Zeph Kaizen's Arc

Chapter 2 of 51

The platform stayed quiet for a long time. Zeph sat with his back against a pillar and waited for the light in the rails to tell him what to do. It didn't. His ki still felt calm, but calm was not gold. Calm would not stop a knife. He thought of his grandmother's stories and tried to force the change the way she said it came — anger, grief, a scream at the sky. Nothing answered. He punched the marble until his knuckles split. The blood was normal red. A train arrived without a sound. The doors opened on a car he had not seen before. An old man stepped out, thin, in a plain grey coat, carrying a metal case under one arm. He looked at Zeph the way a farmer looks at a field. "You're louder than the tracks warned me," he said. "Stand up." Zeph stood. "Who are you?" "Keji. The station called. I came." He set the case down and flicked it open with his boot. Inside, packed in dark cloth, lay a gauntlet — steel plates, glowing seams in three colors, runes stamped around the wrist. "The gold form is not today's lesson. Today you learn to survive until it is." "They saw where I went," Zeph said. "The station's the only door in or out." "Then they'll come through it." Master Keji lifted the gauntlet and held it out. "Put this on your right hand. It borrows what you already have and gives it back sharper. It is not the form. It is a crutch. Do not confuse them." Zeph slid his hand in. The metal warmed. The seams lit under his fingers and the loose heat in his chest lined up along his arm like water finding a channel. Boots hit the platform behind them. Four men, the same four, knives out, the heavy one in front. They had followed the tracks. "Move," Keji said, and stepped aside. Zeph raised the gauntlet. The lead hunter lunged. Zeph swung and the air cracked. The man flew back into the pillar and slid down it. The second came low; Zeph struck the floor and a ring of light knocked him off his feet. The third and fourth ran. He hit them both before they reached the doors. It was over in under a minute. His arm shook. The seams in the gauntlet dimmed to embers. Keji crouched by the heavy hunter and checked his pulse, then stood. "Alive. They'll wake and report. More will come, and better ones. You held them off with a tool. That is not the same as holding them off with yourself." "Then teach me," Zeph said. Keji picked up the empty case. "The tracks chose you a stop. We get off there tomorrow. Sleep. The gauntlet stays on. You'll need it before you don't."