Heretical Fishing

A blanket of pinprick lights covered the sky, each star’s individual brilliance combining to create a pattern so beautiful it could be a master artist’s magnum opus. They reminded me of Maria’s freckles. Had I never made that connection before?
She gave me the mental equivalent of a kiss on the cheek, reminding me of the task at hand.
I thought, looking into her core.
she replied, sending me love as her gaze joined mine.
The brand drew us in, proud of its existence. It was familiar, but only vaguely so, an echo of the intricate pattern it had once been. Maria and I—my
and I—shifted, going to inspect the place it had originated from.
We both paused when we saw its shape. The lines now gracing her soul hadn’t been copied from mine—they’d been
. There had been a second mark on my core, exerting its power on the first, nullifying some aspects and enhancing others. No wonder I’d lost control of my chi.
We had both known something like this would occur. It was part of the intrinsic insight we’d gleaned following the ceremony. But neither of us had expected it to feel so…
.
We weren’t just bonded by title. We had truly become one, like two sides of a coin; entirely distinct in uncountable ways, yet indisputably made of the same mettle. And the System, with the help of some meddling villagers, had acknowledged it.
I exerted some chi, testing my agency over pure essence now that Maria’s brand no longer sullied my own. It was
. Great trunks of solid light wound from me, curved and chaotic when I willed it, smooth when I didn’t. Gone was the need to rely on somatic movement for control. I raised my hand anyway, curious to see just how much power I could wield by using such a gesture, but decided against it at the last second—best to err on the side of caution.
I kissed her forehead, the contact making my body flush with heat. Warmth radiated through her as well. It was so strong that, before this moment, it would have caused our emotions and need for one another to spiral.
With our marriage, however, so too had we gained authority over the tunnel connecting us. I sent a spike of desire her way, intending on it being a playful little jab, but when her answering volley came flying back, I regretted my decision. The air was knocked from my lungs. My head spun.
“Okay,” Maria said, her flushed cheeks only partly caused by embarrassment. “Lesson learned. Don’t do that.”
“Agreed,” I replied, hoping my face wasn’t as visibly reddened as hers.
If anyone noticed, they made no mention. Someone
speak, however.
“Success…” Ellis groaned, making us both glance his way, surprised he was conscious—he certainly didn’t look like it.
“What do you think, wife? Should we help him?”
“Hmmmm. I don’t know, husband.” She tapped her chin, her eyes sparkling with understanding and mirth and all the joy in the world. “It’s debatable whether he deserves it—on account of all the misdirection and scheming he committed to get us to this point.”
“Couldn’t have said it better myself. The outcome, though…” We both leaned back, staring into each other’s eyes rather than at the man lying at such an angle that his limbs looked broken. “I think the ends might have justified his means.”
“I daresay they did.” She swept in to grace me with a swift peck on the lips, which then turned into at least two dozen more, each rapid touch more enjoyable than the last. She let out a controlled breath, fought to regain her composure, and failed in spectacular fashion. “I can’t believe we’re
!” She hopped up and down like a toddler full of sugar, all the while making a high-pitched squeal. “I’m your
! You’re my
!”
I grinned at her, drinking everything in, each detail seared into my memory. “I must say, the moment
a little ruined by all these complaining peasants.”
Most of our friends were either unconscious or too drained to move a muscle. Of those still operational, soft noises escaped, most dramatic of which coming from one Corporal Claws, who had a forelimb half-heartedly draped over her eyes, leaving just enough of a gap for her beady little peepers to peek from.
Maria started a theatric sigh, but it cut off abruptly. “I’m too happy to feign annoyance. Let’s try this out…”
She didn’t need to ask me the question. I felt it forming in her mind before she could voice it, so I nodded. Of course I would help if necessary.
She opened her core, letting a pink cloud of chi billow out. When I sensed the difference the mark made on her spirit, a soft “
” escaped me. My change had been notable, but it was
compared to the magnitude of Maria’s alteration. I’d
doubled my control and power; hers was tenfold stronger. If I was god-king, she was god-queen—and not only in name. I still had the edge when it came to raw output, but she’d closed the canyon between us, reducing it to a ravine even a new cultivator could leap across.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed her enhanced capacity. I sensed his approach before I heard it, and only after he slammed into Maria, whizzing through the air like an intercontinental missile, did the sound waves arrive.
“Ooooh,” Slimes cooed, his body shifting as his master’s strength flooded through him. “Oh. Oh! Ohhhh—” He cut off with a choked noise as his form roiled. “
—”
I barked a laugh, reaching out with a mesh of light, the strands helping him stay whole. He would have been fine, but my reinforcement made it a much-less painful experience than exploding and reforming might have been. Maria giggled, her clouds having paused with his arrival. Fractions of a second passed, and he turned himself into a gem, taking up a crystalline structure as he dropped toward the sandy ground.
Before he could reach it, Maria’s pink haze engulfed everyone—including the two horrors of the deep currently bobbing up and down on unbroken waves fifty or so meters from shore, not to mention the molten slug dwelling just below the seafloor. Time stood still, and I let my awareness drift away from my body, focused entirely on what my wonderful wife would do.
Her billowing chi sought out ailments. Surprisingly, she actually found some. A muscle in Fergus’s shoulder, a long-ago fractured bone in Aisa’s arm, and an overused tendon in Steven’s wrist. That cultivators still had bodily injuries was a stunning revelation—common knowledge stated that awakening fixed such things—but I didn’t have time to consider it.
The moment said ailments were healed, her chi looked for something else. It assessed their cores, finding them all exhausted. Except for Corporal Claws and RPM—who’d stolen chi from somewhere—and Ruby, who hadn’t overexerted herself because of her pregnancy, but was doing an impressive job at pretending to be unconscious.
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Though I didn’t actively shape it, I could feel my core contributing, faint wisps of purpose guided by my miraculous wife. She used them to strip her own healing aspect from the pink clouds. Now pure, her essence flowed into our enervated friends and family, allowing everyone—even those with antithetical natures—to absorb the functionally endless chi.
They shot upright like reanimated zombies, each fevered by the events of the last few minutes. I was beyond thankful for my previously unknown level of self-control. If not for it, their waves of emotion probably would have knocked me on my ass. Instead, it was their actual bodies that knocked me on my ass, the vast majority of those present unable to stop themselves from joining the affectionate assault.
Neither Maria nor I said a word, both bathing in the onslaught of unspoken sentiments, rushed sentences, and bestial noises that assailed us. But then a threatening blade of aura stabbed out into the night. Like a busload of tourists driving past a train wreck, we all turned to stare, creating a sea of wide-eyed faces that couldn’t look away.
Rocky had intentionally overshot the group hug. He rested on the sand beside a seated Ellis, the former holding a lit cigarette out toward the latter. Neither archivist nor crab were the source of that violent intent.
“Explain yourself,” Roger demanded, the tip of a deadly chi-blade held to Ellis’s throat. “You did
mention this in your plans.”
Ellis shrugged, his right hand reaching over to pluck the cigarette from Rocky’s claw. Roger’s blade was a blur. It twisted and lashed out, severing its target in two. Unperturbed, the archivist caught the top half of the bisected cigarette and took a drag. “I did mention this part of the plan, just not to you.”
Roger seethed, not hiding his view that Ellis was a threat. He said not a word; he didn’t need to—his killing intent was clear.
Rocky let out a placating hiss as he gestured with one claw for Roger to relax. In response, the sword-chi cultivator sprouted a second blade from his other hand and pointed it directly down at the composed crustacean.
But Rocky wasn’t swayed. He reached behind his back—retrieved a cigarette from literally fracking nowhere—lit it on his shell, and raised it toward Roger, all the while giving me a questioning look.
“I consent as long as you tell me where those keep coming from.”
“No,” he hissed.
“Ah, well. Worth a shot.”
“What of the leaf?”
“What? Oh, I don’t care. I know I made you promise not to give it to anyone, but I’m not about to make my father-in-law ask for permission. Seems like a great way to have a blade of chi aimed for my neck.” In truth, I thought it might actually help Roger, but I wasn’t about to tell him that—it would only make him refuse it. Maria agreed, squeezing my hand ever so slightly.
“So?” Rocky hissed, raising the ‘leaf’ toward the sword-chi cultivator. “Will you try? I believe it could benefit—”
“I don’t want drugs,
. What I
is for this wretched archivist to take responsibility for his actions.”
“Would you accept a wager, Roger?” Ellis asked, puffing on…
? He breathed so deep that the unprotected skin of his neck pressed into the sword, a single bead of blood forming around the tip. But Ellis just exhaled, a serene expression coming to his face. “If you partake of… what do you call them, Fischer?”
“Cigarettes.”
“Yes. Thank you. If you partake of a cigarette, Roger, and meditate with Rocky and I, you can hit me. As hard as you want.”
Roger’s eyes narrowed. “That isn’t a wager. What do you get?”
“Sure it is. The wager is upon your resolve. I bet that once you inhale the exalted leaf and spin the pattern passed down to us, you will no longer wish to strike me. If I am wrong, you win, and I am struck.”
Another time, Roger might have anticipated a trap, but the fury in his soul was barely letting him breathe, let alone think straight. “Deal,” he said, holding out a rigid hand.
Which Ellis shook, then ashed his pipe against his knee. “We must go now. The pattern may only be passed down by the master practitioners of the isle.”
“That wasn’t part of the deal. I won’t leave my daughter’s side so soon after you
her to become some kind of fledgling deity!”
As they spoke, the cuddle puddle had slowly disassembled itself. Each of us stood as we watched the spectacle. One woman in particular had been inching forward, and with those words from Roger, she finally made her move.
Sharon slammed into his back, her arms wrapping around his torso, hugging him tight. Rather than doubt or fear, she radiated surety and contentment. He retracted his blades; she squeezed him tighter. “This was what Maria wanted, dear. I knew about the plan, and I also agreed to hide it from you. We needed your full strength to contain the resulting, uhhh, love?”
“It was an
! An explosion that came from our
!”
“Dearest husband…” She spun him around by the arm, his movement only occurring because he allowed it. “It’s what she wanted. What she
. How many times has she told us she will follow Fischer if he ascends? How many times has she come to us and expressed the depths of her affection for the man beside her? A
man, by the way—one who feels exactly the same as she does.
ou felt their bond not two minutes ago! We all did!”
Rocky, taking one last puff on his cigarette before throwing the butt into his mouth and chewing it to mush, blew bubbles of approval. “You know me to be an honorable crab, swordsman Roger. I promise you this: The thing we intend to share with you, the wisdom of the isle, will assist you in growing stronger, protecting your family, and seeing things as they truly are.”
He mulled on that for a long moment. Contrasting expressions flashed across his face, vanishing as fast as they appeared, until, finally, he nodded. “I’ll follow you. Don’t be surprised when I still choose to strike you over the horizon, Ellis.”
“Hey now,” I said, “let’s not rush into things. Maybe Roger
stay close. Why not teach him here? Where I can—uhhhh, watch from a safe distance, you know? Make sure nothing goes wrong?”
“I am sorry, Fischer.” Roger shook his head. “It must happen on the isle. And no, you may not come.”
“Yeah? Well, maybe I’ll just follow you then! I can teleport there in an instant!”
“You will not do that.”
I sniffed. “Why not?”
“It would be a grave insult, one egregious enough for you to be unwelcome on the isle forevermore.”
“Are you hearing this, Maria? They deny a god-king. On his wedding day.”
“Precisely,” Ellis replied, already walking toward the shore. “Are you implying that the alleviation of momentary ignorance is more important than spending time with the woman you have finally married? Your god-queen? After making her wait so,
long?”
I pointedly avoided glancing at Maria, whose expression was no-doubt sharper than her father’s blades.
“Damn,” I said, pulling her back to my side. She easily relented, giggling as she squeezed her arms around my waist. “He drops a taunt like that, then just disappears into the night. Where is he even going? Are they gonna walk along the ocean floor? Does he have the ability to call back those dolphins he arrived on? I—Oh, get fracked, Ellis! You can’t take a man’s boat without asking!”
Bob the boat, my trusty vessel of the deep, sailed parallel to the coastline, pushed forward by two-score Buzzy Boys. They couldn’t have gathered just now. They had to have been waiting by Bob, ready to bring him here at a moment’s notice.
Roger had a similarly visceral reaction. If looks could kill, Ellis would be a puddle right now. “You planned this, didn’t you, bastard? All of it.”
Ellis took a deep breath, all but glowing as the salty air entered his lungs. “If I did, would you not want to learn the pattern that allowed me to calm my thoughts and devise such a thorough plan?”
Roger rolled his shoulders. “I am going to savor hitting you after all this is over...” He turned to Sharon, his edges nowhere to be seen as he embraced her, his wife clinging to him and rubbing his back reassuringly.
Maria’s vice-grip on my abdomen tightened, and we held each other as Roger, Ellis, and Rocky all leaped away, the latter having also hissed something at Snips that left her blushing.
A tension had been rising all around Maria and me, an itch that had only gotten more demanding the longer it remained unscratched. I looked down at my wife. Her stunning eyes almost made me forget all about the question. “Cool with you?”
She nodded, her gaze not leaving mine.
“Very well.” I spread my arms wide. “We consent—”
Every animal pal, along with more than a few of our human ones, rocketed forward, the members of the cuddle puddle returning at incredible speed.