Chapter 8: A New Life

His new world had a rhythm to it, a different steady beat.

Ken wasn’t sure how else to describe it but it just made everything feel so much more right than the fear and hunger he was used to. It was like breathing different air, almost. 

Literally, even.

A whole different everything.

Days of his new life, new pattern, new routine went by quickly.

So quickly they almost seemed to bleed into one another, the passage of each day marked only by the slow mechanical crawl of the city’s fake suns across the metal ceiling high above, their light flat over-bright yellow, nothing like the real thing but still warm through the glass of the apothecary window, and he’d never felt safer.

Never felt better.

Wei’s apothecary was always warm, the wood structure both large and small at the same time. Massive when compared to the shacks he’d known all this life, but also tiny against all the huge buildings he spent his time staring at from the windows.

Paradoxical or not, the place was a pocket of life in a giant scary city that sounded like it was always dying, full of distant clanking and grinding noises that echoed through the walls. Still, the outside stayed outside, the way Ken preferred it.

Nothing got past the walls, past Wei’s herbs and the old man’s quiet humming and the way he moved like he had all the time in the world. The place smelled of things that grew; dry herbs and sweet smoke, deep resinous scent of the dark wood that made up the walls, constant gentle burble of simmering pots on the hearth. 

Ken sat smiling, grinding dry herbs and reading dryer books, slapping labels on glass bottles and putting away light gray pestles that stood out against the darkness of his skin. This was a new world for him and he had no desire to leave it, at least not any time soon and definitely not by choice. A world away from rust and rot.

The permanent stink of that other world, decay and old iron, had clung to everything back there because it was everything. It was only now, after being away from it all, that he could see how bad it had been. He tried not to think about it too much, though. 

Thinking about it…

Ken’s hand went to his chest, the pain of rocks and fists coming back as if it never left. The taste of blood and waste-dirt and Joric…

Joric’s eyes rolling back white…

Don’t.

A shudder tore out of him, followed by a few long seconds of heavy breaths as he sat there on a stool made from wood no darker or denser than the floor beneath it. Brown eyes flickered up as his lungs filled slowly in the same breathing pattern that came to him quicker than instinct.

That other thing, the one in his chest, the gnawing hunger that had been his shadow for twelve years, was quieter than it had been in a long time.

From that very first day he woke up in this dimly lit back room, even.

Fire wit’ no wood. It hadn’t left though, not when he could still feel it. That low sleeping hum just under his ribs, a cold spot in the warmth of the shop; Ken doubted it was going anywhere soon, maybe at all.

But at the very least, it didn’t scream anymore, and it definitely didn’t wake him up at night with the shakes after a bad dream.

The whole deal between him and the old man wasn’t something they talked about; it was just there in the way the old man would slide a cup of hot sweet tea onto the workbench without a word. It was there in the way his own hands, steadier than they’d ever been, would grind gnarled stubborn roots just the way Wei liked them.

“Powder fine as dust, Kenshi, no chunk left behind.” 

He was doing good work and he only wanted to be better at it. He found himself watching the old man in everything. From the slow careful way he moved, and even down to the little way he hummed his little songs while he worked.

Something about it all, it just made him feel…

Safe.

He’d felt so safe he’d even started calling him “Old Wei” in his head. 

It was a natural thing, something that felt as right as any other. He’d wondered about it for a second, but no… it only made sense, just as much sense as the way he’d called his grandmother “Gram” without ever thinking about it. Besides, the man was ancient, his face a roadmap of wrinkles layered so deep they looked carved into wood, long hair the color of sun-bleached bone found half-buried in the wastes. What else am I gonna call him?

Then one day, after what must have been weeks, it slipped out. 

Ken had just brewed up a fresh pot of blood-leaf tea, the kind Wei liked in the afternoons; the spicy fragrant steam warming his face as he poured it. 

The twelve-year-old had walked from the back room with the cup, no shakes keeping him in fear of spilling even a drop. With careful steps, he set the heavy clay cup down on the small table next to Wei’s book, the one with a cracked leather cover that felt like old dry skin. The book was open but the old man’s eyes were closed, chest rising and falling in slow even rhythm.

The words came out anyway, quiet so they wouldn’t wake him.

“…for you, Old Wei.”

Ken’s muscles went tight the same heartbeat his eyes went wide, the second half of that sentence not something he meant to leave his lips. D-did I… why did I… Breathing shaky, the boy just stood there with that old instinct to brace for a blow running through him as he stood there, a statue carved from nerves. Stupid.

Impossible purple eyes slid open, the action so quick and sudden that he knew deep down the old man couldn’t have been asleep. 

Not even for a second. He heard me.

That thought only made the deep fear around his heart grip tighter. 

Even as those same eyes crinkled at the corners, and a low wheezy chuckle rumbled deep in his chest, Ken could only stand there unmoving, waiting for what came next. A slap, a beating,  whatever…

But no, Wei just kept laughing, the sound like old paper tearing slowly, or maybe wind through the wire-trees back in the valley. He’s laughing at me.

But it wasn’t mean laughter; nothing like the sharp barking sound that usually came before the rocks started flying.

Wei reached for the cup, his old wrinkled hand brushing against Ken’s as he took it. “Ahh, very old, yes.” Wei nodded, a real smile reaching his eyes, almost making them glow in the dim light of the shop. 

Fingers worked their way through that long white beard as the old herbalist stroked the thing slow and thoughtfully. “Very very old.”

For some reason he never bothered to explain, Wei laughed like that every single time Ken said that name. Not as loud as it had been before, more a soft private sound, but it was always a real laugh; like it was the best joke he’d ever heard. Old Wei.

As old as Wei was, the man hadn’t forgotten his promise, though. 

The one to “fix” him. The old man might have been as old as the beard made him seem, but that was just his body fooling you. Wei was sharp, for one. He didn’t forget things, not like Gram did near the end when she’d tell him the same story three times in one afternoon. 

And the old man definitely knew what he was doing.

By the end of the first week, he’d started with the attempts, strange quiet things that were sometimes confusing and sometimes a little scary, but never anything Ken couldn’t handle. 

One week, every morning before the city’s hazy suns were at their brightest, Wei had him sit cross-legged on the smooth cool floorboards for an hour. The wood was worn in this spot, grain smoothed down by years of someone sitting in the same place over and over till they’d rubbed the roughness away. Wei would place a smooth, small but heavy black rock in his lap, a perfectly round thing that felt cold like it had just been pulled from a deep river.

Pretty, though.

“A spirit stone,” the old man’s voice was as gentle as ever as he finally let the heavy rock go, Ken taking it with a grunt. “If root is strong, stone will sing. You listen, you focus.”

Listen to a rock.

And he had listened, because what else was he gonna do? Ken closed his eyes, breathing falling into the slow steady rhythm he knew as well as anything else. In-out. In-out. 

He focused as hard as he listened, doing his best to think of nothing but the stone itself.

Ken focused till his head hurt, till everything else fell away, till he felt a sinking pit open up inside him that made his stomach lurch. He did nothing but focus the entire time he sat there, eyes closed till his back ached from sitting so still, till his legs went numb and his hands cramped around the stupid rock.

Please. Even as he begged, he knew it wouldn’t do anything. Begging had never once fixed anything before in his life; it hadn’t yet and that definitely didn’t change as he begged now, eyes shut and almost stinging wet. No, the stone just stayed cold as ever, the thing dead in his hands; no humming or singing or heat or anything. 

Course it doesn’t work. Sitting there was it’s own torture, just ignoring the time that passed by while Old Wei watched with those purple eyes, patient and waiting for something that was never gonna happen.

Fire wit’ no wood.

But even Wei couldn’t make wood grow where there wasn’t any. Some things just stayed broken.

A week later with the spirit stone mess forgotten and tossed aside, Wei had tried something entirely new.

Ken sat on the floor in the dimness of the back room, in the center of a chalk-drawn circle, surrounded by twelve different candles already burnt down to the halfway point. Even with the flickering light from the burning candles, he was cold and for good reason too. 

He’d been shirtless for a while now, his upper body exposed to the world, the only clothes he had on being his light brown pants held to his waist by the thick rope belt he’d grown used to.

His nose wrinkled, the boy doing his best to keep silent and not mention the stink as Wei did what he had been preparing for days. Still, the smell was… it was a lot.

Wei’s fingers, middle and index, were thick, knobby and layered with a thick gunk; the stuff really a cold, green paste the man had mashed together for hours earlier in the day. As colorful as it looked, the stuff stank like old mud and feet, to be honest.

It definitely didn’t help that that gunk was all over his body, Wei drawing complicated, spiraling symbols all over his back and chest with it. 

For nearly the last half hour, he’d had to sit perfectly still on a low stool in the center of the room while Wei traced his body in slow, measured circles, chanting in a low, strange language and adding more and more and more layers of the stuff as it dried; each individual layer was already so thick he felt more mud-person than human. 

Still, the smell and feel was the worst part.

The words themselves were… not words.

Not really.

Ken’s eyes tracked Wei as best he could, every time the old man was in his field of vision at least. He didn’t know the language, and couldn’t even hope to understand the words; nothing he’d ever heard before in this life or the last even coming close to the soft, thick hums and clicks that left the man’s mouth.

Whatever the old man had to say, it made the air in the room feel thick and heavy, like it was vibrating against his skin. He knew it was doing something, especially when he felt a faint tingle as the fourth layer of gunk began to harden around his stomach; an almost-electric prickle that made the tiny hairs on his arms stand up.

But that prickle was where it stopped hard.

Nothing else happened. There was no sudden rush of power. No magic spark lighting up his insides. Nothing to even get his hopes up. Just a weird, foot-smelling itch.

The sigh from Old Wei was strong enough to nearly wipe out the little bit of candle left, four of the twelve nearest him flickering out as smoke curled up from the puddles of wax. “…we try something else, Kenny.”

And they did.

They tried.

And tried.

And tried.

Every time, Ken tried to act like it didn’t bother him when he saw the sad smile on Wei’s face as nothing worked. His face stayed as calm as he could make it, not saying much as the old man would pat him on the back and say something like, “Try again, try something else.”

Something else? Like what? The words were on his lips every time the old man said it, frustration and bitterness thick in his throat every day, 

But the old man always did have something else to try.

And like before, that something else just didn’t work.

Above all else, Ken wanted to be angry. He wanted to rage and scream and cry that it wasn’t fair. How was he still bad meat? What was so wrong with him that he couldn’t be strong? Why was he the broken one?

He wanted to be angry, but he couldn’t.

Not when Wei wasn’t.

Not when the old man never even seemed to get upset that all his effort seemingly went nowhere, no matter how many hours or days or weeks he spent preparing for everything he did for Ken.

The old man didn’t even frown.

“Ahh… well,” Wei nodded his head as he helped Ken sit up, the boy’s nerves tingling and his body loose after hours of needles being pushed into his back. One hundred and forty-four of them all over, each one dipped in some sort of potion that made his skin tingle deep when they were pushed in and after Old Wei had pulled each one of them out. “Very weak root, then. Very deep. Some trouble but…” 

Wrinkly but strong hands patted his shoulders as he gave the boy his friendly, crinkly smile, a look that pushed back the heat in Ken’s chest. “Ten years to grow tree, hundred years to grow a man.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Wei refused to give up on him, the old man determined to do what he could. Ken could appreciate that, a lot in fact, but sometimes the man’s attempts were… hard on him.

Almost two months into living with Wei, the old man had changed up their routine just the tiniest bit. Every night, just before he went to sleep on the soft, clean mattress that still felt like a miracle, Wei would bring him a small clay cup to drink.

The cup itself was filled with a thick liquid, smooth but dense, and the same color as some of Wei’s darkest and greenest herbs. As if to make things worse, it smelled worse than the gunk the old man had caked his chest with weeks ago. 

Only nowhere near as colorful.

Mud, rotting leaves, crushed bitter-weeds, and the worst of the sludge river runoff from the dumping pits forced its way into his nose with a force that was almost physical, Ken already gagging before his lips even touched it. 

This was a smell that just screamed poison.

That first night, he’d stared down at the swirling, steaming liquid for far too long. His hands were wrapped around the cool clay of the cup, swallowing a mouthful of spit before he looked back up at Wei’s smiling, patient face. “Do I… really…”

He didn’t finish what he had to say, the words trailing off as he looked back down at the cup in his palms. It wasn’t like he needed to finish it anyway. Ken knew well enough Wei understood everything he did and didn’t say.

As he expected, the old man just chuckled, that same low sound, like wire-trees rustling in the wind at night.

“Good for bones,” the old man’s purple eyes twinkled his way. “Makes the body strong even with weak root, Kenny. You drink.”

So he drank.

It was awful, worse than he expected if that was even possible. The drink coated his entire mouth, slathering his tongue even as Ken tried to chug it and making him shut his eyes as he tried to force himself past all of this as quickly as possible. 

Eyes watering, stomach screaming, Ken drank it all, every single drop.

Wei smiled at him and took the cup. He did the same thing every single night, as soon as Ken finished downing the drink that probably tasted just as bad coming up as it did going down. 

But after the first few days, he kinda got used to it and more than that, he began to notice something.

After the first few weeks of his new nightly routine, that deep, familiar ache in his muscles, the one that had been there so long he never even thought about it… 

It wasn’t as bad anymore. 

A few months in and he noticed much more than just a little less pain. Boxes he would have struggled with, crates he could never have budged before; they were suddenly something he could push around, if not outright lift without his arms feeling like they were going to give out immediately. 

The drink might have looked and tasted like poison, but it was a poison that was killing the weakness inside him. 

And that was all he cared about.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

One evening, Ken sat by the front counter, the boy carefully grinding sun-petals into a fine, bright yellow powder with a heavy stone mortar and pestle. The work was its own meditation, Ken’s movements slow, quiet and careful.

The grinding was both a process and a skill all its own; a steady, rhythmic scrape-and-turn that had become as natural as breathing. Weeks of quiet repetition had taught him this much, and while it took focus, it wasn’t something that had Ken stressing out over whether he was doing it right anymore.

At a certain point, you just knew.

Old Wei sat silently in his comfortable chair by the hearth in the front room of the apothecary, no book in his hand as he simply kept his attention in one direction.

His direction.

“Kenshi.”

Brown eyes blinked, first down at the golden powder in the pestle in front of  him, then up over at Wei. The voice had been soft as ever, but the sound of his proper name cut through the quiet rhythm of his work just as sharply as if the old man had yelled it.

Wei almost never used that name. It was almost always Kenny or just Ken. Kenshi… that name was for something serious. “…yes, Old Wei?”

The old man leaned forward on his chair, eyes purple and shining as they caught the light from the hearthfire, flames dancing in them as he stared Ken’s way.

His gaze wasn’t on Ken’s face, though, the old man just watching his hands work as he ground the petals into powder. “Your body…” Wei started, voice slow as if each word was glass, shattered pieces he had to pick up with his bare hands. “The root is stubborn. The martial path will be hard road for you. Maybe too hard.”

What?

The words hit like a rock to the chest, all the air knocked right out of along with all the hope and everything else good he’d felt these last couple months. Too hard. The words echoed in the quiet space where the hope used to live. 

Same old story, wasn’t it? Broken. Bad meat.

Muscle memory did its work, hands still grinding even as his thoughts were everywhere but here, everything but focused as his brain tried to make sense of what he’d just heard. What was I thinking?

No, seriously, what had he expected? That maybe this time would be different? That maybe Wei could fix what was wrong with him? Stupid.

“But the martial path is not the only one.” But Wei wasn’t finished talking as the old man smiled, a different kind of smile this time, not just kind but something else. Proud? Of who?

Of what?

What was there to be proud of, about the village freak?

He pointed a wrinkled finger at the mortar and pestle in Ken’s hands, the tools that felt right in his grip, felt like they belonged there. “A keen mind. Skilled hands. This is also power, Kenshi. A different kind of power.”

Different power?

Wei stood up from his chair with a quiet groan, the old man shuffling past the hearth as he crossed the room over to the big shelf against the far wall. A book on the lower shelf fell into his hand and Wei moved over to the counter, turning the heavy leather-bound thing over in his hands. The dark leather was worn smooth in some places, cracked at the spine like dry sun-baked earth from the wastes. Ancient.

“The body is a vessel,” Wei said, voice dropping to that low thoughtful murmur he got sometimes when he was thinking about big things. “But the soul shapes the body. The body follows the mind. The mind fills the soul. If you cannot fill the vessel with the power of the world…” He tapped the cover of the old book with one long gnarled finger. “You will learn to use the power of the world for your own means.”

Power of the world?

His purple eyes burned with sudden fierce intensity, bright enough to make Ken blink. “I will teach you. The real art. Alchemy.”

Alchemy. Ken stared at the old book, then up at Wei’s friendly face, the crushing disappointment from a moment ago washing away like dirty water down a drain, replaced by something bright and hot and so full of hope it almost hurt to hold it.

A different kind of power.

His voice came out shaky when he finally managed to speak, words tripping over themselves in his excitement, the old breath-conscious caution forgotten for once. “…yes. Yes, please, Old Wei. Teach me.”

Wei’s smile widened, wrinkles stretching deep into his face. “Good, good, good boy.” The old man patted Ken’s head, his hand warm and gentle through the thick curly hair. “We begin tomorrow.”