The many faces and names that were mov-ing on the oth-er side of the wall were un-fa-mil-iar to Sobon, save only two--Djang Ban Fei and Djang Ban Dai--at least un-til the fig-ure next to him passed through the door-way. Sobon sim-ply stood and watched for now, the aching in his body mut-ed by the mi-nor im-prove-ments to his frame--but also, now, made sharp-er by the el-e-vat-ed am-bi-ent qi.


    "Di-a-mond Lord!" There were many salutes and many signs of re-lief through-out the room, even from what Sobon could tell with-out ac-tu-al-ly look-ing in. The Founder, in his oblig-a-to-ry dis-guise, moved to the throne, the one prop-er seat in the room and the cen-ter of mark-ings and ar-rays of sev-er-al dif-fer-ent mean-ings and styles--some only vi-su-al, oth-ers based in qi, still oth-ers in aether, and some in the Founders'' own style. That had been a sur-prise, when Sobon first learned about it, but the more he un-der-stood of what had come be-fore this par-tic-u-lar Founder messed every-thing up, the less sur-prised he was to find signs of med-dling all around.


    "Fi-nal-ly, we can dis-cuss--" one of the Djang fam-i-ly lead-ers, clear-ly used to act-ing as the Di-a-mond Lord''s sec-ond, turned to the rest of the room in re-lief, but he was cut off im-me-di-ate-ly.


    [ We be-gin when I say we be-gin, ] the Di-a-mond Lord said, mo-ments be-fore he sat down. [ There are mat-ters at hand more im-por-tant than the Ren fam-i-ly and the in-sult they have made to my-self and the Em-pire. ] He al-lowed a pause, his in-tent flick-er-ing a word-less mes-sage to the rest to know that he would not find it in-sult-ing if their at-ten-tion wa-vered or they spoke qui-et-ly.


    Nonethe-less, none did, and Sobon would have been as-ton-ished if any-one there could have named a sin-gle thing more im-por-tant than lis-ten-ing to what-ev-er the Di-a-mond Lord said next. When He did not speak, how-ev-er, Djang Ban Fei--the fa-vored grand-daugh-ter, Princess, and lead-ing prodi-gy of the gen-er-a-tion just now reach-ing adult-hood--spoke up.


    "You re-al-ly are dy-ing, aren''t you, grand-fa-ther?"


    In that mo-ment, the tense si-lence was fi-nal-ly shat-tered by sev-er-al scoffs and mut-tered words. There were sev-er-al sharp glances at her, di-rect-ed waves of in-tent, and even whis-pers to the ef-fect of, "Qui-et!" that were far too loud for an oth-er-wise silent room. But, there were also wor-ried glances be-tween peo-ple who were think-ing the same thing, but too afraid to voice it.


    [ I am not dy-ing. I am al-ready dead. ] As a be-ing that spoke with in-tent alone, there was no way to ques-tion or deny the truth or the Di-a-mond Lord''s mes-sage, no room for mis-un-der-stand-ing. The shock-wave of aether that spilled out in re-sponse, Sobon not-ed, ex-tend-ed far be-yond the reach of the room, as sev-er-al lines of fate were pulled taught, words fi-nal-ly spo-ken and wit-nessed that could nev-er be ful-ly con-cealed again, not even by the ac-tions of a Founder, not even if every last wit-ness to those words was killed. In-tu-ition, not knowl-edge, so-lid-i-fied in the wills of thou-sands world-wide, and peo-ple sen-si-tive to the flows of time, fate, and con-se-quence un-der-stood only that things that once were im-mov-able had be-gun to shift.


    Sobon''s mind, wire-less-ly linked to an ar-ray with-in the palace that the Founder had made for him, tracked some parts of those flows of en-er-gy, but his mind was too ad-dled to be as pre-cise as it had been, es-pe-cial-ly with this body be-ing only shod-di-ly re-paired. It would serve its pur-pose to the end--but only as long as the Founder could main-tain and im-prove it. And the Founder had promised that ea-ger-ly, even though they both doubt-ed that it would be free to act in such a way for as long as might be need-ed.


    When no one dared speak the ques-tions on their tongues, the Di-a-mond Lord con-tin-ued. [ I died be-liev-ing that I was pro-tect-ing this world from a pow-er-ful threat. I died be-liev-ing that I was aveng-ing a friend and men-tor. And yet, though I died in com-bat, none of you even knew. [Such a thing] now pre-sides over the dy-ing days of the Em-pire. ]


    Again, the im-pli-ca-tion of the words could not be con-cealed, not so long as the Founder spoke with in-tent, and Sobon not-ed the in-tense fear and rage that be-gan to bub-ble up in those pre-sent. Sobon not-ed that the phras-ing matched a prophe-cy that he had been told of, by Djang Ban Fen her-self: I have al-ready seen it; [such a thing] will pre-side over the fall of the Em-pire. And clear-ly, most or all of the peo-ple in-vit-ed to this meet-ing were aware of that prophe-cy, not-ed the phras-ing and the in-tent.


    Sobon was sur-prised, but not too sur-prised, when two of the high fam-i-ly lead-ers pre-sent flared their qi in anger, in-tend-ing to con-test the will of the man, but the Founder had no more dif-fi-cul-ty sup-press-ing them than he would have had sup-press-ing Sobon. De-spite the im-mense pow-er at their dis-pos-al, their per-spec-tive was too lim-it-ed, their ed-u-ca-tion to lit-tle. Even so, the shock-wave of their qi be-ing un-leashed even for a mo-ment made the walls slight-ly char and the floor and ceil-ing buck-le.


    [ I trust that you un-der-stand that if [that be-ing] had wished to harm or end the em-pire, it would have suc-ceed-ed, ] the Di-a-mond Lord con-tin-ued, his men-tal voice show-ing no sign of strain de-spite op-press-ing two of the most pow-er-ful qi users in the world. Sobon could ac-knowl-edge that it was like-ly the most non-cha-lant dis-play of im-mense pow-er that he had ever wit-nessed. [ The dy-ing days of the Em-pire are not an end to the world it-self. [ All that lives must die], and an Em-pire is noth-ing if not a liv-ing be-ing. It is the task of liv-ing be-ings not to live for-ev-er, but to re-pro-duce, and then to make way for those that fol-low. ]


    Sobon, de-spite lay-ers of shield-ing cre-at-ed and main-tained by the Founder it-self, shiv-ered at the ab-solute fi-nal-i-ty in the spir-i-tu-al truth of those few words. It car-ried with it echoes, as though they were per-son-al mem-o-ries, of the death of world, star sys-tems, galax-ies. But... there was also a sub-tler truth there, one that Sobon was like like-ly the only one pre-sent who had the ed-u-ca-tion to un-der-stand: that the death of stars was a nec-es-sary step for the birth of plan-ets... and had been nec-es-sary for the birth of mankind.


    Still... this tac-tic, of em-brac-ing the idea of the Em-pire end-ing and tran-si-tion-ing to some-thing else, was some-thing that the two of them had only be-grudg-ing-ly set-tled on af-ter con-sid-er-ing sev-er-al plans to ma-nip-u-late the fu-ture of the world, with the Founder study-ing the tan-gled fates at the heart of the Em-pire. Nei-ther was hap-py with it, or with the in-cred-i-ble vi-o-lence they both knew would fol-low, but when the plan was fi-nal-ly laid out, he had to ad-mit that it both stood a chance of suc-ceed-ing--and it seemed to line up with his own ''prophe-cy'', the fu-ture he had seen af-ter cre-at-ing the two Crestan Crowns.


    "And what if we do not con-sent to be-ing ruled over by [such a thing]?" One of the Fam-i-ly Lord''s voic-es rose, and Sobon only not-ed when his mind cleared a few mo-ments lat-er that it was one of the peo-ple who had been di-rect-ly op-pressed--and that his voice and car-riage had al-ready re-cov-ered from the Di-a-mond Lord''s own spir-i-tu-al pres-sure. "Do you in-tend to re-place us as well?"


    There was a great ten-sion in the room, but it was bro-ken by the Di-a-mond Lord chuck-ling, the rare sound of his voice echo-ing a lit-tle odd-ly in the room. [ I would be dis-ap-point-ed if you will-ing-ly ac-cept-ed such a thing, ] he an-swered. [ No [ be-ings from be-yond this world ] will rule in the next age of mankind, whether as en-e-my or ally. That is both an oath, and a prophe-cy. ]


    "Can-not those be-ings be [of any face]?" An-oth-er fam-i-ly leader, one of the rar-er women in the room, spoke with great doubt and con-cern in her voice.


    [ The oath and prophe-cy are spo-ken, and the stars shall not see them bro-ken, ] was all the Di-a-mond Lord an-swered her, and as of-ten hap-pened in this world, Sobon thought that the phras-ing was some-how too spe-cif-ic to be lit-er-al, though he lacked the con-text to grasp it all.


    "If We un-der-stand what you are say-ing, Grand-fa-ther," Prince Djang Ban Dai spoke up, draw-ing glances from the adults, "you do not in-tend to pro-tect the Em-pire? De-spite the strength you still have re-main-ing?"


    The wave of in-tent that rolled off of the Lord con-tained a sense of ap-proval, rather than ir-ri-ta-tion. [ This sem-blance that re-mains be-fore you does not have the strength to de-fend the Em-pire. But there is a more im-por-tant task. ]


    "See-ing to what comes next," said an-oth-er Fam-i-ly Leader, and the Di-a-mond Lord nod-ded at him.


    [ En-ter, ] the Di-a-mond Lord said, and Sobon moved for-ward smooth-ly, as though he''d been ex-pect-ing the cue, though he hadn''t, or not at that mo-ment. The mo-ment he crossed through the door, he felt more in-tense-ly the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure of an en-tire room full of be-ings in the Flame phase of qi fo-cus-ing on him--of which Djang Ban Fen and Djang Ban Dai, whose spir-its he had felt pre-vi-ous-ly, were the low-est. Al-though he had no sense of the stages of Qi, he was sure that many of these peo-ple were whole tiers ahead of those two young ones. Still... the dif-fer-ence in pres-sure was not much dif-fer-ent than be-ing forced to act un-der the watch-ful eye of com-mand-ing of-fi-cers. What mat-tered was per-form-ing his role, an he in-tend-ed to do just that.


    "Ugh," a voice that could not be quite iden-ti-fied said, in dis-gust, though Sobon was sure the voice was male. "What is that hor-rid thing?"


    "That," Sobon said, his voice and the aether wave be-hind it pinched, pained, and qui-et com-pared to the oth-ers in the room, though he didn''t let that stop him or even slow him down. He did have to add a bit of ex-tra punch to trans-mit the ir-ri-ta-tion in his voice well enough to be heard, "is a who, not a what, thank you very much."


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    There was a col-lec-tive sense of dread and ir-ri-ta-tion, mixed into a con-fused mess, but the Di-a-mond Lord sim-ply re-spond-ed with amuse-ment. [ This be-ing you only need to iden-ti-fy as [An-gel] for now. ] That word, Sobon not-ed, con-tained a com-pli-cat-ed twist of qi, and he was sure that to those who need-ed to know, it con-firmed that Sobon was--or had been--Shi-va Alas-si, and per-haps even hint-ed as his true iden-ti-ty. [ [An-gel] has agreed to over-see a com-pe-ti-tion, one that I hope will help de-ter-mine the fu-ture of the world. It will be an-nounced as a com-pe-ti-tion to suc-ceed the Di-a-mond Lord--but the com-pe-ti-tion will not have that ef-fect. That prophe-cy shall not be shared out-side of this room. ] Though the Di-a-mond Lord didn''t spec-i-fy a penal-ty, Sobon could feel a pow-er-ful fate bind-ing fall across every-one in the room.


    Those bind-ings couldn''t stop the vi-brat-ing fate strings from re-lay-ing in-tu-ition across the world, but that was nev-er the in-ten-tion.


    "You in-tend to raise a new gen-er-a-tion of lead-ers?" One of the fam-i-ly lead-ers glanced side-long at the two young prodi-gies in the room, and even Sobon could sense the hang-ing im-pli-ca-tion, like an iron-clad con-dem-na-tion. They have been found un-wor-thy.


    In-stead of an-swer-ing, the Di-a-mond Lord sim-ply shift-ed so that he could ac-tu-al-ly look at Sobon, which was cue enough for every-one else to si-lence.


    "I was asked to use my knowl-edge and wis-dom to cre-ate a se-ries of tasks, or tests, if you pre-fer." Sobon stepped for-ward, as brazen-ly as if he were sim-ply giv-ing a pre-sen-ta-tion in front of a re-view board, and he paid no at-ten-tion to the peo-ple who bris-tled at the ac-tion. "Some in this room are al-ready fa-mil-iar with the [Crestan Crown]. It is an ar-ti-fact that both trains a per-son to pu-ri-fy their qi, and tests their lev-el of achieve-ment. That ar-ti-fact was only a rough first at-tempt, and once giv-en the re-sources, I will cre-ate a fi-nal ver-sion, one suit-ed for peo-ple strong enough to be con-sid-ered can-di-dates to re-place the Di-a-mond Lord."


    The ''I will'' in that sen-tence was as-sum-ing a lot, and gloss-ing over a lot of is-sues, but with the help of the Em-pire''s re-sources and the Ri''lef en-gi-neers, Sobon was cer-tain it could be done.


    "Pu-ri-fied qi? Why?" Some-one, who Sobon thought was only an at-ten-dant or gen-er-al of the fam-i-ly lead-ers, giv-en how he stood aside, mut-tered the ques-tion as though he ex-pect-ed it to be over-looked, but he also didn''t crum-ble or re-spond when the room''s at-ten-tion shift-ed to him.


    "A fool-ish ques-tion," Sobon an-swered, tired-ly. "If you are un-able to cre-ate pu-ri-fied qi, then you don''t un-der-stand qi it-self. You will nev-er be wor-thy of great pow-er if you can-not un-der-stand that pow-er. At best, you can be wor-thi-er than oth-ers." He put enough aether be-hind his emo-tion that he felt even the least sen-si-tive in the room could feel his gen-uine scorn for that con-cept. It was a per-for-mance, of course, but an hon-est one.


    Again, many in the room bris-tled, but no one dared ob-ject, not when the Di-a-mond Lord did not.


    "The sec-ond ar-ti-fact is also known to you all, though I won-der how many of you un-der-stand it. The [Di-a-mond Throne] in this very room is a pow-er not to be un-der-es-ti-mat-ed, and any who dare to stand at the pin-na-cle of the world will need to test their wis-dom against it. I think that few if any of the peo-ple in this room could suc-cess-ful-ly use that pow-er, al-though most could at least sur-vive it. I will craft a num-ber of less-er ver-sions, again suit-able for train-ing."


    The Throne it-self was two things--first, a bea-con that served to am-pli-fy the Di-a-mond Lord''s Bless-ing, and which had helped main-tain it since the Di-a-mond Lord had died. But... it was also a mas-sive aether ar-ray tied to sev-er-al oth-er seals across the world, each of which ex-tend-ed the Em-pire''s pow-er and sup-pressed oth-ers, pro-vid-ing the abil-i-ty to view and com-mand the Di-a-mond Lord''s do-main from afar. If peo-ple tru-ly came to un-der-stand the less-er Thrones he pro-vid-ed, they could do the same--and the world would be di-vid-ed, per-haps for good... but very like-ly for evil.


    Even so, Sobon sus-pect-ed that most peo-ple who tried wouldn''t have the abil-i-ty, even af-ter train-ing with the Crown. The aether-based con-trols, when he had tried to ma-nip-u-late them, were very del-i-cate and re-spond-ed bad-ly to spir-i-tu-al in-tent, lash-ing back against the user. Since the peo-ple of this world learned to cre-ate in-tent first, and would most-ly only learn to ma-nip-u-late en-er-gy with-out in-tent in the process of learn-ing with the Crown... most would have great dif-fi-cul-ty with that.


    Sobon paused his in-tro-spec-tion to note the var-i-ous faces in the room. Many seemed ful-ly aware of the fact that the Throne it-self was a pow-er-ful ar-ti-fact, but if Sobon were to guess, many were not; odd-ly, the young Prince seemed aware, but the more fa-vored Princess un-aware. Per-haps it had sim-ply been re-vealed in some dis-cus-sion that only he was pre-sent in? Sobon had no rea-son to think Djang Ban Fen had been snubbed.


    "The third ar-ti-fact is the [Fairy Orb]. Al-though it is not yet cre-at-ed, it is one I am per-son-al-ly quite fa-mil-iar with. It is a trans-port ar-ti-fact, and will be nec-es-sary when threats--and vis-i-tors--from be-yond the world ap-pear. I would also po-lite-ly sug-gest that they be used to moves bat-tles be-tween great pow-ers away from the world, to places where us-ing one''s full pow-er will not dev-as-tate the spir-it of the world. Whether you are all aware of it or not... this has al-ready be-come a se-ri-ous prob-lem." Sobon scowled, re-mem-ber-ing the ter-ri-ble scars he''d seen in the world''s spir-it from the be-yond, scars that came from un-re-pen-tant use of pow-er lev-els that, in a more civ-i-lized world, would gen-er-al-ly be re-strict-ed by in-ter-na-tion-al treaty. There were... oth-er scars, too, but this was one that Sobon hoped he could triv-ial-ly pre-vent... if giv-ing peo-ple pock-etable star-ships could be con-sid-ered triv-ial.


    "The spir-it of the world?" One of the fam-i-ly lead-ers spoke up, his voice du-bi-ous. "Is that re-al-ly--"


    "Don''t ask stu-pid ques-tions," an-oth-er snapped at him. "Be-sides, we''ve all seen it, even if we don''t want to call it that. The world takes far longer to re-cov-er af-ter bat-tles over a cer-tain lev-el. Too long. If some-one the Di-a-mond Lord says is an An-gel from an-oth-er world says that''s be-cause the world spir-it is dam-aged, have the pres-ence of mind to ac-cept that wis-dom. Id-iot."


    Sobon could sense from the var-i-ous in-ter-ac-tions around the room that that per-son''s opin-ion wasn''t uni-ver-sal-ly shared, but chose to ig-nore it.


    "The last ar-ti-fact is some-what dif-fer-ent," Sobon said, adding a cer-tain per-for-ma-tive doubt to his voice as he did, though again, that per-for-mance mir-rored his feel-ings be-neath--but those feel-ings wouldn''t be vis-i-ble un-der all of this spir-i-tu-al pres-sure. "I orig-i-nal-ly cre-at-ed it on a whim, I would not have done it if I had un-der-stood, though the Di-a-mond Lord''s read-ing of the world''s fate sug-gests that it was a wis-er choice than I could have known. Al-though I will cre-ate a greater, and sev-er-al less-er, ver-sions, I ex-pect that it will be the most and least fa-mil-iar to those who rise to the lev-el of the Di-a-mond Lord." Sobon paused only a mo-ment, not be-cause he wished to add grav-i-tas to the words, but to spare a mo-ment for Ki''el, and to the trou-ble he had caused her, and would cause her in the fu-ture. He made a men-tal note to let her know, the next time they talked. "The [Aether Sword]. A blade that con-tains a pu-ri-fied pow-er, which can be what it is--or which can be more, or less, or noth-ing at all. Un-yield-ing and im-mune to de-cay, at once a triv-ial item and too great for any mor-tal ar-ti-san to repli-cate. There ex-ists only one in this world at pre-sent... in the hands of my ap-pren-tice."


    The sud-den in-crease in pres-sure on Sobon in re-sponse to those words ir-ri-tat-ed him, but he did catch the Prince and Princess ex-chang-ing looks, and he didn''t dis-like what he thought he saw in their ex-pres-sions. Pleas-ant sur-prise, like they were hear-ing a friend be-ing men-tioned.


    [ Crown and throne, orb and blade. Greater and less-er ver-sions of these four ar-ti-facts will be dis-trib-uted to the win-ners and wor-thies of twelve tour-na-ments, none to the death, with each tour-na-ment hav-ing di-vi-sions by strength, ] the Di-a-mond Lord de-creed, and Sobon un-der-stood that even with the Di-a-mond Lord hav-ing de-clared his own death, these words would be heed-ed to the let-ter. [ The low-est di-vi-sion shall be those not yet reach-ing Heav-en-ly Gem. The mid-dle di-vi-sion shall be those not yet reach-ing Mor-tal Flame. And the high-est di-vi-sion will ex-clude any-one who should hap-pen to have al-ready reached Tran-scen-dent Flame. Five years af-ter the last of these twelve tour-na-ments, [An-gel] shall reap-pear to judge those who have ob-tained the ar-ti-facts and reached at least Im-mor-tal Flame, and the wor-thi-est user of each shall re-ceive the true ver-sion of each ar-ti-fact. It will like-ly not be the most pow-er-ful per-son in pos-ses-sion of such an ar-ti-fact who will be found the wor-thi-est. ]


    There was ac-tu-al-ly mur-mured dis-cus-sion at that, and Sobon took the time to re-view the men-tal list of Qi Phas-es. The tiers cho-sen for the tour-na-ment were not ar-bi-trary--each of them added a lay-er of aether. To the oth-ers, though, it prob-a-bly did seem ar-bi-trary; Heav-en-ly Gem was the fourth tier, and Mor-tal Flame the sixth. Tran-scen-dant Flame was the high-est rank that the Founder was com-fort-able re-veal-ing the ex-is-tence of, though the-o-ret-i-cal-ly, not the great-est achiev-able--but the Di-a-mond Lord was prob-a-bly also the only one who could achieve it, un-less Sobon''s ar-ti-facts changed things, which... they like-ly would.


    The tour-na-ment idea was... not Sobon''s idea, and not the Founder''s, but had come from the rem-nant mem-o-ries of the Di-a-mond Lord him-self. Nei-ther of them were par-tic-u-lar-ly com-fort-able with the idea of giv-ing out ar-ti-facts to the great-est war-riors, but there were no great users of aether who were not also dead-ly com-bat-ants, and it was worth bring-ing them all to-geth-er in "friend-ly" com-pe-ti-tion, if that would let them dis-trib-ute the ar-ti-facts fair-ly across the world.


    And that was the in-tent. The win-ners of the tour-na-ment would re-ceive them, but... the Di-a-mond Lord, though per-haps the oth-ers may not have un-der-stood, had phrased it as ''win-ners and wor-thies''. And Sobon ful-ly in-tend-ed to find peo-ple wor-thy who would nev-er have a chance of win-ning the tour-na-ment.


    "What about the ex-ist-ing crowns, and the ex-ist-ing sword?" A Fam-i-ly Leader asked. "Are they cheat-ing?"


    The Founder looked again at Sobon, as though de-fer-ring the top-ic to him, al-though they had al-ready dis-cussed it.


    "If we con-sid-ered that un-fair, then all ar-ti-facts would need to be dis-trib-uted at the same time," he said. "The tour-na-ments will not all be held at once, but will be scat-tered across the world and spaced across years. Those who are un-wor-thy to wield or bear them will not be-come more wor-thy sim-ply be-cause they are giv-en time. And while there may be some ad-van-tage in the fi-nal com-pe-ti-tions, those wor-thies who reach that lev-el will be judged know-ing how long they have pos-sessed each item."


    There was more dis-cus-sion af-ter that, but for the most part, Sobon''s part was fin-ished for to-day. And that was good--this body was ir-ri-tat-ing him. The en-gi-neer-ing of the ar-ti-facts, and their build-ing, would take time and ef-fort... but with all the re-sources of the Di-a-mond Lord avail-able to him, it would be em-bar-rass-ing if he couldn''t do this much, even crip-pled and on a world with-out prop-er fab-ri-ca-tion fa-cil-i-ties.


    He just hoped that Ki''el, and Lui, and Mian and the rest would get through all this trou-ble al-right. The thought that they might not cre-at-ed an ache in his spir-it very dif-fer-ent from the ones his wounds gave him.