Chapter 857 — Four Locks

CHAPTER 857

Four Locks

The Jiang array court was a square of black stone ninety paces across, behind high grey walls.

Nine bronze rings were set into the floor in three rows of three, each ring as wide as a cart wheel. Galleries ran along two of the walls. One was full of Jiang juniors in blue, with Elder Jiang Bozhou in the front row. In the other sat Long Caili, veiled, with Ji Yuanhe beside her holding his teacup in both hands.

Jiang Shen stood in the centre ring with his hands in his sleeves.

“Begin when you like,” Jiang Shen said.

Shi Feng stood in the far corner and looked at the rings for a moment. His left arm was still bound, but the burn salve had taken the worst of the black out of it. His ribs had stopped grinding when he breathed.

“Do I have to reach you, or just walk out?” Shi Feng asked.

“Walk out,” Jiang Shen said. “Nobody has reached me.”

Shi Feng nodded and went anyway.

He ran along the edge of the court, low and fast, past the first ring and the second. He didn’t cross the rings. He went around them, toward the centre from the side.

Jiang Shen took one hand out of his sleeve and moved two fingers, watching Shi Feng’s feet rather than his face.

The ring ahead of Shi Feng slid across the stone without a sound and stopped in his path. Pale light rose from it in four flat walls, a cube of light as tall as two men. Shi Feng turned sharply to his right, and a second ring slid in behind him and rose too.

He was standing in the gap between two locks. The gap was one pace wide.

Jiang Shen closed his hand.

The two cubes moved together. The walls didn’t strike. They simply pressed, steadily, from both sides. Shi Feng’s back hit one wall and his chest hit the other, and his cracked ribs creaked. He pushed with his good arm and couldn’t shift the wall a finger’s width.

“Nine Palaces Shift,” Jiang Shen said calmly from the centre. “Each lock seals the space inside it. Nothing can cut it, fold it or cross it. When I close my hand, the walls close.”

He opened his hand again. The two cubes drew back a foot and sank into their rings.

“The first catch is a courtesy,” Jiang Shen said. “So that you know.”

In the Jiang gallery, the juniors were whispering.

“Elder Brother Shen let him out on purpose.”

“Early Shattering Void against mid, inside our array. What did the princess expect?”

In the front row, Elder Jiang Bozhou didn’t look at the court.

“The house will take calls,” Jiang Bozhou said. “Name the lock where he stops. Call it right, and you have a season’s allowance. Call it wrong, and you copy the array manual for the season.”

“Six.” “Seven.” “Eight.” “Nine.” Nobody called the centre ring, where the candidate was not supposed to arrive.

Shi Feng rolled his shoulders and breathed out.

“So the rings move with me,” Shi Feng said, watching the light sink. “Thank you. Now I know what you mean by a lock.”

He tried the fold instead.

Void-Crossing Step folded the space under his foot against the space beyond the next ring, so he wouldn’t have to go around at all. Jiang Shen moved a finger. A third ring slid into the space Shi Feng was folding toward, and its light rose before his foot came down.

The fold hit sealed space and had nowhere to go.

It threw him back hard. His foot landed nowhere, and the rest of him landed against the light of the third lock, face first. A fourth ring slid in behind him, rose, and closed.

This time Jiang Shen didn’t open his hand quickly.

The walls pressed. Shi Feng’s cheek was crushed against the light, and he felt a tooth on the left side of his jaw crack loose. His ribs bent. For three long breaths he couldn’t breathe at all.

In the far gallery, Ji Yuanhe had put down his teacup.

“One,” Ji Yuanhe said, very quietly. “Two.”

Long Caili didn’t move. Her hand rested on the gallery rail, and her knuckles had gone pale.

On the third breath, Jiang Shen opened his hand.

The walls drew back. Shi Feng slid down to one knee on the black stone. He spat into his palm and looked at what was there. A tooth, and a good deal of blood.

He put the tooth in his sleeve. His amusement was gone, but he didn’t look toward the exit or the waiting princess.

“Four,” Jiang Shen said. “Most people yield at four. There’s no shame in it, Master Shi. My cousin yielded at three.”

“No,” Shi Feng said.

“You can’t cross a sealed lock,” Jiang Shen said patiently. “You can’t fold into one. You can’t cut one. I have five more, and you haven’t touched me.”

“I know,” Shi Feng said. “You’ve explained it very clearly.”

He stood up. The four lit cubes stood around him, humming faintly. The light from them was pale and even, and to anyone else in the court it looked perfectly smooth.

Shi Feng didn’t look at Jiang Shen. He looked at the places where the cubes stood closest together, where one lock’s wall ran beside another’s.

Then he opened his right palm, and a small flame came up in it. It beat once, paused, and beat again, with a second, answering pulse beneath the first.

In the Jiang gallery, Elder Jiang Bozhou leaned forward for the first time.