather than wait around for the captain to find something awkward to say, Sen gestured around them.

“I see you managed to bring us to safety. Is this the cove you were talking about?”

The captain looked around and seemed to relax. “Yes, it is. It was a close thing, but we got here. Though, as you can see, there was some damage.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” said Sen, frowning around at the men.

Some of the sailors were sewing what Sen assumed was the sail. Others were removing or replacing damaged pieces of wood from the deck itself. Still, the repairs seemed to be moving along smoothly to Sen’s admittedly untrained eyes.

“We’ll be underway again soon,” said the captain, a little nervously.

Sen shrugged. “You’re the captain here. We’ll go when you say the ship is safe to go.”

A bit more of the nervous tension drained away from the captain’s face.

“I appreciate that. I also wanted to thank you for what you did. I’ve never, well, I’ve never seen the like before. I didn’t even know that something like that was even possible.”

“To be honest, captain, neither did I. Not that I’m in a rush to try it again.”

“No, I don’t suppose you would be. Seemed to take a lot out of you. Still, you saved my men, you saved my ship. Plus, your,” the captain seemed to think hard before he discreetly gestured to Lo Meifeng, “companion stepped in after your collapsed. Fought off something out in the storm. I don’t know what it was, but things got a lot easier after she did. I don’t know how I can ever repay that debt to you, to either of you.”

Sen shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything, captain. I was standing on

this ship

when I helped out. It was as much for my own benefit as anyone else’s.”

The captain snorted at that. “Somehow, I think you’d have found it easier to just make one of those bubbles around yourself, instead of the whole ship. Even so, I thank you.”

The captain gave Sen one of those deep bows that always left him feeling like he should be looking over his shoulder for someone more important than him. He pushed that discomfort down and gave the captain a shallower bow in return, the way the man expected. Glancing at the beach, Sen gave the captain a speculative look.

“Just how long do you think repairs will take, captain?”

“Another day or two, I expect,” said the captain.

“Very well. Then, I think I may take a short trip to that beach over there.”