《The Power Cycle [Vol 2: The Aether Sword]》


 Prelude - Death of a Marine

    As it of-ten hap-pened in mil-i-tary life, the worst day of Sobon''s life was also his last. Some might even call that a re-lease, a mer-cy; Sobon him-self would have dis-agreed.


    Sobon was a mil-i-tary cy-borg aboard the Crestan De-stroy-erIri-des-cent Rapi-er, on ex-tend-ed pa-trol when they re-ceived word that a hos-tile force was set-ting up a por-tal re-lay out-sys-tem. They and a hand-ful of es-cort ships warped in to find that their force was out-matched by two bat-tle-ships, both hun-gry for blood. A fight-ing re-treat made the en-e-my pur-suit cost-ly, but theRapi-ercouldn''t last.


    As a Mixed Ma-rine, Sobon had no role in ship-to-ship com-bat, and was in a troop car-ri-er in the launch bay when a par-ti-cle beam blew out theRapi-er''s de-fens-es and sent most of the ship''s crew to join the In-fi-nite Cy-cle.


    The troop car-ri-er''s own shields blunt-ed the blast--a safe-ty pro-to-col de-signed to in-crease sur-viv-abil-i-ty in ex-act-ly these cir-cum-stances--but the boat was still crip-pled, and sev-er-al of the more fleshy Marines didn''t sur-vive that ini-tial shock. Sobon was a Class IX cy-borg, less than 10% flesh, and his sys-tems sur-vived in min-i-mal-pow-er mode, his brain and heart--the last rem-nants of his orig-i-nal body--bruised but still func-tion-ing. He could do lit-tle but watch as one of his squad-mates worked for hours to re-store pow-er, and chan-neled what re-mained of the aether bat-ter-ies and one half-crip-pled dy-namo into an im-promp-tu in-sys-tem jump us-ing her own flesh as a ma-trix.


    In short, she drained the mag-ic bat-ter-ies and de-stroyed her own body to tele-port them clos-er to home. That would have been a no-ble but trag-ic sac-ri-fice, if it had worked.


    They came out in a civ-i-lized part of the as-ter-oid belt, but rocks out-num-bered peo-ple by a fac-tor of thou-sands to one, and the jump al-most im-me-di-ate-ly smashed the trans-port into an as-ter-oid the size of a large build-ing. Sobon and at least one oth-er sur-vived that im-pact, but the crash only pushed them back into the rocky field, and it wasn''t long be-fore the derelict ves-sel drift-ed be-tween two rocks, which gen-tly touched to-geth-er in the way that only two un-stop-pable forces could.


    Sobon''s con-scious-ness sur-vived, but most of his cy-borg body, and his last re-main-ing com-pa-tri-ot, did not.


    It was an-oth-er eight hours be-fore, mer-ci-ful-ly, a metal-lic as-ter-oid rough-ly the size and shape of a small freight ve-hi-cle ap-peared from nowhere he could de-tect and put him out of his mis-ery. Con-sid-er-ing how long he had been wish-ing for death, it was long over-due. All he could do was won-der as the light glint-ed strange-ly off the front, as though it was shin-ing lights in his eyes, and then that light swal-lowed him.


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    Sobon jerked sud-den-ly, his sud-den-ly un-fa-mil-iar body twist-ed in agony. He was un-cer-tain ex-act-ly where he was, but some kind of shod-dy im-plant--far too slow and im-pre-cise to be mil-i-tary, in fact, worse than any he''d ever used--slow-ly fill-ing him in to where he was and who was around him.


    They were not friend-lies.


    A large man, at least halfway to mor-bid-ly ob-sese with dis-gust-ing-ly thick jowls and a thick coat-ing of oily black filth cov-er-ing near-ly every ex-posed inch of his skin, was pin-ning his up-per body down, while an-oth-er, sim-i-lar-ly aw-ful man was stand-ing in front of him, wip-ing what looked like brass knuck-les with a dirty cloth. Both, by the time he reg-is-tered their ex-is-tence, were star-ing at him, and both had iden-ti-cal brain-less, malev-o-lent stares.


    "Ere," said the one hold-ing him down, "looks like he''s not dead af-ter all, mate."


    "Coul-da sworn his breath-ing stopped." Knuck-les turned and squat-ted down, well into kick-ing range, and Sobon''s in-stincts kicked into over-drive.


    He threw his weight down, and his legs sprung into the air, land-ing his heel in the oth-er man''s face. In the same mo-ment, al-though it felt like the grip on him was sol-id as steel, he twist-ed him-self free, putting every scrap of strength he had into push-ing him-self away from his cap-tor.


    It took an im-pos-si-bly long mo-ment for him to re-al-ized he was hold-ing him-self in midair with trem-bling mus-cles, be-cause nei-ther the man he had kicked in the face, nor the man he was push-ing on with his whole up-per body, had moved an inch. They had no pan-ic, no flinch-ing in-stinct, as though not only had they felt no pain, but his weight was noth-ing to them.


    "Oh, he''s got some heat from ''is brush with death." Knuck-les reached up and grabbed Sobon''s an-kle from right in front of his face, and Sobon re-al-ized in that mo-ment just how small he was com-pared to them--far small-er than his bodyshouldbe, at least in re-la-tion to an av-er-age male. His cy-borg body had been lithe, yes, but of av-er-age height. "Best we beat that out of ''im in case he keeps on livin''. No good comes of a street rat that don''t know his place."


    Sobon''s body was burn-ing with pain. He had bruis-es all over his tor-so, and now that he''d moved, it was clear he had at least one bro-ken rib, though it had mer-ci-ful-ly missed his or-gans. More than that, though, this lit-tle bit of ex-er-cise was drain-ing what lit-tle strength he had, and he re-al-ized he had noth-ing left to re-sist.


    Knuck-les land-ed a blow to his side with those nasty brass knuck-les of his, and Sobon could feel his kid-ney light up with agony, that in-ef-fi-cient im-plant-like as-sis-tant feed-ing him data all too slow-ly. More blows came, and every one of them crip-pled him in a dif-fer-ent way, un-til he was curled up, dark-ness threat-en-ing to over-take him once again.


    The last thing he heard was the oth-er brute snort-ing a laugh. "Cheeky bug-ger ain''t even got a bit of qi in ''im any-way, what good is he? Worth-less street rat."

 1. Jom, part One

    Sobon found him-self dan-gling up-side down in a dark place by his an-kle. When he looked around, he found that he seemed to be des-tined to be one of a num-ber of grue-some spec-ta-cles, as there were oth-er bod-ies strung up be-side him in a row, all carved open and miss-ing or-gans, only the last of them still drip-ping blood. The lo-ca-tion seemed to be a dead-end al-ley-way of stone walls on three sides, emp-ty-ing out into a cor-ner or in-ter-sec-tion a lit-tle ways away. Of the butch-er re-spon-si-ble for the grue-some dis-play around him, he could see no sign.


    He closed his eyes and did his best to re-call what had hap-pened since he ar-rived, though it wasn''t much. As he did, that in-ef-fi-cient as-sis-tant roused from its own slum-ber, and he tried to shout cod-ed in-struc-tions at it. When he did, though, it only with-ered back from the in-ten-si-ty of his men-tal com-mands, not seem-ing to un-der-stand.


    He tried again, low-er-ing his in-ten-si-ty, but it was not un-til he low-ered him-self to think-ing in words that the blast-ed thing fi-nal-ly re-spond-ed. What are you? he asked, in frus-tra-tion.


    [ I''m you, or I was. ] The voice that an-swered was small and shak-ing. [ But I died, and uh... you took over. ]


    Sobon parsed those words with a de-cent frac-tion of his old cy-borg ef-fi-cien-cy, quick-ly dis-card-ing any thought of sit-ting around try-ing to un-der-stand why, or if this was even real. They said I don''t have qi. What is that?


    [ Qi is qi. ] The last word was, at last, a cod-ed in-for-ma-tion pack-et, though it seemed frus-trat-ing-ly in-stinc-tu-al, fleshy. Sobon tore the thought apart, to find that the voice in his head knew lit-tle. Ap-par-ent-ly, the word de-scribed a lo-cal form of Aether, sim-i-lar to the en-er-gy in the great galac-tic veins that pow-ered warp dri-ves and made ad-vanced civ-i-liza-tions pos-si-ble, but it was pure-ly lim-it-ed, in the bro-ken crea-ture''s un-der-stand-ing, to re-in-forc-ing bi-o-log-i-cal sys-tems and some ba-sic en-er-gy ef-fects.


    That''s all? Sobon dis-liked the im-pli-ca-tions of the thought in-tense-ly. These back-wards peo-ple had in their pos-ses-sion the keys to the uni-verse, and all they knew to do with the stuff was punch hard-er and set things on fire? He shook his head, think-ing. There was no way that the body had no ac-cess to Aether; that wasn''t how bi-ol-o-gy func-tioned, from the cel-lu-lar lev-el up-wards. The prob-lem was get-ting start-ed uti-liz-ing it.


    The thought pack-et had no in-for-ma-tion on that, ob-vi-ous-ly, but Sobon had fin-ished ex-plor-ing the lo-cal knowl-edge for the mo-ment. In-stead, he re-laxed his body, let-ting his nerves feed him un-bi-ased data on his wounds, and cat-a-loged his in-juries. That bro-ken rib was still the worst of it, but he felt agony rip-ple through him with every twitch of a mus-cle, as nerves in most of his or-gans com-plained of bruis-es and worse. Now, of course, his foot was los-ing cir-cu-la-tion where the rope cut into him, and soon enough it would be be-yond sav-ing.


    A foot-step at the end of the al-ley-way end-ed Sobon''s think-ing, and he jerked his en-tire body with pure will, forc-ing mus-cles that had nev-er worked prop-er-ly in their life to bring his hands all the way up to where a rope grasped his an-kle.


    "Oh, thisss one''sss ssstill got fight in it." The voice from the end of the al-ley-way was a sin-is-ter hiss, but Sobon ig-nored it, fo-cus-ing on the knot that held up his en-tire weight. As ex-pect-ed, there should have been noth-ing he could do about it, but the Mixed Ma-rine train-ing pro-gram ex-pect-ed the im-pos-si-ble from their re-cruits.


    For only a mo-ment, he was able to lift his en-tire weight with one arm, though he could feel the mus-cles in his arm on the verge of tear-ing, and with his oth-er arm, he pulled on the knot. It didn''t budge; it wasn''t ny-lon or any-thing smooth, but some kind of dis-gust-ing plant fiber rope, now held in place part-ly by how the frayed edges of it had merged into a dis-gust-ing pulpy mass glued to-geth-er with dried and dry-ing blood.


    Nev-er-the-less, a sec-ond tug loos-ened it just slight-ly.


    "Yesss, a bit of ssstrength," the voice was close, now. "All the bet-ter to--"


    Sobon didn''t need to hear the vil-lain''s speech. A third tug was all he had left in his arm, and the rope slipped just past his heel. When his el-bow and shoul-der and wrist all gave out--not to men-tion his fin-gers--the sud-den weight shift fin-ished the job.


    Sobon had a pan-icked mo-ment when he re-al-ized that as weak as he was, the fall might dis-lo-cate a shoul-der or break a bone, but he man-aged to get an arm un-der him at the right an-gle to de-flect and roll. He tried to turn the roll into a stand, but no part of his legs want-ed to sup-port him in that mo-ment.


    At the very least, he could turn to face the vis-i-tor, and he was un-sur-prised to find the crea-ture armed with a very large and very bloody knife. He could feel his body re-act-ing to the aura the wicked thing gave off, re-spond-ing with a su-per-nat-ur-al sense of for-bod-ing, as though what the knife would do to him was far worse than death.


    He took that as a good sign, which the as-sis-tant--the dead spir-it of his pre-de-ces-sor, he sup-posed--didn''t un-der-stand in any way.


    Sobon tried to speak, only to find his tongue feel-ing fat and out of place in his mouth. The ac-tion caused the ap-proach-ing men-ace to pause and ad-just his large, thick glass-es, the over-size gloves that cov-ered his hands drip-ping gore, and there was a pause as he seemed to wait to see what Sobon had to say.


    "I''m not dead," he man-aged, though he knew his pro-nun-ci-a-tion felt com-plete-ly off. The lan-guage he was speak-ing was not at all like the one he knew.


    "No, of course not," the butch-er said. "If you were, the or-gans wouldn''t be fresh when they were served." With a ca-su-al move-ment, the knife shift-ed in his hand into a re-verse grip, and the man raised it, lamp-light from the end of the al-ley glint-ing off the blade. "Do me a fa-vor and try not to punc-ture that lung while you strug-gle. It''s worth a lot."


    The aura that the blade gave off was the trig-ger, as he hoped it would be. In the mo-ment when his body could sense the blade, so clear-ly that he knew it would be there if he shut his eyes, Sobon grasped the sense, know-ing that it linked to the Aether, men-tal threads tan-gling with it and just bare-ly forc-ing it out of align-ment. Per-haps sens-ing some-thing, the man stopped the blade paused in midair, only for an in-stant, and Sobon rushed for-ward as quick-ly as his pa-thet-ic, grotesque-ly in-jured body could. Al-though he could only bare-ly stand and every move-ment sent waves of twitch-ing through his body, he did man-age, for only a mo-ment, to get his weight over his feet.


    He grabbed the knife as close to the hilt as he could, with both hands, and just bare-ly man-aged to pull it free from the butch-er''s fin-gers with a pre-cise-ly an-gled yank, cut-ting into his fin-gers in the process. All in the same move-ment, he piv-ot-ed around his bet-ter leg, mak-ing a dou-ble-hand-ed stab with the knife into the butch-er''s knee, read-just-ing one hand to grab the hilt as he did.


    For a mo-ment, the dag-ger bounced off the man''s knee like it was noth-ing. He twist-ed aether he felt on the oth-er side of his link, in the blade, and sud-den-ly the sense of the dag-ger in his mind''s eye van-ished, its aether spent, and it sank through flesh and bone like they didn''t ex-ist, tear-ing through the crea-ture''s knee and near-ly sev-er-ing his fin-gers.


    The butch-er screamed, and Sobon dropped the knife and fled, limp-ing away as fast as his body would let him, his body ar-gu-ing at every step that it should be his last, that he should col-lapse and ac-cept death. At the end of the al-ley-way, he found him-self un-able to turn, and plant-ed him-self face-first into the wall, us-ing the bricks to give him some-thing to lean on for a mo-ment, and he closed his eyes against the pain that want-ed him des-per-ate-ly to black out.


    He glanced to the left. The al-ley-way con-tin-ued, door-ways to the left and right, both closed fast. A old, ugly whore in a torn-up dress and smok-ing a cig-a-rette lounged next to the door on the left, and she was look-ing at him dis-pas-sion-ate-ly, nei-ther seem-ing in-ter-est-ed in be-ing the one to squash him like a bug, nor dis-play-ing any sign of hope or in-ter-est in his well-be-ing. At most, he thought she might be cu-ri-ous what would hap-pen, but there was so lit-tle life in those eyes that she might not even have had that. He glanced past, but the al-ley bent, and he couldn''t see an-oth-er in-ter-sec-tion any-where close, or even a light source.


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    He turned his head to the right, but he could see the blood trail lead-ing to one of the doors in that di-rec-tion, and al-most in-stinc-tive-ly fled the oth-er di-rec-tion. In-stead, he looked past it, see-ing an-oth-er in-ter-sec-tion, with lamp-light.


    Light leads to civ-i-liza-tion. Sobon had no idea who to trust, here, but flee-ing fur-ther into the dark-ness would only make him lose out to any-one who knew the dark al-leys bet-ter than he did. He forced him-self away from the wall and stum-bled past, his eyes on the door that the butch-er had clear-ly been us-ing, but he stum-bled past it, un-sure of whether some-one would come out to in-ves-ti-gate the man''s screams.


    Of course, if any-one had come out in re-sponse to screams be-fore, how could he pos-si-bly do his work? He forced him-self to look away as he passed the door, one strug-gling foot-step at a time.


    "You..." The voice be-hind him came with foot-steps, and from the fa-mil-iar hiss to the sound, he knew that it wasn''t the whore. He turned around to look, but the butch-er was there at the end of the al-ley, stand-ing on two ful-ly healthy legs, though the pant leg on one was torn, and blood soaked the low-er half of it. "You ssshouldn''t be able to do that."


    Im-pos-sib-- Sobon cut his thought off im-me-di-ate-ly. Of course it wasn''t im-pos-si-ble; it was un-fair. As long as the aether was abun-dant enough, even prim-i-tives could heal some-thing as sim-ple as a stab wound, if they got to it in time. If any-thing, again, this was promis-ing. With-out con-scious ef-fort, he cal-cu-lat-ed the aether den-si-ty that the plan-et must have for even the dregs of so-ci-ety to be ca-pa-ble of so much.


    It was high. Ad-vanced civ-i-liza-tions would nuke this plan-et and ter-raform it from scratch to have a hab-it-able plan-et with this lev-el of am-bi-ent aether; that wasn''t a guess, it was his-to-ry. Sobon turned and leaned against the wall, star-ing at the man who stared back at him. The butch-er be-gan to walk to-wards him, his heavy and plod-ding steps echo-ing in the al-ley-way, but Sobon was let-ting those men-tal cal-cu-la-tions run on ahead, won-der-ing just what he could do--from scratch--with that lev-el of aether.


    Sobon found him-self smil-ing, as his mind set-tled on a thought, and some-how, the look on his face was enough to make even the im-placa-ble butch-er pause.


    It''s ba-sic bi-ol-o-gy, Sobon re-mind-ed him-self, lift-ing his two hands to-geth-er. Bi-ol-o-gy re-quires aether. Sen-sa-tion re-quires aether. Con-scious-ness re-quires aether. I wouldn''t be here if I weren''t touch-ing it. I just need to bring that aether un-der my con-trol.


    There was a dirt-sim-ple tech-nique, one he had been taught in a med-i-ta-tion class, to help calm his nerves; it was noth-ing more than a cy-cle, to bring fresh aether in and ex-pel "dirty" aether. The use-less hip-py who had taught the class had ex-act-ly the op-po-site in-ten-tions that Sobon had now; he ar-gued that men shouldn''t keep their own sup-ply of Aether, and only by de-lib-er-ate-ly emp-ty-ing one-self, in a pu-ri-fied en-vi-ron-ment, could they be free of so-ci-ety''s con-t-a-m-i-na-tion.


    Ab-sorb the lo-cal aether, and let it back out.


    Sobon''s eye-lids twitched, but less from pain this time than from the queer tick-le of cold, for-eign pow-er through dam-aged--per-haps crip-pled--chan-nels.


    The foot-steps sound-ed again, and Sobon took a breath. All he need-ed was a sin-gle thread of it--just one in-signif-i-cant thread, thin-ner than a hair. His new body''s chan-nels hadn''t even the ca-pac-i-ty for that, but he forced it any-way, cre-at-ing the sim-plest thing he dared, even as his spir-it burned in protest.


    One spi-der-web-thin hair at-tempt-ed to form a cir-cle, and failed. Sobon re-viewed the data buried in his emo-tion-al state for the rea-son why; the body want-ed to fight or flee, not to stand here fo-cus-ing on aether with-out mean-ing or pur-pose. It wasn''t ac-cus-tomed to the pu-ri-ty of Aether; it de-mand-ed a rea-son to act. There was no emo-tion-al will-ing-ness to be de-tached un-der these cir-cum-stances.


    An-oth-er foot-step, and Sobon grabbed hold of his en-tire mind and will. He had forced the body to act when he knew it would de-stroy it-self, and he could do the same for this body''s spir-it. His eyes glowed, and a hair of pow-er formed a com-plete cir-cle, even as his own be-ing flared in agony from the act.


    That was step one. The thread hung be-tween his hands, and he felt its ea-ger-ness to leap at the en-e-my, but he re-fused it. The thread, the cir-cle--that was the lev-el of de-tach-ment he need-ed. He grabbed it with his mind and turned it like a knob, de-spite great re-sis-tance, know-ing that the twist would cre-ate a crude aether dy-namo, a flim-sy con-struct to cre-ate more aether, aether that would be at-tuned to him and him alone.


    A mo-ment lat-er, there was a speck, as thin as the thread that formed the cir-cle, and bare-ly as long as it was thick. It ap-peared nat-u-ral-ly at the ring''s ex-act cen-ter, the thorn to the dy-namo''s cy-cle. Sobon de-tached his mind from the dy-namo it-self and fo-cused on that point of light, his eye fi-nal-ly fo-cus-ing back on the real world.


    The butch-er was two steps away at most, well with-in the reach of a lunge, and his long arms felt en-tire-ly too close to Sobon, giv-en how small and bro-ken his body was. Those eyes, hid-den be-hind the shine of lamp-light on his glass-es, stared down at him. "You ssshouldn''t be able to..."


    The speck of an aether thorn length-ened with every mo-ment, and Sobon took a step back away from him. The cy-cle spun, and the thread grew, the speck of dust length-en-ing just a bit, go-ing from near-ly spher-i-cal to a bug''s whisker.


    "...ss-stand, let alone..."


    He took an-oth-er step back, but his an-kle gave way where the rope had cut into it, and he fell to a knee. Only his Ma-rine re-flex-es kept his cen-ter of grav-i-ty in be-tween his foot and his knee, keep-ing him up-right as the bloody crea-ture took a step to match his own, re-main-ing just not quite close enough to touch.


    "...sssense the great qi veinssss of thisss world." The butch-er knelt, one hand go-ing to his knee, the oth-er re-main-ing at his side. Sobon cal-cu-lat-ed, but if the crea-ture had any sort of re-flex-es, he could dodge any at-tempt to thrust at him with the new thread-thin thorn. That would be the end of it, most like-ly; Sobon had the one shot, and noth-ing more.


    "...but more cu-ri-ousss-ly," the butch-er hissed, "I wasss told that you did not pos-ssesss the tal-ent for qi. I hear a great many liesss from a great many peo-ple, young street rat, but I too mussst live in fear of the great pow-ersss of the world." The man''s back hand, by his side, ges-tured, and sud-den-ly, the knife that Sobon had dropped was in it again.


    "Ssso, I mussst know, who your massster isss, young ssstreet rat." The knife re-versed it-self, from a thrust-ing grip to a back-hand-ed one, and he moved the knife be-hind his body, as though to hide it. "I would not wis-ssh to in-ss-sult a great massster by dessstroy-ing hisss work."


    Sobon tried to cal-cu-late the truth be-hind the man''s words, but he had no frame of ref-er-ence, not from his time in Crest, nor from the spir-it of his pre-de-ces-sor. It could be a farce, some-thing more sin-is-ter, or it could be... well, as close to gen-uine as a blood-soaked child-killer could be.


    Sobon, though, could feel his body run-ning low on en-er-gy, and he care-ful-ly con-cealed the ring and thorn he had made in-side his spir-it. As he less-ened the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure he put on the dy-namo, the ring slowed its turn-ing to near-ly noth-ing, and the thorn be-gan to lose its glow, be-com-ing dor-mant with-in him.


    The best chance he had here, he sup-posed, was to count on this filthy mon-ster''s self-preser-va-tion in-stinct.


    "Sobon," he whis-pered in the dark-ness, his lips curl-ing into a sneer. "My mas-ter is Sobon, and he will kill you."


    The butch-er frowned even deep-er, the dis-gust-ing wrin-kles in his face deep-en-ing, and Sobon col-lapsed, feign-ing un-con-scious-ness for only a mo-ment, hop-ing that he could still rise up if the threat didn''t work.


    Un-for-tu-nate-ly, real un-con-scious-ness fol-lowed too soon, as his bat-tered body gave in at last.


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    Sobon awoke in what could char-i-ta-bly be called a bed, and he glanced around, feel-ing his eyes refuse to fo-cus, but still in-tent to take in what-ev-er he could. A blur-ry fig-ure moved near-by; it was not the butch-er, but an old man, his pro-file well-lit by a near-by lamp. Un-like the oth-ers he had seen so far, this man ap-peared at least slight-ly healthy, but he didn''t dare trust too deeply. This world was dan-ger-ous.


    The old man moved with a me-thod-i-cal-ly slow pace, as though he had more time than tasks, and Sobon could tell that he was wind-ing ban-dages around an arm--a very thin and short arm, like a child''s, and if he were to guess, not a well-fed one. With a ca-su-al use of aether, he sev-ered the ban-dage with-out look-ing and set the roll of cloth aside, bring-ing his hand back to the arm he was ban-dag-ing. His eyes glowed a mo-ment, and he was lit strange-ly, as though from a light in his hands, and then he set down what he was hold-ing and stared at it for a mo-ment.


    "You shouldn''t be con-scious." The old man''s voice was heavy and plod-ding, like every-one Sobon had en-coun-tered. And then, with a strange feel-ing like death him-self ap-proach-ing, the old man was sud-den-ly there in front of him, sit-ting on a stool and look-ing down on him with the same neu-tral, blank ex-pres-sion on his face as he''d had on the last pa-tient. "Your in-juries are too se-vere. Your spir-it shouldn''t count on be-ing awake to save you. Very odd." He raised one hand, and in the cup of his hand, a spot of green and yel-low light leaked out, light that spoke to him of aether use.


    Sobon closed his eyes at the light, but when he felt the tick-le of aether across him, noth-ing hurt any worse--or any less, for that mat-ter.


    "You have the be-gin-nings of a qi core," the old man said. "But it is in a strange form. Who is your mas-ter? I will call him."


    Sobon hes-i-tat-ed. It was too soon to re-veal his bluff, but hav-ing the old man at-tempt to con-tact a non-ex-is-tent pa-tron would only cause more trou-ble lat-er. Sobon felt his cheeks twitch, and re-al-ized this body didn''t have the self-con-trol to lie con-vinc-ing-ly. He kept his eyes closed, and whis-pered, "He will find me."


    The old man was qui-et for a mo-ment, then growled. "A hunter, then. Very well." With Sobon''s eyes closed, he felt--again--a strange spec-tre like a grin-ning reaper hang-ing there in front of him, death in-car-nate judg-ing him and his lies, but the feel-ing van-ished a mo-ment lat-er.


    Sobon opened his eyes once more, to find the old man had dis-ap-peared, and no glanc-ing around would re-veal to where or how he had got-ten so sound-less-ly away. A part of him want-ed to shiv-er, dwelling on the in-ci-dent, but Sobon in-stead let him-self sleep, forc-ing the thoughts away and let-ting the ex-haus-tion take over.

 2. Jom, part two

    When Sobon next woke, sun-light was seep-ing through a poor-ly-sealed win-dow, and a child was cough-ing some-where to his right. His mus-cles burned where they had torn and ached where they''d been hit, but as he did his best to take stock, he found that his in-ter-nal or-gans were no longer in agony, and his rib seemed mend-ed.


    At-tempt-ing to move, though, only made the pain and heat grow, the feed-back telling him in no un-cer-tain terms that while his des-per-ate play to get away from the butch-er had saved his life, the dam-age was too se-vere to do any-thing but lay here, at least un-til the next threat. So in-stead, he fo-cused on his spir-it, reach-ing out to the thin wire cir-cle and thorn he had made, find-ing them lay-ing qui-et-ly with-in. As far as he could tell, their ex-is-tence hadn''t dam-aged any-thing in-side of him; that was good, be-cause it meant that he could con-tin-ue to in-crease the length of the thorn.


    Slow-ly, care-ful-ly, and with more con-cern now about over-load-ing his spir-i-tu-al chan-nels, Sobon set the cir-cle spin-ning. The feel-ing of it burned his chan-nels, but it was a fa-mil-iar feel-ing; Sobon was in the cy-borg half of the Mixed Marines, not the fairy half, and his ex-per-i-ments with bi-o-log-i-cal-ly ma-nip-u-lat-ing Aether had al-ways felt like he was flex-ing un-der-de-vel-oped mus-cles. His aether aug-ments, of course, had al-ways worked fine, but... that had lit-tle to do with his bi-ol-o-gy. He had al-ways known that prac-tice could have led to uti-liz-ing his brain and heart''s aether chan-nels, but he didn''t see the point.


    Most-ly, he didn''t see the point of flesh, and be-ing im-pris-oned in the dis-gust-ing stuff again only re-mind-ed him why, in a thou-sand ways. His fine-ly honed men-tal fac-ul-ties helped him care-ful-ly cat-a-log not only his in-juries, but the var-i-ous puls-ing, squish-ing, and flow-ing bits with-in him. His stom-ach was shrunk-en from star-va-tion and his limbs too thin, his hair was falling out in places and his bones felt hol-low. His lungs, he was sure, were full of some kind of filth, and his si-nus-es were prob-a-bly the only part of him full of grease, from liv-ing in the warm shad-ows of kitchens but nev-er eat-ing the good food hid-den be-hind those walls. There were itch-es in the pits of his arms and knees, and bites all over his legs and feet, and... he was sure there were bits of flesh just miss-ing. Like they had been sev-ered, bit by bit, from odd places along his body, then the wounds were al-lowed to heal.


    What-ev-er life this street urchin had be-fore, it was a sor-ry one.


    [ Please don''t blame me, ] the voice in his head re-turned, speak-ing a lit-tle more even-ly, now. He al-most didn''t rec-og-nize it now that the body''s pan-ic had passed; it was no longer quite so twist-ed by fear and pain, and no longer stood out in his head like... well, like any of the oth-er in-jured bits had stood out. It was still there, but less... sep-a-rate from him-self. [ The only one who was ever nice was the book-seller''s daugh-ter, and her moth-er told her not to feed me. ]


    Sobon didn''t doubt that. If he''d seen a street urchin this screwed up, he def-i-nite-ly wouldn''t want any young child to be ex-posed to what-ev-er dis-eases he might have. Deal-ing with a child like that was some-thing that should be left to adults, and ide-al-ly pro-fes-sion-als--but on the oth-er hand, it should have been done. To say noth-ing of butcher-ing chil-dren and leav-ing their corpses to rot in an al-ley-way, the Crestan civ-il ser-vice would not have left a child on the streets for years in the first place. There was too much use for a spare pair of hands, es-pe-cial-ly in wartime--but even with-out the pres-sure of in-va-sion, there were al-ways colonies some-where that could use the la-bor.


    He forced his thoughts into or-der and replied, civil-ly, I don''t blame you. None of this is your fault.


    The boy in his thoughts trem-bled, and mem-o-ries spilled out, of things that he had done wrong--or things he thought, at the time, were hor-rid mis-takes. Sobon caught as many as he could, and re-viewed each briefly, but ul-ti-mate-ly found noth-ing there ex-cept the ig-no-rant and con-fused ac-tions of a child. [ I don''t... I don''t un-der-stand. It doesn''t make sense. I''m sup-posed to be ashamed of who I am. ]


    If that was help-ful, I would agree with you, Sobon an-swered grim-ly. But it isn''t help-ful, so it''s stu-pid.


    The spir-it qui-et-ed for a mo-ment, and Sobon con-tin-ued press-ing out more thread. The cir-cu-lar dy-namo con-sumed less pow-er than it cre-at-ed, and the thread spike was just hold-ing the ac-cu-mu-lat-ed pow-er to-geth-er. Once he had enough thread, he could form it into an-oth-er dy-namo, but do-ing that with-out burn-ing up his chan-nels would take many hours, and leave him de-fense-less again un-til the two dy-namos to-geth-er could build more thread.


    Not that a sin-gle hair-like thread of aether was much. The Rapi-er had twelve mid-size dy-namos for weapons and point de-fens-es, and the torus in each was as wide as this new child-ish body was tall. The main dy-namo, which pow-ered the en-gines, main de-fens-es, and a ma-jor-i-ty of the ship''s mun-dane sys-tems, was three or-ders of mag-ni-tude more com-plex, made of mil-lions of small-er dy-namos linked in a six-di-men-sion-al hy-per-torus, with con-trol link-ages and en-er-gy ex-trac-tion con-duits run-ning all through-out it, to say noth-ing of its phys-i-cal size.


    Sobon''s at-ten-tion was pulled back to the room as he sensed that specter of death again, and the old man--a doc-tor, clear-ly, or at least pre-tend-ing to be one--ap-peared in the mid-dle of the room. He first stepped up to where the child was still cough-ing, reach-ing out with both hands, and there was a light glow again, so dim that Sobon could bare-ly see the col-or it cast on his skin. Af-ter a mo-ment, the cough-ing stopped, and a child mum-bled some-thing that Sobon couldn''t hear.


    The old man went up and down the row, only oc-ca-sion-al-ly of-fer-ing a touch of pow-er to help some-one, be-fore he fi-nal-ly end-ed up at Sobon''s bed.


    "You have qi," the doc-tor said qui-et-ly as he ap-peared, flick-ing into ex-is-tence at Sobon''s side. "It would be bet-ter spent heal-ing your-self."


    "I don''t know how," Sobon ad-mit-ted, keep-ing his voice down. That wasn''t the real prob-lem, ex-act-ly; if his in-stincts were right, he had at-tuned this dy-namo to a form of aether that was vi-o-lent-ly at odds with life, suit-able for at-tack-ing oth-ers rather than heal-ing. It was what he thought he need-ed at the time, though in ret-ro-spect... he would have done it dif-fer-ent-ly.


    "For sim-ple things, sim-ply pro-vid-ing the body qi will cause it to heal it-self. In your case..." The old man frowned, and Sobon stud-ied his long, droop-ing gray mous-tache and beard. "There is some-thing odd about you, and about your qi."


    Sobon was glad that the lo-cals at least un-der-stood that much. He poked the spir-it of his pre-de-ces-sor for a quick trans-la-tion, then asked, "If you know a heal-ing spell..."


    The man scoffed, and his ex-pres-sion dark-ened. "If I knew prop-er spells I wouldn''t be deal-ing with home-less brats in a wastrel''s slum. If I knew prop-er spells I wouldn''t..." He went silent. "No, child. Books of spells are too valu-able to waste on a bro-ken old sol-dier and the il-le-git-i-mate sons and daugh-ters of whores, drunk-ards, and gut-ter trash. If your great mas-ter dis-agrees, I will glad-ly take what-ev-er hand-outs he is will-ing to of-fer when he ar-rives, but..." he har-rumphed, his whiskers fluff-ing up with the breath, and spit-tle fly-ing. "I am sure he will agree that this old man is of no use to any-one."


    Sobon flinched. He hadn''t meant to im-ply that the old man would be re-ward-ed by a great mas-ter, when keep-ing his iden-ti-ty se-cret, but it was ob-vi-ous in hind-sight that it would be tak-en that way. He looked up at the old man, and the old man looked back, a look com-ing over him like a shad-ow. Per-haps he saw the guilty look on Sobon''s face? He was wrestling with whether or not it was safe to ad-mit it when the man spoke again.


    "No one is com-ing for you," he said, and leaned back as he saw Sobon''s fea-tures change. "I see. Per-haps you were cast out, or per-haps you dis-cov-ered your qi by ac-ci-dent. Cain de-posit-ed you here, so you must have fright-ened him. That grotesque crea-ture would not aban-don his trade un-less he was con-vinced his death would fol-low your own." The old man chuck-led. "But you should know mere-ly by look-ing around that this old man is all too ac-cus-tomed to pa-tients who can nev-er re-pay their board-ing. There is no need to lie any fur-ther about that."


    The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    "I''m sor-ry," Sobon said. "I wish I could help. If I was able to heal with my... qi..." the word felt un-com-fort-able in his mouth, but he was sure the lo-cals wouldn''t un-der-stand or like the talk of Aether, and ad-mit-ting what he knew and how seemed like an aw-ful idea, even to this old man. "...I would pay it off that way."


    The old man har-rumphed again. "You''ll find no pa-tients here who can pay, and I don''t like the feel of your qi. It lacks the nur-tur-ing as-pect that is nec-es-sary for heal-ing." He sud-den-ly straight-ened and half-turned, and in a flash, he was by an-oth-er pa-tient''s bed-side, talk-ing with them qui-et-ly.


    Sobon stud-ied his aether dy-namo in si-lence for a long mo-ment. Aether sci-ence was a wide field and far be-yond his un-der-stand-ing for the most part, but he knew be-yond ques-tion that aether ex-ist-ed in a set of fun-da-men-tal states; most-ly, they were bro-ken down into left- and right-hand-ed spins in var-i-ous planes, or sta-t-ic, spin-less aether that would break down quick-ly of its own ac-cord. His dy-namo was left-hand-ed, and could only pro-duce ba-sic left-hand-ed aether, which the old man seemed to agree was harm-ful. It could be con-vert-ed into sta-t-ic aether, and he could spin that the oth-er di-rec-tion, but... only once he had enough wire for an-oth-er cir-cle, which he wouldn''t any-time soon.


    It wasn''t as sim-ple as hav-ing aether that spun in the oth-er di-rec-tion to cre-ate a heal-ing ef-fect, of course, but the aether spin ei-ther matched what bi-ol-o-gy used or it ran counter to it. Any aether that worked with the body would en-cour-age heal-ing, or at least good health, al-though it didn''t fix things out-right. Get-ting ac-cess to that kind of aether might be as sim-ple as cre-at-ing an-oth-er ring dy-namo with a right-hand spin, or it may re-quire him to piece to-geth-er a dy-namo that spun in high-er di-men-sions; it was hard to know for sure with-out try-ing.


    In any case, he had lit-tle he could do for now, so he fo-cused on keep-ing his dy-namo spin-ning, gen-er-at-ing aether in the spike as the hair slow-ly length-ened.


    "You..." The old man was back, and his frown seemed dis-ap-prov-ing. "That is not a qi ab-sorp-tion tech-nique. What is this? Some form of de-mon-ic pow-er?"


    Sobon looked up at him, ner-vous-ly, but man-aged to shake his head with-out the pain caus-ing his spir-it to col-lapse. "It is... a spe-cial tech-nique," he said, do-ing his best to spin it as neu-tral-ly as he could. "It gen-er-ates... a pure form of qi."


    The old man, with a sort of del-i-cate vi-o-lence that Sobon could not un-der-stand, reached down and plucked the thread of aether out of his spike, hold-ing it up in front of his own face. Sobon watched, ner-vous; if he tried to in-te-grate the thread with his own qi, the two would re-act, per-haps vi-o-lent-ly.


    "I know a man who would pay dear-ly to study any such tech-nique," the old man said, slow-ly, and the thread van-ished some-where into his spir-it. He looked down at Sobon, his face an un-read-able mask, though Sobon''s spir-it--the boy who had once owned his body--dis-trust-ed it in-tense-ly. "He would pay for your heal-ing. Stay here."


    Sobon felt a shiv-er of mis-trust, an an-i-mal in-stinct, as the old man van-ished once more into thin air. With his spike now re-duced to al-most noth-ing again, though, what could he do? He des-per-ate-ly want-ed to trust the old man; he had noth-ing else left. But his ra-tio-nal mind couldn''t help agree-ing with the boy-spir-it; this world had been too cor-rupt, too prone to let-ting ma-li-cious, cru-el mon-sters have their way. An aether re-searcher might be a pleas-ant, well-mean-ing aca-d-e-m-ic... or he might be every bit the mon-ster that the butch-er had been, with a dif-fer-ent bent to his sadism.


    So Sobon stead-ied his breath-ing, try-ing to ar-ti-fi-cial-ly gen-er-ate calm, again. In-stead of us-ing his dy-namo-pro-duced aether, he would do his best to gen-er-ate an-oth-er ring and spin it in the oth-er di-rec-tion. Now that he could sense aether, it should be eas-i-er... but it was near-ly im-pos-si-ble to find calm while wound-ed and para-noid, even if he was rest-ing in bed.


    With re-gret, and dis-ap-point-ment, Sobon forced him-self to sit up, flinch-ing as too many mus-cles re-fused to re-spond at all, as they were ei-ther rest-ing or try-ing to re-build. He had to wres-tle with his body, twist-ing in odd ways to use the mus-cles that would an-swer him, but soon enough, he was sit-ting up and lean-ing against a wall, breath-ing heav-i-ly, and he felt a feel-ing like blood drip-ping down the side of his face from a puls-ing wound that he was too tired to pre-cise-ly lo-cate.


    He ig-nored it all, and closed his eyes, try-ing to use the pain as a fo-cus with-out let-ting it cor-rupt his will.


    There is a rea-son, he in-sist-ed, strug-gling against the an-i-mal na-ture of his body. A rea-son why we must use qi now. I know I feel safe, but I''m not.


    The body''s an-i-mal will backed it-self into a cor-ner, pre-pared to fight him. I would know if there were dan-ger, it seemed to say. I am wound-ed. If you are not on my side, you are an en-e-my. The in-tense wave of pain pro-duced by his move-ments rolled around his spir-it like a snarling dog. You can-not con-trol me. In-trud-er. Weak-ness. Foul tempter.


    Sobon took deep breath af-ter deep breath. In some ways, it was eas-i-er, and in oth-er ways hard-er, than try-ing to tame a wild an-i-mal. Eas-i-er, be-cause in a very real way, the body was him, and not just his; he could force it to act, as he had be-fore. But the more he did that, the more it would force his spir-it into con-flict; his body and his spir-it would not trust him, and would not re-act prop-er-ly when he need-ed them to.


    His in-struc-tors in the Mixed Ma-rine boot camps had made this very clear; when they told a re-cruit to stop strug-gling and ad-mit de-feat, it was an or-der. Forc-ing your-self and dam-ag-ing your spir-it could im-prove your pow-er in the mo-ment, but it could low-er your fu-ture aether sen-si-tiv-i-ty by a whole tier or more.


    Sobon, of course, had nev-er been a boot-camp in-struc-tor, and he didn''t know how they de-tect-ed that a re-cruit was reach-ing that dam-age thresh-old. Nor was he a field medic who could de-tect it when it oc-curred, al-though he''d re-viewed the study cours-es on first aid, as every-one did. But even though he didn''t know what was too far, he could tell he this was ex-act-ly the sort of sit-u-a-tion the boot camp steered away from. This was a mo-ment where push-ing too hard would dam-age some-thing.


    If only he was cer-tain that he had the time to wait.


    Sobon stead-ied him-self and pushed his own per-son-al spir-it into his body, con-nect-ing with his or-gans, his mus-cles, his bones, his skin, and with his itch-es and his wounds as well. Sobon had only been al-lowed to ad-vance from a class VI to a class IX cy-borg when he demon-strat-ed that he would not lose his sen-si-tiv-i-ty by sac-ri-fic-ing his flesh--when he demon-strat-ed that the most sen-si-tive parts of his body were his heart and brain. Oth-ers re-lied on in-stincts buried in var-i-ous oth-er parts of his body, but Sobon''s sen-si-tiv-i-ty was a part of his very be-ing.


    What-ev-er had brought him into this body had pre-served that, per-haps ex-act-ly be-cause it was in-side of him all along.


    Sobon''s will clamped down over his flesh, but not with iron teeth. His nerves surged not only with pain, but pan-ic, and he let them, his own spir-it mix-ing with his new body''s, ex-ud-ing a sense of peace and trust. He knew why his flesh was re-act-ing bad-ly, and he wasn''t go-ing to pun-ish it, but it would lis-ten. It must.


    The wave of pan-ic slowed, not quite enough to let him be per-fect-ly clear, but enough for him to gath-er the body''s mud-dy qi into a ball. From that ball of en-er-gy, with great ef-fort, he ex-tract-ed the be-gin-nings of an-oth-er aether thread, a thread that he im-me-di-ate-ly wrapped into a loop. A throb of pain in his side dis-tract-ed him, and the loop failed to close; he dis-card-ed it, the sta-t-ic aether van-ish-ing as soon as he let it go, and he ex-tract-ed an-oth-er.


    And an-oth-er, and an-oth-er, be-fore fi-nal-ly, the thread ends met, and he spun this new dy-namo in the oth-er di-rec-tion.


    Sobon let out an ex-haust-ed, hiss-ing breath as he fi-nal-ly al-lowed him-self to re-lax once more. The sec-ond dy-namo took ef-fort to spin up, and keep spin-ning, but the spike it gen-er-at-ed felt warm and com-fort-ing, en-tire-ly dif-fer-ent to the cold and threat-en-ing left-hand-ed spike. The mo-ment he felt more than a speck of pow-er in that spike, he snapped it in half and fed one tiny bit into a wound-ed part of his spir-it, as a balm and re-ward for co-op-er-at-ing.


    It was too lit-tle for his body to ap-pre-ci-ate what he had done, but the right-hand-ed spike was at least com-pat-i-ble with his qi. Sobon, with ef-fort, forced him-self back down onto his bed, ig-nor-ing the odd feel-ing as the blood on his head be-gan flow-ing in a dif-fer-ent di-rec-tion, ig-nor-ing the puls-ing through-out his en-tire body as his or-gans threat-ened re-bel-lion over every move, every in-signif-i-cant change in his pos-ture and po-si-tion. He ig-nored every-thing and just lay back down on the hard sur-face, repo-si-tion-ing his blan-ket to keep him just a bit warmer, and then ig-nored all else and just fo-cused on spin-ning his two dy-namos and gath-er-ing the re-sul-tant en-er-gy in their spikes.


    He had no idea when the old man would be back, but he would do every-thing pos-si-ble to be ready in case he had to flee once more.

 3. Jom, part three

    Sobon woke with a start, and his first in-stinct was to spin up his aether dy-namos, which had con-tin-ued slug-gish-ly cir-cling af-ter he fell un-con-scious. It was a good re-ac-tion, he de-cid-ed, the lit-tle bit of self-af-fir-ma-tion keep-ing him go-ing when his en-tire body wracked with pains from the jolt. Sobon kept his fo-cus on the dy-namos, but forced his breath-ing to steady, then tried to sense the world be-yond his skin.


    Of the old man, there was no sign, but some-thing in the far dis-tance was mak-ing him un-com-fort-able. Sobon re-viewed his body, to make sure it wasn''t a mis-un-der-stood sig-nal from some-thing in-side, then sighed, and looked at his right-hand-ed spike. The thread of ''healthy'' aether he''d pro-duced was so small, and yet... he knew from the ef-fort it took to cre-ate thread out of qi that it was also denser and pur-er than nat-ur-al pow-er. He pulled it out of his spike, mourn-ful-ly, and broke it into pieces, dis-trib-ut-ing it across his body.


    The aches and pains eased, but not enough. Mus-cles that were sleep-ing stirred, but not enough. Even his bones seemed to shift their at-ten-tion to him, briefly, but noth-ing he had done was enough, could pos-si-bly be enough. The Rapi-er''s med-bay had its own small dy-namo, and small in space-ship terms meant the spike it pro-duced was only as wide as Sobon''s thumb--his adult, cy-borg thumb, not this child''s. That was the pow-er that ad-vanced med-i-cine re-quired--med-i-cine that could ful-ly re-store lost limbs in hours and in-te-grate cy-borg parts with a man''s spir-it in min-utes.


    It was also high-er-or-der aether, gen-er-at-ed by a four-di-men-sion-al hy-per-torus, but there was no point in think-ing about that, now.


    A minute or two af-ter Sobon fed his body the aether, he forced him-self out of bed. In con-trast to when he had only bare-ly been able to sit up, his body was--at least--will-ing to obey his com-mands, even if every-thing still hurt, and some things were still too wound-ed to con-trol. He limped to what he was sure was a win-dow, though it was board-ed up with rot-ting wood, and did his best to peer out-side.


    The clin-ic, such as it was, was on the sec-ond sto-ry of a build-ing, built on a hill-side. Most of the build-ings around it were com-plete-ly ru-ined, though there were ob-vi-ous places where some-one was liv-ing in those ru-ins--rat-ty cloth stretched over open-ings or a camp-fire placed care-ful-ly un-der the re-mains of a floor above, de-spite the build-ing miss-ing walls and a ceil-ing. Those ru-ins stretched on for a while, un-til--up-hill a ways--there was a mas-sive stone wall block-ing all oth-er views in that di-rec-tion.


    Un-like the ru-ins, the wall was pris-tine, and he could see the gleam-ing met-al of sol-dier''s ar-mor atop it. The wall was un-nerv-ing; once he laid eyes on it, he could sense it, so it had to have been re-in-forced by aether, or had a ...spell cast over it. What-ev-er the lo-cals did with their bas-tardized aether, he sup-posed. He glanced around, look-ing for signs of oth-er ac-tiv-i-ty, and no-ticed an area slight-ly up-hill where all the ru-ins had been re-duced to seared grav-el in a large ra-dius, and the ru-ins just past them were black-ened by char.


    Mo-tion caught his eye as he con-sid-ered that, and he looked down the street, where an old man with a long, clean white beard walked un-hur-ried-ly down the wind-ing street, flanked by two sol-diers in shin-ing met-al ar-mor with nasty-look-ing polearms. As soon as his eyes touched the old man, though, he felt the old man''s at-ten-tion snap to him, and he raised a fin-ger to point in his di-rec-tion.


    Shit. He pulled away from the win-dow, de-bat-ing whether he would sur-vive jump-ing down onto the street, when the win-dow was torn to pieces by one of the guards bod-i-ly leap-ing through, whose out-stretched arm at-tempt-ed to ar-rest his mo-men-tum on the stone wall, only for the stone wall to tear it-self apart in re-sponse.


    Be-hind Sobon, sick chil-dren did their best to scream, but it most-ly came out as coughs.


    Sobon took a step back, but the sol-dier was as cold as any cy-borg he had ever fought with, or against. His polearm flicked out, a nasty blade on the back side of it lov-ing-ly cupped Sobon''s neck, so gen-tly that the ra-zor-sharp edge didn''t cut him, even when Sobon stum-bled back a step.


    "You''re com-ing with us, boy," the guard said, his shin-ing eyes vis-i-ble even with the light of day be-hind him.


    Sobon, though he trust-ed this man not at all, could rec-og-nize that there were no oth-er op-tions aside from his own death. So he nod-ded, not quite able to work his tongue well enough to speak, and with his jaw so tight with ten-sion he could feel his teeth grind-ing. Es-cap-ing the butch-er had been a long shot, and run-ning away from the old man had seemed doable, as long as the old man didn''t see good rea-son to chase him, but this was dif-fer-ent.


    The man reached out and grabbed him by the throat, drag-ging him out of the win-dow. Along the way, the man''s head banged into the stone top-ping the win-dow, and for a mo-ment, the stone won; the sol-dier paused, back-ing up un-til he could clear-ly see what had got-ten in his way, and then forcibly head-butt it, shat-ter-ing the stone and col-laps-ing the wall on top of it.


    In the same mo-ment, the guard leaped out, but be-hind them, Sobon heard a noise that he knew was the roof col-laps-ing on the clin-ic. It last-ed too long to have been noth-ing more than the wall, and Sobon didn''t hear much in the way of stone land-ing on the street.


    He hadn''t known any-thing about the oth-er in-valids there, and for all he knew, they were all lost caus-es, but that was no ex-cuse. The rot-ten mon-ster hadn''t need-ed to take out the win-dow; he had done it pure-ly out of spite, and killed every-one else there for no rea-son at all.


    "Re-joice, boy." Sobon''s eyes widened at the ut-ter-ly calm, even bored, tenor of the white-beard-ed man''s voice. He tried to turn to look at him, but couldn''t; the sud-den move-ment had shocked his en-tire sys-tem, or else one of them--the old man or the sol-diers--had par-a-lyzed him, some-how. "You have enough qi to be re-cruit-ed into our sol-diery. You will have the glo-ri-ous chance to die for the Czar and have your past sins posthu-mous-ly wiped out, so that you can en-joy an eter-ni-ty of servi-tude in the ser-vice of the Di-a-mond Lord, rather than an eter-ni-ty of suf-fer-ing and lamen-ta-tion as one of the un-cho-sen." His voice re-mained bored and rote, to the very end, and he bare-ly paused be-fore ad-dress-ing the sol-dier. "Take him back and meet us at the end of the street. I''ll throw in five pence if you don''t make us wait."


    The sol-dier hold-ing him grunt-ed, and Sobon was dragged by his neck on an in-creas-ing-ly fran-tic jour-ney down streets and across rooftops, bare-ly able to even open his eyes as the pres-sure on his neck seemed to crush his spir-it as though on ac-ci-dent.


    Fi-nal-ly, Sobon was tossed to the ground, rolling on hard stones, and he dim-ly heard the man re-port, "Slum re-cruit from Min-is-ter Celb." And then, with an ex-plo-sion of force, he was gone.


    There was a mo-ment of still-ness, then foot-steps marched up to him, and then a hand grabbed each of his arms. Sobon found he still couldn''t move as he was lift-ed up and turned to face an ugly, owlish man sit-ting be-hind a small table in a cramped stone room.


    He was writ-ing, and Sobon found him-self un-sur-prised to note that the old man seemed to be sound-ing out the let-ters one by one as he wrote. Every-thing here was so prim-i-tive, so bar-bar-ic, that he want-ed to de-stroy it all. In his mind, the idea of a Crestan bat-tle-cruis-er nuk-ing the plan-et and start-ing over from scratch went from a state-ment on his own peo-ple''s self-ish-ness to an in-creas-ing-ly earned out-come of this all.


    The scribe fin-ished writ-ing, and clear-ly re-viewed what he had writ-ten down. "Mi... ni... ster... Celb. One... re-cruit." The man looked up from his let-ters, his owlish fea-tures and small round glass-es mak-ing him look only more fool-ish in Sobon''s eyes as the man stud-ied him. Sobon glared back; from what he could tell, ei-ther the man had no qi of his own, or he was too weak to be worth men-tion-ing. "Looks to be... half-star bronze at most. Just bare-ly above the thresh-old. Dis-ap-point-ing." He dipped his pen in an inkpot and moved it back over the pa-per, his mouth mov-ing as he wrote. "H-a-l-f s-b-a... no," he paused, and pulled out a blade. "not b, t." He wiped, or sliced, the pa-per, flicked some-thing away, then re-trieved his pen. "t-a-r. Half star." The scribe looked pleased with him-self, then looked up and nod-ded. "You may take him away."


    "Where, sir?"


    "Oh, half stars go to the, um," he turned and looked at a very ob-vi-ous chart on the wall, and he strug-gled to read it. "To the... yes, bar-racks three." He turned to the sol-diers and nod-ded. "To bar-racks three."


    "Yes, sir." The two sol-diers dragged Sobon out, and Sobon could feel the ground scrap-ing against his legs. The sol-dier who had spo-ken wait-ed un-til he was out of earshot be-fore scoff-ing. "Don''t un-der-stand why that one is even still alive."


    "Can al-ways use the ex-tra sol-diers," the oth-er replied.


    "Not the boy," replied the first. "I mean Scribe Thims. Half the guard could do his job bet-ter than he could."


    "Oh, I won''t ar-gue that," replied the oth-er guard, sound-ing al-most cheer-ful. "You know I killed a star beast last week and now even I can read and write bet-ter than that old bas-tard. Didn''t even get to sit around and ab-sorb its qi, let alone the core, but just be-ing around the blast-ed thing as it was dy-ing was good for my brains. My skin, too, I think, but no one''s men-tioned it."


    "No one knows what your skin looks like," the first guard snort-ed. "You nev-er take off your ar-mor and you nev-er bathe."


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    "I do too take off my ar-mor!"


    "Not at work."


    "I... well, no." The guards both went silent for a time. "Still, pity the boy, in''nit?"


    "Bet-ter him than any of the city kids."


    "I sup-pose," he said, slow-ly. "Still, the starspawn are nasty un-til you get your first star."


    "First noth-ing," the first replied. "Any-thing less than third star Bronze hard-ly sur-vives a fight." At once, the two of them re-leased Sobon, who had been lis-ten-ing as well as look-ing ahead, and watch-ing as they ap-proached a man guard-ing a rat-ty wood door. "Slum re-cruit, half star."


    "Not even a half star," replied the door guard. "Let me get the leg chains."


    Sobon wasn''t much of a crier--that sort got weed-ed out by the Marines quick-ly enough--but the knot of frus-tra-tion in his chest was get-ting to be un-bear-able. This was fast be-com-ing a dis-as-ter, with no chance of re-cov-ery; it was dif-fi-cult to know just how bad things ac-tu-al-ly were, but these didn''t seem like the sort of peo-ple who would wait for him to heal be-fore throw-ing him to his death.


    "Ac-tu-al-ly..." the voice of the man at the door came back. "He''s pret-ty wound-ed, isn''t he?"


    "Oh, bad-ly," agreed the cheer-ful guard.


    "We''ll be ship-ping out soon, he''s wound-ed and a half-star, and I''m al-most out of leg-irons, so would you do us all a fa-vor and throw him in the corpse pit? If he''s go-ing to die, he might as well feed the bar-gles."


    "Sounds good to me!" The cheer-ful guard reached down and stripped the clothes off of Sobon with a sin-gle vi-o-lent yank, then dragged him along by his arm into the bar-racks. "More''s the pity, boy, but all for the best, you''ll see. At least, as-sum-ing the Chan-cel-lor''s ly-ing about all that Di-a-mond King stuff." A pause. "Di-a-mond... Lord? King? Em-per-or? What-ev-er it was. Nev-er held to that stuff any-way." Then, loud-er, "Open up the corpse pit, got a fresh one for you."


    "Fresh one," replied a voice, also too cheer-ful, and there was a metal-lic scrap-ing.


    Sobon found him-self fight-ing the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure that was still crush-ing him, still par-a-lyz-ing him, but it was only as he was lift-ed and thrown into dark-ness that the for-eign en-er-gy washed away from him, leav-ing him just bare-ly able to move. He twist-ed to look down, grab-bing his body, spir-it, and two dy-namos with his will, his mind scream-ing at him, and just bare-ly man-aged to ori-ent his body to ful-ly land on the back of what looked to be a gi-ant, fur-ry pig.


    It squealed at him, and Sobon pushed off from it, back-ing against the wall and pour-ing every ounce of his spir-it into the two dy-namos. Al-though he could feel his spir-it suf-fer-ing as the qi left him, he knew this was one last do-or-die chal-lenge, and though it would prob-a-bly kill him, he would make a show-ing of it.


    "He''s not dead?" Dim-ly, Sobon heard some-one above.


    "Oh, he ba-si-cal-ly is," ar-gued the cheer-ful guard. "And he''s only half-sies."


    Sobon fo-cused on the dark-ness, where he could see a half dozen enor-mous fur-ry pigs stalk-ing in and out of the bro-ken light from over-head. One made a mock-ing, growl-ing squeal at him, a noise that sound-ed like a de-mon-ic laugh, and which bared the crea-ture''s sharp teeth at him. Still, they stalked for a mo-ment in-stead of charg-ing.


    "You can''t just throw a live one down there," ar-gued the voice. "What if he in-jures a bar-gle? They''re sen-si-tive. You go in-jur-ing them and they''ll be squeal-ing for weeks."


    One of the bar-gles fi-nal-ly charged, and Sobon took his left spike and gath-ered the aether in his palm. He dodged, smack-ing the thing in the head, then spun around, find-ing an-oth-er bar-gle ap-proach-ing, mouth split en-tire-ly too wide, to show off a mouth-ful of very sharp teeth, go-ing back far too deep into his head. Sobon used his mo-men-tum and forced his feet out from un-der him, feel-ing the im-pact on his hips, and thrust his left hand into the pig''s throat as hard as he could.


    It col-lapsed on top of him.


    "I told you, he''s only half-sies," the cheer-ful guard said. "Look, some dimwit Min-is-ter thought he was worth re-cruit-ing, but he''s half-sies and half dead. Be-sides, if the bar-gles haven''t com-plained yet, he couldn''t have caused any trou-ble."


    "Well..."


    An-oth-er bar-gle ap-proached him, teeth spread and drool leak-ing out from his low-er jaw. Al-though he was too far away to hit, Sobon jabbed at his snout, us-ing the mo-tion to throw a small mea-sure of aether at it. As it hit, the bar-gle leaped back, a scream com-ing from its mouth.


    "There, see? I told you, sen-si-tive. Who told you it was al-right to throw a live one in there? Be-cause I as-sure you, the base com-man-der isn''t go-ing to be hap-py lis-ten-ing to bar-gletalk."


    "I thought this group was mov-ing out soon?"


    "Hadn''t heard that."


    Sobon strug-gled to get out from un-der-neath the bar-gle that had him pinned, but two more were cir-cling now, teeth glar-ing at him in the dark-ness. Des-per-ate, Sobon took more of his body''s spir-it--though it felt en-tire-ly too low to him al-ready--and jammed it into his right hand cy-cle, and then ripped the pow-er from his spike back into his body. The re-sult was a brief spike in his body strength, and he man-aged to pull his legs free, just as one of the bar-gles got up the nerve to snap at him.


    This time, Sobon smashed him straight in the snout with his left hand, and like the first two, he dropped with-out a sound.


    "In any case," the cheer-ful guard said, "they only need to take one bar-gle along for field ra-tions, so I''m sure the com-man-der will be hap-py to leave the yowl-ing men-ace to you." He chuck-led. "None of my busi-ness, af-ter all. I''m just fol-lowin'' or-ders."


    "You haven''t said whose or-ders they were."


    Sobon fed some of his body''s spir-it back into the dy-namos, find-ing--as he ex-pect-ed--most of the right-hand aether had been used up al-ready. Still, just bare-ly, he came out ahead; like the dy-namos them-selves, aether could con-tribute to a pos-i-tive feed-back cy-cle, but only for healthy peo-ple, and only when care-ful-ly con-trolled. As the last bar-gle still threat-en-ing him stud-ied him, try-ing to de-cide whether or not to try his luck, the whin-ing one in the back of the room dug it-self into a pit and switched to a more pa-thet-ic, whim-per-ing ca-dence to his noise-mak-ing.


    At last, the clos-er bar-gle at-tacked, and Sobon dodged and punched him in the side of the head. He, like the rest, col-lapsed.


    "Mat-tak said he''s out of leg irons," the cheer-ful guard replied. "He''s also th'' one who said these folk are ship-ping out. Says there''s no point in him dy-ing in the field, since he''s too weak to be any use to us."


    "Too weak," snort-ed the guard on pit duty. "Still man-aged to spook one of the bar-gles, though. ...Come to think of it, not so much gnaw-ing and tear-ing down there. Did he scare the rest off? Usu-al-ly they''re too dumb to in-tim-i-date, but I sup-pose even a half star might have a lucky break."


    "Oh come on, a half-sy that could even use the qi in ''em is un-heard of. Takes folk years to learn how to har-ness that stuff. What, are you re-al-ly goin'' to look? Macabre, ain''t it?"


    "Shut it," the pit duty guard said. "It''s my job, in-nit?"


    Sobon was look-ing up when the two guards peeked over the edge of the pit down at him. For ef-fect, even though the pain was mad-den-ing, he de-lib-er-ate-ly raised one leg and put it on the near-est bar-gle, which was still out af-ter he''d punched it. He had no idea if it was dead or stunned--he doubt-ed he had done enough to kill any of them--but he gave the two his best, de-fi-ant stare any-way, and fo-cused on just hold-ing onto his two dy-namos, keep-ing them spin-ning with every-thing that he had.


    The two guards stared at him for a mo-ment, then ex-changed glances, and sud-den-ly one guard slugged the oth-er in the face and start-ed shout-ing, his voice am-pli-fied and echo-ing off the walls of the bar-gle pit. "BASE COM-MAN-DER! WE GOT A PROB-LEM WIT'' TH'' BAR-GLES!"


    Sobon found him-self sneer-ing up-wards, even though he felt faint. Now that the im-me-di-ate prob-lem was han-dled, he found his head swim-ming, and he felt like falling over. He pushed him-self as best he could to stand there de-fi-ant-ly, even as his limbs trem-bled and his wounds bled. It oc-curred to him that the filthy pit junk had prob-a-bly got-ten into his wounds, but for just this mo-ment, he judged that the most im-por-tant thing he could do was im-press who-ev-er was in com-mand.


    "What do you mean, prob-lem." The voice that came back was in-tense enough that Sobon could taste the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure.


    "Blighter threw a live one in the pit and said he was dead, then changed his sto-ry to say he was only a half star, but he''s gone and killed or stunned all the bar-gles."


    "What?" In a flash, there was a man stand-ing in the mid-dle of the bar-gle pit, and Sobon blinked and turned to face him. He was be-gin-ning to see a pat-tern, here; like the Min-is-ter, this base com-man-der was some oth-er race than the lo-cals, and he car-ried him-self very dif-fer-ent-ly. His fea-tures showed age, but he car-ried him-self with im-pec-ca-ble pre-ci-sion and spir-i-tu-al force.


    The com-man-der ges-tured, and the wave of his arm car-ried enough spir-i-tu-al pres-sure to lift Sobon up and pin him against the wall.


    "Only stunned," the com-man-der said af-ter a mo-ment. "But he dis-abled all of them. How..." he glanced at Sobon, then in a flash, they were both above ground, Sobon on the ground--and bound with rope. How, he had no idea, but his hands and feet were to-geth-er, and he wise-ly chose not to re-sist or even strug-gle.


    "Who de-ter-mined this man to be a half star? He''s clear-ly at least two bronze stars."


    "Sir!" some-one shout-ed. "That would be Scribe Thims, sir! We was there, we watched him do it!"


    "You watched him do it, and didn''t ar-gue? You can''t tell the dif-fer-ence be-tween half a star and two stars?"


    "Ah, well, sir..."


    "Take him to the med-ical tent, and I want those two and Thims de-tained. I will de-ter-mine who here was ly-ing, or in-com-pe-tent, be-fore the end of the day, and see them put to death."


    Sobon hissed a half-laugh into the dirt, en-joy-ing a mo-ment of re-lief and the knowl-edge that these bar-bar-ians would suf-fer. Ap-par-ent-ly, that was wrong; sud-den-ly, he was jerked into the air by his bonds, and the face of the Base Com-man-der was inch-es from his own.


    Sobon took the mo-ment to study him, but the se-vere fea-tures of the man were dif-fi-cult to place, ex-cept to say that they were not like the lo-cals. He showed no signs of be-ing over-weight, at least, and his aether--from what Sobon could tell with-out open-ing him-self up more--was both in-tense and odd-ly steady, un-like the twist-ed and vi-o-lent qi that had sur-round-ed most peo-ple so far.


    "What amus-es you, sol-dier?"


    Sobon was be-gin-ning to feel the lim-its of his ex-haus-tion again, hav-ing spent too much of his body''s qi re-fill-ing his two spikes. Still, he didn''t dare not try to use this to weasel some oth-er ad-van-tage out of the sit-u-a-tion. "...not sol-dier," he said, find-ing his mouth dry and his tongue un-will-ing to prop-er-ly co-op-er-ate. "...not re-cruit. Not go-ing to work for you ...mur-der-ing ass-holes."


    The base com-man-der, with-out any in-crease in his emo-tions at all, reached out and grabbed Sobon by the throat, again.


    "You must be a slum re-cruit then, as any-one else in this place would know they had no choice." The com-man-der lift-ed him by the neck, but didn''t par-a-lyze Sobon, and in fact didn''t seem to squeeze him at all. "But I''m cu-ri-ous what you mean by mur-der-ing. We are a law-ful peo-ple."


    What could Sobon say? What had the id-iot guards called the man? How could he get the most sym-pa-thy here? He set-tled on a phrase he hoped would be poignant. "Fam-i-ly... killed by... Celb."


    The Base Com-man-der''s head rolled back slight-ly. His aether field re-mained steady, but Sobon was sure that the look on his face flick-ered to anger slight-ly.


    "I will in-ves-ti-gate this claim," he said. "But you are still a sol-dier of the Czar''s Grand army. All men of at least half a bronze star''s qi rank-ing are draft-ed, for the good of all. No mat-ter your cir-cum-stances, you will serve." The Com-man-der re-leased him, and Sobon col-lapsed on the ground. "See that his wounds are treat-ed."


    "Yes, sir."


    Sobon gri-maced, but it hid a smile. He want-ed to see every-one that had wronged him burned; this was a good start, but get-ting prop-er med-ical help would be a far, far bet-ter start to his re-venge.


    Even if it came with mil-i-tary ser-vice.

 4. Jom, part four

    Sobon was ripped from his med-ical bed in or-der to watch an ex-e-cu-tion. It was, to his dis-ap-point-ment, ex-act-ly two ex-e-cu-tions, and nei-ther of them re-spon-si-ble for his mis-ery. It was, ap-par-ent-ly, the cheer-ful guard, and the man in charge of Bar-racks 3 who had sug-gest-ed Sobon be thrown in the pit in-stead of dy-ing wound-ed in the fields. The for-mer was ac-cused of ly-ing, and the lat-ter of dis-obey-ing or-ders.


    Af-ter that came a whip-ping "for in-com-pe-tence," of the scribe who had de-scribed him as a bronze half-star, and the oth-er guard who had car-ried him in. The whip-ping was vi-o-lent enough to spray blood into the air so thick-ly as to be vis-i-ble from a dis-tance, and the two were al-lowed to scream un-til they fell un-con-scious. It took a dis-turbing-ly long time to end, even af-ter they clear-ly couldn''t feel the wounds any-more.


    "Let this be a les-son to you all," the Base Com-man-der said, when the whip-ping was done. Sobon re-al-ized, with a start, that near-ly the whole base had been turned out to watch the dis-ci-pline. "Your lives be-long to the Czar and the Di-a-mond Lord. Dis-ap-point them, or me, at your per-il."


    The spir-i-tu-al pres-sure that ac-com-pa-nied his words was, Sobon re-al-ized, its own form of spell, a com-plex cast-ing that wove en-er-gy mixed with emo-tion-al vi-o-lence into the peo-ple who heard it. He re-sist-ed it, flood-ing what lit-tle right-hand aether he had built up through his body, but he could only lessen the im-pact of it.


    Then he was picked up and cart-ed back off to the med-ical build-ing, where he was prompt-ly ig-nored for the rest of the day.


    To be fair, the med-ical staff were not shirk-ing their du-ties; the bed he had been placed in was in-scribed with a num-ber of glyphs, ones he were sure formed a spell, though he didn''t know how to read them. While in the bed, his body healed up far faster than it should have, though it left a sour feel-ing through his spir-it, like the med-ical en-er-gy was also mild-ly tox-ic.


    Twice through the rest of the day, Sobon built up enough en-er-gy in his right-hand dy-namo to flood his body and dis-lodge some of the sticky, sick-ly med-ical en-er-gy, but even with that, he felt like it was clog-ging up his spir-it.


    At the end the day, fi-nal-ly, an or-der-ly came by and de-ac-ti-vat-ed the field. He stud-ied Sobon, then sniffed, and said, "You''ll do." He opened a sack at-tached to his hip, pulled out a mid-size pale root of some kind, and jammed it into Sobon''s face, say-ing, "Eat this." And then he van-ished, leav-ing Sobon with the first food he had seen since wak-ing up in this world.


    Sobon stud-ied it, de-cid-ed it would prob-a-bly taste aw-ful, and be-gan to slow-ly gnaw on it. He wasn''t wrong; it was bit-ter, with a sour-ness to it that al-most seemed metal-lic, and it made him re-gret hav-ing an or-gan-ic body all over again. Still, he ate it, and some of his dizzi-ness went away.


    Not long af-ter he fin-ished chew-ing the last of the sour white root, two large sol-diers with spears--both the more pop-u-lous lo-cals--ap-peared in the door and stud-ied him. There was a long awk-ward mo-ment be-fore one guard turned to the oth-er and sim-ply said, with a snarl, "What a mess."


    The oth-er guard nod-ded, but slammed the butt of his spear onto the floor. "On your feet," he snarled, and Sobon com-plied. He was pleased to find that the mo-tion didn''t leave him feel-ing like any-thing was tear-ing or bleed-ing, or like he was about to fall over, but there was still a per-va-sive feel-ing of weak-ness, a weak-ness that he fig-ured was some com-bi-na-tion of be-ing com-plete-ly out of shape, be-ing near-ly starved, and spend-ing all his his time re-cov-er-ing from be-ing wound-ed.


    "Al-right, ro-dent," the more au-thor-i-ta-tive guard said, some-how spit-ting the word, de-spite a lack of hiss-ing sounds. "You''re luck-i-er than you de-serve by far. In-stead of be-ing shipped out right away, you''ll get a chance to re-cov-er and train. That''s in spite of hav-ing near-ly killed off our best sup-ply of meat in this rot-ten town, which if I were in charge, would have had you dis-em-bow-eled alive be-fore be-ing thrown right back in that stink-ing pit."


    "Now I may not be in charge of your puny slum-rat arse," he said, step-ping for-ward, and low-er-ing the point of his spear for em-pha-sis, "but I can tell you the train-ers here are every bit as dis-pleased to have the djiang pulling rank and telling us how to deal with our own dis-ci-pline prob-lems, so I''d rec-om-mend you do every-thing in your pa-thet-ic shriv-eled ass''s lim-it-ed ca-pa-bil-i-ties to give them no rea-son to even re-mem-ber you ex-ist."


    He stepped clos-er, his mouth open-ing in a snarl, and Sobon not-ed ab-sent-ly that his teeth were ugly and rot-ting in his mouth and his breath was hor-ren-dous, black-ened cav-i-ties ob-vi-ous even on the front sur-faces, but he kept tight con-trol, old Ma-rine in-stincts keep-ing him locked up tight.


    "Do that, and you might sur-vive to stand in be-tween one of your bet-ters and a star-beast, and maybe die to save the life of some-one ac-tu-al-ly mean-ing-ful to this blight-ed world, or at least save a few of the bloat-ed sheep hud-dled be-hind this ugly wart of a city''s walls. Don''t... and I promise you I''ll be watch-ing as your corpse is fed to the bar-gles. I''ll even stab it a few times to make dou-ble sure it''s dead."


    With that, the sol-dier stepped back-wards, slammed his spear into the ground again, turned, and start-ed to march out. The oth-er sol-dier wait-ed, ges-tur-ing with his spear for Sobon to go ahead of him, and he did, im-me-di-ate-ly hur-ry-ing to march a re-spect-ful dis-tance be-hind the first, and matched his pace.


    The med-ical wing was in an un-fa-mil-iar part of the mil-i-tary camp, and Sobon wasn''t led any-where fa-mil-iar. In-stead, he was led through a rel-a-tive-ly thin in-ner wall into a sep-a-rate court-yard, where a man with messy short black hair and long black mut-ton chops, and big tufts of hair sprout-ing from his ears, stood at at-ten-tion, wait-ing for him.


    Sobon not-ed that the sol-dier in the lead stepped to the left and stopped a good dis-tance away, so he con-tin-ued straight but stopped in line with him. As he sus-pect-ed, the man be-hind him soon ap-peared on his right, also in line.


    "This is the blight-ed re-cruit, sar."


    Mut-ton-chops'' eyes flicked back and forth be-tween the two sol-diers, but then only stared at Sobon for a mo-ment be-fore tak-ing two steps up to the sol-dier in the lead and deck-ing him in the face. Sobon flinched, but wait-ed, and a mo-ment lat-er, in his pe-riph-ery, he not-ed the sol-dier back in line al-most ex-act-ly where he''d been.


    "All you lot are in-com-pe-tent," Mut-ton-chops said, sourly. "Garbage, you are, every last one of you. Ought to have you flayed along-side those oth-er bug-gers for it, if I had my way, but they don''t let Bil-gs like us de-cide that, do they?" He snort-ed, then looked at the oth-er sol-dier. "Giv-ing you one chance not to get beat-en like your mo-ron friend. What''s wrong with this pic-ture, Mukkin?"


    The sol-dier on his right tensed, and clear-ly turned to look--if only briefly--but just as Mut-ton-chops start-ed to move, he spit out, al-most at a yell, "Sir, he fell in line... with-out be-ing told, sir?"


    "Right, you''re in charge of the dis-ci-pline squad for now. Well done." Mut-ton-chops moved di-rect-ly up to Sobon, sneer-ing, and Sobon could smell sev-er-al dif-fer-ent kinds of aw-ful stench soaked into his hair and clothes. "Not met a sin-gle re-cruit, not a one, who didn''t think to ei-ther step back or for-ward, out of fear or hate, not save ones who was told what to do by some-one. All I''ve been told says you''re a street rat worth noth-in'' and that step up was too de-lib-er-ate to be chance. So tell me," he said, his eyes nar-row-ing into a dan-ger-ous glare, "where''d you learn pro-to-col like that?"


    That was a ques-tion Sobon couldn''t eas-i-ly an-swer, but he had an in-stinc-tu-al fear that not an-swer-ing--or giv-ing the wrong an-swer--would have him killed as a spy. He felt his body start to stut-ter, and clamped down on his jaw, re-fus-ing to talk un-til he had a thought. The only lie he had, he spat out, not hid-ing his ner-vous-ness. "My mas-ter taught me," he said, still un-sure what that would even im-ply to these peo-ple.


    Mut-ton-chops snarled, but stepped back. "Right, pull the oth-er one," he said, sourly. "You''re in too poor a shape to have a mas-ter. Ba-sic train-ing will put an-oth-er fifty pounds of mus-cle on you, to say noth-ing of a prop-er diet."


    Sobon''s thoughts sort-ed through what he''d heard up un-til now. The... guards had said some-thing about learn-ing by be-ing around star beasts, what-ev-er those were, right? That im-plied peo-ple used Aether to learn, more broad-ly, even if he wasn''t yet clear on how. "Ah, sir, he just... waved his hand at me, and I knew it. And oth-er things." Mut-ton-chops'' eyes nar-rowed, and Sobon con-tin-ued, try-ing to me-thod-i-cal-ly in-vent a plau-si-ble sto-ry. "He seemed sick-ly at the time, and wan-dered off not long af-ter, sir. I can''t say I know much about him, or where he is, or why, but it changed a lot of things, sir."


    Mut-ton-chops glanced from him to the sol-diers, but his lips curled into a snarl. "So you don''t think he''s com-ing for you."


    "Could hope, sir," Sobon lied, and re-fused to say more.


    "Right then, mys-te-ri-ous great mas-ter or what-ev-er, none of my busi-ness, then." Mut-ton-chops con-tin-ued on, look-ing like he was un-af-fect-ed, though Sobon doubt-ed he re-al-ly was. "I''ll beat you into shape, and if some crazy old man shows up and pays your ran-som, he''ll get a re-cruit with a few mus-cles on him at least. And if not, we''ll find some use for you against star-beasts."


    "In the mean-time, I only have one oth-er ques-tion for you, re-cruit, and you''d best an-swer prop-er-ly un-less you want to be put through hell for it." Mut-ton-chops fo-cused on him, and he could see a sort of glee-ful in-ten-si-ty in those eyes. "How much con-trol over your qi do you have, and what do you know how to do with it?"


    Sobon hes-i-tat-ed. "I have a spe-cial tech-nique, sir," he said, "but I don''t un-der-stand it very well."


    Mut-ton-chops slipped eas-i-ly back into an at-ten-tion stance and re-mained with his eyes locked on Sobon''s. "Show me."


    Sobon kept his dy-namos most-ly con-cealed in his spir-it; he didn''t trust that a more at-ten-tive qi user wouldn''t even-tu-al-ly fig-ure out what he was do-ing. His left and right spikes, though, he man-i-fest-ed in his hands, and he spun the dy-namos slight-ly.


    Mut-ton-chops, at least, did fo-cus im-me-di-ate-ly on his hands. "And what do you know how to do with those?"


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "The left one hurts oth-ers, sir, and the right one helps me." That was safe to say.


    Mut-ton-chops failed to hide a look of sur-prise, and again, he threw a with-er-ing look at the sol-dier to Sobon''s left. "Two forms, then," he said, re-main-ing busi-nesslike. "That''s good. Once you have enough of your pos-i-tive qi, it will help with your sta-mi-na train-ing, and we''ll work on weaponiz-ing that neg-a-tive qi lat-er on."


    "For now, I ex-pect you to run laps around this court-yard un-til you faint. Stop even long enough to breathe or take a piss, and I''ll beat you un-con-scious my-self. If I hear a word of com-plaint, I''ll beat you. Get in any-one''s way, I''ll beat you. Feign un-con-scious-ness, and I''ll beat you. You do what I say un-til you die." Mut-ton-chops gave him a with-er-ing glare. "Go."


    Sobon, af-ter only a mo-ment''s hes-i-ta-tion, turned and ran. Mut-ton-chops watched him for only a mo-ment, then be-gan yelling at the sol-diers that had led him here. Sobon was half-in-ter-est-ed in hear-ing them get chewed out, but very quick-ly was forced back to think-ing about his cur-rent predica-ment.


    He wasn''t dy-ing, now, but this was also def-i-nite-ly the sort of train-ing the Mixed Marines didn''t do, be-cause it had long-term costs. Giv-en the train-ing he al-ready had, he could force him-self to do what the train-ing of-fi-cer had told him--he had al-ready done worse to his body when it was more in-jured.


    The prob-lem was, the meth-ods were in-tend-ed to in-doc-tri-nate peo-ple--to prove that the train-er knew him bet-ter than he knew him-self. It wasn''t on a phys-i-cal or even a psy-cho-log-i-cal lev-el, but a spir-i-tu-al one; if he re-sist-ed the train-ing but thrived, his body would trust the train-ing more than it trust-ed him. For most peo-ple, that was a net pos-i-tive; the train-er re-al-ly did know what peo-ple could take, es-pe-cial-ly paired with a re-gen-er-a-tion bed like he''d just got-ten off of, bet-ter than any com-mon, un-trained per-son.


    But Sobon was a Mixed Ma-rine, and these ass-holes didn''t even know his name, let alone know what he knew about bi-ol-o-gy, spir-i-tu-al con-va-les-cence, aether dy-nam-ics, or any-thing else. Heck, they hadn''t even asked just what oth-er knowl-edge the ''mys-te-ri-ous Great Mas-ter'' had giv-en him.


    Over and over, though, he just kept com-ing back to the same thought: no-body had asked his name. Not once. Not the pig-head-ed bas-tards that kid-napped him, not the brain-less twat that record-ed his re-cruit-ment, not the Base Com-man-der when he re-al-ized what a mess had come from un-der-es-ti-mat-ing him, not the heal-er, not the guards, and not Mut-ton-chops the train-er. Did they all just as-sume he didn''t have one? Or did they not care? Even then, wouldn''t they as-sign him one so that he knew when he was be-ing spo-ken to?


    Sobon had al-ready made a lap around the court-yard, and all of his limbs were burn-ing, though this time it was less from in-jury and more from ex-haus-tion. He knew that Mut-ton-chops was ex-pect-ing him to stum-ble and fall so he could show up and beat him, just to prove that the next time around, with the fear of abuse haunt-ing his foot-steps, Sobon could go fur-ther.


    The prob-lem was, Sobon knew he could go fur-ther. What he need-ed now wasn''t for some-one else to take cred-it for prov-ing that; he need-ed to re-build his strength enough to be able to ac-tu-al-ly do this kind of train-ing with-out de-stroy-ing him-self. As it was, Sobon knew his legs would give out be-fore he made an-oth-er two laps, and if he pushed it as hard as the in-struc-tor told him to--in or-der to prove the bas-tard wrong--he might se-ri-ous-ly dam-age some-thing.


    Sobon took half a lap to think about it, but de-cid-ed at that point that ma-li-cious com-pli-ance was the only op-tion he re-al-ly had. The in-struc-tor''s meth-ods would work if he didn''t; he would come to feel like this dis-gust-ing, cor-rupt, evil place was the place that had made him strong, in-stead of the place that had done every-thing in its pow-er to weak-en and de-stroy him.


    Do-ing what they said and let-ting it con-tin-ue to de-stroy him would teach his body what he al-ready knew--that he knew bet-ter.


    So he ran, and ran. Start-ing af-ter two more laps, his mus-cle fa-tigue be-came al-most too bad to work around, but he fo-cused on oth-er mus-cle groups, fo-cused on breath-ing, changed his pac-ing and his strides, every-thing he had to do in or-der to keep on his feet un-til he ran out of en-er-gy. Five laps af-ter that, Sobon could bare-ly see, the dark-ness creep-ing up around every edge of his con-scious-ness, but since he hadn''t passed out, he con-tin-ued to run.


    Two laps af-ter that, he had an out of body ex-pe-ri-ence, his spir-it open-ing to the vast and ugly ocean of qi that was the world, and yet some-how, he forced his body not to col-lapse, even as he be-came un-able to see with his eyes or hear with his ears, and he could only bare-ly feel the burn-ing shad-ow of his body as it ran into a wall, legs still pump-ing and arms still swing-ing.


    He stared at that ugly qi ocean, and stared, and stared, and he re-al-ized that some-where in-side him, he un-der-stood it. It was a twist-ed form of aether, a mix of sta-t-ic, of left and right spins, and of in and out spins, but noth-ing high-er--at least, noth-ing close enough for him to see. There were strange ed-dies, that might have been resid-ual high-er-di-men-sion-al flows, but noth-ing that looked de-lib-er-ate.


    He could do bet-ter. He could form a dy-namo that was at least five-di-men-sion-al, con-sum-ing in and out aether to pro-duce... Sobon couldn''t quite place the name of the next spin di-rec-tions. In-verse and be-yond? It didn''t mat-ter. He still re-mem-bered vi-su-al-iz-ing five-di-men-sion-al dy-namos, and he was sure he could build one in time.


    The vi-sion fad-ed from him, and he saw Mut-ton-chops look-ing down on him, so Sobon strug-gled to his feet, bare-ly able to per-ceive any-thing ex-cept the ring-ing in his ears and the dull out-lines of things in the world around him.


    A slap at-tempt-ed to bring him to his sens-es, and Sobon turned to look at Mut-ton-chops, who was glar-ing at him.


    He had to read the man''s lips, which was dif-fi-cult when he could bare-ly see. "What are you do-ing?" he thought the man said.


    "Or-ders," Sobon said, still half-deliri-ous from the hal-lu-ci-na-tion. "I''ll be pun-ished if I don''t do the wrong thing, so I have to do what I''m told no mat-ter what''s right. Train-er''s or-ders." And with that, he turned and con-tin-ued run-ning, a glee-ful shiv-er run-ning through his body as it, on a spir-i-tu-al lev-el, ac-cept-ed what he''d said over the un-bear-able non-sense the trai-tor want-ed him to be-lieve.


    For whichev-er rea-son, Mut-ton-chops let him go. Sobon didn''t so much as turn his head to look, not that he could see much even right in front of him.


    The min-utes that passed didn''t make sense to Sobon, ei-ther at the time, or when he tried to look back on them. He drift-ed in and out of be-ing able to sense the world''s qi sev-er-al times, and he sev-er-al times slammed into the wall, but it made no sense. All he could think about was that he''d said it, and meant it. His body res-onat-ed with that truth, and it echoed through his spir-it.


    He''d told the psy-chot-ic mon-ster that he was wrong, and not been beat-en. Mut-ton-chops had thought he was done, but Sobon knew is body bet-ter than the man did. Every-one who was look-ing at him knew it--they didn''t un-der-stand how he could do more. He could feel that, when-ev-er his spir-it opened up again.


    Idly, Sobon tried to spin up his aether dy-namos just a lit-tle bit faster, only to find that they had be-gun spin-ning on their own. In fact, when he tried to touch them, they burned his mind and slowed, as if his mind was sud-den-ly far too slow to keep up with them.


    Was he burn-ing qi--or aether--right now? Or both? He had to be, didn''t he? Sobon couldn''t think straight, but tried to gath-er his aether, only to find that the two spikes were flares of light, one ra-di-at-ing out-wards from his body, one ra-di-at-ing in-wards, keep-ing him go-ing. Sobon con-sid-ered them as he jogged; that was right, wasn''t it? Left aether to pro-tect him, right aether to fuel him.


    As he con-tin-ued on, a fig-ure ap-peared in front of him. He al-most dodged out of the way, but then he could see the man in the aether--a shad-ow of a man, over-shad-owed by a large shin-ing spike of what must have been qi, qi that was sil-very but flow-ing, like mer-cury. Sobon squint-ed, try-ing to make out the dy-namo that must have been pow-er-ing that spike, but be-fore he could re-solve any of the de-tails, a hand came out and grabbed him by the face.


    "This is the sec-ond time you''ve been brought to my at-ten-tion, boy," the voice of the Base Com-man-der rat-tled through his spir-it. "And it''s be-gin-ning..."


    There was a sud-den stretch of si-lence.


    "What are you do-ing, boy?"


    Sobon, of course, had not been able to move since he had been grabbed, and so the ques-tion made no sense for a long mo-ment.


    "You--your spir-it is prepar-ing to break through to Five Bronze Stars lev-el. This..." there was a hiss. "If you do not pre-pare for this break-through, it will de-stroy you. And yet, you should not be at this lev-el. I know you were only at Two Bronze Stars."


    Stars this, stars that. Sobon des-per-ate-ly want-ed to sim-ply fall un-con-scious, and he knew that his face must have been twist-ed with dis-gust and rage, but he glanced up one more time at the Com-man-der''s own dy-namo, or what-ev-er prim-i-tive thing they had in this world that did the job of one.


    It was strange-ly twist-ed, he not-ed. The same dy-namo had parts of it that were left- or right-hand spun, but chaot-i-cal-ly; he was fa-mil-iar with the odd pat-terns of a high-er-di-men-sion-al dy-namo, cy-cling through three-di-men-sion-al space in a way that only looked im-pos-si-ble, but this was noth-ing like that. Per-haps the flows twist-ed through high-er di-men-sions in or-der to have both left- and right-hand twists on the same sin-gle loop of thread, but he couldn''t grasp how. Above all, in-stead of a cir-cle, his dy-namo was a four-lobed knot, and Sobon briefly glanced, men-tal-ly, at his own body, in or-der to com-pare the Com-man-der''s qi to his own.


    He was as-ton-ished to find that his own body had a sim-i-lar knot; in struc-ture, it ap-peared al-most iden-ti-cal, with four twist-ed lobes, though the col-or, tex-ture, and mo-tion of the knots were very dif-fer-ent. As he watched, his own surged re-peat-ed-ly, as though try-ing to twist it-self out of ex-is-tence, the four lobes vi-brat-ing un-nat-u-ral-ly.


    His thoughts were too tired and too... fleshy to un-der-stand for a long mo-ment, and it ir-ri-tat-ed him. He knew that he was smarter than this, but the ex-haus-tion, or... some-thing was in-ter-fer-ing. Was it the knot? He doubt-ed it, con-sid-er-ing how hard he''d just been push-ing him-self. He fo-cused on his right-hand aether, press-ing it into his mind to clear his thoughts.


    The knot re-belled against the push, and be-gan to desta-bi-lize again.


    Oh, I see. It doesn''t want to take any more aether. But shouldn''t I be out of aether? If I''ve been us-ing it to keep go-ing?


    Sobon was sur-prised when the spir-i-tu-al voice of his pre-de-ces-sor in-ter-rupt-ed, though he hadn''t known much on the sub-ject be-fore.


    [ Sir... ] It flinched back when his at-ten-tion fo-cused on it. [ Sir, please, the body... qi is not just the pow-er that you wield, but also your abil-i-ty to use it. When you add more, it can de-stroy you. I know I''ve heard peo-ple say that. ]


    Aether was the abil-i-ty to use aether? That didn''t mesh with Sobon''s un-der-stand-ing, but then, per-haps aether and qi were dif-fer-ent af-ter all. If he sim-ply added aether, then was he adding the abil-i-ty to use more lat-er?


    He closed his mind to the out-side world and con-sid-ered the four-lobed knot, and what he knew about aether. It was dif-fi-cult, as he was very near-ly ex-haust-ed, but he knew that there had to be an an-swer. The frus-trat-ing part was, geom-e-try didn''t seem to be the an-swer; the knot made no sense to him what-so-ev-er. And the Base Com-man-der... said some-thing about five stars? So he was at four stars now, try-ing to reach five?


    Five out of how many max-i-mum? The bas-tard in front of him also had four, so the num-ber couldn''t even be all that im-por-tant. It was all so stu-pid. If it had de-vel-oped from two lobes to four, then cer-tain-ly it could just add more lobes around the edges. Maybe it need-ed to be-come four around a cen-tral loop?


    In his mind, he worked out the math, and pulled the strands into the right align-ment. For a mo-ment, he thought it felt in-tu-itive-ly right, but then the odd spins of the knot be-gan to fray around one an-oth-er. He pushed and prod-ded at it, try-ing to ad-just where and how the knot dipped into high-er di-men-sions, but they re-sist-ed him.


    Come on, he urged his own spir-it, tired-ly. I''ve al-ready proven I know what I''m do-ing, haven''t I?


    There was an-oth-er mo-ment of hes-i-ta-tion, and then the knot re-lent-ed, and the four-lobed knot snapped into five lobes. When it did, he felt the cen-tral lobe be-gin to spin, and he grasped it, try-ing to in-tu-itive-ly de-ter-mine which way it was spin-ning and what that would mean.


    Be-fore he could de-ter-mine any-thing use-ful, though, the cop-pery col-or of his spir-it sud-den-ly shift-ed to a dull grey, and the knot col-lapsed into a sin-gle loop. Then, sud-den-ly, the loop split in two, start-ed to go fur-ther, and col-lapsed back into two.


    "He did it," he heard some-one say, al-though he couldn''t tell who or where they were stand-ing, as a wave of ex-haus-tion made it vir-tu-al-ly im-pos-si-ble to fo-cus. "And not just five stars. One... no, two Iron stars. How is this pos-si-ble?"


    In his mind, Sobon smirked, think-ing that this world had no un-der-stand-ing at all of what was pos-si-ble, be-fore he fi-nal-ly, bless-ed-ly, passed out.

 5. Jom, part five

    Sobon woke once again to find him-self not in the med-ical build-ing, but in an in-di-vid-ual room with the door closed. To his dis-gust, he found that there was once more a pun-gent, sticky mess of "heal-ing" en-er-gy clog-ging his spir-it, but he re-sist-ed the urge to flush it with fresh aether from his right dy-namo.


    Clear-ly, sim-ply flood-ing his body with aether had side ef-fects he hadn''t yet iden-ti-fied, and while he felt stronger now than he had just a lit-tle while ago, ad-vanc-ing too quick-ly seemed like a ter-ri-ble idea.


    In-stead, he fo-cused on those old ex-er-cis-es he''d been taught, ex-pelling the sticky en-er-gy and bring-ing in fresh en-er-gy from out-side. The world''s aether was it-self dirty, and it made Sobon itch, but it didn''t cling to his sys-tem the way the med-i-cine did.


    There was a knock on the door, though it opened be-fore Sobon could do more than open his eyes. The per-son who en-tered was the first woman Sobon had seen since the whore in the slums, and she was clear-ly of the up-per-caste race, her fea-tures more an-gu-lar and her pos-ture more guard-ed. The dress it-self was fine fab-ric, held tight around her hips by a fab-ric belt, but vo-lu-mi-nous in the sleeves and up-per tor-so, and the fab-ric was dyed to pro-duce im-ages with-out em-broi-dery--a tech-nique Sobon wasn''t ex-pect-ing to see in such a low-tech-nol-o-gy world. Though she was not some-one Sobon would count as beau-ti-ful--cy-borg in-stincts aside, he was quick-ly start-ing to hate every-one in this world--it was clear that her dress and be-hav-ior were all tai-lored to form a co-he-sive im-age, rather than be-ing nat-ur-al ex-pres-sions of her spir-it or the more com-mon ac-ci-den-tal col-lec-tion of con-ve-nient-ly avail-able fab-rics. That ...pur-pose, that co-he-sion, ap-pealed to him on an in-stinc-tive lev-el, even as he ig-nored it.


    He stud-ied her as she shuf-fled in-side, tak-ing in the mod-er-ate strides and the care-ful mo-tions, and de-ter-mined that she was sup-posed to look shy and sub-mis-sive, even as Sobon could tell that an enor-mous gold-en Aether spike hung be-hind her, her twist-ed core proud-ly dis-play-ing nine lobes. The aether it-self vi-brat-ed qui-et-ly but in-tense-ly around her, though she was able to qui-et it with a quick but ob-vi-ous men-tal ef-fort when she sensed that he was watch-ing.


    He didn''t know how the rank-ing of these qi users worked, but he could tell in-stant-ly that she was far be-yond the base com-man-der in pow-er, to say noth-ing of Sobon him-self.


    "It seems you are well." Hav-ing closed the door and moved up to the side of Sobon''s bed, the woman stepped back slight-ly and bowed. "I am Xoi, an as-sis-tant to Gen-er-al Gaum. It has been brought to our at-ten-tion that you are an un-usu-al spec-i-men." She straight-ened and stepped clos-er again, and her eyes trav-eled over him briefly. The fact that she didn''t shy away from any sort of eye con-tact re-in-forced Sobon''s opin-ion that her gen-tle de-meanor was an act. "You have purged the med-ical qi from your sys-tem al-ready. That shows a lev-el of in-stinct or un-der-stand-ing far be-yond that of the lo-cals, though I think most would pre-fer med-ical qi to the pol-lut-ed low-qual-i-ty qi of this area, de-spite its... long-term ef-fects."


    Sobon wasn''t sure if there was any-thing in there to re-spond to, and in-stead just mea-sured the woman''s gaze, meet-ing her eyes un-flinch-ing-ly. There was a calm cer-tain-ty to her that he found vast-ly more ap-peal-ing than her beau-ti-ful dress and fake shy-ness, though he didn''t let any of the emo-tions stir-ring in-side him con-vince him that she could be trust-ed. No-body here could be trust-ed.


    Af-ter a long pause, per-haps to see if he had any-thing to say, Xoi con-tin-ued, as though con-tin-u-ing a script. "Of course, the real cu-rios-i-ty is your split core. No doubt this is the rea-son be-hind your sud-den rise in spir-i-tu-al rank-ing; three cores, two ded-i-cat-ed to a spe-cif-ic kind of qi at high den-si-ty and pu-ri-ty, and the third in-te-grat-ing them into your body and spir-it. A clever and in-ter-est-ing tech-nique, though I am not cer-tain I un-der-stand the in-tent. Who-ev-er taught you this tech-nique, did they con-vey any de-tails?"


    Sobon caught him-self feel-ing mo-men-tar-i-ly at ease, giv-en that the woman--at the very least--seemed in-tel-li-gent and well-mean-ing... but that ex-cused noth-ing, and he pushed it down. "I don''t know how long I was asleep," Sobon said, not ad-dress-ing her ques-tion at all, "but pri-or to that, I was beat-en by hooli-gans, strung up by a butch-er to be torn apart and eat-en alive, watched sol-diers mur-der in-no-cents, was kid-napped, thrown into a pit to die--no, to be eat-en alive again, and then bare-ly healed and made to ex-er-cise un-til I passed out."


    "Your pres-ence here I am sure was not meant to be an in-sult," Sobon felt his lips peel back into a sneer, in spite of try-ing to re-sist... though, he didn''t try too hard. "But it is one."


    The woman hummed non-com-mit-tal-ly, not avoid-ing his gaze. "If you''d like me to add to your un-com-fort-able list of trag-ic ex-pe-ri-ences," she said, with some dark hu-mor in her voice, and a shad-ow of a smile on her lips, "please give me time to change out of this dress. It is dif-fi-cult to clean."


    Sobon couldn''t help laugh-ing in an-swer, and the woman cov-ered her mouth in re-sponse, her eyes amused. Still, when she low-ered her hand, the amused look fad-ed quick-ly. "In truth," she said, her voice still on the pleas-ant side of lev-el, "I un-der-stand your ha-tred. Since our oc-cu-pa-tion of the Isles, the Djiang have over-seen a num-ber of atroc-i-ties, some by our hands, some by your own, to say noth-ing of the rift crea-tures and the spawn of the Fall-en King."


    "Still, for you to think you can mouth off to some-one of my pow-er..." there was a smile hid-den in her eyes, again, but it was not a ful-ly pleas-ant one. "You are ei-ther very ig-no-rant or very con-fi-dent. And I do not be-lieve it is ig-no-rance, be-cause I saw you mea-sur-ing my qi. You un-der-stand much."


    Sobon frowned at her. He want-ed to deny know-ing things, since in so many ways he knew noth-ing of this world, but that was a use-less ges-ture giv-en how much raw com-pe-tence he had dis-played, rel-a-tive to every-one else around. There was no dis-guis-ing that there was some-thing odd about him; the best he could do was try to hide ex-act-ly what that was, or at least, con-trol who knew it.


    In the end, he said noth-ing, and she spoke up again.


    "The best in-cen-tive I can of-fer you," she said, "is an es-cape from this dis-gust-ing place, and the only way I can of-fer that is if you can dis-play both com-pe-tence and sub-mis-sion to au-thor-i-ty. Since you have missed this chance to be sent on a beast ex-ter-mi-na-tion mis-sion, you should have enough time to heal and train prop-er-ly. I might even be able to get you a lit-tle ex-tra room to prac-tice your spe-cial tech-nique in se-cret, as long as you promise not to at-tempt to es-cape or rebel."


    "In ex-change, I ex-pect you to, on the next mis-sion, kill a Gold-ranked star beast with-out as-sis-tance, and re-turn with its core. Do that, and I will en-sure that you are trans-ferred to the Gen-er-al''s ret-inue. To be clear, that is the next mis-sion, in three moons time. Do you think you can do that?"


    Sobon had no idea how to even mea-sure strength, but he was sure that Xoi''s gold-en qi was sig-nif-i-cant-ly more pow-er-ful than the base com-man-der''s sil-ver qi, and he was sure that the qual-i-ty of his body''s new iron-gray qi was in-fe-ri-or to both. Still, if he had sev-er-al months, prop-er nu-tri-tion, and time to him-self... "Yes."


    "You are dar-ing." Xoi''s eyes nar-rowed as she stud-ied him, but she kept smil-ing. "Very well. We will be ex-pect-ing great things from you, and if we are dis-ap-point-ed..." She stepped back, and turned to-wards the door. "...You do not wish to dis-ap-point us."


    Sobon watched her head to the door, frus-tra-tion build-ing in his chest. As she got to it, he fi-nal-ly barked the ques-tion. "Why... why does no-body ask my name?"


    She turned and looked at him, her face blanked by con-fu-sion.


    "Why should we need to ask?" she asked. "The Di-a-mond Lord''s bless-ing shows us your name, Jom, as it shows you ours. We sim-ply do not like to be fa-mil-iar with those of in-fe-ri-or sta-tion. Names are some-thing we only ac-knowl-edge among those who have achieved some-thing be-yond mere... sur-vival."


    Sobon frowned, but the spir-it of his pre-de-ces-sor sud-den-ly reached out to him, and fed him a gar-bled text stream--it seemed like it should have been more, full of de-tails and in-for-ma-tion, but all he could make out was a name at the be-gin-ning: Xoi Xam. As it came to him, he could feel his face twitch, and felt a headache build-ing for a mo-ment, then fade.


    Xoi cocked her head at him for a mo-ment, as though cu-ri-ous, but walked out with-out ask-ing a fur-ther ques-tion.


    Sobon frowned, and closed his eyes, pok-ing the spir-it. You are Jom, I as-sume?


    [ Yes. ]


    And this is nor-mal?


    [ I''m not even sure what I did. I feel the world call-ing to me, and I... I passed the call on to you. Did it work? ]


    Sobon con-sid-ered the ques-tion. I as-sume the in-for-ma-tion you have was sim-i-lar-ly... con-fused.


    [ I can''t un-der-stand it, no. I nev-er could. Even be-ing able to read a name clear-ly is new to me. ]


    Sobon nod-ded to him-self. Your voice is chang-ing.


    [ Yes. I mean, well, I am chang-ing. I was noth-ing, be-fore. Then I died, I sup-pose. ]


    Sobon shook his head, in-tent on not get-ting side-tracked. What else calls to you? From the world?


    Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.


    [ Peo-ple, if they have qi. Oth-er things that have qi, prob-a-bly. I once met a rat like that. He was eat-ing some-one, of course. Most peo-ple in the slums don''t, though. The trash of peo-ple with qi does, but I don''t want to mess with that. ]


    Things with qi tell you what they are?


    [ I told you, I could nev-er make out what it was say-ing. Maybe? But the fact that it''s call-ing out means that it''s dan-ger-ous. That''s all a street urchin needs to know. ]


    Sobon re-lent-ed, ac-knowl-edg-ing that Jom didn''t have much else for him. He con-sid-ered the seem-ing-ly cor-rupt-ed data dump. The idea of in-for-ma-tion broad-cast through the aether wasn''t new to him, of course; no world with aether tech would ig-nore the chance to use it for both sen-sors and com-mu-ni-ca-tions. The only thing odd was that it seemed to un-lock as he--as Jom, per-haps--got stronger, and that could be ex-plained by the knot-ted struc-ture of his body''s qi core. If the core it-self act-ed as a crude an-ten-na, you would need a core of a cer-tain com-plex-i-ty in or-der to re-ceive the data cor-rect-ly.


    Could he just make a bet-ter aether an-ten-na? Prob-a-bly, but there was no rea-son to pri-or-i-tize that. He would be bet-ter served by cre-at-ing a num-ber of dy-namos, link-ing some of them into high-er-di-men-sion-al struc-tures, and fig-ur-ing out how to keep his body''s core from get-ting over-loaded by the ad-di-tion-al aether he was pump-ing into it.


    For now, he sat up straight in his bed and set-tled, try-ing to see how much aether his body''s core had. It was, un-sur-pris-ing-ly, more than enough to match the pa-thet-i-cal-ly thin dy-namos he orig-i-nal-ly made; he stud-ied what he had, not-ing that the two dy-namo threads were slight-ly dif-fer-ent in size. That... wasn''t ide-al, if he in-tend-ed to link them into a high-er-di-men-sion-al torus, so he calmed him-self, try-ing to steady his con-trol as care-ful-ly as pos-si-ble, and took his orig-i-nal, left-hand dy-namo in mind.


    Care-ful-ly, he cre-at-ed an-oth-er with ex-act-ly the same thread size and di-am-e-ter, and spun it right.


    The two were close enough to give off a beat fre-quen-cy when he spun them to-geth-er, small dis-tor-tions in-di-cat-ing that they were not quite even. He stud-ied the beats for a mo-ment, then de-stroyed his new dy-namo and be-gan again, craft-ing one just a hair short-er, then spun it up. The beat fre-quen-cy was still there, but much slow-er. He stud-ied it, again, then very care-ful-ly, de-stroyed and recre-at-ed the dy-namo.


    Near-ly per-fect.


    In-stead of fuss-ing with it any fur-ther, Sobon cre-at-ed four more dy-namos--two left, two right--of the same thread size, com-par-ing them all to each oth-er to make sure they were as close to per-fect as he could make them, and then set the six tiny dy-namos in three op-pos-ing pairs, lin-ing up their spikes just so. With-out him ex-plic-it-ly do-ing any-thing, the rings and spikes be-gan to slow-ly push and pull on high-er-di-men-sion-al space, cre-at-ing a slug-gish cur-rent that passed through those high-er di-men-sions and back again, ap-pear-ing to re-turn to the same point in space.


    He fed a thread of his own aether through that cur-rent, let-ting it get pulled away from him, and as soon as it came back to the same place, he com-plet-ed the cir-cle, and spun it out-wards.


    The ef-fect on the air around him was im-me-di-ate. The world''s aether, which had been rough and itchy around him, rip-pled slight-ly, a faint echo of life re-turn-ing to the stale air around him. The op-pres-sive at-mos-phere of the room--of the whole world, as far as Sobon had known it so far--light-ened slight-ly, as the out-wards-spin aether pressed back light-ly against it.


    As I sus-pect-ed, out-wards-spin is healthy. Sobon had only been able to guess, but it was right-hand to right-hand aether, so it made sense. As the dy-nano''s spike ap-peared, he grasped it, try-ing to get a sense of any high-er-di-men-sion vi-bra-tions or cur-rents; since his own per-son-al aether was now pass-ing through those high-er di-men-sions, it should be pos-si-ble. Af-ter a few mo-ments, though, he gave up; the thin thread of aether he was us-ing was no re-place-ment for a prop-er sen-sor, or at least a well-de-signed aether an-ten-na.


    In-stead of wor-ry-ing about it, he cast the six small-er dy-namos out into high-er-di-men-sion-al space, align-ing them so that they out-lined the whole of the torus. Rel-a-tive to the phys-i-cal, that meant some of the torus-es would ap-pear to spin in re-verse, or fade in and out of re-al-i-ty... but then, their pres-ence would be all kinds of con-fus-ing for a more lim-it-ed mind.


    Such as, for ex-am-ple, Jom.


    The spir-it was watch-ing in in-tense fas-ci-na-tion, his mind bare-ly able to com-pre-hend geom-e-try in two di-men-sions, let alone four. Af-ter Sobon pinned the spikes in place, caus-ing the en-tire con-struc-tion to col-lapse into a sin-gle, low-qual-i-ty out-ward-torus, he fi-nal-ly spoke up again. [ This is the ...thing, you were talk-ing about? The high-er what-sit? ]


    I wasn''t re-al-ly talk-ing about it, Sobon grumped. He hadn''t even con-sid-ered that the ghost of the slum boy was read-ing his thoughts, giv-en how silent a com-pan-ion he had been.


    [ I don''t un-der-stand. Isn''t it just... com-ing from nowhere? ]


    "Every-thing seems to come from nowhere, if you can''t see the source." Sobon coughed once af-ter he whis-pered to the emp-ty room, then shook his head. He was us-ing up en-er-gy that he ought to be putting into get-ting in shape, but this felt like a good first step, even if he wasn''t en-tire-ly pos-i-tive what the best use of it would be. "But no, it''s flow-ing away and back again. Only the out-ward part is ob-vi-ous."


    As he stud-ied his new dy-namo and spike, though, Sobon be-gan to feel cold, like the world was shrink-ing away. At first, he thought that it might have been a con-se-quence of this new type of aether he''d pro-duced, but as sec-onds dragged on to a minute, he be-came sur-er that it was com-ing from out-side his room, and grow-ing clos-er.


    He con-cealed the aether dy-namo with-in his spir-it, curs-ing him-self for not mak-ing an-oth-er left-hand dy-namo be-fore he put this to-geth-er, but giv-en the in-ten-si-ty of the feel-ing, de-spite the dis-tance, he knew that noth-ing he could pos-si-bly throw in the way of the ap-proach-ing force would mat-ter.


    He didn''t even con-sid-er for a mo-ment that the force wasn''t af-ter him, as he threw aside the sheets on his bed and forced him-self to his feet. He con-sid-ered his mus-cles for the mo-ment; they felt... scarred, al-most, but healthy enough to move for the mo-ment, so he start-ed to move to-wards the door.


    Sobon would only lat-er piece to-geth-er what hap-pened. It was a phe-nom-e-non he had en-coun-tered twice, the first time in a near-miss sce-nario, when a high-pow-ered aether weapon im-pact-ed the war-ship and shat-tered its shields, but didn''t de-stroy it, and the sec-ond time... the sec-ond time on the last day of the Rapi-er; this was a warp-ing of causal-i-ty ac-cord-ing to a sim-ple will of de-struc-tion. All oth-er aether in the sur-round-ings be-came sat-u-rat-ed by it, filled with it, and for a long, ag-o-niz-ing mo-ment, all his sens-es were re-placed with a sense of de-struc-tion.


    Where there should have been knowl-edge, sen-sa-tion, pain, even self, for a mo-ment, there was only death.


    The mo-ment passed, and Sobon looked be-hind him to find a man hang-ing in midair, one hand grip-ping a death scythe whose edges flick-ered with an opales-cent sheen, and the wall of Sobon''s room was torn open like it had nev-er been, stone and wood evap-o-rat-ed with the ruth-less ef-fi-cien-cy of a laser rather than hacked apart with some-thing as crude as a piece of met-al with a nar-row edge. The man hold-ing it was of the lo-cal race, Sobon re-al-ized, not one of the less-pop-u-lous rul-ing class, but he was well-dressed and clean, his beard cut neat-ly and his hair combed and oiled.


    When he land-ed on the floor next to Sobon, it was the first sound his ears reg-is-tered that wasn''t de-struc-tion it-self, and Sobon couldn''t help but glance down at the man''s shoes, drawn by the sound. They seemed un-re-mark-able, though he thought there was a sym-bol on the tongue of the shoe, of a sil-ver bird with claws out-stretched.


    "You aren''t one of them." The man''s voice was calm, and Sobon knew the man hadn''t been stretch-ing his pow-er to do this much. He hes-i-tant-ly glanced into the aether, to see that the man''s aether spike was a whitish tan that flick-ered on the edge of be-com-ing translu-cent, and... something.  Sobon couldn''t place, in those few moments, some other difference, but neither could he deny that something was odd, something well beyond the coloration of the core. "I would be tempt-ed to take you with me, but there is no time. I can''t let them have you."


    "I''m sor-ry."


    Sobon reg-is-tered the blow ab-stract-ly. Per-haps it was be-cause he had his eyes open to the aether, but when his body and spir-it were torn apart, he found him-self... drift-ing. Dead, but not dead enough. Al-though his dy-namos shat-tered and were rent asun-der, al-though the en-er-gy he thought was his own spir-it was re-duced to noth-ing, he found him-self torn away from it all, flung out, far from the base. He was thrown into the sky, and past the hori-zon.


    This time, he saw every-thing.


    He was thrown so high into the sky that the world be-neath him shrunk from his whole ex-is-tence to a mas-sive sphere, the edges curl-ing as he got far enough away to per-ceive its true shape. But it wasn''t made of stone and wa-ter, not from this per-spec-tive; he could only see the world''s aether, and he found him-self study-ing it with a strange de-tach-ment, which was most like-ly an in-abil-i-ty to pan-ic, in-stead of any strength of his soul.


    He saw that the world''s aether, stretch-ing out be-low him, was sick. No, not sick; it was wound-ed, with huge gash-es torn into it. He couldn''t see what the phys-i-cal world looked like from here, but there were whole re-gions where noth-ing grew, where the aether had been cut away just like the room he had just been stay-ing in--and just like his body had been.


    But then, it wasn''t re-al-ly his body at all, was it? He had bor-rowed it off a boy on the edge of death, and start-ed to re-pair it, only to end up slaugh-tered like a ro-dent when he showed po-ten-tial. He con-sid-ered the cir-cum-stances, briefly, as his soul drift-ed over the blight-ed world, hang-ing in space on what Sobon rec-og-nized as a very high arc that would even-tu-al-ly bring him back down. He didn''t spend any time at all think-ing about what would hap-pen when he hit the ground. It wouldn''t be good, if he sur-vived at all.


    In-stead, he thought the con-flict, both against some "star beasts" and the clear op-pres-sion of one race over an-oth-er. He thought about the strange na-ture of bod-ies and qi, about the "stars" that he knew were loops and the odd mixed aether they pro-duced. He watched as the world cy-cled by un-der him, re-al-iz-ing af-ter a long bit of star-ing that he could see the dif-fer-ence be-tween land and sea, civ-i-liza-tion and wilder-ness.


    He sensed the mo-ment, hours or days or per-haps weeks lat-er, when his slow drift up reached its apex, and the orb that had shrunk be-low him be-gan to grow again, if very slow-ly at first. It made him won-der if he could ad-just his tra-jec-to-ry, but this soul form of his had no aether, and he didn''t dare press too hard; it was pos-si-ble any at-tempt to ma-nip-u-late aether in this state would undo what-ev-er pro-tect-ed him, or worse. If he did sur-vive, per-haps he could look more into it, but not soon.


    The world grew and grew be-neath him, but for all but the last few min-utes the ex-pe-ri-ence seemed to be a mean-ing-less non-event. If he had nev-er lived as a cy-borg, that might be tor-ture, but Sobon had lived his life with the abil-i-ty to turn off all his sens-es; he had done it in or-der to sleep, some-times, and oth-er times, had hid-den from the gris-ly re-al-i-ty of mil-i-tary life, turn-ing in-side to grieve or retch in the pri-va-cy of his own mind. This emp-ty ex-is-tence wasn''t com-fort-ing, but it was fa-mil-iar, at least.


    It did un-pleas-ant-ly re-mind him of the death of his cy-borg body, but he quashed those thoughts with force of will in or-der to not be drowned by them.


    And then, fi-nal-ly, there were those last few mo-ments when the world be-gan to ac-cel-er-ate to-wards him, and he could only choose to stare or not to stare as his fate leaped up at him from be-low, like a mas-sive hand reach-ing up to swat him out of ex-is-tence, per-haps for real this time. Per-haps he would join his friends and crew in the Infinite Cycle, or be rein-car-nat-ed some-where from birth, his mem-o-ry gone to pro-vide a fresh slate for his new life.


    When his spir-it crashed vi-o-lent-ly into some-thing and killed it, he re-al-ized that once more he had no such luck.

 6. Kiel, part one

    Ki''el was a small girl just starting her teenage years, in what remained of a tropical coastal fishing village. She had grown out of most of her naivety when she returned home after her boat was sent wildly off-course in a storm, to find the town brutalized by raiders, her family and neighbors kidnapped, killed, or in many cases... worse. It had taken her several long weeks to properly bury everyone, and now two years later, she still was not done mourning.


    It was a quiet life, because she was the only one left, but she had no reason to think that her life would be better away from this place. Over her youth, she had visited all the islands in this part of the archipelago, but aside from when she was blown away, she had never left it. With no remaining maps that she knew of, to go searching for another chain of islands would be suicide.


    She spent her time on a number of different things. She fished, of course, every day, and she gardened enough to ensure that she could put fresh flowers on the graves every few weeks, and to ensure that she could eat vegetables every other day. Fruits were easier, since there were orchards enough and they were healthy, if untended. She practiced what her uncle had taught her of staff fighting, and she practiced what her grandmother had taught her of qi cultivation.


    She also cared for the few pets that had survived the disaster, and perhaps it was this that changed her fate.


    None of the animals were great beings, of course. Any creature that would have stood beside its family was killed along with the humans, and Ki''el had buried them with their families, whatever she had thought of them in life. There were two dogs remaining that were total cowards, a cat that had once been selfish but was now too traumatized to do more than slowly waste away, never desiring or accepting her touch, and a number of wild animals that had grown closer to her after she failed to shoo them away from gardens or food fast enough.


    On this morning, though, she ate a thin salad as breakfast, then set out in her boat to fish. She caught enough, as she usually did, and returned to find a squirrel wandering around the ruined village, smelling things and pausing at each open doorway, as though confused why everything was empty.


    It showed too much intelligence to be a natural creature, with too much intent and near-human posturing in its movements, and Ki''el stopped and watched it, but she didn''t feel any malice from it, either.


    Eventually, the squirrel noticed her, and the two just stared for a long moment, before Ki''el sighed, and walked on past. She made her way to her mother''s hut, where she cleaned, cut, and cooked the fish, taking some more vegetables from the cold box under the house and cutting them to accompany the dish.


    She set out three plates for the three pets, and a fourth, much smaller plate, she carried over to where the squirrel had been prowling around.


    She didn''t see it, but set the plate down anyway and retreated.


    By midafternoon, as she practiced her staff forms, the squirrel had found her again, and was watching her from a nearby fence. She ignored it until she was done; like most rodents, squirrels would generally flee if you paid attention to them. It was better to appear uninterested, if you wanted to get closer to it later.


    To her surprise, though, when she finished, the small, rat-like squirrel immediately hurried over and sat by her feet. She knelt, studying it, but didn''t reach out; there was a long moment, again, where the two looked at one another in silence for a long moment. She expected it to flee, but it didn''t.


    Did it understand? She reached out a hand, and the squirrel immediately jumped onto her palm, still looking at her face.


    She had to clear her throat a bit, months of phlegm having coated her vocal chords, before she could ask it, quietly, "Do you understand me?"


    The creature cocked its head, then nodded, and she felt a shiver of fear. On the one hand... it was nice, having something here that perhaps she could talk to. The dogs and cat mostly avoided her, even though she fed them, always looking like they were going to be whipped no matter how nice she was to them. She supposed that losing their whole world was as traumatizing for them as it was for her.


    On the other hand, she still had no idea who or what had destroyed her village. Was this creature a harbinger of something bad still to come? She almost wanted to kill it out of spite, to ward off any chance that it was leading evil creatures here, but she grasped her staff firmly with her other hand and closed her eyes until the feeling faded.


    She was not a monster.


    "There is no one else here," she said instead, choosing to believe that this listening creature was some random innocent, or perhaps just a fever dream. "If you want to be fed, wait with the others at meal time. There is not much."


    She moved her hand as though to place the squirrel down, but it instead climbed up her arm and sat on her shoulder. She turned to look at it, and it looked back, as though challenging her to injure or displace the fuzzy little brat. She squinted, displeased by the challenge, but eventually just marched back home, where she placed the staff by the door, and then she walked to the pier and sat down on the end, dipping her feet in the water, as she watched the waves rolling by.


    The fishing village was not very accessible, really; it was one of the great mysteries how it had been found and sacked in the time she was gone. She knew that several larger boats had come, perhaps joined to a seafaring ship; there had been plenty of marks in the sand. But the approach to the village was down a short stretch of river with a single bend in it, and a couple trees screening the approach. Only here, on the pier, could you see out into the wide sea that surrounded the island, and then only if you peered past the trees. If Ki''el hadn''t known these shores so well, she would never have found her way home, and yet...


    And yet someone else had found it, someone evil.


    She shook her head, not trying to clear the old thoughts from her mind, just... tired. She let the noise fade for a while, eventually finding the calming sound of the water lapping at the pier and the shores among all the other nonsense in her heart, and focused on that, recalling again what her grandmother told her.


    Qi was the nature of the world, and qi had two sides to it--of violence and of submission. She got the ''violence'' out of her in her staff training, and she felt that her qi grew a little bit from that, but the real exercise was to submit to the will of the world, and in that submission, find strength.


    It was a hard lesson to practice, given what the world had done to her, but in the two years since, she had found a version of it that she could work with. Instead of drowning herself in the stifling feel of death that permeated the village, she sought out the force of the world that she could feel in the waves and the wind, the implacable momentum of things greater than herself. She felt the water and the wind, and could *also* feel those forces crashing up against the trees and the sea bed, and she tried to get a grasp of the great forces colliding, tried to hold on to the sense of both the world''s violence and also its submission to great and powerful forces.


    And then a squirrel bit her ear.


    "Ah!" Ki''el slapped at her ear, but her new guest had only given her a single, warning bite, before jumping away. She turned to glare at it only to find the rat looking back at her, as though challenging her.


    However, since she had been distracted out of her trance, she felt--just for a moment--that she could see something. A ring of blue-white power, thin as hair, concealed within the squirrel''s spirit, in addition to the squirrel''s own qi core, which was far too advanced for such a small creature.


    She squinted at it, and it looked back. And then, as if to prove that it wasn''t a dream, the squirrel took one tiny paw and traced a circle on the wood of the pier.


    She didn''t want to believe, *couldn''t* believe what she was seeing.


    The tiny creature tapped its foot against the pier impatiently, an adorable little act that Ki''el might have laughed at if she had any heart left. Instead, she found her thoughts returning to the image of the circle that the squirrel had drawn. She trusted that it was referring to the ring in its own spirit, but the mere *concept* of a circle did little to explain how she was to create it.


    Still, she settled back down and turned to face it, bringing her hands together in between her and the squirrel and letting energy flow in a circle in between them.


    In response, the squirrel chittered slightly, then moved a little closer and settled back into an upright posture. Above its tiny little hands, it somehow produced a single thread of shining qi, something... more than simply *bright*. It was solid, perfect, and pure as the cold winds of dawn that raced the morning sunlight.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Then he bent that rod in a circle, before letting the thread vanish. She considered it, and looked at the squirrel, to find it still looking back, watching her. Measuring her.


    On the one hand, she wasn''t sure exactly what the creature had done, let alone *how* he had done it. But, on the other hand, she definitely wasn''t so down on herself that she was going to let herself be outshone by a common bushy-tailed *tree rat*.


    She settled, bringing her hands together, and tried to form a thread of power. All she really succeeded in doing, though, was pushing energy *out*, energy that was neither pure, nor connected to itself, nor really under her control at all. She tried again, and again, but nothing changed.


    When she opened her eyes, refocusing on the world, the squirrel had vanished, leaving her alone on the pier. To mark the truth of his presence, though, he had burned a small circle into the wood with his qi, along with a single straight line that started at its center and went out. It was strangely perfect, she noted as she examined the mark, with the circle being smoother than anything she had ever seen, except perhaps the full moon.


    She reached out to touch the mark, feeling the faintest hint of intent left in the scorched mark. *Cycle and thorn. Turning and releasing.* She considered that image, her thoughts returning to what her grandmother had said about qi.


    Had she been wrong? Was the second nature of qi not submission, but somehow... turning? The qi nature of ''violence'' was too close to this sense of ''releasing'' for her to ignore the possibility. It was a deliberate choice that changed the world, with no concern for consequence, only intent. But rotating, turning, changing in a cycle... that wasn''t much like submission, as she understood it from her grandmother. A bad rhyme of a similar concept, at best.


    She turned back to the edge of the pier and watched the waves, unable to focus or find an answer. Eventually mid-afternoon caught up with her, and she moved on to other chores. She looked around, at times, for the squirrel, but she never saw it.


    The next day was the same, though the weather was windy and smelled of rain that never really came. She put out a plate of fish and vegetables for the squirrel, but it didn''t come. The dogs sniffed at the extra offering she left, but knew her well enough to know that each plate was for a different creature. She doubted they would let it stay all day, but they didn''t eat it along with their own breakfast.


    The cat she trusted a lot less, and she scared it away a couple times before giving up. It, too, sniffed at the plate, and even took some of the fish, but in the end, it had too little will to live, itself, to become a glutton. It ended up staring at the plate for a time and walking away, much as it had done when she overfed it at the beginning.


    So she proceeded to her staff practice and then to the docks, where she sat and thought about cycles and thorns, and of what her grandmother had said about the nature of qi. In the end, she tried, again, to force out a single thread of qi, but all she got was a slight release of the energy within her, one she could barely control.


    The third day was no better, nor the fourth.


    On the fifth day, she awoke well before dawn with a strange sense that she had understood something. She scrambled out to the docks, where the mark had been burned onto the pier, and tried to get a sense for what the squirrel had left, although it had gotten fainter day by day.


    Soon enough, she was certain of it: neither of the concepts matched the spiritual pressure of the thread itself. It was not simply *released*, nor was it a cycle. She knelt on the dock and considered her own poorly developed core, but that core also contained something firm, which was neither release nor a cycle.


    Indeed, now that she studied her own core, the thread was more like *that* than it was like simple released energy. Could she extend her own core out into the world?


    She made a few attempts at it, but it was painful and she was certain she was doing something wrong. As dawn approached, she gave up and continued her morning ritual, but it was with an unusual amount of preoccupation.


    Cycle, release... and core. But that didn''t make sense, did it? The cycle, and the core... the cycle somehow had to be a function of the core, a *method*, while the core itself was a thing, or a place. But how could she create qi thread like the creature had done? Qi thread that felt like a core?


    By the time that she got to staff practice, she had stopped thinking about cycling and releasing, until the exercise began to intrude on her thoughts. As she steadied her breathing, however, she found her thoughts drifting back to it.


    Breathing out wasn''t just a release, she thought; it was clearly a *cycle*. Both in and out, supporting her and giving her more strength. As she moved through the motions, she felt that cycle become a deeper and deeper part of her mind. The power of her breath was stored within her, and released when she moved.


    Her exercise didn''t end on time, stretching into her meditation hours, and then it stretched on further, until the fading light convinced her that she had truly gotten lost in the motions. For all of that... she didn''t feel tired, as she moved on to catch and prepare an evening dinner for herself and the pets. She felt *stronger*.


    The next morning, the squirrel was waiting for her at breakfast.


    In a way, the creature seemed more suspicious than ever, although she couldn''t do anything but trust it. Its spirit had advanced in leaps and bounds; not only had the color of its spirit advanced from bronze to iron and then silver in the short few days it had been gone, but the strange ring she had noticed in its spirit was now too complex to understand. Where before, it had been a simple thread ring, now it held two rippling rings, one of which seemed to dump energy into the world endlessly, and one which seemed to drink the world''s energy with an endless thirst.


    She glared at it, both intimidated by its clear strength, and also insulted to once again be completely dominated by a common tree-rat, the kind of creature that the dogs and cats she watched over had hunted with abandon in the before-times, before they lost their families and their will to live.


    Still, after staring at it and watching it stare at her, she put out food for it, and then studiously ignored it for the next few hours.


    When the time came for her staff practice, the squirrel was there, and she found it harder to ignore it this time. Nothing that she did could block her awareness of the thing; she could close her eyes, or focus on her breathing, but the creature''s presence cut through all distractions, like sunlight through her closed eyelids.


    "Look," she said after a few minutes, feeling a little silly talking to a squirrel so seriously, "I can''t focus when you''re doing that."


    The rodent tilted its head at her as though curious what she said, or why. And yet... after only a moment, it lifted its two tiny little clawed hands and brought them together, and its presence... shrank.


    She forced her way through the staff practice, unsure of exactly what to say or do about this miracle creature. She did, eventually, find enough inner peace to resume her exercises with breathing and cycling energy, but it didn''t feel natural.


    When eventually she made her way back to the docks, where she sat and tried to find her center, the squirrel came and sat on her knee. It was weird how little physical weight it had, knowing--and sensing, despite it being muffled--the magical weight behind it.


    "Why are you here?" she asked, after a few minutes had gone by, and her fear of the thing had become muted by its obviously benign intent. "I mean... why this place? Why me?" She stopped looking at the waves and forced herself to look at the squirrel, who also had been looking at the waves, and now turned to face her as well.


    To her surprise, a voice spoke into her mind.


    [ I didn''t choose the place, ] it said. [ I was lost, and... well, after going from island to island, this was the only place with people on it. ]


    "Why would a squirrel care about people?" She couldn''t help staring, and was surprised when the squirrel didn''t meet her gaze for long.


    [ I am not a squirrel. I am just... attached to one. ] The voice paused. [ I am from very far away, and I don''t know where this is. You can call me Sobon. ]


    Ki''el studied the rat, suddenly very nervous once more. "From far away? From the Empire?"


    [ Further than that, ] the squirrel--Sobon replied. [ A place I cannot return to, I think. You don''t need to fear that I will lead someone here. I wouldn''t want to, if I could. All I really want or need is time. ]


    "Time..." She couldn''t help it. Although it was rude, she shivered at the thought of this squirrel becoming even more powerful than it was. Or... it wasn''t fair to judge the creature controlling the squirrel by its size, was it? She stared it, wondering if the... *thing* that was manipulating this furry puppet was truly kind, or planning something awful in the future.


    [ I come from a place where the awful... where the *barbarism* of this world is in the past. Given what happened here... I understand that you are afraid. But, I am not like the people who did this. ]


    That was too easy to say; she couldn''t trust him so easily, and she was sure he knew it. But she found herself looking at the docks, and then the waves on the river, and then past that to the sea beyond the trees. Who was she to think--even for a minute--that she had a choice here? With a handful of words and a mark on the dock, this squirrel had changed her entire understanding of qi. If she didn''t *trust* it, was she going to try to *stop* it? Rebel? Fight it? When it had taken a deliberate action to reduce its own spiritual pressure so that she was more comfortable?


    There was a difference between feeling like the world didn''t matter and *actively* committing suicide.


    So she shook her head and looked back at the squirrel, who had copied her and was staring at the water, itself. "Why are you helping me?"


    [ You also aren''t a monster, ] Sobon the squirrel replied. [ ...But the technique you were trying to use the other day was going to hurt you. To *twist* you. You shouldn''t use it. ]


    Ki''el shook her head at that. Their tribe had little in the way of cultivation resources or knowledge, and yet the adults had built up a steady foundation that helped them fight off storms and sea predators. The hunters, who had the greatest cultivation in the village, had been iron-ranked, worlds ahead of her, and she had sensed no sign of being twisted by their methods. Still... "I... might trust you," she said, "You obviously know what you are doing. But I do not understand, and I do not... wish to forget the lessons of my grandmother. Of our people."


    [ I''m not asking you to forget them, ] Sobon answered. [ But if you... if you *do* choose to follow a twisted path, I won''t help you. I''ve seen *monsters*. I won''t willingly raise one. ]


    Ki''el just looked at him. Already, she was becoming conflicted, more and more. After so long being alone, she wanted to talk, and yet she was afraid; she wanted to trust, but she was uncertain. And she was at once ready to leave this place behind... but not willing to *forget*.


    "I don''t know," she said, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them, pulling her whole body together into a nervous little ball. "I''m not... I''m not sure..."


    [ You don''t have to decide today. You have time. ] The squirrel stepped back, still looking directly at her. [ ...but not too much time. Something is approaching. ]


    She turned and looked at him, nervously. "Something?"


    [ A week, maybe. If it doesn''t move any faster than it is now. Something evil on the horizon. ] Sobon gestured in a seemingly random direction. [ It may be *them*. I don''t know. They''re not close enough to tell. ]


    Ki''el didn''t need to be told who the squirrel meant. She gripped her legs tighter, nails digging into her flesh, and she already knew she wouldn''t be able to sleep tonight, not for the nightmares that would haunt her.

 7. Kiel, Part two

    Sobon''s new life as a squir-rel was not with-out its perks, for all its many and glar-ing is-sues. Per-haps the great-est... was sim-ply that he wasn''t hu-man. Or, what-ev-er the lo-cal hu-manoids called them-selves; he didn''t have to con-sid-er him-self one of them, pre-tend to be one of them. The mon-sters from his pre-vi-ous life--the Djiang and the Bilg, they''d called them-selves--had both done ab-solute-ly noth-ing to en-dear their na-tions and peo-ples to him.


    This girl was of a dif-fer-ent cul-ture, and was too de-pressed and meek to be any-thing like a threat. Sobon wouldn''t have trust-ed her on that alone, but af-ter ob-serv-ing her body and spir-it, she was... harm-less. More than like-ly, if dis-as-ter had not be-fall-en the is-land, she would have grown up to be a fish-er-man''s wife, and per-haps been con-tent with that. She had no cru-el streak, no mal-ice borne of mis-treat-ment or jeal-ousy, and no in-san-i-ty from liv-ing near oth-er shat-tered souls. The aether of this place--he was still hav-ing trou-ble con-sid-er-ing the lo-cal en-er-gy by an-oth-er name, though he would try--was much clean-er than that of the ru-ined city or its fort, and she had not raised her en-er-gy lev-el much by her peo-ple''s flawed method.


    Even so, it was prov-ing dif-fi-cult to get her to change her method, and Sobon wasn''t sure if that was be-cause he was a bad teacher or she was a bad stu-dent.


    "So it''s not a core, it-self," Ki''el seemed to pout when he shot down her the-o-ry. They sat on the docks, as the waves rolled gen-tly in. "But it isn''t en-er-gy. En-er-gy is form-less, dif-fuse--"


    Sobon con-cen-trat-ed on pro-ject-ing his throughts. [ Aether is Aether, ] he in-sist-ed, know-ing the thought would roll off of her with-out stick-ing. [ It is a part of all life, but that isn''t what it is, ei-ther. It''s a mir-ror that re-flects re-al-i-ty, and the glue that con-nects the ...world to-geth-er. But you are right; it isn''t only en-er-gy. It is en-er-gy and ...place. By gath-er-ing... place, mixed with en-er-gy, you cre-ate raw aether. ]


    Ki''el seemed to phys-i-cal-ly re-coil from the idea of mix-ing en-er-gy with space. "So if I cre-ate this en-er-gy here--"


    [ It''s com-pli-cat-ed, but I can tell you have the wrong idea. ] Sobon couldn''t sigh, ex-act-ly, in this form, but he was able to con-vey dis-ap-point-ment through the lit-tle fur-ry body''s pos-ture. [ You are cre-at-ing some-thing that you will take with you. But you must try to cre-ate some-thing pure, some-thing that is only your own will mixed with place. Not... ] He knew the word was trans-lat-ing wrong, but what could he say to such a child? [ ...not the larg-er place. Not even the place where you sit. Each speck of pow-er con-nects with a place no larg-er than the speck it-self. ]


    The girl stared at her hand for a long minute, then looked at him, se-ri-ous-ly. "Is that why I shouldn''t do it with-in me?"


    Sobon''s ears twitched; at least, she was clever. [ No. But I am glad you are think-ing. There is much to ex-plain, but... not now. ]


    Ki''el spent the next few hours strug-gling, but as Sobon watched, it be-came clear she was be-gin-ning to un-der-stand the idea. Specks of rel-a-tive-ly pure aether would ap-pear, but un-rav-el in-stant-ly, a sign that she didn''t sense them or know how to hold on. He wait-ed un-til she was con-sis-tent-ly gen-er-at-ing frag-ments be-fore guid-ing her to be able to sense them.


    Be-fore they could move on to grasp-ing them, the girl moved on to do the rest of her chores, un-will-ing to let this ex-plo-ration of uni-verse''s grand mys-ter-ies be the rea-son the stray dogs and cats went hun-gry.


    Af-ter din-ner, though, she was on the dock, eyes closed, lis-ten-ing to the sound of the ocean and hold-ing her hands close to one an-oth-er. Sobon watched as the sparks ap-peared and per-sist-ed, some-times for bare-ly a sec-ond, but more and more she grasped specks and held them in her mind un-til she chose to re-lease them.


    [ You are do-ing well, ] Sobon said when she fi-nal-ly stopped. [ To-mor-row, we should be able to work on con-nect-ing aether to form a larg-er piece. ]


    Ki''el gave him a look that was sur-pris-ing-ly re-bel-lious--a look she had giv-en him sev-er-al times, es-pe-cial-ly at the be-gin-ning. But, af-ter only a mo-ment, she sighed and stood up from the dock, look-ing up through the trees at the moon. She didn''t go back, though, not for a long mo-ment.


    "...Is it still com-ing?"


    Sobon was sur-prised by the ques-tion, as he had been think-ing about oth-er things--most-ly, how he was ever go-ing to ex-plain some of the more ad-vanced con-cepts to her. But he looked up at her, still look-ing up at the moon, and then glanced at the hori-zon.


    What-ev-er was com-ing was pow-er-ful, but how close was it go-ing to come to this lit-tle is-land? He men-tal-ly com-pared its pre-vi-ous in-ten-si-ty to where it was now, and thought about sail-ing ships, or pos-si-bly ones with prim-i-tive mo-tors. Still, it was hard to gauge. [ Yes. But it is not com-ing too quick-ly, and it may not come here. ]


    "It will." Her voice held a bit-ter con-vic-tion.


    Sobon looked at her with sur-prise. [ Is there some se-cret here? ]


    "No." The girl just closed her eyes. "I just know my bad luck. They''ll come here to fin-ish the job, tear apart my home and make me..." she grit her teeth and shook her head, vi-o-lent-ly.


    Sobon would liked to have ar-gued against bad luck or fate, but, well.


    [ We can leave, ] he sug-gest-ed.


    Ki''el''s eyes snapped open, and she looked down on him, then turned on her heel and start-ed walk-ing back. "You might as well tell me to die," she said. "My life is here. What pa-thet-ic shreds of it are left."


    Sobon watched her go, not re-al-ly sure how to re-spond to that. Even... even if she learned to touch aether, even if she learned to con-trol it, even it she could ex-pe-ri-ence the same rise that he had seen in Jom''s body, which was ap-par-ent-ly far be-yond the lo-cal av-er-age... if a crew of ma-raud-ers or pi-rates or what-ev-er else land-ed here, she couldn''t de-feat them all on her own.


    On the strength of his own aether... he had no idea. He wasn''t sure what the world''s mod-i-fied aether did, or how strong he was go-ing to be rel-a-tive to any of them. He hadn''t fought any-one since the butch-er in the al-ley-way; while the reaper who had end-ed his life was clear-ly some-thing far be-yond his cur-rent pow-er, prob-a-bly be-yond the pow-ers of any-one else he had met... he had no con-cept of how they had it all or-ga-nized.


    Per-haps the girl knew, but he wouldn''t hold out hope. Her un-der-stand-ing of even her own peo-ple''s tech-niques seemed rudi-men-ta-ry.


    Mean-while, this ro-dent''s body was dif-fer-ent from Jom''s body, in not only phys-i-cal form but also in its... qi core... thing. Al-though the col-ors and lobes looked sim-i-lar along the edges, as he ad-vanced by ab-sorb-ing aether, the struc-ture of his... core looked very dif-fer-ent to Ki''el''s, and hers looked a lot like Jom''s, as he re-mem-bered it. His own latched too firm-ly onto his flesh, like it in-tend-ed to do more than mere-ly strength-en his mus-cles, skin, claws, and teeth, but that is all that ad-vance-ment had done for him so far. Well, per-haps it had in-creased the stu-pid rat body''s in-ter-nal or-gans, or some-thing--he was no bi-ol-o-gist.


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


    It had made him leak some kind of foul black goo, when he ad-vanced from five-star dark-gray to one-star sil-very-gray, but that seemed more like a one-time side ef-fect He had washed most of it off, and stud-ied what re-mained for a while. All that he could tell for sure was that it was un-pleas-ant to every sense he had, nat-ur-al and aethe-r-i-al.


    In all--could he fight in this body? Against a boat load of lo-cal war-riors? He hes-i-tat-ed even to test out his abil-i-ties. He had con-sumed all his left and right dy-namos to cre-ate the in-ner-out-er pair; he could make new ones, of course, but he was hes-i-tant for sev-er-al rea-sons. For now... al-though left-hand aether wouldn''t mark the world too bad-ly, in-ward-aether left a... stench. A black mark that nei-ther right nor out-ward aether could im-me-di-ate-ly re-move, and that felt dis-re-spect-ful to this al-ready dam-aged isle.


    Thus al-ways with weapons, Sobon mused dourly. Med-ical aether was vast-ly more com-plex than sim-ply ap-ply-ing en-er-gy X to wound Y, and no re-pair man-u-al on any ship was as sim-ple as "Just wave your hand and turn back time, it will be fine." While he ex-pect-ed to use very lit-tle en-er-gy, in ab-solute units, he had al-ready seen how a lit-tle bit of pure aether was sig-nif-i-cant com-pared to what the lo-cals had.


    He didn''t want to dam-age Ki''el''s home, and he didn''t want to at-tract trou-ble... but he wasn''t sure how far away was far enough. The reaper, he was sure, had de-tect-ed what he did from far away, and he wasn''t ea-ger to re-peat that ex-pe-ri-ence here; he could only con-ceal his dy-namos and keep them chained down, for now.


    At the very least, though... the same would be true for the raiders. It would be much eas-i-er to hurt them that it would be to heal them, es-pe-cial-ly if they laughed off the threat of a sil-ly lit-tle tree rat. And the best way to dis-tract them from him... was to give them a seem-ing-ly more dan-ger-ous tar-get to fo-cus on.


    Ki''el wouldn''t like-ly en-joy be-ing used as a dis-trac-tion, but if it helped them avenge her fam-i-ly, he was sure she would for-give him.


    <hr>


    In the morn-ing, af-ter at-tend-ing to the strays, Ki''el sat down again on the pier. Sobon, ea-ger to see what she did on her own, hid him-self at first; she didn''t both-er to wait, and ea-ger-ly jumped in to prac-tic-ing. At first, she sim-ply tried to hold on to one speck, and then he no-ticed her grasp-ing at more than one, and even bring-ing them to-geth-er, al-though she clear-ly wasn''t sure how to gath-er them into a sol-id whole. Only once she took a break, though, did he jump down from a near-by tree.


    The girl jumped at the sound of him land-ing, al-though he was fair-ly qui-et, be-fore re-lax-ing. "Oh. You''re here."


    [ You''re do-ing well, ] Sobon praised her again, be-fore mov-ing out to sit on her legs and look up at her. He felt her skin twitch, as if he was tick-ing her, but ig-nored it. [ Con-nect-ing the pieces is... go-ing to be a strange con-cept. I''m not sure how to de-scribe it to you, al-though I have been think-ing about it. You sim-ply need to un-der-stand that it is part of how aether works. A part of what it is; a part of its na-ture. ]


    "It''s a place," she re-peat-ed what he had said, though she clear-ly didn''t un-der-stand it. "But what does that mean?"


    [ It is hard to de-scribe, ] Sobon ad-mit-ted, look-ing up at her face... and find-ing him-self star-ing up the girl''s nose, as she looked away, her skin twitch-ing un-der his feet when his tail brushed against her. That... strange-ly enough, got him think-ing. [ Bub-bles! That''s a good way to de-scribe them. ]


    The girl looked down at him, and he was re-lieved not to be star-ing into her nose any-more. "Bub-bles?"


    [ Sure-ly you''ve blown bub-bles in the wa-ter be-fore? ] He didn''t even wait for her to con-firm it. [ Bub-bles are a thin skin of wa-ter around air. Join-ing places is like... mak-ing two wa-ter bub-bles join, in con-cept at least. The ''place'' is the in-side, but the struc-ture it-self is the thin edge that con-tains it. ]


    She looked at him, but af-ter a mo-ment, raised her hands and tried again. Sobon watched, un-til he felt her skin twitch-ing un-der him again; he hopped off, land-ing light-ly on the wood of the pier, and he thought when he looked back that she was calmer.


    With-in a half hour, she had got-ten the knack of gath-er-ing aether into a much larg-er speck. As she prac-ticed, though, he also quick-ly no-ticed that her body was ab-sorb-ing the aether when she re-leased it, al-though her core wasn''t yet ad-vanc-ing. Most like-ly, a tech-nique like this would be the kind of thing those bar-bar-ians would prac-tice--just slow-ly gath-er-ing and at-tun-ing pow-er, one tiny speck at a time.


    [ Good, ] Sobon said, once she had stopped for a mid-morn-ing break. [ Take some time and rest. This af-ter-noon, we will move on to form-ing a thread, and then... per-haps you will be able to be-gin for real. ]


    Ki''el had stood up and stretched, and now she looked down at Sobon. "To cre-ate the cir-cle, you mean. The ro-tat-ing na-ture of qi."


    Sobon felt im-me-di-ate-ly like he had been mis-un-der-stood, again.


    In-stead of wor-ry-ing about it, he scam-pered up a near-by tree and leaped over to the girl''s shoul-der. She seemed sur-prised, but she let him, and moved back to-wards her house, where she picked up her staff again. He stayed silent, think-ing about what she had said, and when she got to the prac-tice yard he hopped off her shoul-der onto a bro-ken bit of fence near-by.


    She prac-ticed with her staff, and he found him-self not-ing, again, places where her form was wrong, her swings were clum-sy, or her bal-ance was off, but how could he be-gin to cor-rect her, in this form? So he stayed silent, for now.


    When she paused, and seemed about ready to put her staff away, he fi-nal-ly said, [ Ro-ta-tion isn''t the na-ture of aether. Ro-ta-tion is a pur-pose, a tool. ]


    Ki''el turned to look at him, her face a bit blanker than usu-al, per-haps be-cause she was still men-tal-ly locked on her staff prac-tice.


    "If you say so," she said sim-ply, and be-gan to march back to her house.


    Sobon scam-pered along af-ter her, feel-ing undig-ni-fied, and made his way onto her shoul-der when he had the chance. That was less pleas-ant now that she was sweaty, but it didn''t both-er him. [ If I had to put the na-ture of aether into words... I sup-pose it would be pur-pose, and en-er-gy. ]


    Ki''el slowed in her steps, but only briefly. "Pur-pose. I don''t un-der-stand."


    [ The in-side of the bub-ble, ] he said. [ It is like the place in which your mind ex-ists. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered those words for a mo-ment, and then slowed, and then stopped. Sobon sat there, look-ing at her face, try-ing to see whether she was un-der-stand-ing it, or whether she was con-fused, again.


    "It''s not like it," she cor-rect-ed him. "My mind... does ex-ist in such a bub-ble, does it not?"


    Sobon bobbed his lit-tle ro-dent head. [ Ex-act-ly. ]


    "Then I''m...?"


    [ Life is not pos-si-ble with-out aether, ] he said. [ Life is a com-plex ma-chine to make use of aether. Mind is an in-sane-ly com-pli-cat-ed tool with many parts each ded-i-cat-ed to sup-port-ing what you may think of as your soul, the part of you that is you. You could not be your-self with-out those many pieces ded-i-cat-ed to cre-at-ing you. And like-wise, when you cre-ate aether, you must also give it a pur-pose. ]


    "Vi-o-lence and sub-mis-sion," the girl whis-pered.


    Sobon''s whiskers twitched. [ I don''t know what that means, ] he said. [ But-- ]


    "It is what my nama told me the na-ture of qi was," she said. "The dual na-ture. But that is only the pur-pos-es we give it, isn''t it? We use it for vi-o-lence... or we sub-mit to na-ture."


    [ There are many tools, many pur-pos-es for aether, ] Sobon an-swered. [ Some are nei-ther vi-o-lence nor sub-mis-sion. ]


    The girl nod-ded, and closed her eyes. But when she start-ed to raise her hands in front of her, Sobon reached out with a paw and grabbed her ear, gen-tly. It star-tled her, and she stopped.


    [ Not yet, ] he said. [ For the ex-er-cis-es we''re do-ing, you need aether with-out in-tent, with-out pur-pose. If it isn''t pure, it will be trou-ble lat-er. ]


    She looked at him, and then sighed. "Fine. But now I need to go fish, or we will have an-oth-er day of eat-ing only fruit and for-age."


    Sobon let her, hop-ping off her shoul-der when she passed by a bro-ken stone wall, and watch-ing her go. She was clever, he thought again. He hoped he was do-ing the right thing by teach-ing her.


    Some-one as trau-ma-tized as her might fall too eas-i-ly into dark-ness. He''d try his best, but... it was hard to know for sure what would come next. At the very least... he had to be-lieve he''d be able to tell be-fore she be-came too pow-er-ful.

 8. Kiel, part three

    By the following noon, Ki''el had grasped the concept of forming a thread, and was struggling with forming the thread into a ring shape. This at least Sobon was confident would take the girl a while; after all, he still had a touch of trouble forming rings, since the aether had to nearly be tricked into bonding with itself. So while she practiced, he scampered off far into the woods, up a hillside, and into a little cave where there had previously been a snake.


    Burns, blood, and deliberate traces of in-spin aether along the entrance probably contributed to scaring anything else away from his little house, for now.


    Before he had come back and decided to teach the girl, he''d been confident that he wanted to mostly focus on using in and out aether. Higher spins always had some ability to do lesser tasks--outer aether more naturally produced right-hand spins, inner aether preferred to produce left-hand spins--though it was terribly impure, wasteful. But with the growing possibility of enemy action, he didn''t feel safe with just those, anymore. So he scampered his little squirrel body into a comfortable depression in the dirt, claws instinctively scratching around and loosening the soil a bit, and concentrated. His dynamo-produced aether he stilled, until it was static, and then shaped it back into threads, and he made rings, two at a time. Each matched pair of left and right generators he concealed inside his spirit, until he had a dozen in total, not counting the ones built up into his in and out generators.


    He studied the resulting fluctuations in his spirit. In truth, it made him nervous.


    The human boy Jom had just about broken apart from the use of two dynamos, or perhaps just one--he couldn''t remember making any use of his sinister aether during that stupid bit of jogging. Already, he had tried and felt the rebound from using too much aether for this stupid squirrel body; there was no doubt that he''d never be able to handle the output of all twelve at once. Although the twelve thorns would contain the aether until he was ready to use it... that containment wasn''t perfect, either. If the aether pushed his squirrel-body to produce more qi until it couldn''t do any more, what would he do?


    It was almost enough to tempt him into recycling these rings into another inner and another outer ring, and maybe push those four rings into a crude and unstable third-order dynamo. With that kind of power... well, he wasn''t sure what the locals would think of him. Probably something barbaric, like he was a god or a demon beast. Either way, the kind of brutes that went around destroying villages for fun wouldn''t likely stop no matter what he did. If it wasn''t enough to save the girl, it would just be a waste. And in the end... Sobon wasn''t sure he cared about his own life and death at this point. Ki''el... he cared about. A bit.


    He tried to put out of mind the nagging thought that his seeming invulnerability to death couldn''t possibly last forever. As a cyborg, squashing those thoughts would have been trivial; as a human, he might still have succeeded easily. As a squirrel, it was much tougher.


    After a few moments of wrestling with those thoughts, he looked inwardly at his core--at the strange reflection of whatever produced, and was adapted to, the local version of aether, this qi. The human core was a bit detached; this squirrel core was thickly tied to his body, and he could almost sense a reflection of his skeleton, muscles, and organs on the other side. He mentally frowned, and sprinkled outer aether across the core''s reflection of his body, trying to see what kind of user interface it was intended to provide.


    A sick feeling washed over him, like everything had swelled in his body. He studied himself to find it was true; his body wanted to grow, just a touch, but it was going to grow unevenly. He looked back at the reflection and tried to nudge it--lengthening bones, adjusting the curve of his ribs, loosening his skin. Again, he thought to himself bitterly. Wish I had a proper medic, the kind that''s certified to design and integrate prosthetics, or just to regrow flesh. This should be specialist work; I''m a marine.


    The skeleton reflected in his core turned its head just slightly to look at him as he had that thought, and he looked back, wondering if it would fight him. But the animal spirit was no warrior, and it had already submitted. The former squirrel''s soul had been nearly obliterated in the process of him taking over, and it hadn''t been large or complex to start with; now, the thing on the other side was little more than some kind of genetic legacy.


    He did ignore the thought that if he screwed with it too much, he would no doubt create something cancerous. The skeleton head didn''t pursue that thought, since it couldn''t begin to understand it.


    Instead, once he no longer felt strained, he stopped and just studied the reflection closer, and closer. His core gave him access to change his physical body, which should have been nearly impossible; this qi core thing had to contain at least a third-order spin, and more likely a fourth, if only a touch of it. That didn''t mean he was going to screw with it; if he wanted to turn his core into a bomb, it would only take a moment of deliberate action, and he had to trust that he could do just as much damage in just as little time on accident.


    A fourth order flow hidden among other flows, though, would be virtually impossible to detect, and this qi core was nothing if not complicated. As he watched, the lobes that represented his... "star" ranking, as the locals called it, began twitching, as though ready to inch up from three to four silver stars. These silver points were narrower, he noted; most likely, five wouldn''t be his maximum, even with this small body. He studied the patterns, watching the potential fourth star come and go, before moving on to deeper mechanisms.


    It wasn''t long before all he saw when he looked inwards was himself, watching himself, watching himself. Somehow, that was how things ended up, whenever his own understanding of the core reached its limit; it wasn''t so much that the core changed what he saw, and more that he lost focus and slipped back into a less involved form of self reflection. Still, he was getting better; he was seeing a bit more now than he had before, even as it was still not enough. Not to understand qi, not to understand his core, and not to understand his body.


    Instead of worrying about it, he stood up, stretched just a bit, and looked over at a rock, where he was had been etching an aether circuit design. It wasn''t complicated, objectively speaking; it was, basically, and aether circuit to power a basic rifle, which should work with left or inner aether. He considered--again--scrapping it and working on something more primitive, like a sword or simple grenade, but put that aside and studied the diagram instead, trying to double check his now-imperfect memory of the aether sub-circuits and patterns that he had chained together. He needed to keep his mind sharp, so that he wouldn''t become a... a squirrel-brain.


    How long he spent on that, compared to other things, he didn''t know, but it was late when he came out of his cave. Ki''el had finished working with her threads and gone fishing. Sobon found himself waiting in the ruined village alongside a once-burned cat with a twice-broken tail, and a three-legged dog. None of the animals wanted anything to do with him, although the dog looked blearily at him for a long moment before some instinct caught up with him and made him shy away.


    What a pathetic lot.


    None of them would let him get close, but he got in near the burned cat anyway and tried to study its own core. Unlike his own, it was entirely opaque, not so much clouded over as covered with mud and scars. He tried to project a bit of outer aether at it, just to see, but the power dissipated into the environment too fast. It would be easier if he could touch the creature, but it wouldn''t allow him, probably not even if it were sleeping.


    He looked at the others, but nothing here trusted anyone. Even Ki''el didn''t touch them, not in all the time he''d seen her.


    Instead of thinking more about it, Sobon went to the dock, finding Ki''el just drifting in on her boat. She hadn''t caught much, but she usually didn''t, instead mostly supplementing her catch with cooked, starchy fruits; she wasn''t much of a meat eater, he supposed, and the island had plantations enough for the many humans that had once tended to them. One way or another, she found food enough.


    He made sure she saw him on her way to cook; he thought she noticed his new rings, but didn''t say anything, and he didn''t bother her. Instead, he went out into the island''s forest until he made his way to the side of the island closest to whoever was approaching.


    It was still too early to see them on the horizon; by the time they were visible at all, they could arrive in hours at most, if they knew where to go. He wasn''t sure, but he thought their approach was slowing a bit; perhaps navigating another island. That part of the sea was deeper into the small archipelago, but he didn''t have a map, and he had only explored a few of the nearby islands. His best guess... was that they would be exploring, and hopefully for a while yet.


    You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    He made sure all his rings were stepped down, only barely spinning, and kept them concealed inside, then just stared at the horizon for... well, for a long time. He didn''t find the gently rolling seas as calming as Ki''el seemed to; before joining the Mixed Marines, he had been a city brat, and had only just avoided falling into a criminal life in his youth. He would have much preferred to sit on a rooftop and watch a crowd of figures milling around, picking out marks and strays, deducing patterns and taking in the variety of styles and occupations of the people he lived among. This was as far from that past, though, as he had felt in the last moments of his last life, drifting in a crippled ship just barely too far from civilization to have any chance of rescue.


    War had changed everything. Sobon idly felt his emotions surging even in this stupid rat body, and he laid a mental hand on the dynamos to keep them from spinning up, even as he let his hatred stir. It wasn''t even a war to seize real estate; an old blood feud had reignited, and it spoke volumes how the military had done their best to keep both civilians and soldiers alike ignorant of their part in it. He couldn''t do anything about it--he was a Mixed Marine, but only that--but before the previous wave of ships had been repelled, cities had been shattered from orbit and space stations torn apart. The incoming fleet had doubtless intended to do more, or perhaps worse.


    The fleet that the Rapier had failed to stop. Had they at least delayed it long enough? The call must have gotten to the main battlegroup. If the two battlecruisers that destroyed the Rapier had been lured away from the portal long enough, perhaps...


    Sobon was startled by a sudden noise nearby, and twisted to look, finding his heartbeat pounding, adrenaline coursing, his body... more ready to flee than fight, but all he saw was a pair of birds snapping at each other on a tree branch, either fighting for territory or flirting. They took no notice of him; his animal instincts told him to watch and wait for another long moment, while his marine training told him he could kill them, and how, but didn''t try to compel action. In the back of his mind, paranoia insisted he not do anything where the incoming spiritual presence might detect him, while his conscious mind just felt relief that it was nothing actually dangerous.


    With a deliberate effort, he pushed down his instincts and just turned to look at the waves again, even though the rush had not worn off. It felt unnatural, but he would get used to it. He remained there until the sun disappeared and the unfamiliar stars shined overhead, and then he went back.


    <hr>


    For Ki''el, the squirrel''s instructions were as baffling as they clearly were effective. Although her "master"--she was still inwardly debating whether she acknowledged him as such--had wandered away, clearly confident that it would take her a while to complete the circle with her thread, she had gotten it quickly--and then been unsure what else to do. As always with this... non-qi, when she released the ring, it collapsed.


    She wasn''t an idiot. The squirrel''s rings spun, and it had told her that rotation and releasing were the natures of qi... or, no, they were tools to use qi effectively. But she didn''t like the idea of jumping ahead, not as long as she had a proper teacher. Grandmother had been clear with her, as a child, telling her not to explore qi too recklessly, and while she was prepared to die to defend or avenge her home... it wasn''t time yet.


    Of course, Sobon continued to surpass her, while making it look casual. As she was bringing her food in to cook, there he was, having done... something with his spirit, again. Although it remained concealed inside, she could tell that his qi had new and more intense flavors to it, flavors that felt... no, she wasn''t exactly sure. She suppressed her irritation, and went about her business, and so did he.


    Sobon didn''t show up early the next morning. She supposed, as she went out and watched the sea for a while, and practiced closing circles and trying to make them nice and round, that he still expected this part to take her a long time. So she created thread rings and released them, staring at the waves, and just... being, letting her thoughts run behind her for a little bit without focusing on them.


    As she got closer to noon, Ki''el found herself holding a pair of rings, one in each hand. She just.. held on to them, for a long moment, and then out of habit, she pushed out a little bit more power.


    Something itched in her after a moment or two of releasing energy, and the rings began to spin, following the energy as it traced down the curve of her fingers. She let go of the rings... but this time, they remained behind. She lifted her hands, surprised, and studied the two up close. Even without looking hard, it wasn''t hard to tell that they were different from the squirrel''s; they faded in and out, and flickered, their circular shapes losing form as she watched. Although the ring did want to rotate... it seemed to shed glowing blue sparks, until the rings fell apart and vanished all on their own.


    She stared at her hands, where the two rings had been, just thinking about it for a long moment, one that stretched on until a sound nearby drew her eyes to a crippled dog, looking up at her with its mournful eyes, as it always did. She suppressed her irritation before it showed, on instinct--but then let a scowl take over her face. "Fine," she said to the dog. "Food. As I should have done earlier."


    It wagged its tail, just once or twice, showing more spirit than it usually did, but retreated at the first sign of movement from her, its tail tucked firmly between its legs.


    It was late afternoon before Sobon came back to find her, as she was starting her staff practice. She didn''t let him dictate her schedule, instead relishing the exercise. As she worked through the staff exercises, she couldn''t help but occasionally eye the motions of the staff, as its end turned or as she thrusted it forwards, and she considered the idea of rotation and release.


    When she finally set her staff aside, Sobon climbed onto her shoulder, but he was silent until she made her way back to the dock and sat down.


    [ How have you progressed? ] he finally asked.


    She demonstrated the rings for him, and after a moment of surprised quiet, she tried to replicate what she had done, releasing energy as naturally as she could through her hands, but it didn''t quite turn, this time.


    Nevertheless, he studied the rings, and noted the energy flow as it came through her hands. [ You''re doing very well, ] he said. [ But slow down a moment. In order for you to understand the turning... there is a bit of... math I may need to explain. ]


    She bit back a reply and just looked at him, still holding the two rings.


    [ How should I say... when you use math to describe things turning around a point, to describe the rotation, you assign it a... direction that is... not the same as the way it appears to turn. ] He leaped down onto her leg, and turned to face her, apparently ignoring the twitching as his claws tickled her bare skin. He held up his forepaws, and showed a flat disk with a point spinning on it... and also, at the center of the disc, a line coming straight up? [ It''s less important that you understand exactly why, for now. But you need to know that in certain, important ways, this extra direction to the rotation is true. ]


    [ As for which direction the... the thorn goes, look at your right hand. ] He gestured, and she glanced at it, confused. [ If the rotation follows the curve of your fingers, from wrist to fingertip, the thorn leaves towards your thumb. This is known as the right-hand rule. So if you reverse the direction of the spin... ] he changed the graphic, and the line sunk down below the disc as the point spun the other direction.


    "And this is important?" She studied the graphic, unsure.


    [ The tool is in two parts--the cycle and the thorn. When the aether begins to spin, it creates more of itself, and that extra must be collected in another place, or it will disturb the cycle. That place is the thorn, and while it may not seem like it matters... it is best to decide on exactly where and why it belongs, so that you do not have any confusion in the moment. So, you should imagine it emerges at the center of the circle, in the direction that the cycle''s rotation demands. ]


    With that, the squirrel drew out one of its small glowing rings, and this time, she could clearly see that it had a tiny spike growing out of its center, with exactly the position and direction he''d suggested. She frowned, and again tried to gently push the rings into rotation... but for a very long moment, nothing seemed to happen.


    When it did, she felt a tickle run through her, a tickle that she wasn''t quiet sure she liked... but, it was interesting. This time, when the rings began to slowly rotate, they didn''t immediately start to fall apart. Although they still shed tiny blue sparks, those sparks seemed to fall into the center.


    [ You... are better than I thought. Better than I would have been, I think. ] Sobon studied the two rings. [ For now, don''t try to do anything with them, except to let them return inside of you, where they will want to remain. They are unstable for now, but they will get better if you leave them. Don''t push energy in, and don''t try to touch the thorns or control them. ] He looked up at her, as though expecting her to ask any questions.


    It''s not that Ki''el had none. Somehow, though, the thrill of discovering something new felt... tempered, weighted against her irritation at having such a strange little master. It was very hard not to scream at him, or at the universe, for what felt like... it had to be an insult, right? Being taught the secrets of the great and powerful by a rat, while she still had to do all the fishing and cooking.


    She inhaled, let the air linger, and breathed out her irritation. She knew Sobon was more than the squirrel body he was trapped in. "I will not touch it," she promised, and she relaxed her grip on the circles, feeling them get pulled... somewhere into her spirit. "But I feel like I need more answers."


    Sobon met her eyes, studying her. [ I will answer your questions as best I can, ] he said. [ But for many things, you may need... background. And we may not have time for that. ]


    She just looked back at him. "They''re coming?"


    He just nodded.

 9. Kiel, part four

    Sobon, for his part, kept care-ful watch of Ki''el as she went about her evening busi-ness, and even as she slept, en-sur-ing that her new aether dy-namos sta-bi-lized, as he''d pre-dict-ed. They did, if slow-ly; she had made too messy of a job putting them to-geth-er, and her men-tal state wasn''t par-tic-u-lar-ly sta-ble on its own. If she didn''t work so hard on keep-ing her-self cen-tered... there wouldn''t have been much he could have done to pull her through all of this trou-ble.


    In the morn-ing, once she be-gan her chores, he ac-cel-er-at-ed his own ef-forts, feed-ing en-er-gy into his col-lec-tion dy-namos. Al-though the dy-namos were small, he was con-fi-dent that as long as he built them up, the six left, six right, one in, and one out dy-namos to-geth-er would be enough to take on at least a cou-ple ded-i-cat-ed war-riors, though per-haps not... what-ev-er it was he was able to sense from this dis-tance. Giv-en what lit-tle it had tak-en to im-prove his squir-rel body''s core to a sil-very col-or, he was sure that any-thing less than that--the cop-pery col-or, and the duller gray, which he sup-posed were Bronze and Iron, giv-en what peo-ple had said--would be fair-ly unim-pres-sive.


    Of course, he had no idea how ef-fi-cient they may be at us-ing their pow-er. If they had built up a cul-ture around us-ing their strange qi-fla-vored aether, with its high-er-di-men-sion-al flows, even a rel-a-tive-ly weak war-rior might be able to gen-er-ate re-al-i-ty-bend-ing pow-er. He want-ed to ask Ki''el what she knew... but he al-ready knew that it was lit-tle enough. Out here, far from any em-pire or great na-tion, a vil-lage may not have any qi war-riors, let alone ex-perts or schol-ars.


    When she fin-ished mak-ing break-fast... Sobon not-ed that, as she had all along, she was still mak-ing a serv-ing of food for him. He most-ly hadn''t been eat-ing it; she was no pro-fes-sion-al chef, and ac-cept-ing the food felt more like ac-cept-ing a place as a do-mes-ti-cat-ed an-i-mal, and less like shar-ing a meal. It ran-kled him, though frankly, he knew it was an over-re-ac-tion. As he stared at it now... if noth-ing else, he de-cid-ed, he couldn''t stand try-ing to eat on a plate on the ground.


    He''d been putting off most of his ef-forts to ac-tu-al-ly mold aether into prac-ti-cal ef-fects. He could; he re-mem-bered most of the li-braries, chains, pat-terns, and field geome-tries, but... with-out his cy-borg data-base linked straight into his mind, he would be fig-ur-ing out many of the de-tails from scratch. He''d... most-ly put it off, so far, but it was long since time to work on it.


    Nat-u-ral-ly, he didn''t start on the plate of food, in-stead spin-ning up one each of the left and right dy-namos, and spin-ning thin thread into the ef-fect pat-tern for telekine-sis. The pat-tern it-self... was com-plex, and he got bits wrong, but he was able to nudge the ar-ray in the few places where he wasn''t sure un-til things fell into place.


    At least this, un-like the ri-fle pat-tern, wasn''t so like-ly to cause se-vere dam-age if he got it wrong.


    With-in half an hour, at most, he had the telekine-sis pat-tern fleshed out, and picked up his plate of food and his own lit-tle fur-ry body, de-posit-ing them on the near-est par-tial-ly-in-tact rooftop. He mea-sured the con-sump-tion of the pat-tern as he used it to eat, de-ter-min-ing that the two small dy-namos were, to-geth-er, well more than the pat-tern con-sumed. It would be dif-fer-ent if he were mov-ing a hu-man body, or even a heavy iron weapon, or try-ing to over-drive the pat-tern and throw some-thing at lethal force; cer-tain-ly, he didn''t ex-pect to be able to fight off a sail-ing ship with telekine-sis, not any-time soon.


    When he fin-ished eat-ing, he saw Ki''el star-ing at him, and he leaped to a near-by tree and down to the ground, com-ing over to her. She kept look-ing at the roof where he''d been, though, and for a mo-ment he wor-ried that he had brought back some kind of trau-ma.


    "I could bare-ly tell what you were do-ing," she said at last. "It was... com-pli-cat-ed, wasn''t it?"


    Sobon let him-self breathe out a quick sigh of re-lief. [ Yes. It... will be dif-fi-cult to teach you every-thing I know, Ki''el. But, noth-ing is im-pos-si-ble. It is only knowl-edge. ] He left un-said that he wouldn''t re-al-ly be teach-ing her all he knew; he doubt-ed he would even teach her all he could, or all she would need to know. But he de-cid-ed that she would feel bet-ter with that white lie.


    Ki''el turned to look at him. "Can I use it to de-fend my home?"


    Sobon''s face could no longer smile quite the way he want-ed it to, but he felt his fa-cial mus-cles stretch any-way. [ That is the right ques-tion. That tool will not help you. I... will pre-pare some-thing that will work. But first you should un-der-stand what you have. ]


    The girl turned and im-me-di-ate-ly start-ed walk-ing, and it took Sobon a mo-ment to re-al-ize she was head-ed for the pier. He fol-lowed, tak-ing the first op-por-tu-ni-ty to leap onto her shoul-der.


    <hr>


    Ki''el let her-self be calmed by the mo-tion of the waves for a minute be-fore turn-ing her at-ten-tion to Sobon, who had drawn two of his glow-ing rings out, let-ting them float be-side him-self. Ki''el, with some dif-fi-cul-ty, sought out the two rings in her spir-it, and gen-tly coaxed them to move out into her hands.


    It was, she con-sid-ered silent-ly, a bit coax-ing an-i-mals had once been, be-fore all the an-i-mals around her had be-come too hand-shy and fer-al to ap-proach. A pro-ject-ed sense of in-vi-ta-tion, di-rect-ed at them, and they ap-peared where she could reach them.


    [ Very good, ] Sobon sound-ed im-pressed, and she wasn''t sure whether to feel pleased or in-sult-ed. It had al-ways come nat-u-ral-ly to her; was it not the same for oth-ers? [ I don''t know if you did it on pur-pose, but you drew the ...cy-cles, out, in your op-po-site hands. The one in your left hand is right-hand aether. Can you tell? ]


    Ki''el stud-ied the cy-cle, not-ing that when she placed the thorn up-wards, it seemed to be flow-ing ...back-wards. She nod-ded, and with a mo-ment of fum-bling, switched the two rings.


    [ Good. It''s not nec-es-sary, but it helps you keep them straight in your mind. ] Sobon drew his right ring for-ward. [ Let''s start with right-hand aether. I... am most-ly sure this is true, here, but right hand aether should have a pos-i-tive ef-fect on your body, so it is eas-i-er to ex-per-i-ment with. ]


    Ki''el gave the squir-rel a look, and it just looked back, im-pas-sive-ly.


    [ Look, ] Sobon said af-ter a mo-ment, [ I''m not a de-ity. I am from far away, and things are dif-fer-ent there. I am... ] he hes-i-tat-ed. [ It is true for this body, and it was true for... an-oth-er hu-man I knew. What is im-por-tant is that ei-ther left or right is usu-al-ly help-ful, and the oth-er... well, you don''t want to force it into your body. You can force it into an en-e-my''s body, to slow them down and con-fuse their... their qi, I sup-pose. I don''t in-tend to lie and tell you that I know all. I know much. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that for a long mo-ment, and then let the left-hand cir-cle re-treat back into her spir-it, bring-ing the oth-er one in front of her.


    [ Al-right. Be-cause the cy-cle al-ready has been giv-en a pur-pose, you don''t need to force it to spin; sim-ply feed it, and it will do its job bet-ter. You can draw ex-tra en-er-gy ei-ther from your own spir-it, or from the cy-cle''s own thorn, but don''t be in a rush. If you make it un-sta-ble, you may have to start over. Don''t use up all the en-er-gy in the thorn, ei-ther; that will tend to make it break. ]


    Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    Ki''el con-sid-ered all that for a mo-ment, be-fore de-cid-ing to try what seemed the most ba-sic; as when she had sum-moned the ring from her spir-it, she just sent it a sense of of-fer-ing, with an in-tent to give. To her sur-prise, the ring re-spond-ed, im-me-di-ate-ly go-ing from a bare-ly-de-tectable spin to a slug-gish ro-ta-tion. Al-though she didn''t see more of those blue sparks, she felt pow-er gath-er-ing in the thorn as the cy-cle spun.


    [ Good. ] Sobon''s voice was calm enough to keep Ki''el fo-cused on her task. [ Since you have it spin-ning, try to reach the thorn. Don''t pull en-er-gy from it, for now, but take it so that you can use it when you''re ready. ]


    Again, Ki''el had to read be-tween the lines of what her in-tent should be, but she sent the thorn a sort of... re-quest for loy-al-ty, and a slight tug to-wards her left hand. Al-though she had to rephrase the idea twice, or per-haps three times, af-ter a mo-ment she felt some-thing in her left palm.


    [ You should keep us-ing your right hand for right-hand aether, ] Sobon chid-ed, gen-tly. [ Be-lieve me, you don''t want to mix them up. ]


    Ki''el felt a brief flash of ir-ri-ta-tion, but was able to con-vince her right thorn to switch to her right hand af-ter only an-oth-er few mo-ments'' work.


    [ Good. You can sep-a-rate pieces from the thorn and treat it like aether thread that you were mak-ing when you cre-at-ed the rings in the first place. In terms of what to do with it... for now, feed it into your body. Start with... let''s say, your hands. ]


    Ki''el frowned, but com-plied. Af-ter some fuss-ing around and one in-stance of break-ing off a piece of the thorn with-out be-ing able to con-trol the re-sult-ing piece be-fore it dis-ap-peared, she was able to of-fer the en-er-gy to her left hand.


    Im-me-di-ate-ly, she felt a hot flash cov-er her hand, and her skin felt smoother, her mus-cles en-er-getic. She brought her hand up to her face and stud-ied it, but there was no vis-i-ble dif-fer-ence, even when she flexed it.


    [ Right-hand aether match-es the nat-u-ral-ly pro-duced aether of your body. When you feed it in, your body sim-ply has ex-tra en-er-gy to use. It''s not a com-plete re-place-ment for sta-mi-na train-ing; there are side ef-fects to burn-ing aether to pow-er your mus-cles. I... don''t sup-pose you know enough bi-ol-o-gy to talk about that, though. ] The squir-rel paused, and she turned to look at him, but when she didn''t speak af-ter a mo-ment, he con-tin-ued. [ It can help tough-en up your body, and most im-por-tant-ly, it in-creas-es your chance of sur-vival when you have a wound. I... sup-pose that your nor-mal qi does the same, but the point is, this is all spe-cif-ic to right-hand aether. ]


    [ Left-hand aether doesn''t match your body. If you were to push it into your body, it would do the op-po-site, mak-ing you lethar-gic, weak-er, soft-er, and more like-ly to die. It will do the same to an en-e-my, if you can force your aether into their body--and if you push raw right-hand aether into an en-e-my, or a friend, it will en-hance them, just as it will you. ]


    "Do not mix them up," Ki''el said, sound-ing a bit snip-pi-er than she meant to. "I un-der-stand."


    If Sobon was of-fend-ed, he didn''t show it. [ If you in-tend to use left-hand aether as a weapon, you will need to learn to pro-ject it with-out ab-sorb-ing it. In this, again, we see aether''s need for pur-pose... ah, no, maybe that''s too com-pli-cat-ed. Try... while work-ing with the right hand aether, still, try tak-ing just a bit of your thorn and let-ting the en-er-gy emp-ty out into space away from your hand. ]


    Ki''el did so, or in-tend-ed to; ap-par-ent-ly, Sobon in-tend-ed for her to some-how bridge the aether into the phys-i-cal world, and not mere-ly have it in-ter-act with the spir-i-tu-al, which was a new chal-lenge. When fi-nal-ly she was able to press her qi out into the phys-i-cal, she could vis-cer-al-ly feel some-thing odd shift in the air, a flick-er-ing quiver, and she could al-most imag-ine that she per-ceived... some-thing more, a cloud of sil-very-blue smoke in the air in front of her hand.


    [ Good. That''s enough for now. The only oth-er thing I''ll tell you is that if you have aether in hand and sim-ply re-lease it, re-ab-sorb-ing it into your spir-it body, it will ap-par-ent-ly in-crease your body''s qi. This is dif-fer-ent from us-ing the en-er-gy to feed your body, so you can do it with your left-hand aether as well. ]


    "Why is it dif-fer-ent?" Ki''el closed her eyes and tried to ex-am-ine her qi core, and was sur-prised to find that it had ad-vanced quite a bit over the last few days--and was now at four bronze stars, just start-ing to lick at five.


    [ There are many kinds of aether, ] Sobon, replied, sound-ing a bit ir-ri-tat-ed. [ Where I come from, they are de-scribed as var-i-ous kinds of spins, though var-i-ous... di-rec-tions. Any-thing above the ob-vi-ous is com-pli-cat-ed, but there is also spin-less aether. The... the cy-cle is an ef-fi-cient way to gen-er-ate aether, more-so than hap-pens in na-ture. The act of re-leas-ing aether should re-move its spin, al-low-ing your body and... core, I sup-pose, to do with it what it wish-es. ]


    That should tick-led some-thing in Ki''el''s brain, some-thing that had been wait-ing for a nasty sur-prise to crop up any-where in the tree rat''s ad-vice on aether, and she bris-tled. "Should?"


    There was a mo-ment''s em-bar-rassed si-lence, but only that much. [ You''ll should only be able to ab-sorb it by re-mov-ing its pur-pose, and thus its spin. Forc-ing the en-er-gy into your-self with-out re-mov-ing its pur-pose will feel very dif-fer-ent. ]


    "But you said I need-ed to learn to pro-ject left-hand aether with-out ab-sorb-ing it. As though that mis-take would be sim-ple, and ob-vi-ous."


    [ Learn-ing to pro-ject it re-quires forc-ing the aether. Forc-ing it out and forc-ing it into your-self are sim-i-lar. ]


    Ki''el forced down a snap re-ac-tion, one she wasn''t sure even had any thought be-hind it, and looked away from her teacher. If only her teacher wasn''t some stu-pid tree rat...


    [ I must apol-o-gize, ] Sobon said, af-ter a mo-ment, and she turned her at-ten-tion back to him, forc-ing the ir-ri-ta-tion back down. [ Af-ter all that has hap-pened to you, I un-der-stand that ex-pect-ing so much of you isn''t rea-son-able. You need help that I can-not pro-vide, Ki''el. I am a war-rior, not a ...heal-er of ...hearts? ] His men-tal words sound-ed strange at the end, as though try-ing to fit a con-cept into a gap that didn''t quite fit.


    And yet, de-spite what he said, she found that she didn''t un-der-stand him at all.


    "I do not re-quire a heal-er," she said, cross-ly, and felt a ris-ing stress in-side of her that she could bare-ly rec-og-nize. Usu-al-ly, when it came, she was alone, and... and it was al-right to just let it take her over. All she lost, then, was time. But now... "What I re-quire... what I de-sire..." Ki''el found her jaw clench-ing, and she wasn''t sure what she was try-ing to say.


    [ For you to be healthy, you would re-quire a world that had not be-trayed you. I can-not pro-vide that. I can only be a per-son who will not be-tray you in the fu-ture. ]


    "I do not re-quire the im-pos-si-ble of you!" She found her-self snap-ping at him, and sur-pris-ing-ly, felt her qi re-spond, form-ing a rough dis-charge in the air be-tween them, one that blew back the grass and ruf-fled Sobon''s fur, but didn''t budge the squir-rel at all. She bare-ly no-ticed that de-tail, her thoughts dragged along by a for-eign mo-men-tum. "But all of this, these triv-ial de-tails and dis-cus-sions of... of math and cir-cles and thorns, of lefts and rights, these do not feel like a war-rior''s way. This is the way of a cow-ard-ly tree rat who... who pre-tends to know com-bat in or-der to feel bet-ter about his in-ad-e-qua-cy."


    Ki''el found her-self clenched, eyes sealed shut, per-haps ex-pect-ing her mas-ter to strike her to main-tain or-der. Her grand-moth-er had, a time or two, when she drift-ed off in a lec-ture about ei-ther qi, or in those few dis-cus-sions about the world be-yond their is-lands that had been too un-in-ter-est-ing for her child-ish mind to keep hold of. But that si-lence stretched for a long mo-ment, and she let her eyes open and look out.


    Sobon had turned to face the wa-ter, and she could read noth-ing in his pos-ture.


    It was only a bare frac-tion of an in-stant be-fore Ki''el would have launched into an-oth-er tirade when Sobon''s voice reached her mind. Some-how, the words con-veyed tired-ness. [ I should have known that you would not be ready, ] he said. [ I sup-pose it was the staff train-ing. I con-vinced my-self you had the mind-set of a war-rior, but you are still a child. ]


    "I am not--"


    Ki''el gen-uine-ly did not know how she found her-self in the wa-ter. Be-fore she was able to re-spond, she''d not only been dunked head-first into the riv-er, but drug out to sea, be-fore the rat Sobon let her go. She was no stranger to swim-ming; she had her legs un-der her very quick-ly, and when her eyes were clear, she saw the squir-rel float-ing in midair be-fore her, look-ing every bit the wise, mys-te-ri-ous crea-ture she knew he must have been, de-spite the small, fluffy ex-te-ri-or.


    [ When the en-e-my comes, I will deal with them, ] Sobon spoke into her mind. [ I will not say, do not fear them. But you will not be harmed. You may take what-ev-er time you re-quire to de-cide how much you trust me. ]


    And then it was gone, in a flash of qi, or aether, so quick-ly that she lost track of his body be-fore she even knew that she need-ed to try to fol-low his move-ments. So she just hissed through her teeth, most-ly at her own id-io-cy and in-dig-ni-ty, and swam back to-wards shore.


    It was the eas-i-est swim she had ever done, and that was sober-ing food for thought.

 10. Kiel, part five

    The next few days found Sobon most-ly ig-nor-ing his young pupil, and in-stead work-ing on re-fin-ing four pat-terns on stones, to help his mem-o-ry: telekine-sis, an en-er-gy bar-ri-er, the ri-fle pat-tern, and a grenade pat-tern suit-able for use with in-spin aether. The last two were very dan-ger-ous, not be-cause of the type of aether, but be-cause they could only op-er-ate above a cer-tain in-ten-si-ty of aether; there were no test-fir-ings of those pat-terns, not with his lim-it-ed stores, and not in a place he wished to de-fend.


    It''s not that he ex-pect-ed to blow up the vil-lage if he got the pat-tern wrong, but decades of train-ing told him to only ex-pose ar-eas to hos-tile aether pat-terns if they were en-e-my con-trolled, shield-ed, or could be re-paired. To do oth-er-wise would not only hin-der re-cov-ery in the area, but also... it would leave a very de-tectable trace. While he sus-pect-ed he would be fight-ing in the vil-lage, or at least in the near-by sea, there was no rea-son to draw them in, not if they might still pass the area by.


    By the time the ap-proach-ing ship was vis-i-ble, it had long since been a mas-sive bea-con to his sens-es. When he fi-nal-ly car-ried his pat-tern stones to the shore, he found Ki''el al-ready there, star-ing out across the sea rest-less-ly from be-hind a tree, her aether and qi not so much qui-et as drowned out by the waves of en-er-gy. Nev-er-the-less, he not-ed that she sensed him ap-proach-ing, even when she didn''t turn.


    Such a cheeky stu-dent, he thought qui-et-ly to him-self with ap-proval. Thinks she''s be-ing sub-tle.


    "It is a ter-ri-ble aura," she said, as he hopped up to a tree branch near her, and Sobon not-ed the word, for fu-ture use. "I do not know what it is, but it feels... ter-ri-ble. Like death."


    Sobon stud-ied the waves, as pas-sive-ly as he could. Like all qi he had seen, it was a com-plex mix of greater and low-er spins; he thought he felt left and right, in, and... on-ward-spin aether? Per-haps both on-ward and re-verse, at once. [ It is the... aura of a band of killers. Some pieces of it are util-i-ty for them-selves, strength-en-ing them and keep-ing their spir-its up. Oth-ers are a mes-sage to oth-ers--a promise of vi-o-lence and cru-el-ty that they will doubt-less keep, if giv-en an ex-cuse. ]


    Ki''el shiv-ered, but he chose not to no-tice. In-stead, he spoke qui-et-ly, in case he should not have an-oth-er chance to of-fer her guid-ance. [ The pat-tern--the promise of vi-o-lence, en-forced in aether--helps them to do ter-ri-ble things if they de-cide to, at the cost of cor-rupt-ing them. It gives them courage against stronger or equal foes, and it helps them crush their own re-sis-tance to harm-ing in-no-cents. Your dai-ly habits are sim-i-lar--a pat-tern that ex-ists out-side your-self, which you hold to in or-der to make dif-fi-cult things eas-i-er to ac-cept. The pat-tern it-self may be used by he-roes, or mon-sters--as with weapons of all types. ]


    There was a minute or two of qui-et, as Ki''el, in her own way, ab-sorbed that. Fi-nal-ly, though, she shift-ed her weight, slight-ly. "I am no hero," she said.


    [ I don''t mean that only he-roes and mon-sters ex-ist, ] Sobon replied, sud-den-ly wor-ried that he had been mis-un-der-stood. [ It can be used by teach-ers, el-ders... I am sure that your vil-lage had many such pat-terns. Sim-i-lar things teach lessons from par-ent to child, both in the womb, and through-out their lives. It is im-por-tant that you un-der-stand that these things are ex-ter-nal, and they can be cre-at-ed and de-stroyed... as well as cor-rupt-ed. ]


    There was a long stretch of si-lence, and then Ki''el shift-ed again. "I should not have said what I did that day," she said, and he felt her strug-gling to find more words, to find a way to make up for what she did.


    [ You should not have, ] he sim-ply agreed. [ It is the na-ture of... ] he al-most said chil-dren, but chose not to. [ ...stu-dents, to make mis-takes, and be cor-rect-ed. And even grown men like me, ] he added a wry sense of irony to the thought, over-layed with a men-tal im-age of his cur-rent form, [ are still stu-dents. I have much to learn, and in or-der to learn, I must be cor-rect-ed, and this is true of all teach-ers, of all ages. When you feel some-thing is wrong, you should speak. ]


    Ki''el did not speak for a long time. Even-tu-al-ly, she just turned to him, said one fi-nal, "I''m sor-ry," and re-turned to the vil-lage, or so he as-sumed.


    Min-utes be-came an hour, and it be-came clear to Sobon that the ship in-tend-ed to pass by. That should have been no sur-prise; he and Ki''el were not enough to at-tract at-ten-tion, and if they were the pi-rates who had ran-sacked this vil-lage, they had al-ready done a thor-ough job. If not, they like-ly didn''t even know it ex-ist-ed.


    Still, he stud-ied the aether giv-en off by the boat as it steered by. By the time it was near-ing its clos-est ap-proach, and get-ting ready to pass, he had be-come cer-tain of some-thing that he had been grow-ing to in-creas-ing-ly sus-pect.


    He looked away, search-ing for Ki''el, to find her not far away, sit-ting against the base of a tree and star-ing dag-gers at the ship from the shade. He hopped down from his own spot and ap-proached her. [ There are pris-on-ers, slaves, aboard that ship, ] he said. [ I will need to take your boat. I am go-ing af-ter them. ]


    Ki''el stood, her ex-pres-sion not seem-ing to change. Per-haps she knew, or had sus-pect-ed, or maybe she sus-pect-ed that her own peo-ple had been hauled off, or at least some of them. As they moved through the woods, though, she spoke, qui-et-ly. "I will be com-ing with you."


    Sobon didn''t both-er ques-tion-ing, or ar-gu-ing. His own mind re-turned to thoughts of his home-world be-ing in-vad-ed. [ It will be hard to pro-tect you, there in the mid-dle of every-thing. I will try, but be pre-pared. ]


    All Ki''el said in re-sponse was, "Death would be prefer-able to know-ing that I did not try."


    It was not long af-ter that she and Sobon were on a small boat, the girl pad-dling smooth-ly, every stroke pow-er-ing the craft no small amount. They were on the op-po-site side of the is-land from the ship, still, but Sobon knew that it wouldn''t take long for them to make their way around. "...Mas-ter," she said, fi-nal-ly, af-ter too long in si-lence. She hadn''t called him that, he re-flect-ed. "Do we at-tack in the day, or...?"


    [ If it were clos-er to evening, we might wait. Un-less you think we should? ]


    "At their speed..." Ki''el frowned. "No. By the time evening comes, un-less they stop, they will be in wa-ters I do not know."


    [ If you can think of an am-bush spot... ]


    Ki''el just shook her head. "We will sim-ply move swift-ly."


    When they came around the end of the is-land, and found the ship with its sails start-ing to bil-low a bit more strong-ly in the wind, Ki''el took the op-por-tu-ni-ty to re-al-ly dig in with her oar. A life-time of ex-pe-ri-ence kept her from mak-ing too much of a splashy mess with it, but Sobon was sur-prised to find that she could still put great pow-er be-hind each stroke. Still, every smack and every gur-gle of the wa-ter made him wish he had come up with a stealth pat-tern. He had known one or two, but they seemed too tech-ni-cal to him, and would take too much guess-work.


    "Boat ap-proach-ing!" Sobon heard the cry, al-though it was very dis-tant. More dis-tant, he sus-pect-ed, than he should have heard it from; his hear-ing was good, but he had nev-er no-ticed a faint sound be-ing so clear. "One girl, un-armed, or maybe a staff."


    There was a smat-ter-ing of laugh-ter.


    [ I will do what I can to keep you safe, ] Sobon promised, even as Ki''el be-gan push-ing her-self even hard-er on the oar. [ But... ]


    She didn''t stop work as she replied, "But what?"


    [ You would also make an ex-cel-lent dis-trac-tion. If you are will-ing. ]


    "No mat-ter what, I in-tend to board that ship," she said, her qui-et voice in-tense. "I hope to at least beat one of them to death. Af-ter that, we will see."


    <hr>


    Ki''el bare-ly paid at-ten-tion when Sobon hid him-self, and didn''t both-er look-ing for him or try-ing to sense how close he was. When she got the boat close enough to the side of the pi-rate ship, she snatched up her staff with one hand and leaped over, grab-bing one of the planks on the side that served as a crude lad-der. Even with only one hand, she found her-self mov-ing more smooth-ly than she had ex-pect-ed, step-ping up and snaking her climb-ing hand up to the next plank be-fore she could be-gin to pull away. It wouldn''t have been odd if that was a thing that she prac-ticed... but no, she just felt her body mov-ing with pur-pose and clar-i-ty.


    It was hard-ly the time to be dis-tract-ed with thoughts of why.


    When she got near to the edge of the ship, there was an ugly, wiry Djip lean-ing over to grab at her shirt and pull her up, but she braced her-self quick-ly and jabbed the staff at his face, in-stinc-tive-ly pres-sur-ing both of her new cir-cu-lar cores. As she did, she felt them both push-ing en-er-gy into her, and... as Sobon had said, one of them felt right with-in her, while one of them felt wrong. With her bare-ly pay-ing at-ten-tion, all she could do at the mo-ment is back off the pres-sure--which she was only able to do be-cause the man at the edge of the ship backed away for an in-stant, spooked.


    She held on to where she was only long enough to lay a men-tal hand on the right-hand cir-cle and re-lease the oth-er, and be-fore she even had it un-der con-trol, she pulled her-self up onto the ship. As her head cleared the edge, she saw a group-ing of two dozen sailors, some Djang, some Djip, some Iji, and even some Il-lans like her-self. The crew were all men, though, and they all had the same ill taint to their spir-its, at least as far as her sens-es could tell. The group had a mixed group of ex-pres-sions on their faces, none of them pleas-ant; some were just an-gry, oth-ers, pained or tired, oth-ers show-ing an ea-ger-ness to fight that she dared not think too hard about.


    As her feet fi-nal-ly reached the deck, the most heav-i-ly built man took a half-step for-ward, his greasy skin shin-ing in the ear-ly af-ter-noon sun. Al-though he was at least half Il-lan, he spoke Djangese with lit-tle ac-cent "What a lit-tle treat has worked its way up onto our deck. In-ter-est-ed in sign-ing up, lit-tle lady?"


    The laugh-ter that rolled through the crowd could have meant any one of a num-ber of things, but none of them were good. At least, not know-ing who these men were.


    "This crew," she said, "de-stroyed my vil-lage."


    One of the crew-man turned and boffed an-oth-er on his shirt-less chest. "I said it was this place," he said in bro-ken Djangese, proud-ly, though no one seemed im-pressed with him at all.


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    Ki''el took a deep breath and tried to steady her thoughts. She would have han-dled this very dif-fer-ent-ly, if she didn''t have Sobon with her. If he didn''t say he need-ed a dis-trac-tion. Even so, it felt very much like she was throw-ing her life away for noth-ing, or maybe, for her own pride.


    She just opened her eyes and looked at the man who''d stepped for-ward. "I''ll have my sat-is-fac-tion from you. One on one du-els, un-less you are afraid."


    The roar-ing laugh-ter of the en-tire crew is not what spooked her. No, what made her soul shiv-er in its deep-est depths was just the slight-est trem-ble in the aura that suf-fused the whole ship. She turned to look, but the source of the aura was be-hind a door--the large door on the stern of the ship. Which, she rea-soned in-stant-ly, must be the cap-tain''s quar-ters; it made sense that the strongest man would lead, es-pe-cial-ly on a crew like this.


    Her at-ten-tion was drawn back when one of the men took his al-ready-bared saber and leaped at her even as most of the rest were laugh-ing. She was quick with the staff, knock-ing the ver-ti-cal slash aside, and im-me-di-ate-ly shift-ed for-wards and dropped her weight, bring-ing the end of her staff down on the man''s foot with that weight plus all the force she could muster. She would have known with-out look-ing that she had shat-tered the man''s foot with the strike, but she didn''t ex-pect the blow to also push her staff a fin-ger width into the wood deck, blood and splin-ters ex-plod-ing from the strike.


    She ig-nored the ob-ser-va-tion and caught her weight, slip-ping for-ward, yank-ing her staff clear and spin-ning it into a blow to the back of the pi-rate''s head, which knocked him clean off the ship, and also made a loud crack like it had split his skull, though she... couldn''t imag-ine why her blow would have been that strong.


    "This bitch..." At least two men charged her af-ter that, and Ki''el put aside all thought of lis-ten-ing, or even hear-ing what they said, her mind clamp-ing onto that right-hand cir-cle that her mas-ter had giv-en her, as she forced her mind into the pat-terns she had drilled. They were not war-rior pat-terns--not tru-ly. They were counter-at-tacks and dodges, ones that would have been use-less if she were much slow-er than she was now. The two blades charged in, mov-ing aside to give them-selves space from each oth-er, each poised to thrust.


    Ki''el picked one and stepped for-ward, mov-ing her staff as though she was go-ing to con-front the man, but in-stead putting the staff in mo-tion so that as soon as the oth-er blade was thrust at her, she could ma-neu-ver it to block. In the mo-ment of con-fu-sion, when the blade didn''t meet its mark, she stepped a half step for-ward, twirling the staff to re-gain mo-men-tum, and then aimed a blow up-wards into her first tar-get''s crotch.


    The man''s feet left the deck, briefly, and he dropped his sword.


    Ki''el whirled and had her staff ready to deal with the sec-ond blade, but he had start-ed to raise his own qi, and she knew even be-fore the wood struck that her blow would bare-ly find pur-chase. She al-lowed the blow to con-tin-ue but weak-en, ready-ing to turn it into a feint, but she also no-ticed, in her pe-riph-ery, that sev-er-al of the oth-er crew were now start-ing to cir-cle around her, weapons out, all with ter-ri-ble looks on their faces, now fo-cused and in-tent.


    She would lat-er re-al-ize that there was a sin-gle mo-ment, per-haps, when at least ten of them lined up. In the mo-ment it-self, how-ev-er, she flinched, with-out know-ing why. It felt like a line was burned through her thoughts, and when that in-stant passed... in-stead of men, there were charred half-corpses of men, all in a line, and be-yond them, a leg-sized hole in the edge of the deck, which she could see went straight through and out the side, though it was high enough it wouldn''t en-dan-ger the ship it-self.


    She, with every-one else, turned to look, though she knew who it must have been. Sobon float-ed there, next to the corpse of the pi-lot, one of his lit-tle rocks glow-ing red to her eyes, and shed-ding sparks of aether to her sens-es, like the coals of a fire when stirred. In that mo-ment, she also felt the aura of the Cap-tain stir, and she knew that what-ev-er came next, it would be be-yond her abil-i-ty to deal with.


    So in-stead, she turned to the near-est, half-stunned pi-rate, and put all of her strength into thrust-ing the end of her staff into his neck. He al-most re-cov-ered in time to block it, or at least re-sist it with his qi, but it was enough to stun him ful-ly, and she spun in place and put as much mo-men-tum into her staff as she could, smash-ing him in the chest with it. The pi-rate, with no words but an un-pleas-ant crunch-ing noise, flew off the ship.


    The re-main-ing pi-rates seemed as ea-ger as her to avoid be-ing use-less, al-though bare-ly a third of them de-cid-ed that she was the next rel-e-vant threat. That worked out in her fa-vor; the four men bran-dish-ing their sabers at her didn''t look like the bravest or strongest of the lot, and two of them brushed each oth-er and had a mo-men-tary spat, tak-ing their eyes off of her to glare dag-gers at one an-oth-er, pre-sum-ably each want-i-ng to claim the right to fight next. Of the oth-er two, one had a near-ly blank look on his face, al-though he kept his sword mov-ing nim-bly, and the oth-er had a tense look on his face that Ki''el didn''t both-er try-ing to read. She took her staff in both hands and force-ful-ly blocked a heavy blow from the more ag-gres-sive fight-er, slid his blade aside, and start-ed to turn to-wards the blank one.


    His fist was a sur-prise as it knocked the air out of her lungs. In the mo-ment of shock, she looked again at his eyes, won-der-ing if per-haps they were a look of deep con-cen-tra-tion, but still, all she could see was empti-ness, even as his lips peeled back into a nasty gri-mace.


    At that mo-ment, the Cap-tain''s door opened, and a man stepped out, a man whose aura par-a-lyzed near-ly every-one aboard the ship the mo-ment he ful-ly un-veiled it. His own sailors flinched back from it, and Ki''el lost feel-ing in her legs, bare-ly man-ag-ing to catch her-self on her staff and keep up-right, in or-der to bet-ter see the man. He was ugly, most like-ly, though Ki''el could only un-der-stand him in terms of that ter-ri-ble aura; it was an oily black-ness that ra-di-at-ed out from his soul, soak-ing into every board, rope, and stretch of can-vas in sight, claim-ing them with fa-mil-iar-i-ty and fi-nal-i-ty. His own peo-ple seemed to shy away from the all-cor-rupt-ing waves of en-er-gy, but when they could not es-cape, af-ter only a mo-ment, they straight-ened, look-ing back at their cap-tain more brave-ly, per-haps, or per-haps just with no re-main-ing will to re-sist. Ki''el felt the wave flow into her, but in-stead of claim-ing her, she could feel it crash over her like a curse, her mus-cles siez-ing, her bones weak-en-ing, her eyes go-ing dark.


    "Who dam-aged my ship?" The words were sim-ple and to the point, and the oth-ers point-ed to where Sobon must have been, but Ki''el couldn''t see him any-more. She could see very lit-tle ex-cept the deck, and the dark-en-ing sky, and the Cap-tain who strode through it all. He turned to look, one man in a sea of sil-hou-ettes, and squint-ed, and looked in-cred-u-lous-ly at the man who must have been his sec-ond in com-mand.


    [ I''m aware that my form isn''t in-tim-i-dat-ing, ] her mas-ter spoke clear-ly, this time not only into her own mind. [ But sure-ly you''re one who knows just how wrong per-cep-tions can be? ]


    "Keep talk-ing, meat," the Cap-tain said, and Ki''el felt waves and waves of dark en-er-gy pour from him. "I''ll dunk you whole and alive in cook-ing oil and only bring you out to breathe. Once you''re fried alive I''ll eat you in a sin-gle bite, and you''ll suf-fer your fi-nal undig-ni-fied death in my stom-ach, fi-nal-ly know-ing your place as you''re un-made and con-sumed by my core."


    [ ...Hum, ] Sobon''s men-tal voice man-aged to clear Ki''el''s head, just a bit. He sound-ed... im-pressed. [ That''s quite a threat. My counter will be... ]


    And then, with a speed Ki''el had only sort of known the squir-rel was ca-pa-ble of, he flew through the air next to the Cap-tain, and un-leashed an-oth-er blast like the first, which blind-ed Ki''el''s mind like the sun once again, straight into the side of the man''s head.


    The re-sult-ing wave of qi wash-ing over the ship was like the tolling of a bro-ken ship''s bell, off-key and un-mis-tak-able. A heavy strike had met a high-ly ar-mored shell... and the shell held. Ki''el''s eyes snapped open, and she blinked away shad-ows that had nev-er been, look-ing up to see the Cap-tain still stand-ing there, Sobon still float-ing next to him, a burned and bloody gash along the side of the pi-rate''s head, but noth-ing more.


    It felt like min-utes passed, but Sobon must have re-act-ed in-stant-ly, and the Cap-tain wasn''t far be-hind. As the fly-ing squir-rel dashed away, the pi-rate''s saber was coat-ed with an in-deli-ble black, which rip-pled off the tip of the blade, ex-tend-ing it first inch-es, then feet, then a whole ship''s length, be-fore re-tract-ing, but Sobon had dodged. Ki''el glanced at a mast, well with-in range of the swipe, but the dark-ness with-in it didn''t seem phased by the cap-tain''s own strike; no hiss or thunk came off of it as the strike passed through. The pi-rate dashed for-ward, far faster than a hu-man should have been able to move, but Sobon man-aged to ma-neu-ver a whole bar-rel into his way that hadn''t been there be-fore. The pi-rate cap-tain bare-ly hes-i-tat-ed, cleav-ing through it with a sin-gle swipe of his saber, and spilling wa-ter across the deck.


    Ki''el tried to fol-low Sobon with her eyes, but she felt like she was watch-ing a dream, as the squir-rel''s po-si-tion shift-ed rapid-ly and con-fi-dent-ly, as though fol-low-ing a plan she couldn''t be-gin to fath-om.


    Fi-nal-ly, the cap-tain stopped, and with a shout of, "Enough!" reached up with a hand, his qi scream-ing the tech-nique name, Sphere of Pitch, into her mind. In-stant-ly, black en-er-gy from the whole ship con-verged on Sobon, sur-round-ing him in a mas-sive black shell.


    "Enough!" the cap-tain re-peat-ed, and Ki''el felt strange, re-al-iz-ing that his voice wasn''t car-ry-ing any qi-based pow-er to her any-more, most like-ly sav-ing it for the fight. "I''ll ad-mit that was per-haps the sec-ond most pow-er-ful blow to the head I''ve ever tak-en, rat, but you won''t catch me with it again. I don''t know what kind of name-less tech-nique you in-her-it-ed, but if that''s the best you can do--"


    [ The best I can do? ] Sobon''s voice was amused. [ How about this, then? ]


    Ki''el must have sensed it a few mo-ment af-ter the cap-tain did. It was, af-ter all, too pow-er-ful a feel-ing to be missed, most like-ly even by those with-out any qi sense; Ki''el rec-og-nized it as Sobon pour-ing sev-er-al of his rings of pow-er all at once into one of his float-ing stones, which cap-tured that en-er-gy and com-pressed it into a point. The waves that she felt--that every-one felt--didn''t feel like a tech-nique be-ing ex-e-cut-ed. In-stead, it felt... a lit-tle like a scream, mut-ed by be-ing con-tained be-hind a wall, but heard clear-ly through the cracks. A scream that was only grow-ing loud-er, mo-ment by mo-ment, and if even the noise of it was so in-tense...


    The cap-tain waves his hand to scat-ter the sphere of black and leaped for-ward, his saber length-en-ing with black pow-er to try to stab at Sobon, but the squir-rel just ca-su-al-ly tossed the stone past the cap-tain and to-wards the ship. Ki''el flinched; she was sure, if that tech-nique re-leased, she would die, along with the cap-tain, crew, and pris-on-ers. But the cap-tain, no doubt think-ing the same, threw his qi into stop-ping his own mo-men-tum, and spun and bat-ted the rock away from the ship with the flat of the blade, his qi all di-rect-ed at push-ing the tech-nique away. Sobon, she was sure, al-lowed it to go, float-ing away from the ship in the oth-er di-rec-tion.


    When the rock fi-nal-ly ex-plod-ed, the ship rocked so hard that it near-ly cap-sized, and Ki''el was thrown over-board, along with many of the crew, and this time Ki''el was sure that most of the oth-ers were also blind-ed and stunned by the wave of qi--no, aether--that fu-eled the ex-plo-sion. It took her long, long mo-ments to awake from a sense of dev-as-ta-tion that she couldn''t un-der-stand or place; Ki''el, though, found her-self lay-ing safe, and even dry, in her boat. Im-pos-si-ble, she knew, since it should have fall-en well be-hind the ship af-ter she board-ed. With a jolt of pan-ic, she sat up and looked around, in-stant-ly spot-ting Sobon and the Cap-tain--the squir-rel float-ing serene-ly, and the Cap-tain stand-ing on an im-pos-si-bly calm sec-tion of the tur-bu-lent wa-ters.


    [ I am not afraid of you, pi-rate, ] Ki''el heard him say, from quite a ways away.


    "Then you''d bet-ter kill me," the Cap-tain said, and in the qi of his voice, she could feel an im-age of his face, sneer-ing in con-tempt, along with a set of words she couldn''t un-der-stand.


    [ Yes, ] Sobon sim-ply replied, tired-ly, [ I sup-pose so. ]


    And then, with an-oth-er spark that mo-men-tar-i-ly blind-ed Ki''el--this a spot, and not a line like the ones be-fore--the Cap-tain''s head sim-ply ex-plod-ed into pieces, and his body dropped in-stant-ly into the wa-ter, the ar-ti-fi-cial still-ness be-neath his feet van-ish-ing like it had nev-er been, the wa-ters churn-ing and thick streams of red run-ning through them for a mo-ment. There was qui-et, for a mo-ment, and Ki''el looked around, for any of the oth-er sailors to be swim-ming or stand-ing on the wa-ters, prepar-ing one last come-back--or per-haps, strug-gling to get away, to fight an-oth-er day.


    She saw noth-ing.


    [ Ki''el. ] Sobon''s voice was close, and she turned to find that he had ap-proached with-out her even know-ing, and was now perched on the bow tip of her boat. She... didn''t know too much, ex-cept that she could tell he was tired. Per-haps, very tired. [ You have done an ad-mirable job. Thank you. ]


    Ki''el stiff-ened, un-cer-tain about why and how the words seemed to weave around her... only to re-al-ize, af-ter a mo-ment, that she was sag-ging, her qi long since de-plet-ed, and she col-lapsed to the floor of the boat, ex-haust-ed.

 11. Kiel, part six

    It took Sobon about an hour to car-ry drag the boat con-tain-ing Ki''el''s un-con-scious form back to the ship, and then steer the ship (de-spite its bro-ken wheel, which didn''t ham-per his telekine-sis much) into what he be-lieved to be a con-ve-nient shal-lows near a neigh-bor-ing is-land, work the an-chor loose, and then tie up the sails. By the time he was done, all of his dy-namos were long since de-plet-ed, and his body''s qi near-ly ex-haust-ed, but at least the ship was no longer go-ing to end up in some for-eign wa-ters be-fore Ki''el awoke, and be-fore he was able to fig-ure out who among the pas-sen-gers was trust-wor-thy.


    He hes-i-tat-ed to slow down, be-cause he knew that his body, like Ki''el''s, des-per-ate-ly want-ed to pass out, but it would be long enough be-fore ei-ther of them woke nat-u-ral-ly that every-one in the ship''s hold would be in bad shape, and that''s as-sum-ing none of the pi-rate sailors had a stealth pat-tern ac-tive and were wait-ing for a chance to re-board the ship and slit their throats. At the same time... he was a lit-tle anx-ious about sim-ply strolling down into the ship''s jail as a squir-rel. There were a num-ber of things that could go wrong.


    In-stead, he forced him-self into a wake-ful med-i-ta-tion and pressed his Right-spin and Out-ward-spin aether dy-namos into ser-vice. Nei-ther was an ad-e-quate sub-sti-tute for food or sleep, and his mood was al-ready grow-ing ir-ri-ta-ble, frag-ile al-most, but he con-tin-ued de-spite him-self, keep-ing the en-er-gy flow-ing around him in a loop. As a side ef-fect... Sobon could also tell that the fresh aether from his Out-spin core was wash-ing away just a lit-tle bit of the foul black qi soaked into the deck be-neath him, and the Right-hand aether move-ments that flowed through the air dragged bits of black pol-lu-tion around in their or-bit, un-touched by cor-rup-tion but also un-able to pu-ri-fy it.


    It was prob-a-bly an-oth-er hour or so lat-er when Ki''el''s body sud-den-ly leaped up-wards off the ship''s deck from where she had been lay-ing. Sobon re-act-ed im-me-di-ate-ly, but it wasn''t an en-e-my at-tack, and it wasn''t her wak-ing, ex-act-ly; in-stead, it looked like her body was ad-vanc-ing from dark grey--iron--to sil-very grey. As his own body had done, her body re-act-ed to this by float-ing, and then sud-den-ly voilent-ly ex-pelling a thin lay-er of black goo be-fore drop-ping grace-less-ly to the deck. It was... as of-fen-sive to watch from the out-side as it had been when it hap-pened to him, al-though it had hap-pened to him in-side a fair-ly small an-i-mal den.


    The only ben-e-fit was that Ki''el snapped awake a mo-ment af-ter, look-ing stunned. Her hand came up to her face, and Sobon not-ed that she looked dif-fer-ent... but didn''t quite care ex-act-ly why or how.


    [ It''d good that you''re awake, ] he said, fi-nal-ly low-er-ing the pres-sure on his dy-namos. [ We should let the cap-tives out, now, be-fore things get any worse for them. ] He paused, hes-i-tat-ing.


    Ki''el looked to him, and im-me-di-ate-ly spot-ted all the sludge around her, and on her clothes. "Ah..."


    [ Yes, you should try to clean up, first. I will see if there are oth-er clothes. ]


    Ki''el forced her-self to her feet, more grace-ful-ly than she would have be-fore. "Are we... close to the is-land? My is-land?" she cor-rect-ed, af-ter bare-ly a heart-beat.


    [ I didn''t try to turn us around, but I stopped us at the next is-land. ] He con-sid-ered the now ru-ined rags on her, and men-tal-ly com-pared them to the filthy rags of the pi-rates. [ ...per-haps I could run back, but... it would be... ]


    "No, that''s fine." Ki''el moved over to the edge of the deck, where the lad-der should be. "I''ll just..." she let her voice trail off.


    In-stead of com-ment-ing, Sobon be-gan search-ing the ship. He was no ex-pert on the lay-out of sail-ing ves-sels, even from Crest''s his-to-ry, but he quick-ly found that there wasn''t too much to know, at least as far as was rel-e-vant now: there were spaces for the crew, ser-vice ar-eas, ar-eas that ex-ist-ed to help ser-vice things when they broke, and stor-age. Stor-age, nat-u-ral-ly, took up a lot of space, and in par-tic-u-lar, the least-de-sir-able space fur-thest from the work-ing ar-eas--in short, the bot-tom.


    As far as the pi-rates were con-cerned, their jail also was stor-age space, al-though it was a lev-el up. Sobon saw them as he searched, but while the cap-tives might have seen him scam-per-ing around, they didn''t re-act at all to a squir-rel scam-per-ing around on deck. Some-how, that still sur-prised him, if only a lit-tle. There seemed to be noth-ing to the jail area aside from sev-er-al wood-en cages re-in-forced by iron cross-bars, cur-rent-ly with far more peo-ple in it than Sobon was com-fort-able walk-ing away from. And yet... with Ki''el need-ing new clothes, he put it out of his mind for the mo-ment.


    Be-low, in the very base of the craft, were a great many bar-rels and box-es, and it didn''t take too much work to find an open bar-rel in which a lot of clothes had been dumped--some great fin-ery, some work-ing out-fits, and some torn rags mixed in, but none of them bloody, at least. Sobon made a men-tal judge of Ki''el''s size, and found a work-ing out-fit in a sim-i-lar style to her own, and car-ried it back to the deck as quick-ly as he could.


    He didn''t need to rush. Ki''el had made it to the near-est shore and was stand-ing in the shal-lows, try-ing to scrub her hair of the black goo that had emerged from her pores. He used his dyan-mos to pow-er his lev-i-ta-tion again, glad to be us-ing a bare min-i-mum of pow-er from his own strained core, and brought the clothes over to her.


    Ki''el didn''t star-tle when she no-ticed him ar-rive, and he gra-cious-ly ig-nored how she seemed to be star-ing dag-gers at him. In-stead, he just laid the clothes out on the shore, and then fled back to the ship with-out com-ment. Al-though he had no urges re-gard-ing her...


    Sobon let his mind stop churn-ing about what she might be think-ing of him and his in-tru-sion a mo-ment as his thoughts got caught in an old flow, one he hadn''t con-sid-ered in a while. Ig-nor-ing Ki''el, who was a child... how long had it been since he had a real re-la-tion-ship? It would have to have been be-fore he joined the Marines. When he first be-came a cy-borg, there was his fit-ness in-struc-tor, but she... they''d both known that wasn''t go-ing to go any-where. There was an-oth-er re-cruit when he was go-ing into of-fi-cer train-ing, but she made it and he didn''t. He might have chased af-ter her, tried to stay at-tached to her unit, but... some-thing in her eyes, as they had their last talk, told him that would have been un-wise.


    There were flings while in the Ser-vice, but he didn''t like how so many of them were just us-ing him for a plea-sure ma-chine. Cy-borgs cer-tain-ly had a rep-u-ta-tion, there, but it didn''t do near-ly as much for him as it did for them. And... many of those flings only end-ed up get-ting him in-ter-est-ed in a per-son who would soon die, or be trans-ferred.


    "Mas-ter." Sobon reg-is-tered Ki''el''s voice more than her ar-rival, and turned to find her dressed and stand-ing there, some-how dry. "We should let them out now. I''m sor-ry I took so long."


    [ We will both need to apol-o-gize to them, ] Sobon replied, dis-tract-ed-ly, as he leaped to her shoul-der. [ I chose this way of han-dling things, not you. ]


    Ki''el didn''t com-ment more, and with only a few mi-nor nudges from Sobon, found her way straight to the jail cells. Un-like with Sobon''s tiny body, the cap-tives heard her ap-proach and were all stand-ing there anx-ious-ly, look-ing right at her as she came down the stairs above.


    When the girl was qui-et for a long mo-ment, Sobon men-tal-ly nudged her. [ You should talk, at least at first. ]


    She bare-ly need-ed to pause and col-lect her thoughts. "They''re dead," she said. "I''m sor-ry. I should have let you out soon-er, but I..."


    "He''s dead? Cap-tain Blacksaber?" A young man lean-ing against the bars of the in-ter-rupt-ed, push-ing for-ward like he want-ed to squeeze out of the cage all on his own, al-though the gaps were far too small for that.


    The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "Yes. My mas-ter killed him." Ki''el moved for-ward, heis-tant-ly, and ex-am-ined the near-est door-way. Sobon eyed the lock, a heavy steel key-lock that he sensed was fair-ly com-plex, com-pared to much of the rest of the tech-nol-o-gy he''d seen. Even so, when he flexed his telekine-sis, he was able to very quick-ly sense the mech-a-nisms in-side and by-pass the puz-zle part of the lock, mere-ly mov-ing pieces out of the way so that the shack-le would slip open.


    Every-one ex-cept Ki''el jumped when the lock seemed to fall open of its own ac-cord. Ki''el just reached out and took it off the door, then moved to-wards the next. The heavy wood door swung on its hinges be-hind them, but Sobon was al-ready let-ting his thoughts touch the next lock, search-ing out the same flaw. With-in min-utes, the rest of the cages were opened, and the for-mer pris-on-ers were im-pa-tient-ly push-ing their way out.


    Some-one tried to ap-proach Ki''el, to talk, but now peo-ple were all start-ing to talk and yell, and so Ki''el shook her head and point-ed up, and made her way back to the stairs.


    Sobon let her han-dle things, but kept an eye on the for-mer cap-tives as best he could. When it be-came clear to the oth-ers that Ki''el was head-ed back on deck, many be-gan spread-ing out to can-vas the whole ship, and Sobon was sure he heard them in the gal-ley, hunt-ing for food and wa-ter, al-most im-me-di-ate-ly. Oth-ers no doubt went down, but while he could sense them clear-ly enough, he split his in-ten-tion be-tween those clos-est to Ki''el and those who seemed to find or be look-ing for weapons.


    Those that fol-lowed Ki''el up to the deck seemed to be lead-ers and war-riors them-selves, al-though none of them had pow-er-ful qi. At the very least, though, they all had the very be-gin-nings of it, while most of the rest had al-most no spark. Those that did... were also the ones that were hunt-ing for weapons, which Sobon made note of and kept track of.


    "The cap-tain''s body is not here," Ki''el said when they reached deck, "but I saw him die, his head..." she gri-maced, and Sobon not-ed that the el-ders and war-riors that were fol-low-ing her all not-ed her re-ac-tion. She shook slight-ly, but turned and ges-tured to the dead bod-ies that re-mained on the deck. "But you can see that my mas-ter''s pow-er is quite real."


    "And where is your mas-ter?" asked one of the el-ders, though by the way he was star-ing straight at Sobon, he thought that the man al-ready knew.


    "He is..." she turned to look at Sobon, still perched on her shoul-der.


    Sobon chose to pull him-self away and lev-i-tate in the air in front of them. [ I must apol-o-gize. If I thought you could have han-dled this form bet-ter... I could have let every-one out much ear-li-er. But be-ing in this body makes things com-pli-cat-ed. ]


    As ex-pect-ed, there were a wide range of re-ac-tions, but he was pleased to see that the el-ders seemed to most-ly not be sur-prised, and most of the rest who had some kind of qi pre-sent with-in them had only a sub-dued re-ac-tion, as though they''d sensed it, but not be-lieved it.


    Those few who had fol-lowed on deck but had no sense of qi in them at all were, pre-dictably, ter-ri-fied.


    "Star-beast!" Many of them mur-mured or shout-ed, and most of them backed well away. But when the el-ders and war-riors didn''t re-act, there was a long mo-ment, a con-fused si-lence as they ex-pect-ed every-one to ral-ly in pan-ic.


    Sobon con-cen-trat-ed, push-ing gen-tly on his Out-spin dyan-mo and re-leas-ing a touch of that pow-er into the air, even as he felt that it was a waste of the re-source. Al-ready, af-ter be-ing on this plan-et bare-ly... what, a week? Not count-ing the time I was dead... al-ready, I can only think of aether as a crude re-source to be thrown at prob-lems. The Cy-borg Corps of En-gi-neers would be in-sult-ed. He set the thoughts aside, though, and tried to pro-ject a sense of peace along with the gen-er-al-ly sooth-ing feel-ing that would come from the en-er-gy. [ Peace, ] he pro-ject-ed into all of their minds. [ I am not a Star-beast, and not a mon-ster. I am only... trapped in this form. That is all. ]


    At the very least, those with-out qi didn''t flinch back like he''d hurt them or any-thing, though he wasn''t sure any of them ap-pre-ci-at-ed the ca-su-al use of pow-er. When no-body ac-tive-ly fled or at-tacked, though, Sobon float-ed back to Ki''el''s shoul-der, and fo-cused his thoughts more on the group clos-est to him. [ Un-for-tu-nate-ly I am quite tired out by the fight. You will need to work out with Ki''el what you are go-ing to do, how you will get back home and what to do about this ship. I... can-not keep go-ing much longer with-out rest. ]


    Sev-er-al of the el-ders just nod-ded, know-ing-ly, and Sobon had the im-pres-sion that they were look-ing at his core. Which, once he had that thought him-self...


    Of course it was full to burst-ing, hav-ing reached nine sil-very lobes but be-ing un-able to sta-bi-lize at ten. Just look-ing at his core made his mind hurt; it want-ed to do some-thing to him, and it was in-creas-ing-ly un-clear ex-act-ly what that was, but he could tell it would be an ag-gres-sive change to his body... and maybe his mind.


    Still, Sobon not-ed that while those on deck seemed to be re-gard-ing him qui-et-ly, sev-er-al of the ones be-low who had been get-ting weapons were also look-ing back at him with their own spir-i-tu-al sens-es. He pressed his head against Ki''el''s for a mo-ment, pass-ing her a qui-et thought, then fled into the Cap-tain''s quar-ters.


    <hr>


    Ki''el found her-self very quick-ly, and very po-lite-ly, re-placed as the cen-ter of com-mand by a par-tic-u-lar el-der named Jalor. It only took a few min-utes of work, with her ad-mit-ting to be-ing lit-tle more than a reclu-sive rem-nant of her vil-lage, for every-one to ac-cept that while she was not the one to look to for lead-er-ship. As such, Jalor quick-ly del-e-gat-ed sev-er-al tasks, in-clud-ing get-ting peo-ple food and sur-vey-ing who had what skills.


    It wasn''t long be-fore they found two among them that had some un-der-stand-ing of wood-work-ing and ships, and who could at the very least undo the dam-age Sobon had done to the wheel, but no-body looked ea-ger to stay on the ship all the way back to their own vil-lages, and there was no con-fu-sion as to why. Even with the cap-tain gone, the whole ship stank of dark-ness, death, and tor-ture. It was dif-fer-ent now, cer-tain-ly, and not only be-cause the cap-tain and crew were dead; when-ev-er Ki''el came near the scar that Sobon''s blast had left on the ship, she had in-vol-un-tary flash-backs and glimpses of that blind-ing ray of light, and those stung her in much the same way the rest of the ship un-nerved her. Sobon, she sus-pect-ed, could have ex-plained... but even she didn''t re-al-ly need it spelled out for her. Pow-er-ful qi, or per-haps aether, left a mark that was slow to fade.


    "And there are no ships on these isles?" asked one of the tired cap-tives, this one firm-ly with-out qi. It wasn''t the first time he had asked, and he was not the first to ask, ei-ther.


    "My fish-ing skiff, an-oth-er that''s wrecked. Noth-ing that will sur-vive the seas." Ki''el was get-ting ner-vous about hav-ing to an-swer the same ques-tion again. She hadn''t talked this much... in a long time, but she was feel-ing more clear-head-ed, ever since she awoke af-ter the bat-tle, cov-ered in ichor. She itched to ask Sobon, or the oth-ers, but... she sim-ply re-mained qui-et on the mat-ter.


    "No trad-ing ves-sel?"


    "Not since the vil-lage was de-stroyed."


    The man clicked his tongue and tapped his teeth, then turned and marched off to a rail-ing, where he ei-ther sulked or thought for a time, Ki''el didn''t care which. Jalor was off con-sult-ing with oth-ers, still, and Sobon... well, they were all try-ing to ig-nore what was hap-pen-ing in the Cap-tain''s cab-in. It was... dif-fi-cult. Sobon''s body was hov-er-ing, a sil-very light seep-ing out from be-neath his fur, and there was an un-heard hum when-ev-er any-one got close. And close wasn''t even close. It was there be-fore you opened the door, and when you were on the deck above or be-low. It could be ig-nored, but... it set peo-ple on edge.


    Sobon... was strange. She had no idea who or what he re-al-ly was, but he shared en-light-ment with her while stuck in the body of a squir-rel, and turned a peb-ble into the most dan-ger-ous weapon she had ever heard of. He--far more than her--had over-come and en-tire crew of pi-rates, slaugh-ter-ing them with peb-ble-based weapon-ry and mak-ing a mock-ery of every-thing they had ever stood for or been. In less than a month, he had changed her whole world, and all of these peo-ple''s lives would nev-er be the same.


    It was a grand sur-prise to her, and to every-one, then, when in the mid-dle of his med-i-ta-tion, he lost con-trol of his qi, and his body ex-plod-ed into flame and gore, the en-tire cap-tain''s cab-in at first char-ring in-stant-ly into black, and then every sur-face ripped apart by an im-plo-sion that only by sheer ac-ci-dent didn''t kill any-one else. It wrecked the floor above and be-low, blew holes in the sides and rear of the ship, dam-aged the rud-der again, and in gen-er-al, made the ship all but un-suit-able for an ocean voy-age.


    None of that mat-tered near-ly so much to Ki''el as the fact that, no mat-ter how she searched with her eyes or spir-it, she could find no trace of him.


    "Mas-ter!" She screamed and ran at the room, but she knew he wasn''t there. "Mas-ter! Mas-ter! MAS-TER!" She reck-less-ly jumped into the hole, look-ing for any signs of him, even any burnt re-mains. Any-thing that could be buried, even, or any-thing she could use to hon-or him. Her thoughts be-came more and more pan-icked when she couldn''t even be-gin to tell one bit of burned de-bris from the next.


    Af-ter a time, she sat down in the char, ig-nor-ing the peo-ple who had come up to look at the mess along with her, her mind stuck in a loop. He had said all along he didn''t know enough, that he didn''t know every-thing. That he was from far away, and that he might still make mis-takes.


    He had made one. He had made a great mis-take, and now she was alone, again.


    Ki''el buried her face in her hands, but she couldn''t make the tears come. There was noth-ing left in-side of her. Noth-ing at all.

 12. The Tidal Corona

    For Sobon, the mis-take had been jug-ging too many things at once, this time. His squir-rel body, when it reached the end of sil-ver stars, or what-ev-er, had tried to evolve, some-how, and he want-ed to make it as hu-man-like as he could, but he couldn''t keep all of the de-tails in his mind, and the fail-ure... was not pleas-ant, for him or for those he left be-hind. What-ev-er had saved him the last time he died--the last two times he died, he sup-posed, saved him again, but he could only watch from the out-side as the crew of the ship wan-dered around the wreck-age. From ...the be-yond, he sup-posed, he could sense the vague shape of the ship, since it was soaked with aether, and he could clear-ly sense Ki''el, but be-yond that... it was im-pos-si-ble to know who was who, or what was what.


    He con-sid-ered, for a very long time, try-ing to force his spir-it into some-thing or some-one else, but as be-fore, he didn''t find him-self able at all to con-trol his drift-ing through the be-yond. In fact, when he looked around, he found that he was nat-u-ral-ly drift-ing to-wards some-thing, and the more he fo-cused on it, the more he was sure that all of the aether in the area was also flow-ing that di-rec-tion.


    It was like a hole, some-where off in the dis-tance, and he sup-posed it was one of the great wounds in the world he had seen from afar. Around the edges of the hole, the lights of oth-er aether--or more like-ly, qi--users had gath-ered, form-ing a mass sol-id enough to be seen even from a dis-tance. Of course... he con-sid-ered, as he looked back at the ship he had no way to re-turn to, at the stu-dent he had just trau-ma-tized and left be-hind. When aether gath-ered, dis-tance was a fuzzy thing.


    It was a sim-ple truth, at the core of it. The great galac-tic aether veins were a re-source for a vast num-ber of rea-sons, and only one of them was that they ac-cel-er-at-ed trav-el across unimag-in-able dis-tances. The be-ings that lived with-in those veins could trav-el from one end of a galaxy to the oth-er as though go-ing to the cor-ner store for bread, and tra-verse the whole uni-verse in a day. In real space, the ef-fect was lit-tle enough, but with-in the aether it-self, space bent to such a de-gree that no nor-mal life could sur-vive, un-shield-ed. Even in-ter-stel-lar tele-por-ta-tion re-lied on far, far less dense en-er-gies, and as a con-se-quence, the space fold-ing and time sav-ing was so much less.


    So per-haps he was sim-ply see-ing far, when he ob-served the lights danc-ing around the hole in the world. Per-haps he was trav-el-ling far-ther and faster than it felt like he was. What mat-tered most was flow, con-nec-tion, and in-tent. As he con-sid-ered in-tent... he found a spot in his heart and en-graved Ki''el into it. The girl didn''t de-serve what he had un-wit-ting-ly done. If he sur-vived... or lived again, he would find a way to let her know, to give her clo-sure. It was the least he could do.


    When Ki''el was too far for him to mon-i-tor any more, but he was not yet with-in range of his des-ti-na-tion, Sobon al-lowed his mind to slow, let-ting the time flow by to save his san-i-ty. It wasn''t for all that long, at least sub-jec-tive-ly; he awoke to find him-self ap-proach-ing what seemed, from this side, like-ly to be some kind of mil-i-tary block-ade sur-round-ing what must have been the wound in the plan-et''s spir-it that he was be-ing drawn to-wards.


    The pow-ers that stalked both sides of the block-ade were in-ter-est-ing, to say the least.


    It was tempt-ing to say that he could sense, from this side of the be-yond, a... taste to the de-fend-ers, that is, the out-side of the bar-ri-cade, and that taste re-mind-ed him of the Djang. It was... dim and dif-fuse, and he could have been imag-in-ing it; by no means were any of the peo-ple there in-di-vid-u-als he rec-og-nized. But aether cir-cu-lat-ed dif-fer-ent-ly in dif-fer-ent cul-tures, and the cul-ture here was too dis-tinct-ly like... like Xoi Xam, at least. Some-thing to them was ut-ter-ly ruth-less, blood-thirsty, while also pack-aged nice-ly with a po-lite fa-cade. It fo-cused on nic-i-ties like clean-li-ness, pro-ject-ed im-age, but hid depths.


    Sobon spent enough time mea-sur-ing and con-sid-er-ing their peo-ple''s spir-its that he was al-most to the bar-ri-cade it-self be-fore he fo-cused on those try-ing to es-cape.


    If he told peo-ple from this world that the species he saw was alien, they would not un-der-stand. Sobon was from an in-ter-stel-lar em-pire, and it was be-yond clear that the mon-sters try-ing to es-cape were not of this world. The tone of their souls, the music behind them, was of a different tone and timbre than the life from this world, just as his own was, though they were also nothing like the sound of his soul, either. From what he saw, the in-vad-ing species could be eas-i-ly split up into dumb an-i-mals, smarter an-i-mals, and ac-tu-al in-tel-li-gences; from the Be-yond, he could see glim-mer-ing threads be-tween the true in-tel-li-gences and some of the smarter an-i-mals. From the po-si-tion-ing alone, the dumb an-i-mals were be-ing ma-nip-u-lat-ed to be can-non fod-der by the smarter an-i-mals, and they were some-how be-ing led by the ac-tu-al pow-ers.


    None of them re-act-ed to Sobon drift-ing clos-er. He would not have ex-pect-ed any of them to; he knew lit-tle enough about how the Aether tied into af-ter-lives and spir-i-tu-al planes, ex-cept that it was a niche dis-ci-pline in aether stud-ies, and re-searchers in aether stud-ies loved look-ing into any-thing of use. That strong-ly im-plied that re-search into the af-ter-life was ei-ther not worth the re-search, or wait-ing on some re-al-iza-tion to make it more prac-ti-cal. That was, of course, on Crest; it was al-ways pos-si-ble that oth-er cul-tures had dif-fer-ent pri-or-i-ties. As his strange aether bub-ble drift-ed through the Be-yond, with some bat-tle go-ing on on the oth-er side, he re-flect-ed that he had no idea how he would have gone look-ing for a per-son such as him-self if he''d been told to. Most like-ly, it would in-volve some par-tic-u-lar aether spin that he wasn''t well versed on the ap-pli-ca-tion of, but which?


    It wasn''t un-til Sobon got close enough to the rift in the world that he could be-gin to see in-side it, that he caught some-thing''s at-ten-tion.


    What he saw on the oth-er side he had al-most come to ex-pect--a shat-tered aether pro-jec-tion that was, or had once been, ad-vanced tech-nol-o-gy. The aether struc-ture traced an out-line like a large styl-ized build-ing, or more like-ly, a frag-ment of a crashed star-ship. Deep in-side, he saw what he knew to be a mas-sive aether dy-namo, though the odd per-spec-tive played with his abil-i-ty to clas-si-fy it. Most of its light was chan-neled through mas-sive cir-cuits around the struc-ture, though near-ly every, junc-tion, and ter-mi-nal de-vice leaked aether into the vicin-i-ty, in lev-els Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly clas-si-fied as tox-ic. Aether of suf-fi-cient den-si-ty, es-pe-cial-ly from dam-aged sys-tems, would cause cel-lu-lar mu-ta-tions with-in min-utes, and in the worst cas-es, could turn a nor-mal, aether-adapt-ed spac-er''s body into a grotesque, tu-mor-cov-ered mess in per-haps an hour, or more like-ly less.


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    Lurk-ing over it all was the un-mis-tak-able, rapid-ly evolv-ing pat-tern of the ship''s AI, and it was this that some-how was able to de-tect Sobon. From the be-yond, there was some-thing al-most bi-o-log-i-cal about the pat-tern, even as it played through, resided with-in, and pro-ject-ed out-wards the ship''s sys-tems. The nexus of its at-ten-tion was a bul-bous pro-jec-tion like an eye on mul-ti-ple stalks, which swept across the ship and the sur-round-ings in turn un-til it caught ''sight'' of Sobon drift-ing. At Sobon''s cur-rent dis-tance, it could not do more than look, split-ting off a small-er eye to track him while the core of the AI con-tin-ued its du-ties mon-i-tor-ing the ship and the sur-round-ings.


    Most like-ly, Sobon thought as he ap-proached, the in-tel-li-gences he''d seen near-by were what was left of the crew, strand-ed and strug-gling to sur-vive against the na-tives. He had no idea what lev-els of pow-er the lo-cals could reach at their peak; the great-est pow-er he''d seen had prob-a-bly been the reaper that had killed him. But how pow-er-ful had the man been? How did it com-pare to stan-dard Crestan mil-i-tary equip-ment? Or--


    [ QUERY: You are of the Em-pire of Crest? ]


    Sobon felt a men-tal shift like a blink roll over him, as he ab-sorbed the pack-e-tized thought from the AI. He quick-ly not-ed an an-ten-na-like aether struc-ture point-ed in his di-rec-tion, and though he could not pro-ject any-thing back, he formed an an-swer-ing data pack-et, of the type the mil-i-tary would ex-pect in the cir-cum-stances--noth-ing more than his name, branch, and se-r-i-al num-ber, along with a sig-na-ture to-ken that any Cy-borg in the Mixed Marines could gen-er-ate to prove he was, or had at one time been, giv-en le-git-i-mate codes.


    The AI, nat-u-ral-ly, need-ed only a mo-ment to de-tect the pack-et, process it, and form a re-ply.


    [ IN-CI-DENT ANALY-SIS: Your ar-rival is most like-ly the re-sult of a crew ac-tion. I am able to con-firm that your cur-rent aether state match-es Ri''lef res-ur-rec-tion pro-to-cols. Your as-sis-tance is re-quest-ed. Do you re-quire as-sis-tance in con-tact-ing the Ri''lef upon res-ur-rec-tion? ]


    For the first time in a very long time, Sobon felt the be-gin-nings of re-lief in him, al-though that didn''t stop his cy-borg mind from run-ning over a num-ber of wor-ry-ing prob-lems. He formed up a re-ply pack-et, but ran over his thoughts a time or two be-fore mark-ing it as ready to be read.


    [ RE-QUIRE-MENT: At-tuned com-mu-ni-ca-tions pro-to-col, con-fir-ma-tion of ba-sic aether rou-tines. ] There was a lot he felt he didn''t need to spell out; the cryp-to-graph-ic sig-na-ture to-ken he''d gen-er-at-ed would mark him as a Cy-borg, and re-quest-ing con-fir-ma-tion of rou-tines should in-di-cate that he didn''t bring all of his dig-i-tal knowl-edge along for the ride. The re-quest for an at-tuned pro-to-col was lit-tle more than ask-ing for a one-time pass to com-mu-ni-cate di-rect-ly with the ship AI, which could di-rect his call to the se-nior sur-viv-ing ship''s of-fi-cer.


    Even though he ex-pect-ed the AI to un-der-stand, it still took him by sur-prise that the AI im-me-di-ate-ly dumped out a sealed aether pack-et of some kind and launched it at him, some-thing weight-i-er than the mere data ex-change of be-fore. When it struck his bub-ble, he felt linked into it like he had been with his own sys-tems, and the mo-ment he queried the data-base, he let out the men-tal equiv-a-lent of an im-pressed whis-tle.


    He''d been giv-en far more than the ba-sics.


    [ QUERY: Sit-u-a-tion-al overview? ] Sobon wasn''t sure ex-act-ly how much to ex-pect from the AI, but giv-en the im-me-di-ate as-sis-tance, it cer-tain-ly seemed like the AI was ei-ther ex-treme-ly des-per-ate, or had been au-tho-rized to do far more than he would have sus-pect-ed.


    The pack-e-tized data stream that was launched back at him took time to process, time in which he was, oth-er-wise, do-ing noth-ing but drift-ing clos-er, and he al-lowed him-self to fil-ter through it. Even the high-est lev-el read-ing of the in-ci-dent, how-ev-er, was ter-ri-fy-ing.


    The Ri''lef civil-ian re-sesarch ves-sel Tidal Coro-na had been in the vicin-i-ty of the plan-et on Founders'' busi-ness--a thought Sobon forced him-self not to dwell on. That busi-ness was to re-main Se-cret for now, but the crew had de-tect-ed an anom-aly that they tracked to this plan-et. The in-hab-i-tants had, some-how, de-tect-ed and tam-pered with Founders'' tech-nol-o-gy, with a plau-si-bly ter-mi-nal con-se-quence. The crew at-tempt-ed to in-ter-cede, and the ship was at-tacked and downed. The cur-rent sit-u-a-tion was an un-sta-ble and evolv-ing, and the re-main-ing crew were out of their depth. The AI lacked both fa-cil-i-ties and au-tho-riza-tion for ad-vanced com-bat and man-u-fac-tur-ing--mean-ing no re-pairs and no heavy weapons.


    Sobon felt like there were a lot of ques-tions that need-ed an-swer-ing, but he was now drift-ing close enough to the ship that he wor-ried he might be out of time. He wasn''t sure how these res-ur-rec-tion pro-to-cols were go-ing to go--he as-sumed they would ei-ther in-volve an-oth-er in-car-na-tion like the last two, or if he were spec-tac-u-lar-ly lucky, a cy-borg body of his own to in-hab-it. For now, though, he fil-tered out most of the ques-tions and fo-cused on the one thing most glar-ing-ly lack-ing from the brief.


    [ QUERY: Es-ti-mat-ed Time to Sun-set ] The ac-tu-al thought pack-et he sent had the in-tu-itive-ra-tio-nal con-cept of the Crestan mil-i-tary term; Time to Sun-set was a sim-ple slang code, ask-ing when the sit-u-a-tion was go-ing to be un-re-cov-er-able. Ac-cord-ing to clas-sic Crestan po-et-ry, when the sun set, al-though it would some-day rise again, it would be over a dif-fer-ent world. The poet had meant to say the past is gone for-ev-er, but the mil-i-tary had tak-en an equal-ly po-et-ic in-ter-pre-ta-tion of the phrase: every-one alive to-day will be dead to-mor-row.


    In much the same vein as Sobon''s own first re-ply, the AI''s an-swer was un-der-stat-ed, but it took him only a mo-ment to read be-tween the lines, and it was a fig-u-ra-tive gut punch. [ IN-DE-TER-MI-NATE: 30 Mins - Un-lim-it-ed ] The low-er bound on that an-swer--ab-surd-ly short--should have been the low-est in-ter-val that the AI it-self could con-firm was a wrong an-swer. In oth-er words, it was pos-i-tive that if every-thing it could imag-ine went wrong, there would still be at least half an hour of lee-way be-fore things were un-re-cov-er-able.


    If an AI, a mas-sive com-put-ing en-gine with vast-ly more in-for-ma-tion about the cir-cum-stances than Sobon had, wasn''t will-ing to put that num-ber any high-er, then its ear-li-er clas-si-fi-ca-tion of the sit-u-a-tion as un-sta-ble and evolv-ing was ex-treme-ly tongue in cheek.


    He men-tal-ly looked up from the data pack-et to find that the AI had guid-ed the bub-ble pro-tect-ing his soul into a strange aether pro-jec-tion at-tached to the ship, one that looked some-what like a can-non. Giv-en how he had sim-ply col-lid-ed with a squir-rel and tak-en over its body, Sobon wor-ried the form of the pro-jec-tion was en-tire-ly too lit-er-al. For-tu-nate-ly, for some-one like him--and for some-thing like the AI--com-mu-ni-cat-ing at this range was a triv-ial, even in-stan-ta-neous af-fair, and he pro-ject-ed a thought at it even as it be-gan to load his bub-ble into a mech-a-nism.


    [ DE-TAILS RE-QUEST-ED: Ri''lef res-ur-rec-tion pro-to-col? ]


    The AI''s re-sponse came with tone in-di-ca-tors sug-gest-ing sym-pa-thy, pity, and ir-ri-ta-tion with au-thor-i-ty.


    [ RE-QUEST DE-NIED: Unau-tho-rized User. ]


    The aether can-non flared to life, and sud-den-ly Sobon was else-where.

 13. Alassi - Awakening, Part 1

    If there was one thing that Sobon was absolutely not expecting, it was to be placed in a body that was human, in safe circumstances, and which already had a level of qi. The moment of replacement was violent; the mental and physical screams of its previous occupant lasted only a moment before quieting, and Sobon had to spend an uncomfortable moment watching the person''s mind get wrapped up in aetheric chains and dragged out of position before some mechanism in the bubble placed him in full charge of the body. That process itself was unpleasant, and although Sobon couldn''t put a finger on exactly why, he felt that the sensation was uncomfortably like pole vaulting.


    Odd.


    Aside from the moral implications of replacing a living person, Sobon also found himself quickly uncomfortable with the details of his new body. It was female, past the age of menopause, and the muscles were atrophied by disuse, the aether cold and stale. Although she had qi, it was only enough to be... was it iron stars they called it? Past the copper colored level, but only that, and only two of those iron stars. Her left hip had a significant injury that had healed wrong and never been taken care of; her heartbeat was uneven as it beat hard in Sobon''s chest, and her breath came out ragged. When Sobon grasped hard at the arms of the wheelchair she was sitting in, her hand muscles ached, and he felt something in her wrist very nearly slip loose--a sign of aging tendons, he suspected, if the sensation were anything like his damaged cyborg prosthetics.


    *Great,* Sobon groused. Whatever these *Ri''lef resurrection protocols* were, he was beginning to doubt that it was a coincidence that he was replacing invalids instead of healthy members of society. *I''m stuck in another disgusting meat puppet.*


    [ What? ] Sobon ignored, for now, the mental voice of the woman he''d replaced and, with a refreshing lack of difficulty, spun up two relatively thick dynamos of right-hand aether. Although they would provide no real healing ability, he felt the need for fresh aether accutely. So he sat there and tried to calm his breathing--*her* breathing, he mentally corrected. At least, as a cyborg and former rodent, he wasn''t going to have any real conniptions over the idea that the space between his legs now contained a crevasse instead of a promontory. He... *she* allowed a smirk to come over her face. Even if he''d been placed in a young and nubile body, he had no interests in sex, especially under the circumstances. Those organs were nothing more than topology to him.


    The mental presence beside him stiffened with alarm and indignation, but Sobon ignored her.


    It was only a few moments into the effort that Sobon heard someone shuffling, and a knock at a door. "Grandma Alassi? You okay in there?"


    Sobon started to move her hands to the wheels of the chair, but the movement was too sudden, and her joints felt too weak. She frowned, replaced her hands, and mentally concealed the dynamos, although she kept them spinning. A moment later, the door opened and a freckled young woman popped open the door to look at her. "Grandma?"


    Sobon wanted to offer the child a smile, but the smile he started to make felt foreign on the woman''s face. In contrast, the frown that came immediately in its wake was smoothly practiced, and Sobon got the impression the muscles pulling down her lips into an ugly look were in the best shape of any muscle he''d tried to use yet. So he--*she* just coughed into her hand, both trying to actually clear her vocal chords, and also, giving an excuse as to why her voice would probably sound a little off.


    "I''m fine, child," Sobon said. "Just had... an episode." He suddenly regretted not trying to ask the presence for any convenient lies, though he doubted she would have given them willingly. Instead, he--*she* frowned at the child for a moment. "What time is it?"


    The child frowned, her eyes flicking to the window that Sobon had been facing. Sobon didn''t quite kick... herself, as the question could still have meant a number of things.


    Finally, the child replied, "Dinner will still be a while, grandma, if that''s what you''re asking."


    Sobon nodded, trying to keep the deep frown off her face. "That is enough, child, thank you. Off with you, now."


    The girl started to close the door, but stopped and looked at her for a good long minute, instead. Sobon stared back, half curious what the girl was thinking, and half curious just what she saw in front of her.


    "...Can I ask a question, grandma?"


    Sobon raised her nose at the girl, a little, but said, "Yes."


    "Papa said you changed after... after you were wounded in the war. Are you... did you...?"


    Finally, Sobon shifted mentally a little, looking to the woman bound up inside for any kind of answer that would calm the child. The presence sat there angrily and grouchily for a long moment, before offering up a plausible answer.


    "I remembered a bit of what it was like, yes," Sobon said. "Of having that nasty... of having a Starbeast tear into my body. Old memory that stirred something up. Nothing more than that." She turned away from the child. "Let me alone for a while, Lui."


    "Yes, Grandma."


    When she was alone, Sobon took her freshly generated aether threads and used them to flush out the old aether within her body. The aether-qi that he sensed leaving was a heavy, sodden mess, and Sobon sensed that the fresh infusion alone was leaving her body in better shape than it had been for years. Although it couldn''t fix her nearly useless hip, and although it would take proper diet and exercise to really get better, her muscles and tendons almost immediately felt much less fragile, her bones less porous.


    Instead of dwelling on that, or even diving into this woman''s life to find out where she belonged, Sobon began to mentally sort through the database of aether routines and algorithms. To her delight, there *were* basic healing glyphs, though they would take no less than Outer aether to activate, and would prefer Onward or Reverse aether, depending on whether the wound was new enough that the body could recall its original form, or whether new flesh would need to be grafted on to it.


    She also found all the basics needed for remote communications, as promised, and a number of fundamentals that would be useful when she needed to fabricate his own weapons, or other abilities. After a moment, she pieced together several of them into a basic telekinesis pattern, and locked the door to the room, then pushed her wheelchair closer to the window that she''d been staring at when Sobon had arrived, eyeing the surroundings.


    It was remote, but not small. If Sobon were to guess from the appearance, she was in some kind of large inn on a mountainside; there were a number of hitching posts before a drinking trough, some with riding beasts tied to them, and a road that stretched a little ways down the hill before branching in two directions. Somewhere down the road, and coming in this direction, was some kind of heavy wagon or carriage, though Sobon didn''t take the time to pry into it. Beyond it all, though, was almost all trees, with perhaps three or four total other signs of civilized life in the distance. *Not promising for being able to help, but at least there won''t be any problem with getting found out. I can most likely just walk away from this place ...once I can walk.*


    Instead of dwelling on it, once Sobon felt he had flushed all the old aether out of her body, she pieced together a simple aether communicator and fed it the link code the Ri''lef ship''s AI had left him. The AI on the other side took perhaps two or three total data packets to confirm his identity, then sent him a terse [ Please wait ] as it attempted to find a crewmember to speak to him. *Her.*


    It was perhaps a few minutes before a strange face appeared in a glowing window in front of him. Strange, of course, was relative; Sobon''s own face would have been very strange to himself, but it was doubtless just as strange to this creature, for several reasons. Now that he saw it, though, he thought he could pin the species name *Ri''lef*; they were Founders'' children, an uplifted aquatic species with some kind of strong natural aether ability. And they looked it; the person in the communications window had skin that had once been smooth like a dolphin''s, and facial features that had originally been streamlined, before tens or hundreds of thousands of years of selective breeding had produced a more humanoid version of the same. When the alien opened its mouth, the teeth were uniformly sharp and pointed, but small, used to eating meat but not practical for a predator.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    "Who are you?" The voice that came through was filtered, and Sobon suspected that the AI was translating the words to the language of the Crestan empire, or else the language of the locals, on his behalf. He chose not to spend the mental cycles figuring out which. "How--*why* are you contacting me?"


    Sobon straightened up in her chair, and found her voice was already a bit smoother, her vocal chords not so frail from disuse, after his aether purge. "I am Sobon of the Crestan Mixed Marines. Your AI suggested that apparently I was dragged into this mess somehow through your Resurrection Protocols. I''d like some information."


    "Resurrection--no, of course." The alien straightened. "I am Executive Officer D''sur of the Ri''lef Cruiser *Tidal Corona*. I''m sorry; those... immediately under my supervision were not responsible for your being brought here, but I suspect I know what happened. Unfortunately, we have a situation, and we will need to ask for your help." It frowned at him. "You... *are* military, correct?"


    Sobon chafed inwardly at needing to clarify, but then, he wasn''t sure that the Crestan Empire shared any borders with the Ri''lef. If not, they probably knew as little about him as he knew about them. It was also possible that the phrase *Crestan Mixed Marine* didn''t translate directly though whatever the AI was doing to link them. "The Mixed Marines are aether- and aether-tech specialist infantry, usually attached to our Space Forces. There are elite Special Forces among us, but I wasn''t one of them. I was a class IX cyborg, Aether-tech specialist, when my ship was destroyed, and I ended up here."


    "Aether-tech specialist infantry... that would help." The creature''s eyes flicked up and down at Sobon''s projection. "Once we can find you a proper shell, that is, but the Resurrection protocols try to find bodies incapable of resisting the replacement. Now that we know--"


    "Forget about that for now," Sobon interrupted. "Tell me about the situation. The AI could only give me a basic overview."


    "Yes, it''s classified. Founder restrictions." The alien''s facial muscles showed signs of increasing strain, Sobon noted, though he couldn''t read their posture directly. "Suffice it to say... this planet was not supposed to have this much aether on it. An action by the locals damaged Founder technology and redirected unsafe levels of aether to the planet. There is a local variant of the stuff you may encounter--"


    "I''ve already seen it."


    "--which is a combination of their mutating social mythos with some engineering efforts we put in place on the Founders behalf to try to salvage the situation. Unfortunately, certain people on this planet crippled our ship and are trying to tear apart the safeguards and controls in order to gain even more access to aether. If they succeed, they''ll exceed the *Mengraw* limit in no time."


    Sobon frowned. "That term didn''t translate."


    The alien nodded, as though expecting it. "It''s the level at which you see uncontrolled mutations with high certainty. You''d need to ask a doctor for the specifics. The point is that once you cross the Mengraw limit, biology as we understand it will never work--ours, yours, or the locals."


    Sobon nodded. "When I last died... from the Beyond, I thought that the energy levels around your crashed ship were approaching that level. Cell-toxic, at least."


    "Yes. We can no longer approach the ship. It''s lucky we crashed in an ocean." D''sur offered a more relaxed facial expression that showed a lot of teeth, although Sobon suspected it was still meant to be friendly. "I''ll be honest, Marine Sobon. We are not military people, and I fear this situation may require a military solution. At the very least, we are going to need you to find and disable some structure or pattern that has been stopping our communications with the Founders. I doubt your people have many *direct* dealings with them, but I expect you understand that on an individual basis, Founders are more powerful than anyone you have likely ever met, and more powerful than anyone on this planet by far. If called, they would most likely bring an entire warship to deal with this situation."


    Sobon smirked in return. "That sounds like the military to me."


    "Exactly. I could give you a basic overview of planetary politics, but... I believe that our ultimate target would likely be within the *Djang* empire. They occupy a very large chunk of the largest continent, largely northwest of the crashed remains of the *Corona*."


    "Pardon, but I''d like to know more about this Resurrection Protocol, or at least its limits. I''ve had two lives so far, one in some shithole filled with the... Bilg?" Sobon frowned, but thought he had the pronounciation right. "The other was in a chain of islands somewhere near your ship."


    "Three deaths... if they were close together, by which I mean back to back deaths, you could be stretching your luck if you tried to switch bodies again now. Resurrection protocols are extensive, but they take time to repair and recharge. What were the circumstances of your deaths?"


    "My cyborg body was crushed in an asteroid belt. The Bilgish boy was killed by a powerful user when I showed too much potential. I don''t know how much force he used to kill me, but it knocked the ...*me* straight into orbit." Sobon found her voice was getting extremely tired, and flushed her neck muscles with more aether to compensate. She cleared her throat. "My next body was an animal, and it... died trying to advance. I felt like it was trying to evolve its body, but instead it exploded."


    The Ri''lef officer said nothing for a long minute.


    "Yes... under those circumstances, it may not be practical for you to switch again. I''ve already authorized the *Corona* to assist anyone who may be able to improve the situation. Contact her and she should be able to offer some resources and more knowledge. Unfortunately, some things are locked down on Founders'' Orders. I''m sorry."


    Sobon just nodded. The founders, although physically small and unintimidating, were raised from birth with a higher level of aether than was safe for most races--all of them, without exception, at least as far as he knew. Mature adults had the kind of precision and power throughput that even many technologies lacked, and their empire had *dozens of billions* of people in it. No space-faring empire that offended them survived, and no ship''s officer with even a smidgeon of discipline would jeapordize their entire species'' future for a small tactical advantage.


    Sobon knew this was his cold, calulating cyborg mind speaking, but if he had to choose between destroying this planet, even with himself on it, and getting the Founders mad at Crest, he would sacrifice everyone and everything here in an instant. Military briefings on the power of the Founders were *terrifying*. In at least two known conflicts (fortunately, neither against the Empire of Crest) individual Founders without any known outside power source had taken on midsize warships and won. Given the scale of Aether weapons, those warships could have committed casual genocide against any undefended planet. *No one* entered the Crestan military without being firmly told to *never* offend the Founders.


    "Other than that, I''m not sure what else to say. I don''t know where you are. I don''t have a lot of information on the planetary demographics or politics. Your current body is not Djang, and it is not from the island peoples we see here by the ship, but there are other phenotypes nearby, and if I''m honest, most of the locals look alike to me. The *Corona* might be able to give you a ranging estimate, but that''s out of my hands."


    Sobon considered. "Your AI gave a very low estimate on worst-case *Time to Sunset*." He paused only a moment. "That''s Crestan military slang, meaning time it would take for a worst-case scenario to become occur."


    "Whatever number she gave you, I won''t quibble. I can''t get into the specifics as a Founder restriction, but suffice it to say... the locals potentially have physical access to the Founders'' tech that''s protecting the planet, though I don''t think they understand that yet. If the strongest of the locals decided to attack it, or modified its function in any one of a hundred ways, there''s no question in my mind that the planet would be uninhabitable within a day. Less."


    Sobon found her face slipping into the deep frown that the woman had already been comfortable with. That thought upset him, but he put it out of mind. "What about this communications disruption?"


    "It... the effect is likely caused somewhere physically close to the Founders'' technology itself. Which, I trust you understand, you *will not* tamper with. It likely is mean to preven the technology itself from reporting back. That is why we were called in." The Ri''lef put on a face that Sobon was sure was meant to be strict, militant. She respected the intent, even if it didn''t get conveyed by facial muscles alone. "That specific technology... if you have a military solution, contact us again for coordinates. It was last known to be within the Empire of Djang."


    *Last known means its mobile. Probably a separated space. That would make sense for Founder tech.* Sobon let the thought roll off him. "You said the local *qi* was engineered. Can you give me any information?"


    Instead of answering, D''sur looked away. "Ask the *Corona* to connect you to the team working on that. I''d ask you not insist on any specific timing for when they contact you. They are trying to adapt the existing efforts to deal with the planet''s higher aether. If they fail to adapt it in time, heads will probably start exploding around the planet, potentially including yours, and even mine. If they don''t have a moment to talk, then they don''t have that moment to talk. Understand?"


    Sobon did, of course, and she nodded, adding a verbal confirmation a moment later. There was a brief pause, and Sobon was just about to speak up and say that she had no further questions, when D''sur broke contact. She frowned, again, but let any semblance of insult roll off her. Under these circumstances, the chances that D''sur was extremely busy were high. It was also likely that he had acted according to Ri''lef military protocols that Sobon just didn''t know and didn''t have the time to learn.


    Instead, she let her eyes look out over the isolated, mountainous forest that this old woman had called home. Almost unbidden, the woman''s spirit spun out thoughts. [ I am... *was* Alassi. My son in law is Tuli. My granddaughter is Lui. My husband and daughter are dead. This is my son in law''s inn. He... is an idiot. ]


    Sobon chuckled lightly, but settled back into the wheelchair, allowing her body to recover and her spirit to fill her in on what she needed to know.

 14. Alassi - Awakening, Part 2

    Lui finished walking up the stairs to Grandma Alassi''s room, but paused at the doorway.  Although she... she had not bothered her papa about it, she *knew* that something was very different about Grandma.  Although she had been too busy to come back and check on her, now that she stood by the doorway again, she could already sense a difference.


    Papa didn''t like Grandma Alassi, and she didn''t like Papa.  If it were simpler, Lui might have sided with one or the other.  But Papa said some things that were definitely right, and others that were definitely wrong, and so did Grandma Alassi.  When they argued, they never admitted to being wrong, and only talked about how they were right.  Lui hated when they argued.


    But she knocked, and entered, and to her surprise, Grandma Alassi''s chair was not where it had sat all day, as it usually was.  The air around her was fresher, and the window was *open*--although it should not have been.  Lui had tried several times to open that window, but it had been stuck fast for... *years*.  Papa had said it was probably painted shut, or something.  She stared at the window for a long moment, aware that Grandma was looking at her, and then, with a monumental effort of will, met Grandma Alassi''s eyes.


    They were not the same eyes.  Grandma Alassi''s eyes were like the Birdrot Swamp, down across the mountain.  The waters there were not for drinking--that was something everyone agreed on, even Papa and Grandma.  She knew enough words to have figured it out from the name, of course.  She hadn''t known when she was very little, but she hadn''t known much at all then.  She was learning.  She was ...*okay* at learning.  She learned things.


    This Grandma Alassi was a single tree, not a swamp.  Solid, where the old Grandma had been a mixture of bad odors and ugly colors.  No... there were marks here and there in her face and eyes, like moss growing on an old tree.  But it was an *alive* tree.


    "You''re staring, child," Grandma Alassi spoke, her voice less hard and raspy than before.


    "Yes, grandma.  I''m sorry."  Lui cleared her throat.  "Um.  It''s dinner time, so I''ll help bring you down."


    When she pushed the chair, she noted Grandma looking around, sometimes subtly, sometimes more actively.  It was night and day, the difference to how the old woman had been; Lui had seen too many weeks go by in which Grandma hardly moved at all, and barely acknowledged her, even when spoken to.  Whatever had happened, had shocked her out of the decay.


    She wheeled Grandma over to the lift--the single most expensive item in the inn, but one that Grandma had paid for, not Papa.  It only took her a spark of qi to activate it; Lui was now almost two full bronze stars, though Papa scolded her every time she did anything obvious.  He *knew* that she used her qi to operate the lift, but he still acted like she didn''t.  He acted like she shouldn''t use *any* of her qi.  With the lift active, it very slowly lowered to the ground floor, where Papa had taken her place at the front counter.


    She paused a long moment to see if Grandma Alassi would speak to him, or if he would speak to her, but when there was only silence, she wheeled Grandma past him and into the main room of the inn, to her place by the fire.  She... was sure she felt Grandma''s eyes on her as she moved back into the kitchen, laying hands almost immediately on the soup bowl that Uncle Mian had laid out.  She noted as he glanced at her, but it was a busy look, simply acknowledging the extra room on the countertop now that she''d taken the bowl.  Uncle Mian didn''t hate Grandma, but as far as she knew, they''d never even talked.


    Then, Grandma Alassi hadn''t talked much in years, except to argue with Papa.


    Grandma Alassi took the soup, and even began eating it right away.  Lui watched her, for a moment, although she knew it was rude.  She had watched her grandma sit and stare, barely even conscious of the bowl in her lap.  She''d tried, once, to force the woman to eat, but the woman had revealed strength and willpower that made no sense, throwing her *and* the soup across the room with a burst of some kind of foul qi.  Witchcraft, Papa called it, but Papa called it, but Papa was a man without any qi, and he didn''t like the people who used it much, especially since Mama had died.


    "Lui!"  A customer raised his mug, and Lui turned away from Grandma and took the mug, giving the man as much of a smile as she could muster, which... was maybe a little more than usual?  She paused at another table to take their orders, and relayed them to Uncle Mian, refilling the mug and taking an order with her when she came back.  Mealtime was busy for Lui, and although she didn''t forget about Grandma--she *couldn''t*, not today--she found plenty of excuses not to stand there staring at her.


    Strangely, none of the men were... strange with her today.  She thought she''d have trouble, from the look of one or two of them, but nothing happened.  Sometimes, she would catch those men looking a little pained, but she wasn''t sure why.


    When she took Papa his plate of food, after most of the rest had eaten, she took a moment to stand close by him.  He leaned closer, as it wasn''t unusual for her to report things quietly.  At least he no longer had to bend down to hear her, as when she was younger.


    "Papa... Grandma Alassi is different today."


    He made a face.  "Don''t..." he stopped, thought it over, and sighed.  "Different how?"


    "She''s... *alive*.  I don''t know."  She looked up at him, measuring how he felt from his expression, even though he tried to hide it.  Papa would always have a look on his face for customers, and he could hide how he was feeling very well, but Lui knew him, and Grandma Alassi had always seen through him.  "She said... she said she''d remembered something."


    "Well, isn''t that great."  The scorn in Papa''s voice was a little too thick, and Lui knew that he wasn''t interested.  She was hoping he would want to see this refreshed version of her, but... perhaps the hurt between them was too deep.  "Does she need anything?  Does she seem upset?"


    "Not upset.  She seems... calm."  Lui watched Papa''s face for only a moment more before turning away.  She saw what she needed to see.


    "Calm?  No, that... that woman only seems calm on the surface.  She''ll explode again, like she always does."  She heard the anger in his voice, but then he sighed again.  "I''ll talk to her tonight.  Might do her good.  Or it might..."


    Lui looked back at Papa, but he didn''t finish the thought, and ate his dinner in peace.


    Lui finished her shift, as the evening crowd went from dinner to those who only stuck around to drink.  It wasn''t much of a crowd, really; two trading groups had been here to make an exchange, as they often did.  Papa told her not to ask questions about them.  One group was very scary looking, the other looked polite but were rude.  Sometimes they brought guests, who were usually not very happy.  Papa told her that if anything happened, she would run to Uncle Mian.  That had only happened once.  Uncle Mian was a scary man when he got upset.


    Since nobody was bothering her, and they had gotten into a sullen bout of drinking, Lui left them be.  They had been here often enough to know to call on her for another beer or ale if they wanted, and instead, she pulled her chair to the fire to sit with Grandma Alassi again.  Lui had sensed something shifting around her, perhaps the witchcraft that Papa had talked about, but there was nothing obvious.  When she sat down, Grandma met her eyes again, and although they were deeper, like Grandma was thinking about something, they were still clear.  A tree, and not a swamp.


    "Are you feeling better, Grandma Alassi?" she asked quietly, though she still heard a pause in the conversation at the table.


    Grandma just nodded, for a long moment, remaining silent for long enough that Lui started to worry she didn''t want to talk.  But then, Grandma spoke strangely, so that she was quiet but easy to hear.  "Lui.  I want you to remember one thing, no matter what happens."


    Lui looked at her, and nodded, wondering just what Grandma wanted to say.


    The look on her face shifted, maybe three times, as if she was choosing her words again, and then she said, in that same quiet voice, "Both your Grandma and your Papa love you very much."


    The words... Lui wasn''t sure exactly sure what it was about them that made her start to cry, but she did, and Grandma made a gesture with one hand, and Lui found herself giving her Grandma a hug, tears rolling down her face and snot coming out of her nose.  Lui hated a lot of things about herself, but... she definitely hated being such a crybaby almost more than anything.  Papa would get upset when she cried... and Grandma had used to be upset when she cried, too.  But today, Grandma held her while she cried, and even kissed her on the head.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "I hear that some old beasts know when their time is coming," said a voice, and although the voice broke Lui out of her crying fit, she still found herself huffing and snuffling and unpleasant.  She pulled herself away from Grandma and backed up to the wall, trying to wipe all the tears and ugly snot off of her face, but all it did was leave her hands covered as well.  One of the trading men, an unplesasant and sharp man--one of the ones that was supposed to look nice but was mean--was standing there and glaring at her openly, his breath stinking of ale and his voice sounding as dangerous as if he carried a knife in his hands.  "I''ve hardly seen you do more than feebly suck at soup.  Taking a last moment to say your goodbyes, perhaps?"


    Grandma Alassi looked at him, her face unreadable--and not wearing her normal frown.  For a moment, Lui became scared that she really was dying, or facing death--that she was going to be so scared of the man that she would die.  Lui often felt so scared of men that she wanted to die, and they... they didn''t usually come at her with this much sense of danger.  But... but this man also wasn''t like Grandma.  He wasn''t even like Lui.  He was a dangerous man, but he didn''t have qi.  He wasn''t in danger, of course.  Others in his group did have qi, and they protected him.  Nobody ever got close to him, not that Lui had seen.


    But Grandma Alassi opened her mouth, and Lui felt her heart jump into her throat at the words.


    "Why my useless son-in-law would allow slave-trading scum in this place is beyond me."


    Lui didn''t stop to see what happened next.  She turned and ran to the kitchen, where Uncle Mian was sitting against the wall.  He often did that with a blank look on his face, but Lui had been in a rush, and he heard her coming.  He was already getting up, laying his hands on the one knife in the kitchen that was *not* a knife, the long one hanging on the wall.  Lui rushed in, trying to explain with a voice that refused to work, but she already knew that Uncle Mian would rush out, and he did.


    And there was a lot of very violent and scary noise, and Lui huddled in the kitchen and cried, and hated herself for being weak, and a crybaby.  She... she had qi, so she was stronger than some of those men.  She *knew* that.  But she had never tried to hurt anyone.  It wasn''t who she was; she *couldn''t*.


    It took a lot less time than Lui expected for it to quiet down, and Papa came in, the look on his face... Lui couldn''t understand, not in the few moments she saw it, before he pulled her into a big hug, and nestled her face to his collarbone, and whispered over and over that it was alright, and she would be okay.  And with the warmth and the familiar smell, Lui began to calm down, and Papa held her.


    "Is... is Grandma Alassi okay?" she finally asked, sure that she knew what the answer was going to be.  Sure that everything had gone badly, and that Grandma was... that Grandma was...


    "She''s okay."  Papa''s voice lost its warmth.  Whatever he was feeling, he was not glad that Grandma was okay.  After... after she had insulted the guests, if she was okay...


    "Did she... did the guests...?"  Lui wasn''t sure exactly how to say what she feared.  The inn was too often empty, and she knew that if the guests were upset, it would only get harder.


    But Papa stood up, and helped her to her feet.  "You might as well come look," he said, his voice a mixture of bitterness and tiredness that she couldn''t understand.  "We''ll need your help cleaning it all up."


    Lui, later in her life, would look back on the moment she stepped through the doorway as the end of her childhood.  She had seen dead bodies before, when Uncle Mian protected her.  But she had never seen an entire room full of men ruthlessly cut down.  She had never seen the walls covered with blood.


    And she had *never* seen Grandma Alassi *standing up*.


    The qi pressure that rolled off the woman soaked into Lui''s bones with a strange familiarity, a strange... *acceptance*.  Affection, maybe.  Most qi was scary, even Uncle Mian''s, but Grandma''s wasn''t scary at all, even in this room covered with blood.  Grandma''s grey hair suddenly had tinges of red to it, and not the red of blood--red that she remembered from her youngest years, from before Mama had died.  And lines of power hovered in the air behind and around her, power that she knew was not *real* real, because Papa couldn''t see them.  But she knew that Uncle Mian saw them, and she saw them, so they were *real,* just the same.  And it was clear that they meant something, because Grandma Alassi was *standing*.  Grandma didn''t stand; she *couldn''t*.


    Could she?


    "I..."  Grandma''s voice was strange.  It had been strange since this afternoon.  She looked at Uncle Mian, who was looking without fear or anger at one of the dead men.  The one in charge, she thought.  Then Grandma looked at Papa, and Lui was afraid that their eyes might meet, that the dirty anger of Grandma would rise up again, that she would go back to the yelling, screaming woman that she often was when she yelled at Papa.


    But Grandma looked Papa in the face, and with a stern set to her jaw, said, "I won''t say I''m sorry.  Not to you.  You should never have allowed this."


    "Never should have--I''m not *like* you, Alassi!  I can''t *kill* people!"


    Grandma ignored him, and turned to Lui, and Lui met her eyes.  The swamp still wasn''t there, but there was more than just a single tree in Grandma''s eyes.  With the power of the qi she was expressing, Lui thought she saw an entire *world* in Grandma''s eyes.  "I am sorry, Lui.  I put you in danger.  I shouldn''t have."


    "You''re damned right you did!"  Papa almost exploded at her.  "I don''t care if you are an Iron Cultivator, Alassi!  Any one of these men could have killed her with a thought!  Or me!  Or you, if they had the drop on you!  And they wouldn''t think twice about doing it, either!"


    "All the more reason you should have turned them in."  Grandma''s voice was cold, suddenly, and as her eyes swept from Lui back to Papa, Lui saw the change that came over them.  Grandma''s eyes had been a whole world for her, but for him, they were a wall, shutting him out.  Lui felt her heart clench, and she wanted to break in, but there was no room in this conversation for a teenage girl.


    "Nobody can protect us out here, Alassi."  Papa had made these arguments before, Lui knew.  "I would think that *you* of all people would remember that."


    "Protect.  Is that what you were doing?  While slave traders were grabbing your daughter''s ass?  What was your plan when she got old enough to really tempt them?  Or did you think they would be nice to you?  To *her*?"


    The meaning of Grandma''s words flowed over and past Lui for a long time.  Those words buried themselves in her mind; she knew that they meant something.  She didn''t know what.  She had... she had *kind of* understood.  She even now only *kind of* understood.  That these people were very bad men, and that none of them were safe.  But she didn''t understand what Grandma meant, and she was sure, to the deepest parts of her bones, that she didn''t want to.  Something deep below hoped that she *never* knew what Grandma meant.  But Lui was not just that deep part of herself.  She wanted to understand, to be an adult.  So, she ended up confused, conflicted.


    The argument had continued, until Uncle Mian spoke up.  He spoke the way Grandma had, before, so that he was quiet, but they heard him.  "We need to clean this up," he said.  And he looked to Papa, meaningfully.  "And the rest."


    Papa was tense, and scared, and he didn''t understand.  But Grandma just nodded, and... and *walked*.  She *walked* over to the man that Uncle Mian was squatting down and looking at.  It was... kind of a limping walk.  Lui thought that Grandma must be very upset about her hip, given how she seemed to be forcing herself to walk in spite of it.  And Lui thought she saw some part of the magic around Grandma Alassi working at her hip, although she wasn''t sure what it was doing, or how.  But so much about Grandma was strange, now.  She didn''t understand.


    Grandma just looked down, then looked at Uncle Mian.  "Dig, or carry?"


    Uncle Mian looked at her.  Lui thought he met her eyes, and thought he saw some of what she had seen in Grandma Alassi''s eyes.  She thought his eyes cleared a bit, too.  "You carry them out back.  Make sure this one is separate.  We better turn him in for a bounty.  I''m sure there is one."  He looked back at Papa.  "I''ll find a spot deeper in the woods.  Afterwards... you three see to the others."  And then, Uncle Mian picked up one of the corpses as though it weighed nothing at all, and marched straight out the door.  Grandma picked up one in each hand, and followed, her limping gait resolute and unyielding.


    Lui looked up at her Papa, who had a strange look on his face.  "The others?" she asked, unsure of what the answer would be.


    Papa looked away.  "The cargo," he said, and turned away, headed to the kitchen, most likely for water.  Lui knew that the blood would start to stain if they didn''t clean up soon.  Maybe Grandma or Uncle Mian could do something about it.  Uncle Mian had done a little bit, before... but the old stains were still a little visible.  If you knew what to look for.


    It was... odd, to think about that now, but Lui thought it anyway.  She wasn''t sure what *else* to think about.  It was all too much for her to understand.  And when Papa came back with a bucket of water from the well, she began to wash the walls as best she could.  It wasn''t good wood, although Uncle Mian had tried to improve it.  It didn''t take to cleaning very well, but she did her best.


    And a little later that she, and Papa, and Grandma Alassi went out to the covered wagon that the men had brought.  And as they drew near, she began to understand the part of her mind that didn''t want to know.  And when Grandma waved her hand and the cover on the wagon tore apart, and the lock shattered, and the people inside screamed in fear, Lui began to wish that she had never found out.


    But she wasn''t a child anymore, although she didn''t know it yet.  And Lui didn''t run, or walk away.  She listened to Grandma and Papa, and did her best to learn, and did whatever she had to do.  Lui tried to be a good girl, like Mama and Papa and Grandma had all told her to be.  And she remembered that Grandma had said that she and Papa loved her very much, and it helped.


    And in the distance, she saw Uncle Mian carrying something into the woods, and felt a very strange... lack of fear about it.  It almost... made her happy.  Not... not really maybe.  Maybe not happy.  But something.  Something... not-childish.  Something she didn''t yet understand.  But she would.

 15. Alassi - Awakening, Part 3

    Sobon was livid. It wasn''t so much the ex-is-tence of slav-ery on this plan-et--galac-tic his-to-ry showed that the con-cept ex-ist-ed uni-ver-sal-ly across every known civ-i-liza-tion, though any civ-i-liza-tion worth pay-ing at-ten-tion to grew out of it. He was al-ready well fa-mil-iar with just how back-wards the civ-i-liza-tion on this plan-et was. No, what was re-al-ly get-ting to him was the raw sta-tis-tics of this plan-et''s bar-barism. Jom had been abused for be-ing an un-der-class, near-ly killed in the first mo-ment Sobon was there, near-ly eat-en im-me-di-ate-ly af-ter, then in short or-der im-pressed into the army for show-ing a lit-tle aether po-ten-tial, dis-card-ed as use-less and near-ly eat-en again, and fi-nal-ly killed for show-ing a lit-tle too much aether po-ten-tial. Ki''el''s vil-lage had been some-where be-tween slaugh-tered and ab-duct-ed as slaves, and he and Ki''el had saved an-oth-er batch of ab-ductees that just so hap-pened to be pass-ing by weeks af-ter his ar-rival. Now, less than a day af-ter ar-riv-ing here--and he still wasn''t sure where here even was--he was thwart-ing an-oth-er slav-ery ring.


    Was it de-lib-er-ate? Was fate, or a plan-e-tary spir-i-tu-al god, or the Coro-na''s AI, some-how di-rect-ing him from one dan-ger zone to the next? Al-most cer-tain-ly not the last, not from what D''sur had said about it, and not giv-en how lit-tle the AI it-self had seemed to un-der-stand, but it was an aether com-put-er, not a life form--he couldn''t en-tire-ly rule it out.


    In con-trast, the idea of a plan-e-tary god tam-per-ing with his fate was all too real, giv-en the high lev-els of aether. Any-thing ex-ist-ing be-yond the lev-el of Re-verse and On-wards aether flows--the flows more or less in-volved with time ma-nip-u-la-tion, if not quite phys-i-cal-ly--could tam-per with what most con-sid-ered luck or fate, if the en-ti-ty was care-ful and well po-si-tioned. If any-thing, she sus-pect-ed this plan-et would have mul-ti-ple forces com-pet-ing. But he had been in the Be-yond, and he hadn''t seen or sensed any-thing like a ma-nip-u-la-tion there. Ei-ther it was a high-er lev-el of com-plex-i-ty or sub-tle-ty than Sobon could de-tect... or it was some nat-ur-al force, one with-out an or-ga-niz-ing spir-i-tu-al body. Per-haps some-thing built into the plan-et''s aether it-self.


    As Sobon lay in bed, hav-ing re-ject-ed lit-tle Lui''s ef-forts to help him--her, damnit, she was bet-ter than this--as Sobon lay there, she con-sid-ered what she knew of aether and plan-e-tary mythos. It was a le-git-i-mate field of study, and al-though Sobon had read one or two stud-ies on the sub-ject, it was too much for him to un-der-stand at the time. Even what he''d known, he could bare-ly re-call, since so much else had tak-en its place in his mind, most of it far more im-por-tant.


    Aether was life. Aether took on pat-terns, and pat-terns res-onat-ed with one an-oth-er. Lives be-came sim-i-lar to oth-er lives, be-came en-tan-gled with oth-er lives. And myths--both in the clas-si-cal sense of fan-tas-tic sto-ries, and in the sec-u-lar ver-sion that in-clud-ed cul-tur-al mores and memet-ic shifts--tied peo-ple across a coun-try or a world to-geth-er. Myths unit-ed coun-tries, and myths di-vid-ed them. Mas-ter Tare, a spir-i-tu-al leader who had helped unite Crest, be-com-ing a politi-cian and, lat-er, an em-per-or... he had penned a clear an un-bi-ased trea-tise on the pow-er of aether-backed mythol-o-gy, a trea-tise that oth-ers had, un-suc-cess-ful-ly, tried to use to tear the Em-pire apart--or found a new one. Cen-turies lat-er, dis-ser-ta-tions on the work were still be-ing penned, ex-plor-ing new in-sights and com-par-ing them to new mea-sure-ments.


    Sobon let the thought pass, re-fo-cus-ing eas-i-ly. Aether-backed myth was real, and con-se-quen-tial. The more pow-er-ful aether was, the more pow-er-ful aether-backed myth would be--but then, as long as the myths weren''t con-sis-tent, they would con-flict, and this was a world in con-flict. If two myths con-flict-ed, the peo-ple un-der the sway of those myths would war un-til only one re-mained, un-less they could find and re-spect bound-aries be-tween each oth-er, or com-mon-al-i-ties that al-lowed them to slow-ly merge. Tare, what-ev-er the phi-los-o-phy of his writ-ings, had been as-tound-ing-ly as-tute in his deal-ings with peo-ple, in ways that seemed im-pos-si-ble. And Sobon... was not so as-tute, and he knew it. She knew it.


    Sobon paused, as she heard Lui''s foot-steps out-side her door. She sighed, and sat up on the bed. "You can come in, child," she said, open-ly winc-ing, as her hip protest-ed at the move-ment. Sobon had forced it; as of-ten hap-pened with wounds, it only got worse, even with the Coro-na''s heal-ing pat-tern work-ing at her. And it wasn''t a bad pat-tern, al-though he was let-ting his Out-er Aether dy-namo rest. Like most of the dy-namos he had pro-duced so far, it was... not ide-al. Ad-e-quate.


    Lui came into the room as qui-et-ly as she could. Sobon sus-pect-ed that she was, as much as any-thing, hid-ing from her fa-ther. Tuli per-haps meant to be a good fa-ther, but Sobon could not ac-cept that. Not for the same rea-sons as Alas-si--she had blamed him for Alas-si''s daugh-ter, his wife''s death, just as he had blamed her. Sobon could care less about the past, but was in-fu-ri-at-ed to watch the man dan-gling his daugh-ter like meat on a hook be-fore an-i-mals that he must know would some day bite both him and her. Very, very dan-ger-ous an-i-mals.


    The man had no aether abil-i-ties. He was weak. Sobon knew that. But that ex-cused noth-ing.


    In-stead of let-ting his anger show, Sobon stud-ied the girl. She had to only just be ap-proach-ing adult-hood--cer-tain-ly, by prim-i-tive de-f-i-n-i-tions of "can she have chil-dren yet", she was one. Her mind was sharp, al-though it had been... Sobon chose not to search for an ad-e-quate metaphor. She might have once been a very sharp child, but she wasn''t. She still saw more than many. Prob-a-bly more than any-one else here, even the cook, who Sobon had not-ed was a Djang, clear-ly un-re-lat-ed to any-one else, and rel-a-tive-ly pow-er-ful--his qi core was at the top of the cop-per col-ored tier, and twice in the fight Sobon had clear-ly sensed it try-ing to in-crease, though it failed, or else the man held it back.


    Lui had an in-no-cent face, Sobon thought as he re-fo-cused once more. Ear-li-er, he had been able to see every time wor-ries crossed her mind, though he wasn''t the sort who could read what she was think-ing. She seemed to earnest-ly hope for the best, al-though she had been dis-ap-point-ed. Her freck-led face was about as used to flinch-ing as Alas-si''s was used to frown-ing, though Sobon could see some-thing else be-hind her fea-tures now. Even in the dark, the look on her face was... un-usu-al for her. As though she was hold-ing a knife, but un-sure whether she was re-al-ly in-tend-ing to threat-en some-one with it.


    "Sit," Sobon of-fered, and she did, with-out hes-i-ta-tion. Some part of Sobon want-ed to hold the girl again, to re-as-sure her, but she knew that was not the Alas-si this girl had al-ways known. It was a sim-ple spir-i-tu-al truth, the kind the girl was cer-tain-ly keen enough to no-tice; so far, every-thing Sobon had done to-day had con-fused and ter-ri-fied Alas-si''s spir-it--even open-ing the win-dow. Es-pe-cial-ly open-ing the win-dow. For what-ev-er rea-son... the woman who had been in charge of this body was much more com-fort-able start-ing a fight with a band of slavers than tak-ing a breath of fresh air, and be-com-ing part of the world out-side these walls. And Lui... had nev-er seen this side of her grand-moth-er.


    "Grand-ma..." Lui took a deep breath, and Sobon heard her shak-ing as she did. "You... you changed, Grand-ma."


    Sobon saw no rea-son to lie. "Yes."


    "Are you..." She hes-i-tat-ed. "Are you... who you used to be? Is this... who you were?"


    Sobon did not look at her. "No."


    The girl let out her breath, like she''d been punched. "Are you... okay?"


    Sobon con-sid-ered how to an-swer. "Your grand-ma is... not well."


    Lui stood up and moved in front of her, more quick-ly than Sobon had seen her move, ex-cept when she had run away from the fight. He met the girl''s eyes, see-ing some-thing, but he wasn''t sure what. "You are amaz-ing, Grand-ma. You aren''t go-ing to die. You can''t."


    Sobon looked at her, try-ing to find an an-swer. She... couldn''t, though. She knew that. Sobon wasn''t Alas-si, and she didn''t have a right to pre-tend. "Lui..."


    Lui took her grand-moth-er''s hands and held them. Sobon could feel her shak-ing, could feel the del-i-cate-ness of her hands in spite of the qi be-hind them. "Grand-ma Alas-si," she said, find-ing de-ter-mi-na-tion. "Promise me you won''t die. Please." Her voice shook, and she closed her eyes. "That man Karvir talked about it. And I know... I know dad talked about it. About you be-ing gone. But I can''t... I can''t..."


    [ This child... ] Alas-si''s men-tal voice was strange. Al-though Sobon had not con-sult-ed with the woman much, she was be-gin-ning to pipe up more and more, ei-ther think-ing about things, or ex-plain-ing what should have been ob-vi-ous. But now... her voice was full of pain.


    And Sobon all but let her speak her mind, at least for tonight. "I have been a ter-ri-ble grand-moth-er, Lui," Alas-si said. "You shouldn''t need an old woman like me. I''ve only thought about..." She got choked up, Sobon as-sumed about her past, but he was only bare-ly a part of it. "...about my past, and your moth-er, and how I screwed every-thing up. About my in-jury, and how I wasn''t there when your moth-er..." Alas-si stopped. Through her eyes, Sobon saw her grand-daugh-ter, and he hoped that Alas-si un-der-stood what she was see-ing.


    Per-haps it was men-tal pres-sure from him, or per-haps she had un-der-stood it her-self, but Alas-si said, as gen-tly as she could, "I was so caught up in how I wasn''t there for your moth-er... that I was nev-er there for you. I am sor-ry, child."


    Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    Lui threw her arms around her grand-moth-er, and Sobon bus-ied his own mind with mak-ing sure that the two of them didn''t strain Alas-si''s hip, or any of the oth-er mus-cles that Sobon had overused dur-ing the evening''s mess. Al-though he would have to deal with the af-ter-math... and al-though it was sup-posed to be his body now, in one or two im-por-tant ways, Sobon let them have their mo-ment. He was well aware that mo-ments like this, when they passed... too of-ten nev-er came again. And this one, most cer-tain-ly, nev-er would.


    When they had both said what they need-ed to say, Sobon came back, and some-how, Alas-si let him with-out even a to-ken protest. He men-tal-ly re-viewed what they had said, but put it away. "I can-not stay here, child," she said, as gen-tly as she could.


    "But Grand-ma--"


    "No." Sobon''s word was gen-tle, but fi-nal. He liked the girl, and he had liked Ki''el. Un-der dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stances, he would love to teach her as well. He gen-uine-ly wished her well, wished that she would have a hap-py fu-ture. That... first and fore-most, re-quired him to do his job. "Child, I..." he searched for a way to ex-plain it, and when he was just about to ut-ter an-oth-er lie, Lui spoke up, sur-pris-ing him.


    "You aren''t Grand-ma Alas-si, are you?"


    Sobon turned her head to look at the girl. Her eyes had cleared up a bit, af-ter talk-ing with her grand-moth-er. But he was sure, now, that she saw the dif-fer-ence. That she had sensed him pass-ing Alas-si back to her, and tak-ing the spot in charge back. That she un-der-stood, on some lev-el, that her grand-moth-er was say-ing good-bye.


    "No." Sobon was a Ma-rine. He didn''t like ly-ing, or sub-terfuge. He was sure that the train-ing pro-gram for the Mixed Marines had peo-ple on staff pro-fil-ing peo-ple for spy work, and for the Spe-cial Forces. If they were there, as they must have been... they did not choose Sobon, and he did not dis-agree with their as-sess-ment. If he had to lie, or do the mil-i-tary''s dirty work, he would have felt un-clean. No, he was a Mixed Ma-rine, a Cy-borg. Coura-geous, de-ter-mined, straight-for-ward, and lethal. He had let go of his flesh, but he held on to his pride.


    Lui backed away from her a lit-tle bit, but when Sobon met her eyes again, they re-mained clear. "Who are you?" she asked, qui-et-ly.


    And Sobon told her, though only a lit-tle bit of it for now; Alas-si need-ed sleep, and so did poor Lui, though the girl was too rest-less. Sobon sus-pect-ed she would be trau-ma-tized, lat-er. For now, she lis-tened as he ex-plained it in brief, and let her di-gest each lit-tle piece that he did give her. About dy-ing, and com-ing back. About be-ing asked to help save the world, and how... how Alas-si had giv-en her body over, against her will, so that he could try again.


    Lui con-sid-ered it, and the child--still a lit-tle sharp, in spite of all that had hap-pened to her--spoke again.


    "Y-you said that mag-ic was chang-ing. I... I think I felt it, be-fore. Years ago." Lui looked down at her hands, which were shak-ing. "I felt like... like mag-ic moved. I used to think it was every-where, but now I think..." she closed her hands, and her eyes, and took a deep breath, and af-ter a long mo-ment, point-ed off to her right. "I think it''s... over there."


    "Mag-ic is?" Sobon had his own thoughts about what she was sens-ing, of course, but they could both be wrong. She could sim-ply be sens-ing the move-ment of a sin-gle, pow-er-ful qi user. Past a cer-tain lev-el... Sobon wasn''t sure, hav-ing not re-al-ly de-vel-oped keen sens-es him-self yet, but he had no doubt that pow-er-ful users were like suns wan-der-ing the plan-et, too dis-tant to burn or blind you, but an un-mis-tak-able bea-con that made a mock-ery of less-er sources of light.


    Lui just nod-ded. "Mama said times were chang-ing long ago. I won-der if this is what she meant." Sobon want-ed to in-ter-rupt, but Lui con-tin-ued on, and Sobon smiled a lit-tle. "She said that too many pow-er-ful peo-ple were be-com-ing more pow-er-ful, and that it was im-por-tant that we do the right thing, and she said..."


    Sobon put a hand on Lui''s head, just smil-ing at her. "Lui," she said, "you are a kind girl, but your moth-er and I are... were not peo-ple that changed the world like that. The pow-er-ful peo-ple of the world live dif-fer-ent-ly, so dif-fer-ent-ly that you can-not un-der-stand." Even with-out know-ing this world''s pol-i-tics, Sobon knew he could say that for cer-tain. It was more... a tru-ism, than any-thing else. "When the pow-er-ful peo-ple change any-thing, even things that seem small to them, weak-er peo-ple like us can have our whole worlds shift. That''s why I, the one who ar-rived yes-ter-day... have to do some very dan-ger-ous things."


    With gen-tle pres-sure, she moved Lui a step back from her. "In that world out there, Lui, when you make mis-takes, you don''t get yelled at. Your world just ends. Peo-ple with pow-er could wipe us all out in a mo-ment, if they want-ed. Your grand-ma and I... I need to go be a dan-ger-ous, im-por-tant per-son. It will take me far from here, and I may die. Your grand-ma may nev-er come back."


    "But if I ever come back this way, Lui," Sobon con-tin-ued to meet her eyes, even as he saw them fill-ing with tears, "whether in this life or the next, I will try to look out for you. Be-cause you are a good girl, Lui. In spite of every-thing that hap-pened to you, you de-serve a hap-py life. I''ll do what I can to help, but I must go."


    Lui nod-ded, and af-ter a few more words, she left to go back to her room. Sobon lay down, let-ting out a hiss-ing breath as Alas-si''s old bones com-plained.


    [ Thank you, ] she said, and Sobon gave a men-tal, dis-missal wave. I am a lot of things, Alas-si, he ad-dressed her di-rect-ly, al-though it still both-ered him to use mere words to com-mu-ni-cate men-tal-ly. But I re-spect good peo-ple. Lui has nev-er want-ed any-thing but to be a good per-son. It is writ-ten all over her spir-it.


    [ I wish you had been her grand-moth-er in-stead of me, ] the old ghost sighed, with an acomm-pa-ny-ing men-tal pro-jec-tion of a much younger Alas-si look-ing out her win-dow. That ver-sion of the woman... was too much like the old-er woman, he thought. As though time had stood still for her, in all ways ex-cept for the truth. She had been trapped here for a decade or more, and al-though she had nev-er moved on from those old days, time con-tin-ued with-out her. [ She de-served bet-ter than me. ]


    She prob-a-bly did, Sobon ac-knowl-edged. But you... how much of what I said to D''sur did you un-der-stand?


    [ The stand-ing-whale? The Star-beast Gen-er-al? ] Alas-si some-how re-flex-ive-ly pack-aged up sev-er-al thoughts into a sin-gle burst trans-mis-sion, as though she had done it be-fore. Though nowhere near Crestan mil-i-tary stan-dards, or even ba-sic Cy-borg tech-nique, it was ad-e-quate to con-vey a com-plex thought. She was... too ter-ri-fied of the crea-ture to con-sid-er what it said as even pos-si-bly true. She un-der-stood, from Sobon''s own thoughts, that he took it se-ri-ous-ly. She un-der-stood how pow-er-ful Sobon was, and that he was a true war-rior, a force be-yond her un-der-stand-ing. She sus-pect-ed that Sobon, at least, had not lied. But she could not un-der-stand the crea-ture that she un-der-stood as a Star-beast Gen-er-al be-ing any-thing but an in-vad-ing force.


    What are Star-beasts? Sobon queried, at first in a data pack-et, but then im-me-di-ate-ly in words.


    Alas-si took half a mo-ment to try to un-der-stand the data pack-et, and for a mo-ment, Sobon thought she might ac-tu-al-ly un-der-stand it--but she gave up very quick-ly. [ We weren''t told much. Some eighty-odd years ago, they came from the stars. We are told they brought the stars with them, to kill us. Peo-ple were only com-ing to un-der-stand the depths of qi in those days. They found that we could har-vest the stars with-in the star-beasts, and ad-vance be-yond the Met-al phas-es of qi. I... nev-er got any-where close to that. The true pow-ers of the world, and they are few, they hoard Pow-er Stars. They crave them, and want to grow ever stronger. I don''t know why. Only those at the peak of the Met-al tiers and above can safe-ly han-dle the Pow-er Stars, though. ]


    What do you know about these Stars? Sobon stud-ied the woman''s mind in-tent-ly, but to his dis-ap-point-ment, she re-turned his men-tal study with the equiv-a-lent of a frus-trat-ed eye roll. [ I was a sol-dier for less than five years be-fore I was wound-ed. I was nev-er more than a sol-dier. My time in the ser-vice paid for this inn for my fam-i-ly to live off of. I was nev-er told much. They are strong, and only the strong can use them. I don''t know. ]


    Sobon re-flect-ed on that only for a mo-ment, and de-cid-ed quick-ly that it would sim-ply be on her list of ques-tions for the Ri''lef en-gi-neers. As-sum-ing the star-beasts were the up-lift-ed an-i-mals... Sobon had few doubts that they were some form of en-gi-neered bi-ol-o-gy, adapt-ed to the plan-et''s high aether. What-ev-er these "pow-er stars" turned out to be, they would have a pur-pose, and Sobon would find it out, in time. It seemed... un-like-ly that she would need to know be-fore she was able to con-tact the Ri''lef again.


    As she lay there, she amend-ed that thought, and brought up an aether con-struct to con-tact the Coro-na''s AI. She should have done it ear-li-er; she only sent a few, pack-e-tized thoughts, re-quest-ing a meet-ing with the Ri''lef en-gi-neer-ing lead at their con-ve-nience, ask-ing for map-ping and po-si-tion-ing in-for-ma-tion, and ask-ing if the AI had a bet-ter, high-er in-ten-si-ty heal-ing pat-tern, with an ac-com-pa-ny-ing brief on Alas-si''s in-jury.


    Coro-na''s re-ply was pleas-ant-ly help-ful, pro-vid-ing a full or-bital map of the plan-et with the Coro-na''s lo-ca-tion and its es-ti-mate of Sobon''s lo-ca-tion marked, plus an-oth-er sol-id data pack-et con-tain-ing suf-fi-cient aether knowl-edge to build a full-scale tis-sue re-gen-er-a-tor for lo-cal bi-ol-o-gy. Its aether re-quire-ments were, nat-u-ral-ly, be-yond any-thing Sobon could build or main-tain with-in her own bi-ol-o-gy; the aether den-si-ty it re-quired for prop-er func-tion-ing was, it-self, above the cell tox-i-c-i-ty lim-it. She fun-da-men-tal-ly could not chan-nel that en-er-gy, or be near some-thing else chan-nel-ing that en-er-gy with-out shield-ing. But as Sobon lay in bed, not quite sleep-ing, she was able to sort through the many in-ter-wo-ven sub-pat-terns, iden-ti-fy-ing sev-er-al pieces that he could ex-tract and pow-er with... some-what more mod-est pow-er sources. Not to-day, and maybe not for weeks or months, but the fact that Sobon had it with-in her grasp, and kept in high-er mem-o-ry where she did not need to fear it would be lost...


    Be-fore she for-got, Sobon also sent along a sim-ple query, ask-ing about send-ing mes-sages to lo-cals via their aether sig-na-ture. Coro-na''s re-ply in-di-cat-ed that nor-mal pro-to-cols should work on any-one with qi, al-though range was an is-sue, and it sug-gest-ed that Sobon could use it as a re-lay if nec-es-sary. Sobon sent along a terse mes-sage, along with Ki''el''s aether sig-na-ture, as best as she could re-call it; it mere-ly said "Sobon lives again; he will find you if he can." Coro-na con-firmed the mes-sage had been broad-cast, but the way the con-fir-ma-tion was word-ed pro-vid-ed no proof that Ki''el had re-ceived it. And in truth, Sobon had no idea how long it had been since he had died, or what the girl''s cir-cum-stances were now.


    Still, as Sobon cleaned up her thoughts be-fore falling asleep, she found her-self feel-ing sat-is-fied that this life would go very dif-fer-ent-ly to her dis-as-trous first two lives on this mis-er-able lit-tle plan-et.


    Far away, in an Il-lano port city, a girl''s head snapped up, and her ears flushed red, and her eyes be-gan to tear up. Ki''el had enough pres-ence of mind to hold on to her fish-ing net, but only just, as she stood star-ing up into the night sky, won-der-ing at the thought that had un-ques-tion-ably been placed in her mind. It made no sense--but then, Sobon had nev-er made sense. A war-rior, a war hero, a... squir-rel? She shook her head, and looked down at her right hand, at the mark she had burned into her own flesh, so that she would nev-er for-get.


    If he lived again... she would find him, no mat-ter what.

 16. Alassi - Awakening, Part 4

    Despite her injuries, Sobon was not late getting up, except in comparison to a family that spent their life running an inn. Although she was up at dawn, Tuli, Lui, and the cook that Alassi was finally able to place as being named Mian were all busy. For an inn this far into the hills, the work would oftentimes be a waste--but not always. And Alassi was quite convinced that an inn that didn''t have a good reputation was doomed to never recover it. Sobon... didn''t know that he believed in ''never'', but he respected the discipline.


    Today, of course, the three were taking care of a number of lost souls that had been captured by the slavers. Sobon spent her time forming better designed, more stable aether dynamos, then searching through her database of aether patterns and forming together a better version of the healing pattern, which would accept some combiation of outer and onwards aether, and could supplement them with raw right-hand aether. Going by the various terms and translations of them in the documents, these were not exactly the way the Ri''lef understood aether, but they were fundamentally compatible; if she understood the ship''s translations correctly, the various aether spins corresponded to "layers" of reality, and each layer of progressively more complex aether could only really be reached by the next lower layer.


    The translated terms were frankly silly. Right and left aether were Righteous and Sinister; while Outer and Inner were Genesis and Consumption. Onwards and Reverse were Acceleration and Revival, and the layer above that, which Sobon was fairly sure his people termed something like Superior and Inverse, were termed Sacred and Corrupt. And there were higher level flows than either of those, but Sobon purged the thoughts from her mind; she''d needed cybernetic implants to understand more than the mere creation of fourth-order flows, and while she could piece together a dynamo producing fifth-tier flows, she doubted she''d be able to hold the complexity in her mind necessary to work those flows into a pattern in 3D space, let alone a more complex working that weaved through the higher dimensions.


    It hardly mattered for now. Sobon suspected she would end up working with Onwards and Reverse aether with some regularity; if your enemy had any access to flows of that level, not having it yourself was a death sentence, at least in the long term. Time manipulation, even in its most limited forms, was too much of an advantage. Superior and Inverse flows, which some prosaically called "fate manipulation", were according to her education much less of a direct battlefield advantage, perhaps because the Empire and its enemies hadn''t figured out whatever trick there was to them. The calculations necessary to properly apply a higher-tier spin required mastery of those beneath, so unless she figured out something her entire civilization had not, she couldn''t use higher spins for anything significant.


    Alassi, in a strange contrast to Jom or the braindead squirrel, actually seemed to be studying Sobon''s thoughts, and while she made very little progress in understanding the work Sobon was doing, at least Alassi seemed to have enough intelligence to her spirit-form, or whatever she was, to be able to make headway on some of the fundamentals. Sobon noticed her regulating one of the right-hand aether dynamos while Sobon was otherwise busy--Alassi had enough caution that Sobon wouldn''t call what she was doing playing, and indeed she was doing what Sobon would have asked her to do, if Sobon trusted the spirit with anything, but it was still a little uncomfortable that Alassi was acting without her active direction.


    By mid-morning, Lui had come to check up on her and offer a late breakfast, and Sobon was somewhat ashamed to see that the girl was bone-tired and smudged in several places with blood. Lui, though, shook her head at Sobon''s shock.


    "It''s fine, Grandma," Lui said, tiredly. "I think you would have helped if you could, but I know you can''t. We know you can''t."


    Sobon kept his expression even, although Alassi bristled within him. She had thoughts about Tuli, and what Lui was implying about how he felt, but Sobon didn''t care. "I would help," Sobon agreed. She looked down at the breakfast that Lui had brought. "I''m going to get better, Lui. And I''m going to leave this place. But some of what needs to happen..."


    "Happens now, I know," Lui said, a tired edge to her voice that was very unlike who she had been even half a day before. "Papa is saying the same. With breakfast about done, Uncle Mian is going to go to town to turn in the body, and to bring back help. He says he knows what to do."


    Sobon trusted the steely-eyed man who had taken up a massive, four-foot butchering sword with contemptuous ease. Although Sobon was sure he had a severe case of depression--if not as bad as Alassi''s--he had recovered too quickly from the haze of battle for Sobon to think that he had lost himself. Indeed, although the foot-wide steel sword was as sharp as a razor, and although Mian had moved with practiced grace, he had only really used the blade in defense of Alassi, Tuli, or himself. Considering that Sobon had enraged the entire group of criminals, that was more than enough for him to be nearly the center of the fight, even with Sobon supporting him with aether use.


    Sobon trusted Mian, but also, she did not trust the world. She would not be surprised if Mian trying to turn in the bounty--if there even was one--would only bring some other trouble down on them, trouble that would pretend to be officials of the nation, guardsmen, or others. This world was full of shit, and while Sobon was sure that Mian was no innocent person himself, that didn''t provide him any immunity.


    So Sobon just grumbled. "Wish I was going to be ready in time to go with him. But no, even the best healing..." She frowned, but Lui''s eyes were on the aether pattern around her hip. Like Alassi, Lui seemed to grasp some of the fundamentals, but Sobon wasn''t sure she dared ask. She... wanted to be nice, and stay, and teach Lui what she needed to know to survive. It was not a good idea. "...what I need for now is a few days, and more solid meals than this, if I can get them."


    Lui''s eyes flicked back to meet hers, and the girl pursed her lips, but nodded. "I don''t know what we can do for today. Uncle Mian wouldn''t mind, I think, but Papa and I will be trading off cooking duties for... for everyone today," she said, and Sobon watched her evade a thought, but not as strongly as she would have before, as though she wasn''t quite as afraid. "Papa... might not agree to cook more for you. And I already think I''ll be working the whole time, trying to stay ahead. I''m... not a great cook."


    In the end, Sobon noted, there had been about twenty slaves, and one of the most common problems with them all was malnutrition. They came from a number of cultures, all foreign to Sobon, though Alassi thought they mostly from the far south and west. Sobon wasn''t much of a cook, but... she shrugged. "Don''t try to feed them too much," she said. "With an empty stomach, they can''t eat too quickly."


    "We know. But enough of them have a little qi..." Lui shook her head. "Some of them are already trying hard to improve themselves. And Papa says we should let them."


    Sobon glanced out the window, at the two people in the yard outside who were sitting silently in some kind of meditation, their aether flowing and flickering. She didn''t know exactly how the qi gathering exercises worked, but like Sobon, they would need food if they wanted to rebuild their bodies, and those two, at least, were skin and bones. She nodded, and spoke a little flippantly, mostly prodded along by Alassi. "As long as you get paid."


    Lui grinned, briefly, and the smile brightened her tired face. "Yes, Grandma Alassi. Papa insists they pay using their share of the bandit money, and... they don''t seem to mind."


    Sobon personally felt like refugees deserved better than that, but social safety nets were better implemented by governments, not random innkeepers, and in either case Sobon wasn''t the person ultimately responsible. She might have sway over Tuli, if she was willing to argue, but Sobon''s mind was on other things. "If it comes to it," Sobon finally said, "in a few days, I''ll go hunting."


    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    For some reason, Lui shivered at that. Sobon looked at her, but the girl''s look was distant, like she was still coming out of the kitchen, looking on a room full of blood-splattered walls, tables, and floor. Sobon barely thought about it as she lifted out of the wheelchair and moved to put a hand on the Lui''s shoulder, but she could see shock in Lui''s features even at that small action. It was hard to remember exactly how the girl must see Sobon now, taking over what remained of her old and decreptit grandmother.


    "Don''t fear, child," Sobon said, as gently as she could, and since she was already standing, she moved to the lift, leaving behind the thin breakfast that Lui had offered her.


    What awaited below was nothing that surprised Sobon much. The dining room had been cleaned well, but not perfectly. Wood that wasn''t sealed would be difficult to perfectly clean even with advanced chemistry, and although she could have found some way to do the task with aether, it would be a massive waste of time and resources. The inn''s new transients were mostly in this room, when they weren''t outside, and all of them gave each other space, except those who found comfort together. Sobon suspected none of them would want to be alone in small rooms anytime soon.


    Tuli was the only one to register any shock at Sobon''s presence, and he buried a wave of anger as quickly as it appeared. "Mother," he said, politely, though Sobon could see as well as hear his clenched muscles in the tone of his voice.


    Sobon had done nothing like rehearsing her words, and she didn''t feel much obliged to find the right way to say what she wanted. Instead, she gestured for Tuli to step into the alcove behind the desk that stored his records, her gait only a little uneven as she pushed past him into the narrow space. The idea seemed to rankle Tuli even more, and Sobon could convince himself that something in this room stank, in ways that were neither aetheric nor physical. Something itched at him, like a secret, but he ignored it for now.


    Tuli fit himself into the room just enough to swing the door shut, but his eyes on Alassi were hard. "What do you want, mother?"


    Sobon considered a lot of what she could say under the circumstances, in brief. She considered coming clean, as she had to Lui, but it was foolish. The man before her wouldn''t understand, she was sure. "I have something left undone," she simply said. "I intend to regain my strength, and then leave."


    Tuli bristled at that, and Sobon thought he understood. The man took a long moment to collect his thoughts, and even took a deep breath, before speaking. "What you did last night will bring danger to this place, Alassi. And you won''t even be here to protect us."


    Sobon shook her head, knowing that it was true. "There are things I can do to protect this place, even in my absence. Formations. Seals." The words were unfamiliar to Sobon''s own mind, but were Alassi''s own translations of concepts that Sobon fed her.


    "I thought you didn''t know any of those," Tuli said, more anger and bitterness creeping into his voice. "After that incident with the army--"


    "Things change, Tuli," Sobon said, finally turning and meeting the man''s eyes directly. Although she knew that the man, Alassi''s son, wouldn''t understand, she still stared back at him as firmly as she could, projecting resoluteness as best she could. "The world of qi is complicated and uncertain. Sometimes even an old woman locked in her room can have her life change in an instant. Sometimes people learn things, or grow... or die."


    Tuli looked back at her, his anger waning a bit, though the bitterness never left. "You mean when you shouted the other day," he said, his face changing. "Something to do with qi changed with you. You advanced, or something?"


    "Something." Sobon held the man''s eyes, but didn''t explain. After another few moments, Tuli looked away. When he did, Sobon spoke into the silence. "The world is changing, Tuli. There is danger out there. And there is something that I must do."


    "Fine," Tuli said, sounding like the only thing on his mind was his bitterness. Sobon resisted the urge to react, letting him speak. "But we''re holding to the agreement. When you''re gone, I control this inn. Own it. In its entirety."


    It was at that moment that Sobon had a strange vision, one that he soon recognized as being an echo received from Alassi''s qi core, not any part of his own aether patterns or body. It was... a dim memory, one that seemed etched into the walls of this room. Of Tuli sitting behind the desk, and of a man standing across from him. The two of them had a matched flavor to their qi, and it was a sick feeling.


    From what Sobon could tell, Alassi, although she was the one who received the vision, didn''t recognize the figure, but Sobon did, and she wasn''t even surprised. After all, the marine would never have expected two different slaver groups to meet at an inn unless they had confirmed the owner was either completely bought... or completely cowed. Beaten down, and terrified to raise a hand.


    Sobon raised her nose at the man, immediately changing her mind about a decision she''d made last night. There was no way Sobon would leave Lui here with her father. "This place is nothing to me anymore, Tuli," Sobon finally said. That wasn''t quite how Alassi felt, but Sobon didn''t feel the need to humor the old woman''s ghost, not given the mess that was haunting this place''s past, and probably its future.


    "Fine," Tuli said. "Then go, and Lui and I will be fine without you."


    Sobon didn''t correct him on that, and instead said, "It will still take time for me to recover. If you want me gone sooner, I''ll need bigger meals. Real food, not the thin soup I''ve been having."


    Tuli finally met her eyes again with a sour glare, as though he begrudged even that much. "Fine. Lui and I will make sure you are fed. Real food, like you say."


    Sobon thought she detected a poisonous note to the man''s tone, an intent to deceive or betray, but nodded as though she trusted him entirely. As Tuli started to open the door again, Sobon stopped him with a word. "Tuli."


    He half-opened, then closed, the door, but remained facing it as he waited for her to say whatever last word she had.


    Sobon considered her words carefully. She wanted to say something true, as far as Alassi was concerned, but also more useful than anything the old woman would have willingly provided. Finally, she closed her eyes, and sighed. "You were right all along," she said, finally, as she felt Alassi''s heart collapse at the words. "Her death was my fault."


    The words went through Tuli like a knife. Sobon didn''t really feel the same depth of emotion as either Alassi or Tuli, but that didn''t stop her body from reacting with Alassi''s own emotions. Perhaps it was just her nature as a cyborg to separate that thread of thought away from everything else, but somehow, she finished the words.


    "Not because of what happened on that day. But because I was her mother, and because..." Sobon considered the woman''s memories, although as she slipped through them, they seemed to crumble from the emotions. "...because I wanted my life back. To be a warrior again, and not a mother. But there was always more to teach her, and I didn''t. If I had..."


    "Stop it," whispered Tuli, and Sobon stopped. But the man said nothing, leaning on the door as though it was all that kept him on his feet. When finally he looked back at Alassi, there were storm clouds in those eyes, but Sobon wasn''t quite sure how to read them. "You were a terrible mother," he agreed, his voice trembling. "But the worst of it, the worst of it, Alassi, was that she thought you weren''t. That you did it all out of love. And I know that you didn''t. I know. I was there. I saw it."


    Alassi''s heart squeezed like it was trying to wring blood from a stone, and Sobon let herself collapse against the wall. She still felt very distant from the storm going on around her, but... but also, Sobon found herself thinking about Lui, and about Ki''el. Even, a little bit, about Jom. About children that needed to be taught, and were instead just discarded. And although Sobon didn''t feel Alassi''s emotions, she definitely felt her own. His own. His attachment to good people that didn''t deserve these kinds of horrors.


    And yet, Sobon had to march to war. She had to. The world might end if she didn''t, in a way that was entirely too literal.


    Finally, Tuli forced himself to open the door, and Sobon retreated upstairs without another word to him, or to Lui. She would need some kind of plans, but... but in all honesty, she wasn''t sure what. She wasn''t sure how she could possibly do everything she needed to, even if she sacrificed everything. And privately, Sobon supposed that one way or another, she wouldn''t. That she would fail at something, or many somethings. And her--his cyborg mind told him immediately which tasks she dared not fail at.


    Sobon didn''t disagree with the thought, exactly. But it felt like an empty analysis, a marine commander''s list of prorities on a cheap slideshow. Everyone knew that the orders were banal, rote. The real orders would be whatever the circumstances actually required, even if they were nothing like what the commander wrote up before the mission was even handed down. The presentation might as well just say, "Succeed."


    Sobon dared not lose the entire world. But if she didn''t preserve the few parts of the world that seemed to be worth fighting for, she wouldn''t see saving the rest of the world as much of a victory, either.

 17. Alassi - Awakening, Part 5

    For what it was worth, Tuli did in-crease the food that he sent up to Sobon, though not by much to start. With Mian gone, and many mouths to feed, and no one com-ing by to sell more food, there wasn''t a whole lot. Sobon, with all the ad-van-tages he had now, made the best he could out of it any-way, and was com-fort-able leav-ing the very next day to hunt for large game in the forests around the inn.


    The nom-i-nal prey an-i-mal in these woods was a large antlered beast called a bas-sar, and to Sobon''s con-fu-sion, the herd that he en-coun-tered had one old-er male at its lead, with sil-ver-ranked qi that it proud-ly dis-played with some sort of qi crown. Sobon had no qualms or doubts that he could kill such a beast, but fol-lowed both his own and Alas-si''s in-stincts, and hunt-ed the weak-est of the herd. The king bas-sar didn''t even ob-ject, al-though he did ush-er the rest of the herd away and stood be-tween them and Sobon, pro-ject-ing a pres-sure that was halfway be-tween serene and mur-der-ous.


    As Sobon hauled his kill off, Alas-si whis-pered into the back of his mind. [ Per-haps some-day, be-fore we leave, you can hunt it. Bas-sar horns are good stock to make weapons out of. And that king... a horn with sil-ver qi would be an im-pres-sive tro-phy, and it would make a good weapon. ]


    Sobon, in re-ply, of-fered Alas-si a men-tal im-pres-sion of watch-ing a city blown apart by or-bital bom-bard-ment, of be-ing blind-ed by the blast even from hun-dreds of miles away. He showed her beam ri-fles that fire a thou-sand shots per clip, each shot blast-ing eas-i-ly through a half dozen mod-est-size trees with fin-ger-width beams. He showed her ar-tillary, mo-bile weapons plat-forms, close air sup-port, or-bital trans-ports, bat-tle-ships, an-nil-hi-la-tion can-nons, and the enor-mous en-er-gy flare that was a large ship tele-port-ing across in-ter-stel-lar dis-tances.


    [ Those are good weapons, ] Sobon told the sud-den-ly si-lenced spir-it. [ If I need a sharp stick to poke peo-ple with, I promise I will con-sid-er tak-ing them from the wildlife. I am sure it will be very sharp, and might even make them bleed. But if I want to cre-ate any re-al-ly use-ful weapons, I will need re-sources that an-i-mals can-not even con-ceive of. ]


    Alas-si had no re-ply.


    Sobon pitched in with Lui to help butch-er the an-i-mal, lean-ing more heav-i-ly on Alas-si''s knowl-edge than his own or the girl''s. It''s not so much that the old woman had been much of a hunter; knowl-edge of these things had been among the ran-dom in-sights she gained fight-ing star-beasts. For Sobon''s part, he al-lowed Alas-si''s per-son-al-i-ty to come out and speak with the girl; al-though Alas-si would not have tak-en the op-por-tu-ni-ty to speak with her grand-daugh-ter, it wasn''t as though she had noth-ing to say, or even that she had no de-sire to speak. She had sim-ply... buried her-self away from the world, spurn-ing all ad-vances from her fam-i-ly.


    When pressed to it, though, he could tell Alas-si liked Lui. Speak-ing with the girl sur-faced mem-o-ries of hers from long ago, when Alas-si was young and naive her-self. From what Sobon saw, she wasn''t sur-round-ed by com-pan-ions, ex-act-ly, al-though there were sev-er-al peo-ple there, in-clud-ing the man who would be-come her hus-band. With some de-tach-ment, Sobon could ad-mit their courtship was... cute, if child-ish.


    Alas-si would not have joined the mil-i-tary had her hus-band not died to star-beasts. The quest for re-venge brought her, ul-ti-mate-ly, here. Sobon thought that she was too dis-tract-ed to serve well. Alas-si, only vague-ly pay-ing at-ten-tion to his thoughts, dis-agreed.


    [ If I had enough pow-er, then, it wouldn''t have mat-tered, ] Alas-si groused in-ter-nal-ly, pri-vate-ly thank-ful that the work of butch-ery had pro-gressed to a stage where both she and Lui fo-cused on the meat and bones be-fore them. [ But the Com-man-der did not al-low those be-neath him to ad-vance. We served as fod-der, and once we had in-jured a beast, troops he ac-tu-al-ly liked were brought in to kill it and earn the greater share of the har-vest. The corpses were hauled away to be served to no-bles, I''m sure. At most, di-lut-ed beast blood was put in our soup broth, if there was no oth-er use for it. ]


    Sobon con-sid-ered the flow of mem-o-ries that poured through Alas-si as she re-count-ed the sto-ry, un-sure of most of what she was look-ing at. Over and over, though, she brought Alas-si''s thoughts back to the one mo-ment she least want-ed to re-mem-ber.


    A spined star-beast shat-ter-ing her hip with a sin-gle spike, one of hun-dreds launched across a bat-tle-field. Alas-si''s own mem-o-ry of it was cloud-ed by pain, but Sobon forced her find it, piece by piece, un-til she was cer-tain of some-thing.


    [ It was de-lib-er-ate, ] Sobon told her. [ A... greater star-beast, a leader. They con-trolled this pup-pet to in-jure more of your peo-ple in that bat-tle. ] Al-though she couldn''t see from Alas-si''s mem-o-ries whether a Ri''lef had been di-rect-ly pup-pet-ing the in-tel-li-gent star-beast which it-self con-trolled the less-er one, she was sure that the com-plex surge in aether pres-sure on the bat-tle-field was a form of pos-ses-sion. Even Alas-si, who was not par-tic-u-lar-ly sen-si-tive, could sense strong aether flows both to-wards and away from the bat-tle.


    Alas-si stopped, her meat cleaver rest-ing against the cut-ting board. [ Leader? The beast be-came berserk, sui-ci-dal. They do that, some-times. It''s why the army can''t send their elites to do all of the work. A berserk beast could in-jure even a com-man-der, and he was a Bright Met-al cul-ti-va-tor. ]


    [ Not sui-ci-dal, ] Sobon cor-rect-ed, not-ing her ter-mi-nol-o-gy, though she wasn''t yet sure she cared about the specifics of qi and its rank-ings. [ It was sac-ri-ficed. ]


    "Grand-ma?" Lui''s voice was con-cerned, and Sobon men-tal-ly rolled her eyes and backed off, al-low-ing Alas-si to have a lit-tle more time with her grand-daugh-ter.


    Still, in the back-ground, she tried to ac-cess Alas-si''s un-der-stand-ing of qi lev-els, and their names. It wasn''t en-tire-ly straight-for-ward.


    Qi went through two met-al phas-es, com-mon and bright, each bro-ken down into col-ors, and each col-or into star lev-els. Be-yond that, Alas-si only knew the gen-er-al terms "Gem phase" and "Flame phase", though she was sure each phase was di-vid-ed into col-ors and stars, and per-haps even sub-phas-es. So far, with the pos-si-ble ex-cep-tion of the reaper that killed Jom, Sobon es-ti-mat-ed she hadn''t seen any-thing out-side of the first met-al phase of qi. Gold, the qi col-or she had seen in Xoi Xam and pi-rate cap-tain, was the high-est of the com-mon met-als, and the "break-through" that got one past the end of that whole phase and into the next was sup-posed to be har-row-ing.


    That reaper, though... al-though Sobon had no earth-ly idea what his ac-tu-al qi lev-el was sup-posed to be, the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure that she re-called over the weapon def-i-nite-ly had the aes-thet-ics of a gem-stone, and not a met-al, in her mind. Alas-si... seemed un-com-fort-able with Sobon re-call-ing even that much, al-though Sobon was not re-al-ly shar-ing with her, and she was do-ing her best to re-main dis-tract-ed.


    Too soon, though, there was noth-ing more to do. The meat was most-ly kept in a large cel-lar, which had some kind of aether pat-tern in-scribed on it. Af-ter de-liv-er-ing what she''d hunt-ed and clean-ing up, Sobon took con-trol back and went down to ex-am-ine the pat-terns, try-ing to match what them against the pat-terns the Coro-na had giv-en him. Per-haps pre-dictably, they didn''t match at all--the qi pat-terns were not com-pat-able with raw aether. In-stead of fuss-ing with it, Sobon con-struct-ed a scaled-up anti-mi-cro-bial pat-tern, and with a ca-su-al use of aether, en-graved it into the back wall. As-sum-ing he hadn''t messed some-thing up, it would only tar-get the air and sur-faces--a more ide-al pat-tern would purge the stored meat and oth-er foods of in-ter-nal mi-crobes, or at least pre-vent growth, but Sobon wasn''t sure how to en-sure those pat-terns didn''t tar-get any-one who walked in and scourge clean their in-ter-nal bio-mes.


    Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    Then, she fold-ed flat an aether har-vest-ing and fil-ter-ing cy-cle--some-what more com-plex than a dy-namo, but in-tend-ed to be left alone. Once start-ed, both pat-terns quick-ly ac-ti-vat-ed and Sobon no-ticed an im-prove-ment in the smell, though it wasn''t bad to start with. Sobon glanced around at the food, not-ing noth-ing that was ob-vi-ous-ly un-hy-genic, not that she would have ex-pect-ed it.


    As Sobon stepped out of the cel-lar, her mind was still turn-ing over the var-i-ous thoughts of en-grav-ings and aether for-ma-tions that might be of use to the inn. She was sur-prised to find Tuli stand-ing there and wait-ing, an un-read-able look on his face. "You brought in meat," he said, stiffly. "I know you said that you need more food--"


    "It''s fine to share it with oth-ers," Sobon said, calm-ly. "As long as I get my part of it."


    "With as many mouths to feed as we have, it will go quick-ly."


    Sobon met the younger man''s eyes, feel-ing it odd to be look-ing at a full grown adult, and have to con-sid-er him a son. Sobon wasn''t young when he died--he had joined the Mixed Marines in his twen-ties, and had over a decade in the ser-vice. Enough to be sea-soned, but nev-er put in enough dan-ger to qual-i-fy for a field pro-mo-tion. He had one ground cam-paign and many years of pa-trol ser-vice, with ex-tra train-ing and sev-er-al vi-o-lent peace-keep-ing op-er-a-tions. But still, if he had got-ten mar-ried ear-ly, he should just bare-ly be old enough to be a grand-fa-ther, and cer-tain-ly not of a girl as old as Lui.


    But his body--Alas-si''s body which had twen-ty years on him, still felt strange to look at the man. He had been younger when he mar-ried into the fam-i-ly, and Alas-si had not paid him much at-ten-tion, es-pe-cial-ly not af-ter her daugh-ter died. But Sobon, look-ing at him, found the man... un-pleas-ant. He had the bear-ing of a man who was an-gry at the world, and a dis-po-si-tion that Sobon was sure meant he would be-tray oth-ers, even his own fam-i-ly.


    "I will hunt again in a few days," Sobon said, sim-ply. "One or two good serv-ings for every-one, and then stretch what is left."


    Tuli bris-tled, as though he didn''t like tak-ing or-ders--or even rec-om-men-da-tions. It didn''t make a whole lot of sense to her, or to Alas-si, but Sobon sup-posed he was very used to Alas-si be-ing noth-ing but dead weight.


    "There was a sil-ver-ranked bas-sar pro-tect-ing the herd. Tak-ing too much will only lead to a fight." Sobon didn''t men-tion that it was a fight she ex-pect-ed to win--cer-tain-ly, once her body was health-i-er. The mere fact that she had faced the high-er-ranked beast seemed to cause an un-com-fort-able re-sponse in Tuli, but he sim-ply nod-ded in re-ponse.


    "Per-haps more than a few days, then. A beast like that, if it de-cid-ed to ram-page..." Tuli shook his head. "Mian will have re-turned by then. It won''t mat-ter."


    Sobon didn''t ques-tion that, and when an awk-ward si-lence start-ed to fall, sim-ply moved past the innkeep-er. She end-ed up wan-der-ing out in front of the inn; al-though sev-er-al of the res-cued were out-side, and Sobon didn''t par-tic-u-lar-ly want to speak with them, more were in-side, and those seemed more rest-less. The ones out-side, for the most part, were med-i-tat-ing, try-ing to touch the aether of the world.


    Sobon stud-ied the clos-est, who might have been any-where from eigh-teen to four-ty, at his lev-el of mal-nu-tri-tion. Al-though he looked noth-ing like Jom--in fact, he had no idea what Jom had looked like, hav-ing nev-er seen a mir-ror--Sobon could still see an echo of the bro-ken-souled street rat in the man, like a crack in a fa-mil-iar shape run-ning through his spir-it. And what-ev-er aether--qi, re-al-ly--the man gath-ered, it seemed to pass out of those cracks, ra-di-at-ing off of the man as part of a mis-er-able stink. It was dif-fi-cult for Sobon to know if the man had been wound-ed, psy-cho-log-i-cal-ly bro-ken, or if he had sim-ply nev-er had an ap-ti-tude for qi, but he sus-pect-ed that the man would need se-ri-ous help if he was ever to grow stronger.


    Sobon wasn''t en-tire-ly sure that her im-pres-sion of the man was right, how-ev-er. Dif-fer-ent bod-ies she''d had so far all had dif-fer-ent abil-i-ty to sense aether; Jom had bare-ly any, and the squir-rel had a dim im-pres-sion, but clear, like peep-ing through a tiny hole. Alas-si''s spir-it was mud-dled, even af-ter he had in-fused it with fresh aether, and it was hard to dis-tin-guish how much of wha the per-ceived was the truth... and how much of it was dirty smears on the win-dow of Alas-si''s soul. Was the man leak-ing aether be-cause he was in-jured? Did he just not un-der-stand how to work it prop-er-ly? Af-ter all, Jom had been called in-ca-pable of us-ing qi, but Sobon had used it as a weapon with-in min-utes of wak-ing up in his body. The sec-ond time, at least.


    Some-thing stirred as Sobon con-sid-ered that, some-thing like a faint wind. What it meant... she couldn''t gath-er, al-though it was un-ques-tion-ably an aether ef-fect. For some rea-son, she felt like the wind car-ried a mes-sage... and that the mes-sage was re-ceived, some-where. Sobon frowned, won-der-ing again if some sort of plan-e-tary spir-i-tu-al god was mon-i-tor-ing her--or if the Ri''lef were.


    To her sur-prise, though, when Sobon sur-faced from her thoughts, she found that all of the peo-ple med-i-tat-ing were look-ing at her. Alas-si''s own spir-it had a mo-ment of deep pan-ic at the thought--she was too used to hid-ing, shun-ning the light of day and all hu-man in-ter-ac-tion. Sobon didn''t en-joy the thought of hav-ing to an-swer ques-tions... but nei-ther did she shy away from it. In-stead, she just raised an eye-brow in ques-tion at them, wait-ing to see if they would say some-thing.


    For some rea-son, they turned away, go-ing back to their med-i-ta-tions.


    [ It would be seen as a chal-lenge, ] Alas-si thought at Sobon, qui-et-ly. It wasn''t as though Sobon didn''t un-der-stand... she sim-ply wasn''t used to be-ing the strongest per-son around, and in-stant-ly com-mand-ing the kind of re-spect he would have giv-en to se-nior of-fi-cers. And I can''t get used to that, Sobon men-tal-ly chid-ed her-self. I''m go-ing to need to punch above my weight, and prob-a-bly live among peo-ple that can punch down. Prefer-ably with-out get-ting an-oth-er reaper mad at me.


    Alas-si, whether wise-ly or not, chose not to com-ment, and Sobon chose to busy her-self study-ing the inn. It was rel-a-tive-ly sol-id in build qual-i-ty; most of the out-er con-struc-tion was heavy wood-en planks, but when Sobon stud-ied it, he not-ed that at least it showed no signs of warp-ing, no gaps or splits. Sobon could feel a dim light of en-er-gy from the wood--not enough that it would have, or should have, had a sig-nif-i-cant ef-fect. Alas-si con-firmed that at one point, it had been tend-ed to by a pass-ing wood-qi mas-ter, but it had been years.


    Sobon rolled the aether rou-tines that the Coro-na had giv-en her through her mind, ap-pre-ci-at-ing the in-dex that the AI had im-print-ed on her, though she still wasn''t sure on the de-tails of how the ad-vanced aether tech worked. Rather than fo-cus-ing on that, Sobon com-pared the pieces, try-ing to plot out a rel-a-tive-ly sim-ple bar-ri-er sys-tem. The ba-sics were sim-ple enough; the ab-solute min-i-mum was des-ig-nat-ed by a cen-tral point and a ra-dius, but Sobon chose a des-ig-nat-ed-space bar-ri-er, and carved small re-lay points into each ex-te-ri-or cor-ner of the inn, then went around and carved an-oth-er set near the roof, work-ing re-mote-ly with left-hand aether.


    Ide-al-ly, the bar-ri-er ori-gin would be at the cen-ter of it all, but in-stead Sobon went back into Alas-si''s room and found a wa-ter pitch-er large enough to con-tain all the in-scrip-tions she would need. Con-nect-ing to points with-out a reg-u-lar geom-e-try took more work, but Sobon was just pleased to have her mind rel-a-tive-ly clear for what felt like the first time since com-ing to this blast-ed, back-wards, hell-soaked plan-et.


    Alas-si watched the pro-ceed-ings, gen-er-al-ly dis-con-tent. [ The ma-te-ri-als won''t hold, ] the old woman grouched in-side of Sobon''s head. [ The wood might have enough qi ca-pac-i-ty to hold against an iron rank, or maybe a sil-ver, but that pitch-er can-not hold or chan-nel even a cop-per star of qi. ]


    Sobon''s analy-sis wasn''t dif-fer-ent, ex-act-ly, but she shrugged it off. [ It doesn''t have to hold, ] she replied. [ Most of the en-er-gy shouldn''t even be flow-ing through the ma-te-ri-als. ]


    Alas-si''s men-tal pro-jec-tion shift-ed un-com-fort-ably at that. [ That was al-ways the the-o-ry, ] the old-er woman hedged, [ but in prac-tice... ]


    Sobon shrugged off her con-cern. [ The geom-e-try is com-pli-cat-ed, and it''d be strange if you could de-sign it right with-out the math. Trust that I''ve done this be-fore. ] Left un-said was that the prob-lem didn''t dis-ap-pear, even if the prop-er geom-e-try helped. [ Sim-i-lar-ly, the col-lec-tion al-go-rithm here shouldn''t be hold-ing en-er-gy in the ma-te-r-i-al. ] When fin-ished, she set the pitch-er down, prim-ing the scripts with en-er-gy, and watched the aether col-lect.


    Any use-ful test would take time for the en-er-gy to ac-cu-mu-late, but Sobon''s mind was al-ready mov-ing for-ward, to oth-er things she could do.

 18. Alassi - Awakening, Part 6

    The next morn-ing, Lui came to Alas-si''s room ear-ly, look-ing un-com-fort-able. "Grand-ma..." the girl looked at her earnest-ly. "I think Mian is com-ing back, and oth-ers are with him."


    Sobon took that for the warn-ing it was. Af-ter ris-ing and hav-ing a de-cent break-fast, Sobon linked with the de-fense sys-tem, along with an-oth-er pat-tern she had en-graved on an old bro-ken mop broom han-dle, which she con-cealed in the back of her blouse. It was only a pro-to-type--a hand-held bar-ri-er in the shape of a blade, pow-ered by left-hand aether, with an-oth-er sim-ple can-non script cov-er-ing the bot-tom end of it, like the one she had used on the pi-rate ship, ca-pa-ble of left or in-ner fir-ing. Sobon hoped there would be no need for it, but she hadn''t the slight-est trust for any-one in this world. For sim-i-lar rea-sons, Sobon spun up her dy-namos, col-lect-ing as much thread as she could, and prepar-ing them for what-ev-er may be com-ing.


    By the time sev-er-al fig-ures came up the road, Sobon was con-vinced that her prepa-ra-tions were not mere-ly para-noid. Among the fig-ures, Alas-si rec-og-nized only two--Mian, who was bound and dragged along by one of the guards, and an old-er man in a def-er-en-tial po-si-tion that Alas-si rec-og-nized as the city leader of the town Mian had gone to. At the lead was a younger man with his aura blaz-ing--al-though Sobon not-ed that the aether geom-e-try of it seemed wrong for the num-ber and col-or of stars he was dis-play-ing. To his right was a man who held him-self se-vere-ly, and who was most-ly cov-ered in var-i-ous pieces of heavy cloth, in-clud-ing all of his face but his eyes, eyes that locked onto Sobon in-stant-ly.


    That body-guard, since that must be what he was, had a lev-el of qi Sobon had not seen yet--well above the man who he es-cort-ed. It was a firm qi, but it had a strange qual-i-ty to it, shed-ding mul-ti-ple col-ored hues with-out be-ing the gem-like, opales-cent sheen that Sobon re-called from the reaper''s scythe. Sobon wasn''t sure where to rank him, and nei-ther did Alas-si--al-though they both agreed, word-less-ly, that he was above their lev-el. Ac-cord-ing to Alas-si, he was in a ''realm'' above her--hav-ing passed out of the less-er met-als and into the greater ones, al-though Sobon didn''t pry into the de-tails.


    Be-hind the no-ble--or what-ev-er he was--was one group of sol-diers, and be-hind the town leader was an-oth-er. With-out a doubt, the young no-ble had the stronger and bet-ter equipped group of guards, but both groups had enough to cause trou-ble for a group of nor-mal peo-ple--or, if their in-ten-tions were pure, enogh to lead the refugees away safe-ly. Some-how, Sobon doubt-ed it was the last.


    The no-ble and his body-guard called their rid-ing beasts to a stop well into the clear-ing where the inn sat, and he sneered at Sobon, ini-tial-ly dis-re-gard-ing her. "Let the war-rior who slew the in-no-cent mer-chants I hired step foward! On my hon-or, I will see jus-tice done!"


    Sobon''s spir-it re-mained even as she stepped for-ward. "They were no in-no-cent men," she said, ig-nor-ing the many and pan-icked in-stincts from Alas-si to bow down be-fore the man.


    The young no-ble raised his head to look down his nose at Sobon. "You? A pa-thet-ic woman was the one who killed my dear mer-chant friends?"


    "They were slavers," Sobon said, keep-ing her eyes more on the body-guard, who as yet had shown no de-sire to move.


    "You shall not call my friends such things, and you shall bow be-fore this young mas-ter!" With his last words, the no-ble en-forced an aether wave, one that pressed down on every-one be-fore him. Sobon, calm-ly, re-leased her right-hand aether dy-namos, re-sist-ing the wave with-out break-ing her pos-ture.


    "When you are de-serv-ing of re-spect, you shall get it," Sobon replied, grim-ly.


    As if notic-ing at last that Sobon was in-deed a war-rior, the no-ble leaped from his rid-ing beast--a horse, ac-cord-ing to Alas-si--and land-ed not five feet in front of her. Ar-ro-gant-ly, he laid hands on the sword at his waist, but only pushed it back slight-ly, rather than draw-ing it or rest-ing on the pom-mel. "I am of the no-ble house of Mofu," he said, "and I am worth more than your en-tire lin-eage com-bined. You will BOW!"


    Even with the clos-er range, and more di-rect at-ten-tion, Sobon suf-fered the at-tack calm-ly, still keep-ing her eyes on the body-guard, who still showed no signs of act-ing.


    "If I may, young mas-ter," the city lord stepped for-ward. Sobon hadn''t even no-ticed him dis-mount-ing, and didn''t par-tic-u-lar-ly think to care. "This woman is known as Alas-si, an old Witch of the west who served the Di-a-mond Lord for many years and was re-tired af-ter be-ing wound-ed."


    "Oh, I see," the no-ble, sneered, and Sobon felt like dirty aether was be-ing spat out at him with the words. "So her dis-re-spect is not out of ig-no-rance, then. All the more rea-son why--"


    "What ev-i-dence do you have," Sobon pro-ject-ed her voice with a touch of her body''s qi, sim-ply be-cause she didn''t know how to do it with raw aether. It made the no-ble flinch, just slight-ly, and kept all eyes on her. "that what I have said is false, and that these men were in-no-cent? Es-pe-cial-ly giv-en that the slaves they were car-ry-ing are still here and can ac-count for their own his-to-ry?"


    The no-ble, at that, un-sheathed his sword and lev-elled it at Sobon''s face. Sobon, her body still suf-fused with fresh aether, ticked up her body in-sincts a lev-el, watch-ing the sword com-ing in slow mo-tion just long enough to know that the move was a threat and not an at-tack. So, she re-leased the boost and al-lowed the sword to come to a stop inch-es from her face, keep-ing a calm ex-pres-sion.


    "I swear on the house of Mofu that my words are true," he said with a snarl, "and I will fight to have sat-is-fac-tion from any-one who sug-gests oth-er-wise." With the last words, he re-leased some-thing in his spir-it--and as Sobon had guessed, his ap-par-ent qi lev-el rose from some mud-dled Sil-ver stars to three gold-en spikes. It was an im-pres-sive dis-play--es-pe-cial-ly since Sobon had nev-er reached gold-en qi yet, and had no cer-tain-ty about what that qi lev-el re-al-ly meant.


    Alas-si, though, was con-fi-dent that she had no chance to fight, even though Sobon had bro-ken her spir-it into the Sil-ver range al-ready the evening be-fore--with an ac-com-pa-ny-ing ex-plo-sion of black sludge from her body, sim-i-lar to what Ki''el had un-der-gone af-ter the bat-tle on the pi-rate ship. Even with the fresh aether Sobon was bring-ing in slow-ly in-creas-ing her qi ca-pac-i-ty, it seemed to the old crone a lost cause. That... didn''t mean all that much to Sobon, re-al-ly, but she not-ed it re-gard-less. It was a poor sol-dier that didn''t at least lis-ten when oth-ers ex-pressed con-cern.


    "You wish to duel me to prove my words false?" Sobon let her voice re-main calm, which was no small feat at this point in the con-flict. Not for the first or last time, she thought long-ing-ly about sim-pler times, when her body was a tech-no-log-i-cal pros-thet-ic loaded with aether weapon-ry, and not an eas-i-ly pro-voked sack of meat. Alas-si''s body was re-act-ing to the high-er qi of her op-po-nent, even with Sobon flush-ing it out with pure aether. And al-though it pan-icked Alas-si to hear the words come out of her mouth, Sobon con-tin-ued, "Such a pa-thet-ic ex-cuse for jus-tice."


    Giv-en the re-ac-tions of sev-er-al peo-ple around, that was the worst thing Sobon could have said, no mat-ter how much she might be-lieve it.


    "Bold of you. Very well," said the young no-ble, with-dr-waing his sword. "If you can en-dure three strikes from this young mas-ter, I will for-give the deaths of my sworn broth-ers. And if you can-not..." Sobon could tan-gi-bly feel the no-ble''s at-ten-tion as it wan-dered across her body, set-tling on the very few places that in-ter-est-ed the young man. "You will serve me, for the rest of your life."


    Sobon con-sid-ered, study-ing the qi of the no-ble to the best of her abil-i-ty. Af-ter a mo-ment, she nod-ded. "I will agree, as long as the... young mas-ter agrees to also take one strike from me."


    Pre-dictably, the no-ble threw his head back and laughed, dirty qi leak-ing into his voice, the black tar-like aether splat-ter-ing on those who heard it. "Take a blow from you? A re-tired, crip-pled sil-ver cul-ti-va-tor?" Some-how, de-spite hav-ing a sword in his hand and rel-a-tive-ly nar-row sleeves, the man shucked him-self out of his shirt, ex-pos-ing his bare chest, and threw his arms out wide. "I in-vite it! Take your best shot, you pa-thet-ic ex-cuse for an old hag!"


    Sobon stud-ied the man even as she reached for her hid-den im-ple-ment. She saw the body-guard sif-f-en as she found the broom han-dle, but when she re-vealed it as noth-ing more than a length of wood, he re-laxed, as did those in the no-ble''s guard.


    The no-ble him-self found him-self un-able to look down on Sobon any hard-er than he al-ready was, and sim-ply stood there, gloat-ing and en-joy-ing his last mo-ments in the sun.


    You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Sobon could ack-owledge, though, that the qi lay-ers around the young no-ble''s body were thick, and an-oth-er aether field pro-ject-ed out-wards, form-ing a bar-ri-er that would dull any at-tack. The pi-rate cap-tain had some-thing sim-i-lar--be-tween the two, he had tanked a tru-ly dead-ly blow to the head, sur-pris-ing Sobon, and she had no rea-son to think the man be-fore her was less pro-tect-ed.


    How-ev-er, Sobon was con-cerned with the over-all struc-ture of the man''s aether, and if he had guessed cor-rect-ly, it had a glar-ing weak-ness that he doubt-ed any of the lo-cals would grasp. It was the sort of thing that Sobon him-self was poor-ly trained in--a Fairy of the Mixed Marines would know bet-ter the ins and outs of per-son-al aether, but Sobon was most-ly sure that there was one spot in par-tic-u-lar where the man''s aether cir-cu-lat-ed back in af-ter ex-press-ing the out-er shield.


    So Sobon ac-ti-vat-ed the sword-pro-jec-tion bar-ri-er over her stick, then care-ful-ly, and sub-tly, lay-ered a sin-gle thread of her own aether along the edge of the weapon. Then, with the no-ble still grand-stand-ing, she moved for-ward, only to duck and turn, spin-ning in an awk-ward way in or-der to force the blade into the out-er bar-ri-er from a cer-tain spot, with a cer-tain an-gle.


    Those watch-ing no-ticed his qi shiv-er with the blow, but saw noth-ing else. The blade not only didn''t pen-e-trate his flesh--it wasn''t even aimed at it.


    But Sobon let her thread of qi get car-ried away into the no-ble''s own aether, forc-ing it through at least one fil-ter or in-ter-nal de-fense, un-til it reached some spot deep with-in where the man''s aether was gath-ered. When she reached it, Sobon stepped away, spin-ning up an In-flow aether dy-namo and press-ing it into the can-non script, tar-get-ting the spot in the aether that her own aether thread had just reached.


    Un-like the bar-ri-er pro-jec-tion, the can-non script con-sumed enough en-er-gy to flash-char the broom han-dle, but Sobon sensed a pulse, and watched the no-ble''s face flash with con-fu-sion... and fear.


    "Hah!" One of the no-ble''s guards was point-ing at Sobon, mock-ing-ly. "The witch doesn''t even know how to use a broom, let alone a sword." There were oth-er voic-es of agree-ment, but Sobon only had eyes for the no-ble--and for this body-guard.


    The lat-ter was just as con-cerned as the for-mer, but Sobon saw noth-ing in his face that in-di-cat-ed he was about to in-ter-fere.


    The no-ble, though, reached up to grasp a spot in his chest which Sobon sup-posed must have been where the aether pool might have been, and his sword dropped limply from his fin-gers. "This bitch..." he mum-bled to him-self, only once, al-though Alas-si echoed a thought that she seemed to hear through her Qi core. ...she cracked my dant-ian!


    Sobon, in prepa-ra-tion, brought up his makeshift bar-ri-er blade, and be-fore he was even ful-ly ready to block, the man had charged her, putting a wave of qi into a quick but dev-as-tat-ing punch that in-stant-ly knocked Sobon back ten feet or more. He was also charg-ing again, but Sobon ducked and moved into a dif-fer-ent po-si-tion, rais-ing the blade to block an-oth-er strike, which the man re-leased as a for-ward kick.


    The blow sent Sobon clean through the door to the inn, which shat-tered into pieces, rain-ing shrap-nel in-side.


    Sobon, though, was al-ready con-nect-ing to the sim-ple de-fense script she''d laid over the house, and she poured all of her own dy-namos into the reser-voir even as she ac-ti-vat-ed it. She hadn''t yet done a full test--but the script was very sim-ple, at least in lay-out. She found her-self un-sur-prised when the bar-ri-er slipped into place at the out-side of the door-way.


    Still, with her body''s own qi and her dy-namos all with-in range of Sobon''s mind, she found her-self stretched a bit thin, so she con-nect-ed the con-trols, such as they were, to her left hand, hold-ing it out to one side to re-mind him-self no to use it in com-bat. There wasn''t much she could do, ex-cept raise and low-er the bar-ri-er, and chan-nel more en-er-gy in--but sep-a-ra-tion of du-ties was a sim-ple and nec-es-sary task when han-dling so many fac-tors at once.


    The no-ble, with-out com-ment, charged the bar-ri-er, but clear-ly sensed it, and struck out at it with a gold-en fist, and then an-oth-er, and then two palm strikes. Each of them was a sig-nif-i-cant blow, but the sim-plic-i-ty of the bar-ri-er pat-tern be-lied a sim-ple truth: a pat-tern with a pure na-ture and pur-pose was more pow-er-ful and en-er-gy ef-fi-cient than a spoiled brat with a tem-per tantrum.


    At least, one of a sim-i-lar pow-er, and Sobon was just close enough to the man''s high-er lev-el of qi to be able to soak the blows with what she thought might be a three-to-two en-er-gy ra-tio. That means she was stil los-ing en-er-gy faster than him... blow for blow, at least.


    There were many cries from out-side, of "Young mas-ter!" and the like, but Sobon stepped back to the door-way and looked out from just this side of the bar-ri-er, study-ing the no-ble''s face. Un-like him, Sobon was still calm, al-though her pulse was rac-ing, and Sobon thought that Alas-si was at least a lit-tle ex-cit-ed to see the sweaty, mus-cled, half-naked man star-ing dag-gers at her. Not the kind of ex-cit-ed where she would will-ing-ly lose, or even re-spect the man--but in-ter-nal-ly, the woman liked what she saw.


    Sobon... did not. "I be-lieve that was three blows," she said, sim-ply, rais-ing the bar-ri-er sword in her oth-er hand as though in warn-ing.


    The city leader stepped for-ward, pro-ject-ing his voice. "Since you are from the west, Witch Alas-si, I will re-mind you that in these ar-eas, you are only al-lowed to use pat-terns that you laid dur-ing a duel or car-ry on your per-son. Even if you laid these en-grav-ings your-self, you still must take one more blow from Young Mas-ter Mofu to sat-is-fy the duel."


    For what-ev-er rea-son, though, Mofu was al-ready charg-ing up an-oth-er at-tack. It was clear he was un-will-ing to ac-cept that the bar-ri-er was too strong for him to pen-e-trate--and Sobon knew that he was los-ing Aether through his wound-ed... dant-ian? What-ev-er the aether stor-age place was that Sobon had dam-aged in her at-tack. And she was sure she had done dam-age--the blow was less pow-er-ful than the one that has splat-tered the pi-rate cap-tain''s head like over-ripe fruit, but then, Sobon hadn''t tar-get-ted any part of his phys-i-cal body with it.


    When us-ing in-flow to pow-er an at-tack like that, it passed like a ghost through many kinds of de-fens-es, reap-par-ing only at its tar-get, un-like the heavy beam that left aether fired out us-ing the same pat-tern. The Crestan Mil-i-tary had nev-er found a par-tic-u-lar-ly ef-fi-cient de-fense against those kinds of can-nons--and in-stead ded-i-cat-ed mul-ti-ple de-fense nodes to pro-duc-ing out-spin bar-ri-er fields, just in case. What-ev-er de-fens-es this young no-ble had against qi at-tacks, they did not re-spond to his sud-den and vi-o-lent at-tack, just as the pi-rate cap-tain didn''t.


    Still, he was alive, a kind-ness that Sobon was liv-ing to re-gret. In-stead of wor-ry-ing, Sobon over-charged the bar-ri-er on her blade, study-ing the young mas-ter as he poured what qi re-mained into his right hand.


    "You will suf-fer for what you did to me, witch," the no-ble said, and his qi ra-di-at-ed the name of his at-tack, even as he lined up a knife-hand thrust. Sobon could feel the man''s in-tent, as he pre-pared to pierce through the bar-ri-er around the house and straight into Sobon''s skull.


    Sobon raised the broom han-dle come bar-ri-er blade, point-ing the tip right through the pro-jec-tion of the war-rior''s in-tent, and nod-ded at him.


    [ Di-vine Blade Hand ]


    The qi that fell in be-hind the at-tack was prob-a-bly greater than his three gold stars of raw qi po-ten-tial, Sobon would lat-er judge. It pierced into the inn''s bar-ri-er, blow-ing at first a small hole in the bar-ri-er, and then forc-ing wave af-ter wave of cut-ting in-tent through widen-ing the gap over the course of per-haps a sec-ond, but no more than that, un-til there was more than enough room his arm to break through. And that is when Sobon, af-ter care-ful-ly lin-ing her-self up, re-leased the inn''s bar-ri-er, point-ing the very tip of the bar-ri-er blade right down the cen-ter of the no-ble''s pierc-ing blade hand.


    By the time any-one else could see what had hap-pened, the no-ble''s arm was split from fin-ger-tip to mid-bi-cep, the line of Sobon''s blade hav-ing carved a per-fect-ly straight line through the blow. That was not on Sobon''s skill, though, or not alone; Sobon had not swung the blade, or tak-en a step for-ward, only stood there with it ex-tend-ed in front of her.


    The no-ble screamed, and for some rea-son that Sobon couldn''t fath-om, in spite of all bi-o-log-i-cal sense, the man''s qi-heavy blood sim-ply ex-plod-ed from the wound, scat-ter-ing out in quan-ti-ties that made very lit-tle, if any, sense. The young mas-ter stepped back, one arm try-ing to cra-dle the oth-er--but his right arm be-gan to fall into two pieces, and he twitched, like his nerves could not han-dle it.


    Sobon only pieced to-geth-er the or-der of what fol-lowed, lat-er.


    It was only af-ter the city leader said, "That counts as three blows, and so, the Witch Alas-si has won the duel." Only then did the young lord''s body-guard spring into ac-tion, and al-though Sobon was still in a men-tal step-up, he could only bare-ly see the young lord be-ing pulled away to safe-ty with blood-red rags that ra-di-at-ed in-tense qi. By the time Sobon had processed the lord be-ing tele-port-ed back and away, the body-guard had wrapped his en-tire arm with ban-dages, and Sobon sensed com-plex work-ings of qi around the arm that were too un-fa-mil-iar for her to parse.


    Sobon stepped for-ward, keep-ing her bar-ri-er blade at the ready, al-though the etch-ings on it had burned away at the wood af-ter tak-ing that blow, and she doubt-ed it would sur-vive more than an-oth-er strike. Still, the no-ble''s guards tensed at the mere ex-is-tence of the blade, and that seemed enough.


    The city leader was look-ing to the body-guard, though, and had af-fect-ed a more rigid, up-stand-ing pos-ture than be-fore. "Then, ac-cord-ing to the young mas-ter''s own word, the house of Mofu has no ob-jec-tion to us pay-ing out a boun-ty and re-leas-ing the ac-cused."


    The body-guard turned to him, ra-di-at-ing qi in-tent at a lev-el that Sobon her-self was un-sure she could have tak-en at that range, but packed it away af-ter only a mo-ment. And al-though he brought his qi re-lease back down to a rea-son-able lev-el, Sobon was still ter-ri-fied when the body-guard turned to-wards her, and tele-port-ed for-ward through a good fif-teen feet as though with a sin-gle step.


    And the guard clasped his hands to-geth-er in a salute and bowed, his qi even.


    "On be-half of the young mas-ter," he said, his voice deep and res-o-nant, "I thank the Mas-ter Alas-si for spar-ing his life, and af-firm that the terms giv-en by the young mas-ter will be up-held, on the hon-or of our fam-i-ly."


    Sobon bare-ly had time to con-sid-er re-ply-ing, be-fore the man had loaded his lord up on his horse and was al-ready or-der-ing the rest of the fam-i-ly''s per-son-al guards to form up and lead away.


    Sobon was sur-prsied when the city leader made a noise, but the body-guard turned back.


    "There is the mat-ter of the boun-ty," he said, try-ing his best to sound stern. "You re-call that in my of-fice, the young mas-ter--"


    With-out an-oth-er word, the body-guard fetched a pouch of coins and threw it at the city lord''s feet, and then they were gone.

 19. Alassi - Ascension, Part 1

    "I seem to re-call," Shi-da Ken tried to keep his voice even, as be-fit his sta-tion as Lord of the city of Emer-ald Val-ley, de-spite want-i-ng very bad-ly to cow-er or kow-tow be-fore the Blood Witch, es-pe-cial-ly now that she seemed to be wor-thy of a new name, "that you promised me you were re-tired." He was sit-ting along with her at one of the ta-bles in the inn, now a good half hour af-ter the Young Lord Mofu Suno had de-part-ed. Every-one else was out-side, at his re-quest, and guards were mak-ing sure they had a lit-tle bit of pri-va-cy.


    "That was a long time ago," Alas-si''s voice was strange. In truth, in her bear-ing and qi, the city lord saw a dif-fer-ent per-son--a per-son that had more vi-brance to her than he had ever seen. It was not sim-ply the quan-ti-ty of her qi--and al-though he knew her to be at least a Sil-ver-ranked Cul-ti-va-tor now, he sus-pect-ed she was still hid-ing her depths. She had, af-ter all, beat-en a Gold-ranked Cul-ti-va-tor in a di-rect, one on one con-test, even if... even if many would not con-sid-er it a fair con-test.


    If any-one ac-cused the city lord of bias, he would yield. But in the mo-ment, he had done what he be-lieved hon-or de-mand-ed. In truth, it seemed like Alas-si should have lost, but there was a sharp-ness to her spir-it, like a blade un-dulled by time, which to his knowl-edge she sim-ply should not have had.


    "Then you should be long re-tired," the lord said, but mea-sured his words with as gen-tle a smile as he could sum-mon un-der the cir-cum-stances. "And yet I feel you are younger to-day than you were back then, Blood Witch Alas-si."


    Alas-si''s mouth twitched, as though in dis-dain for the name. "Not younger. But I have found new strength and pur-pose. I do not ex-pect I will stay."


    Ken con-sid-ered the words, un-sure whether he want-ed to cel-e-brate or feel di-gust-ed. What she had done would stir up the no-ble house of Mofu, and they would re-turn with-out ques-tion. If Ken could pre-sent her when they re-turned, he would be in no dan-ger; if he could re-port that she had left, it would only be mild dan-ger for him. But if he sug-gest-ed that she was leav-ing and had not yet...


    "When do you plan to leave?" He chose not to ask where. Al-though he had re-spect-ed the Blood Witch when he was--when they were both younger, for her ac-com-plish-ments and for help-ing his broth-er in the war, Alas-si had shown no in-ter-est in him or in any-one at all, not af-ter her hus-band died. To his un-der-stand-ing, she had re-mained pure--hav-ing loved one man, she would not touch an-oth-er. Hon-or-able, per-haps, though she was still very dan-ger-ous.


    "I must still re-cov-er my-self ful-ly." Alas-si paused, as though think-ing, and then added, "or per-haps, I must sim-ply break through to Gold. It will be eas-i-er af-ter that."


    "Gold is dif-fi-cult for those with-out the re-sources," Ken hedged in re-turn. "And even af-ter all of these years, you are only sil-ver--"


    "Last week, I was Iron," Alas-si said, dis-mis-sive-ly. "I will raise high-er. I have found both strength and pur-pose, Lord Shi-da. I do not ex-pect to stay long."


    As Alas-si was talk-ing, though, Ken saw her frown, and her eyes looked far off, for a mo-ment. Then, when they re-fo-cused on him... he could swear that they had a dif-fer-ent look to them, as though the woman had changed from one mo-ment to the next. And when she spoke again, her voice had a dif-fer-ent qual-i-ty, less cer-tain.


    "...though, Lord Shi-da, if you would mind shar-ing what you know of the Gold-en Ridge and the Gold-en Wall, I would cer-tain-ly ap-pre-ci-ate it."


    Shi-da Ken mea-sured her, un-sure of the tran-si-tion. "Are you...?"


    Alas-si just frowned at him, sud-den-ly more se-vere, with the vig-or from ear-li-er al-most giv-ing way to the depth of that frown. "I am in many ways a chan-nel for some-thing greater, Lord Shi-da. It is... a part of my pur-pose, if you will."


    Ken stud-ied her only an-oth-er mo-ment, be-fore re-lent-ing. "The Gold-en Wall is the break-through at the end of Gold Rank, and is said to be one of the trick-i-est chal-lenges, re-quir-ing peak con-di-tion of body and mind, as well as deep un-der-stand-ing of qi. The Gold-en Ridge is the tran-si-tion into the Gold Rank, and it is where I my-self am trapped. It is one of the many rea-sons why no-ble fam-i-lies have an eas-i-er time of it than non-no-bles. They say that the break-through it-self is a puz-zle--"


    With-out any warn-ing, Ken and Alas-si both were sur-prised when a sud-den force of qi grasped Alas-si''s qi core, and al-though Ken''s qi sens-es were not the clear-est, he saw with-out ques-tion that the force took her core into its hands, flip-ping it over and re-ar-rang-ing the core. Al-though Alas-si her-self was at that mo-ment only four Sil-ver Stars, her core de-vel-oped with a frankly un-heard of speed, push-ing it-self all the way to ten stars as though by force of will.


    Shi-da Ken watched with rapt at-ten-tion as the fa-mil-iar shape of a ten Sil-ver-star core ap-peared in the space be-fore him, and then the star peaks pulled out, stretch-ing the core un-til its depths were re-vealed. Only then were in-di-vid-ual star points re-leased, falling back into the core in time with a ry-th-mic cir-cu-la-tion that he al-most didn''t no-tice. And when the last point of the star fell into it, Alas-si''s core in-stant-ly snapped into a gold-en col-or, and Ken could sense be-hind it the be-gin-ning of Alas-si''s dant-ian, con-dens-ing in a space with-in her soul.


    Wit-ness-ing it, it was like a world fell open for Shi-da Ken, and al-though he didn''t con-scious-ly try, his spir-it also be-gan to break through.


    <hr>


    Sobon had only just start-ed to have a con-ver-sa-tion with this city leader, Lord Shi-da, when she re-ceived a ping from the Tidal Coro-na''s AI, re-quest-ing an im-me-di-ate men-tal-only con-tact from the Coro-na''s en-gi-neer-ing team.


    It was a lit-tle more com-pli-cat-ed than that. In truth, the Coro-na for-ward-ed a pack-e-tized thought re-quest, the brevi-ty of which im-me-di-ate-ly cought Sobon''s at-ten-tion. The in-tu-itive-ra-tio-nal con-cept asked Sobon whether he could hold a con-densed-thought-stream con-ver-sa-tion--es-sen-tial-ly a chat stream formed of full-thought-sized data-grams.


    This was vast-ly more in-ter-est-ing than lo-cal pol-i-tics, so she left Alas-si to deal with the lo-cal of-fi-cial, ded-i-cat-ing her own thoughts ex-clu-sive-ly to the task. Alas-si ap-par-ent-ly knew him, any-way, so Sobon fig-ured it was sim-ply bet-ter this way.


    There was only a brief pro-to-col ne-go-ti-a-tion, which told Sobon she was deal-ing with some-one who had been cy-ber-en-hanced for many years. Al-though she was un-fa-mil-iar with Ri''lef pro-to-cols, and they were un-fa-mil-iar with Crestan ones, they set-tled on stan-dard trade pro-to-cols, and then took a brief dal-liance to each ex-tend those pro-to-cols in fa-mil-iar ways. Sobon found the Ri''lef pro-to-cols a bit noisy, full of what seemed at first to be re-dun-dant chan-nels, though he ex-pect-ed they were there to trans-mit nu-ances that he had nev-er been trained in.


    [ You are the (sum-moned) war-rior, ] the Ri''lef en-gi-neer sent as part of their open-ing ne-go-ti-a-tions. [ I am K''val, (In-dus-tri-al Sec-ond) of the Coro-na En-gi-neer-ing crew. ] Sobon replied with his name, rank, and se-cure sig-na-ture to-ken. Then they both paused for their ne-go-ti-a-tions, dur-ing which Sobon re-ceived as part of a re-ply the de-cod-ed af-fir-ma-tion string buried in his sig-na-ture to-ken--mean-ing that the en-gi-neer had not only suc-cess-ful-ly de-cod-ed it, but cho-sen to say so. Sobon added a emo-tion-al over-lay of plea-sure on her next re-turn pack-et, and the two left that ex-change there.


    His? Her? Now that Sobon was op-er-at-ing, in part, as his old self, the lines were blurred again, but af-ter a mo-ment, he con-sid-ered it to re-al-ly not mat-ter one way or an-oth-er. If any-thing, get-ting too into his old per-sona would make his adap-ta-tion to Alas-si hard-er, so she tried to keep that in the fore-front, al-though she doubt-ed it would mat-ter at all to the Ri''lef.


    [ I have been tasked with both as-sist-ing you and cen-sur-ing you, ] K''val sent to-wards the tail end of their pro-to-col ne-go-ta-tions. [ I was (told) by the Coro-na that you are aware we are en-gi-neer-ing (the aether-sphere) of this plan-et. You are at-tempt-ing to in-te-grate non-lo-cal aether pro-to-cols into the (plan-e-tary mythol-o-gy). This is al-ready hav-ing an im-pact on our abil-i-ty to con-trol the sit-u-a-tion. ] Sobon had to cross-ref-er-ence some of the in-tu-itive con-cepts, and the two had a brief four-pack-et spat over the de-f-i-n-i-tion of (plan-e-tary mythol-o-gy), with Sobon fi-nal-ly ac-knowl-edg-ing that the Ri''lef en-gi-neer doubt-less un-der-stood the con-cept bet-ter.


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    [ To date, this has been nec-es-sary for my sur-vival, ] Sobon re-turned. [ In every in-car-na-tion so far, I have put up against forces too dan-ger-ous to sur-vive with the re-sources avail-able. I also am giv-en to un-der-stand that the lo-cal aether pro-gres-sion is de-lib-er-ate-ly slowed and gat-ed, which may make my mis-sion dif-fi-cult. ]


    [ Your un-der-stand-ing is nat-u-ral-ly cor-rect. Even with all of our en-gi-neered de-vel-op-men-tal (gates) and tools, lo-cal (aether war-riors) are reach-ing un-in-tend-ed lev-els, and specif-i-cal-ly, reach-ing them with-out un-der-stand-ing the eth-i-cal con-se-quences. This has all been com-pli-cat-ed by the nec-es-sary cre-ation of (Star-beasts) for our own use and de-fense, which has only been seen by the lo-cals as some com-bi-na-tion of in-va-sion and re-source. ]


    This time, with some clar-i-ty, the Ri''lef fol-lowed with a full, mul-ti-pack-et men-tal con-cept of what the lo-cals called Star-beasts. They were, as Sobon ex-pect-ed, bio-engi-neered aether-adapt-ed an-i-mals, al-though she was sur-prised to dis-cov-er the point. Star-beasts lived specif-i-cal-ly to rapid-ly adapt to tox-ic lev-els of aether, form-ing a core that could serve as a re-place-ment for aether-tol-er-ant ma-te-ri-als nec-es-sary to re-pair their star-ship. If the Coro-na could har-vest enough of them, they could, in the-o-ry, re-pair their star-ship in place, al-though the re-sult would be vast-ly in-fe-ri-or to the re-pairs even the shod-di-est space-dock would have made.


    [ These cores the lo-cals seem so in-ter-est-ed in are noth-ing but ma-te-ri-als? ] Sobon con-sid-ered the pack-et fur-ther as she sent the re-ply, get-ting an-oth-er rel-a-tive-ly long an-swer back.


    [ We are aware of their val-ue to the lo-cals. It is un-for-tu-nate, but our cal-cu-la-tions sug-gest that if we in-ter-rupt their har-vest-ing of (Star-beast Cores), the rel-a-tive sta-bil-i-ty of our cur-rent sit-u-a-tion will evap-o-rate. The cores can be in-te-grat-ed into their (aether bod-ies) to sta-bi-lize them, al-low-ing them to use aether above the nor-mal tox-i-c-i-ty lim-it. As long as they be-lieve they can har-vest the cores with im-puni-ty, we hope they will re-main dis-tract-ed from your tar-get. ]


    Sobon didn''t miss the change in con-ver-sa-tion. [ What can you tell me about the tar-get? ]


    The re-turn pack-et was in-stan-te-nous, as the Ri''lef was ex-pect-ing the ques-tion. [ I need to know to what de-gree you and your race are cleared by the Founders, and no lies. The Coro-na will be mon-i-tor-ing your re-sponse. ]


    Sobon didn''t both-er try-ing to test the lim-its. [ I be-lieve the term the founders use for our race is (Ex-ter-nal-ini-ti-ate). In-di-vid-u-als have been cleared for some in-ter-nal mat-ters, and we are giv-en limt-ed trade rights. I have no per-son-al con-tact with any mem-ber of the Founder race and no spe-cial clear-ances. ]


    Again, a very fast re-ply. [ Would you be will-ing to sub-mit to Founder au-thor-i-ty in ex-change for the nec-es-sary clear-ance? This would only be a pre-lim-i-nary ap-proval, and you may nev-er be giv-en all of the de-tails you would re-quire for an op-ti-mal mis-sion. The plau-si-ble con-se-quence is not be-ing per-mit-ted by the Founders to re-turn to your plan-et with-out a sus-tained de-brief-ing. ]


    Sobon only spent a few mo-ments con-tem-plat-ing. [ I am a sol-dier. I was brought to this world af-ter dy-ing in an un-re-lat-ed mis-sion. I have no spe-cif-ic de-sire to re-turn to Crest. Ad-di-tion-al-ly, there are lo-cals I (have grown fond of). If there is a chance to sal-vage this sit-u-a-tion, I con-sid-er it a duty. I would ac-cept this con-se-quence to car-ry out the mis-sion. ]


    In-stead of a re-ply from the Ri''lef en-gi-neer, Sobon re-ceived an en-crypt-ed data-gram from the Coro-na, with no key. Only af-ter a brief in-ter-val did she re-ceive a fol-low up from the en-gi-neer.


    [ If any-one on the Coro-na crew, or any-one from the Founders, asks you to con-firm that you have been read into this agree-ment, you should re-peat the fol-low-ing phrase, and in-ter-pret it as best you can. It is a trans-la-tion of a Founder con-cept, one of the fun-da-men-tal so-cial con-cepts of their race. (It takes an en-tire (hand) to (grasp) the fu-ture.) This is con-cept is also the key to the data-gram you have been sent.]


    That was an odd thought. The en-tire phrase it-self was in-her-ent-ly-trans-lat-ed, rather than ren-dered in ei-ther of their lo-cal lan-guages, and the word (hand) was dou-ble-trans-lat-ed, with sev-er-al of the Ri''lef''s ex-tend-ed data chan-nels be-ing used to con-vey the sin-gle word. Their con-cept of a (hand)--that is, the bi-o-log-i-cal grip-per at the end of one''s arm--was metaphor-i-cal, but also phys-i-cal. A hand was made up of many pieces, bones, mus-cles, skin, and nerves, and all of them served a func-tion. If Sobon un-der-stood the phrase... each per-son was them-selves only a small part of a Hand. Maybe sev-er-al peo-ple made up each in-di-vid-ual part of a Hand. Grasp-ing, in con-trast, was a slight-ly metaphor-i-cal slant on the same, with some ex-tra de-tail on what it meant in con-text, but all of it un-der-stood from the con-text of the Hand.


    Sobon let those thoughts run off on their own, de-cod-ing the data pack-et with the packed con-cept of (hand). It showed, more or less, what Sobon had al-ready been told--it was a high-ly cen-sored di-a-gram for a Founder de-vice that was di-rect-ing the lo-cal aether in the vicin-i-ty. It ap-peared to con-nect to oth-er, cen-sored things, and had a place in-side that Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly sus-pect-ed was a con-trol room, but which was also cen-sored.


    [ That''s not much more than I gleaned from be-ing told the rough sit-u-a-tion by the cap-tain, ] Sobon said in re-ply. [ What can you tell me that''s use-ful? ]


    [ Not a lot, ] the en-gi-neer replied, with tone in-di-ca-tors for tired-ness and frus-tra-tion with au-thor-i-ty. [ Aether is a more com-pli-cat-ed con-cept than you may know. You may know it con-nects to oth-er aether across space and also across time, which means that it med-dles with (fate), among oth-er ad-vanced con-cepts. To do that re-quires a struc-ture that ex-ists for-wards and back-wards in time, and mod-i-fi-ca-tions can only hap-pen across the span of the struc-ture, with oth-er con-straints that both com-plex and se-cret. Cross-time ma-nip-u-la-tion con-sumes vast amounts of pow-er, and re-quires math that even our own great-est en-gi-neers can-not mod-el. ]


    [ In-stead of try-ing, the Founders iso-late as-pects of time med-dling as dis-tinct-ly fla-vored aether va-ri-eties whose be-hav-iors can be pre-dict-ed. Since be-fore this species ex-ist-ed, this plan-et''s bios-phere has been shaped ac-cord-ing to aether pat-terns to fall into one of the Founder child-pat-terns. The tar-get fa-cil-i-ty is re-lat-ed to that op-er-a-tion. ]


    That... the thought chilled Sobon, es-pe-cial-ly giv-en the fact the many re-sem-blances of this species to the species of Crest. The ob-vi-ous in-ti-ma-tion was that Crest was also a Founder child race, de-spite ex-ist-ing well out-side Founder-con-trolled space. [ What is the worst case sce-nario if they achieve con-trol over the fa-cil-i-ty? ]


    [ Ir-rel-e-vant, as the only plau-si-ble out-come would be ex-ter-mi-na-tion by the Founders. We are in a pro-tect-ed sec-tor, if a fringe one. There is no chance of any mem-ber of this species es-cap-ing be-fore a rou-tine Founder ex-am-i-na-tion, or a fol-low up to the Coro-na''s dis-ap-pear-ance, dooms this world. A more like-ly out-come would be that a failed at-tempt to use the fa-cil-i-ty has-tens the end of the world. ]


    Sobon rephrased the ques-tion, us-ing the Crestan ad-di-tion-al pro-to-col over-lays to add a struc-ture to the thoughts as she trans-mit-ted it, link-ing them to com-mon mil-i-tary terms and in-tents. [ (Op-er-a-tional pa-ra-me-ter): What are the chances that par-tial con-trol ren-ders our op-er-a-tion (mil-i-tar-i-ly un-fea-si-ble)? ]


    There was a pause, and then a se-ries of data-grams. Al-though they were clear-ly non-mil-i-tary thought, they showed suf-fi-cient clar-i-ty. Cer-tain of the en-er-gies could be ex-tract-ed to pro-duce su-pe-ri-or war-riors, but con-trol over the fa-cil-i-ty it-self would not pro-vide most of what Sobon feared. [ Clar-i-fi-ca-tion: The fa-cil-i-ty does not con-tain (su-pe-ri-or aether-based AI) ca-pa-ble of (retroac-tive time ma-nip-u-la-tion)? ]


    [ Con-firmed, ] came the re-ply. [ This is cen-sored in the di-a-gram, but I sus-pect you guessed, as most peo-ple would. The fa-cil-i-ty is in-tend-ed to be con-trolled by a Founder di-rect-ly. It nor-mal-ly links into a hy-per-space net-work and al-lows di-rect trav-el, pre-vent-ing the need for a res-i-dent ad-min-is-tra-tor. An anom-aly caused the net-work node to dis-en-gage, which called for our (ap-point-ment) to ad-dress the is-sue. We are (con-trac-tors) for Founder (work), not trust-ed with sen-si-tive is-sues, but ad-e-quate-ly read-in on Founder Poli-cies to be able to be dis-patched at much low-er cost and po-lit-i-cal (non-sense). ]


    Sobon men-tal-ly scoffed at the pseu-do-ra-tio-nal con-cept of po-lit-i-cal (non-sense), which she imag-ined was just one of many for-eign trans-la-tions of the same con-cept across cul-tures. Sobon would have trans-lat-ed the term more rude-ly, but then, she wasn''t in the Founders'' em-ploy. [ If you want me to not in-tro-duce Crestan aether tech into the plan-e-tary aether-sphere, you will need to give me ad-vanced point-ers on es-tab-lish-ing my-self as a war-rior. Cur-rent-ly, my (qi) lev-el is (four-star Sil-ver). ]


    The re-turn data-gram was fast, and fol-lowed up with sev-er-al oth-ers. [ I will get the Coro-na to pro-vide you a full data-base, but you must un-der-stand that the (plan-e-tary myth) must re-main in-tact. In truth, my per-son-al analy-sis sug-gests your (cy-cle and thorn) (aether-guide) can be in-te-grat-ed into the (plan-e-tary myth) with min-i-mal changes, but that is my su-pe-ri-or''s call, not mine. For now, un-der-stand that the gat-ing sys-tem, how-ev-er ar-bi-trary, ex-ists to pre-vent peo-ple from gain-ing pow-er they do not de-serve. It should not be seen as with-in an in-di-vid-ual''s abil-i-ty to as-cend as fast as you have. Some things con-sid-ered im-pos-si-ble should re-main im-pos-si-ble, at least by gen-er-al con-sen-sus. ]


    [ That said, most of the gat-ing is en-tire-ly ar-bi-trary, and here is a list of steps to get around them. Try not to be too vis-i-ble when you make use of them. ]


    Sobon didn''t even no-tice the sec-ond half of the mes-sage as she glanced through the packed data-grams, im-me-di-ate-ly ad-just-ing her-self up to the be-gin-ning of Gold Qi.

 20. Alassi - Ascension, Part 2

    Sobon was em-bar-rassed, and chas-tened, to dis-cov-er that her own im-me-di-ate and tran-scen-den-tal as-cen-sion had been wit-nessed by the City Lord, who had him-self im-me-di-ate-ly bro-ken through to First Star Gold Qi. It''s not as though it wasn''t her fault; she was just... frus-trat-ed, as she had been con-stant-ly from her first ar-rival on this plan-et. Be-ing able to get out of the ir-ri-tat-ing and me-an-der-ing kitchen line that was pow-er ad-vance-ment and be-gin step-ping for-wards felt like a sig-nif-i-cant re-lease, even if this one step meant lit-tle to her.


    Of course, now there was this to deal with, and im-me-di-ate-ly on the heels of be-ing told not to do ex-act-ly this. Sobon gen-tly pushed Alas-si out of the way and frowned at the man as he stared at his own hands, which had lost some of the signs of age they had. Sobon didn''t re-al-ly con-sid-er un-til she looked, but he showed signs of be-ing of sim-i-lar age to Alas-si--per-haps a bit old-er, but his body con-tained enough qi to look and be-have like a man decades younger.


    Sobon reg-is-tered her body''s at-trac-tion to the man, aca-d-e-m-i-cal-ly, and set it aside. Alas-si... was not quite so aca-d-e-m-ic, but Sobon ig-nored her.


    "Lord Shi-da." She let au-thor-i-ty fill her voice, au-thor-i-ty that rang true de-spite their match-ing qi lev-els. "I trust you un-der-stand me when I say that this must re-main se-cret."


    Im-me-di-ate-ly, the city lord was on the floor, bow-ing in what was a tru-ly pa-thet-ic at-tempt at be-ing gra-cious. "Of course, my Lady Alas-si. Of course. You--and this great pow-er that you serve--I swear my feal-ty, an that of the City of Emer-ald Val-ley, to you, and will nev-er cross you. What-ev-er you need from me, it would be a small an-swer to this grand gift."


    Sobon looked down at him, an-noyed. It was an un-der-stand-able tra-di-tion on such a bru-tal plan-et, of ab-solute sub-mis-sion, es-pe-cial-ly when giv-en a gift by a greater pow-er. But it was also dis-taste-ful. It had the stink of in-her-ent cor-rup-tion all over it--the trust that a man, or woman, could do no wrong, or could not be ques-tioned, sim-ply be-cause they were pow-er-ful. It was the same dis-gust-ing, back-wards think-ing that made that no-ble brat think he could prove some-thing false with a duel.


    "I do not in-tend to in-trude too much on your hos-pi-tal-i-ty." Even as she spoke, though, Sobon con-sid-ered. There was a very real chance that her mis-sion would last be-yond this life once again, and she had a very real de-sire to see Lui, and Ki''el, again. "I will ask one thing of you, how-ev-er. That any-one else who is con-nect-ed with... my pa-tron be tak-en care of, as long as they are in this city."


    "Of course, my Lady Alas-si."


    Again, that left Sobon feel-ing un-com-fort-able. "The name you will need to rec-og-nize, but should not speak to oth-ers, is ''Sobon''. That is the name of the high-er pa-tron. Cur-rent-ly, there are few who know that name, but if any-one, es-pe-cial-ly a younger per-son, comes to the city look-ing for ''Sobon'', I want you to make sure they are safe, and if fea-si-ble, let me know."


    "Of course, my Lady Alas-si."


    "It is also pos-si-ble that... that my mis-sion will fail, and an-oth-er... Cho-sen of Sobon will come here. They will be able to prove their iden-ti-ty. They will know you, and they should know any-one else who came here look-ing for Sobon."


    "Of course, my Lady Alas-si." There was a pause. "Ah, my lady... how is this ''Sobon'' spelled? It would help if you would cre-ate a Mark for me."


    Sobon bare-ly thought about it, tear-ing off a piece of near-by wood with aether and en-grav-ing a copy of her cy-borg au-then-ti-ca-tion to-ken onto it. When de-pict-ed graph-i-cal-ly, it was usu-al-ly a square grid filled with a num-ber of high-ly spe-cif-ic hash marks, with one line through the cen-ter that in-di-cat-ed the start-ing and end-ing place, and a few ticks along the out-side that could be used to de-ci-pher the en-cod-ing. Af-ter star-ing at it for a long mo-ment, though, Sobon erased it with a flash of pow-er and then sim-pli-fied the mark fur-ther.


    A sim-ple cy-cle and thorn, with a starfield around the thorn that Sobon gen-er-at-ed from the to-ken, but which didn''t ac-tu-al-ly con-tain all of the data. If the lo-cals want-ed to re-pro-duce or rec-og-nize the to-ken, the starfield would be sim-pler, but she would still be able to gen-er-ate one iden-ti-cal to the orig-i-nal. At the bot-tom of the to-ken, Sobon al-lowed Alas-si to spell his name in the lo-cal writ-ten script, dou-ble check-ing and mem-o-riz-ing it her-self af-ter-wards. Alas-si warned, how-ev-er, that most writ-ing in the lo-cal tongue was more nu-anced, us-ing ad-vanced char-ac-ters with mean-ing, and that a true lo-cal name would have at least a sec-ond mean-ing be-yond its pro-nun-ci-a-tion. That didn''t help, be-cause while Sobon''s name meant some-thing like ''Wa-verid-er'' in Crestan, it would not eas-i-ly trans-late.


    "This will do," she said, and Lord Shi-da looked up with some-thing like awe on his face, ac-cept-ing the to-ken and study-ing it. Af-ter a mo-ment, he put the to-ken into his robe, and bowed again, as though await-ing any more in-struc-tions.


    "As for now," Sobon said, when the si-lence made it ob-vi-ous he was still wait-ing for or-ders, "I will need to get go-ing soon. What-ev-er else hap-pens here... please make sure that Lui, my grand daugh-ter, is looked af-ter. She is one of the peo-ple that Sobon is look-ing to pro-tect."


    "Of course, my Lady Alas-si. I will pre-pare a res-i-dence for her, and you, and oth-ers of this... Or-der of Sobon."


    "That will be all." Sobon was al-ready sick of be-ing bowed and scraped to, and only felt more dis-gust-ed when the city lord got up and backed away, only to bow again at the en-trance to the room. Sobon sat in the room alone for sev-er-al min-utes, be-fore us-ing one of her dy-namos to blow out the stench of fear-soaked loy-al-ty out of the air.


    Af-ter a minute of fresh-er air, Sobon threw to-geth-er an aether pat-tern to send a brief mes-sage to the AI. [ Re-lay to (Ki''el). If you trav-el to the city of Emer-ald Vale, Sobon will be able to find you there. ] She wait-ed for the AI''s con-fir-ma-tion ping, then stepped out of the inn.


    Pre-dictably, many peo-ple were fuss-ing over many things. The res-cued civil-ians were wary around the city guard, and Mian was star-ing dag-gers at Lord Shi-da. Shi-da, him-self, had re-duced the ap-pear-ance of his core, a trick that Sobon was sure was in-clud-ed in the data pack-et K''val had pre-pared, but she had no time to study it at the mo-ment. Al-though she un-der-stood that there was a lot of pol-i-tics in-volved, both from the Ri''lef and the lo-cal no-bil-i-ty, in all hon-esty, she just didn''t care.


    "I do apol-o-gize," Lord Shi-da was say-ing, both to-wards Mian and to the rest. "If Young Mas-ter Mofu was not al-ready in the city, this all would have gone much more eas-i-ly. As it is... I can-not op-posse House Mofu di-rect-ly, and Young Mas-ter Mofu chose to hang the rep-u-ta-tion of his House on this." He frowned, look-ing se-vere. "Be-cause of this, the pos-si-bil-i-ty of reprisal is high. We will seek to re-turn you to where you be-long, but if we can-not..."


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Sobon was sure she could have pres-sured the Lord here, but in truth, she had no un-der-stand-ing at all of the lo-cal pol-i-tics, or where these peo-ple would have come from. She was also dim-ly aware that there were var-i-ous po-lit-i-cal tru-isms that ba-si-cal-ly boil down to, if you de-mand the im-pos-si-ble, you weak-en your own po-si-tion. So she turned her at-ten-tion in-stead to Mian, who looked up-set and unim-pressed.


    With a sub-tle pulse of aether, she turned his at-ten-tion to her, and he only glanced back at Lord Shi-da for a mo-ment be-fore turn-ing and walk-ing to-wards her. Al-though he stepped close, and kept his voice low, he re-fused to meet her eyes.


    "All this is bull-shit," Mian grum-bled. "I was jailed and beat-en. If he hopes that words alone will--"


    "Enough," Sobon said, tired-ly, keep-ing her own voice low. "If you want re-venge, it isn''t on him, and you know it."


    Mian paused, but set-tled and gave her a strange look. "Do you have a plan?"


    Sobon re-al-ized that he meant to take care of the no-bles, and frowned, con-sid-er-ing. "What do you know of House Mofu?"


    "Not much. They rule this part of Ijia, but it is a nar-row re-gion through the moun-tains. They have hun-dreds of war-riors and thou-sands of ser-vants, but I don''t know what the great-est of them are. Sap-phire, per-haps." He fi-nal-ly met Sobon''s eyes, and Sobon not-ed that the man was scared, what-ev-er else he may be think-ing or feel-ing. "I don''t be-lieve the cur-rent fam-i-ly head is even Amethyst ranked. Mithril was the last I re-mem-ber hear-ing, but that was long ago. I don''t fol-low those things."


    Alas-si sort-ed the lev-els men-tal-ly for him, al-though she didn''t know much. Mithril had to be the high-est rank of the next Met-al tier, and Amethyst the low-est of the less-er Gem rank. Sobon''s Gold rank was a full tier be-hind Mithril, with... what, four? Four dif-fi-cult break-throughs that she was sup-posed to need to clear, plus time to adapt to her new lev-el of pow-er, and (Alas-si as-sumed) time to find teach-ers who would pro-vide her with new ranks of abil-i-ties that took full ad-van-tage of her new strength.


    It wasn''t a bad as-sump-tion, though Sobon con-sid-ered it an un-der-whelm-ing ques-tion. Al-though her ba-sic can-non and grenade scripts could not, in fact, scale up to star-ship-grade pow-er, and while Qi as a con-cept was tan-gled enough that it was dif-fi-cult to in-tu-itive-ly scale the use of it up to high-er lev-els, Sobon was a Ma-rine, not a war-rior. On Crest, his pri-ma-ry train-ing was in cre-at-ing and us-ing aether-tech weapons that would ac-cept any amount of aether you could pos-si-bly in-ject into them. Grant-ed, it looked like the raw ma-te-ri-als to cre-ate those struc-tures were rel-a-tive-ly scarce--but they did ex-ist, and Sobon had just been told where to find them. In-deed, that the lo-cals were har-vest-ing them in large quan-ti-ties, for sale to the high-est bid-der.


    Still, Sobon shook her head. "Not in time to stop them if they re-turn for re-venge. I might be able..." she paused, al-low-ing Alas-si time to find an ad-e-quate phrase. "...As I am now, I doubt that a Ti-ta-ni-um-qi war-rior would be my match."


    Mian''s head raised slight-ly, as in sur-prise. "Your trick with the blade was im-pres-sive, but even so..."


    Sobon scoffed. "A weapon made in an evening with an old broom han-dle." Left un-said was that the ma-te-ri-als them-selves didn''t mat-ter much--Sobon could han-dle a bit more aether with-out prop-er ma-te-r-i-al, per-haps twice as much, but it wasn''t so sim-ple. Sobon didn''t need to do sim-ple... not un-less she was low on time.


    It would also help if Sobon had the time to com-pare qi in-scrip-tions to aether pat-terns, since the world aether was hos-tile to his own pat-terns, but none of that was a mat-ter for here and now.


    Mian gave her a strange look, seem-ing to mea-sure her words. "If you had prop-er spir-i-tu-al ma-te-ri-als..."


    "There is still much to do, and I can-not stay here." She not-ed his sur-prise, and frowned, re-al-iz-ing that she had hard-ly spo-ken with the tac-i-turn cook. "My des-tiny lies else-where, Mian."


    "Is that so." Mian stretched slight-ly, and lost some of the stiff-ness in his pos-ture. "When you lost your-self, I was be-gin-ning to think that there tru-ly was no hope in the world." He straight-ened, and looked at her. "Al-though you nev-er put me in your eyes, Alas-si, as long as you have any need of me, I will be at your side."


    Sobon held in her sur-prise, al-though Alas-si had a hard-er time of it. She stud-ied the slim Djang man, in body and in spir-it, and not-ed, again that he had been hold-ing back his own qi lev-els. Sud-den-ly, it sprung for-ward from the top of Cop-per Qi to four Iron stars--near-ly enough for him to pro-mote again to Sil-ver. Sobon raised an eye-brow at that, but the ear-ly tiers were much sim-pler, com-par-a-tive-ly. Still... did you even know he was chas-ing you, Alas-si?


    [ No, ] the old-er woman''s spir-it said, tired-ly. [ He was young when he showed up here. I know that he said he saw our unit com-ing through, and he was chas-ing the war-rior he thought he''d seen, but... ]


    Sobon let the thoughts pass her by and just looked at Mian. He was no longer young, though Sobon knew that he would get younger as he pro-gressed, as every-one seemed to. To have chased af-ter a woman, a war-rior, that he only saw pass-ing by... Sobon shook her head. "I can-not promise you any-thing."


    "Promise?" Mian took the large sheath that held his blade and con-sid-ered it in his hand. "That is not how war works. The world broke you, and I thought that even that woman could be bro-ken by this world. But now, you stand tall, again. The world is one where you re-main as a war-rior. And that is enough for me."


    Some-thing in his voice sparked some-thing in Alas-si''s spir-it, and Sobon, in-ter-nal-ly, just sighed. "Good. Be-cause my pur-pose is not so light that I can put it aside. It may be a fight that con-sumes my life."


    The oth-ers in the clear-ing shift-ed, and Sobon not-ed the shift-ing sub-tle notes in the aether, where the oth-ers watch-ing didn''t want to get in the way. But Mian just nod-ded, his face mask-ing the dis-ap-point-ment that he felt. "Of course."


    "Then do as you wish." She turned to look at Tuli and Lui, who were stand-ing near the front of the inn, stand-ing back from all the rest. "Tuli."


    "Lui and I will be fine here," he said, stiffly. What-ev-er he thought about his cook leav-ing... well.


    "No."


    The man''s face got in-tense, and quick-ly. "We had an agree-ment, Alas-si. The inn--"


    "The inn is yours. But I will not al-low you to harm my grand-daugh-ter any fur-ther."


    The man''s face cleared, then con-fu-sion fell over him, and the ex-pres-sion gave way to shock. "What? But she--"


    "Is just a girl? You seem to val-ue her very lit-tle, my son-in-law. I will not make the same mis-takes with her as I did my own daugh-ter." That was a giv-en.


    For some rea-son that Sobon couldn''t pin down, but which seemed in-tu-itive to Alas-si, the man didn''t have any of the same fu-ri-ous in-dig-na-tion that he showed when he thought Alas-si was tak-ing the inn. Al-though now... he had no fam-i-ly and no friends to run the inn with, and al-though Sobon had ac-cused him di-rect-ly of be-ing a ter-ri-ble fa-ther, what he felt now seemed to be a be-lea-guered ac-cep-tance.


    [ It is a mat-ter of fam-i-ly, ] Alas-si in-ter-pret-ed for her. [ Es-pe-cial-ly un-der Djiang law. As the head of the fam-i-ly, I must hold to my agree-ments, but I have pow-er, es-pe-cial-ly to de-ter-mine the fam-i-ly''s fu-ture. Lui is my heir, so the Djiang would say I have every right to take her. ]


    Lui her-self looked con-flict-ed, but hope-ful. Sobon raised a hand to her, and she looked first to her fa-ther, who did not meet the girl''s eyes. Then she looked back at Alas-si, and Sobon knew that she was look-ing deep into her grand-moth-er''s eyes, search-ing for an-swers. Sobon wasn''t sure what the girl thought, but sim-ply al-lowed her aether to ex-press it-self on her be-half, pro-ject-ing an un-com-pli-cat-ed tan-gle of feel-ings, un-fil-tered.


    Lui swal-lowed, nod-ded, and moved to her side.


    Sobon looked next to Lord Shi-da, who met her eyes cau-tious-ly, and then bowed. "If you would like to stay in the city, Lady Alas-si, then we will pre-pare a place for you. It will not be much--"


    "We will speak on this lat-er," Sobon in-ter-rupt-ed, and the Lord qui-et-ed, and gave a def-er-en-tial half-bow. And soon, the group of war-riors and refugees left, leav-ing one man and a build-ing alone on the moun-tain-side.

 21. Alassi - Ascension, Part 3

    Sobon considered the ''city'' before her with a keenly uninterested eye, as she repeatedly and successfully suppressed her instincts to say or do anything that showed her intense disdain for the people who labelled their large-ish town a ''city''. It was a matter of context, she knew; there were thousands of people packed into an urban area at the bottom of a river valley where several wide and (admittedly) well-paved roads met. For a pre-industrial society, the effort it took to pack thousands or tens of thousands into a single location was significant. Sobon knew well that it was asking too much to expect the same sprawl here as existed in a world with proper sanitation and transit technologies.


    And it''s not as though there wasn''t obvious prosperity here. Sobon could see the vast distinction between rich and poor parts of town, and it was clear that the areas packed around the main trading roads were built up and well kept. Rich neighborhood and sections of town stretched out in various directions from the trade roads and from what looked like a market sector, with the areas between packed with smaller, uglier buildings. Although Sobon couldn''t tell the full layout of the city from here, it was obvious that the trade roads had made the city prosper.


    Sobon''s group, naturally, had only been on a wider trade road for a little while. The road to the inn that Alassi had called home was on a much smaller trade route through the mountains, and while it served a purpose, the money that flowed along that road was much less compared to the money that flowed from the Ijian people to the west to the Djangese in the east, and to a lesser extend, back the other way. And even this city, somewhere along that route... Sobon studied the city as they approached, but even the greatest of the dwellings and buildings she saw were not palaces. There were two districts that were each dominated by a series of mansions, but neither seemed to be a cohesive whole, as would be owned by a single noble or royal family.


    Sobon considered asking for more details, not for the first time, but the city lord had rushed on ahead from the very start of the travel, along with several retainers, leaving Sobon in the questionably helpful hands of a guard commander named Spangh. Alassi classified him mentally as Ijian, from the west, but she had doubts enough to suggest he was mixed parentage. He was also scarred and stern, despite his Iron Qi, and although he had been deferential, he eyed Sobon like she was likely to cause problems.


    "It hasn''t changed as much as it looks like," Mian said from her side as they continued on down the road. "There were fewer big dwellings when I first came here, but I think they are all the same families. They have simply gotten more money as time goes on, thanks to the Diamond Lord." He made a face as he said it.


    Ah, I keep forgetting about that, Sobon reflected. The Bilgs were forcefully recruiting in the name of the Diamond Lord... but if that were happening here, Alassi, Lui, and Mian would have all been dragged in.


    [ We are not a colony here, and not under Starbeast invasion. ] Alassi replied mentally, although it was clear she didn''t have a lot of information herself. [ In my homeland, they simply bought people''s service if they were willing, and many poor folks had little choice. But some places where they need warriors or hate the people they conquered, service is mandatory, perhaps even to death. Here, they won''t even pay much for service unless you are strong, because they have enough warriors already. ]


    That was a clinical way to describe what Jom had been through, Sobon considered as she stared down at the city below. Mian, perhaps expecting a response, shifted uneasily, so she shook her head. "I barely remember anything," she said, and it was true. Alassi herself had only stayed here while in the military, or when her husband had been, before her.


    "At least there are no major noble families here. If there were, I imagine they would be neck deep in the slave trade, like House Mofu. The largest is house Xoi, and they are only small players."


    Xoi? Sobon frowned, but only for a moment. If that was the same house that Xoi Xam came from--which would be a stretch--that would be a good indication that some major fate manipulation pattern was controlling his resurrections. From what he understood, he had last met the woman half a world away, in what Alassi was calling a Djangese colony. "Small players, you say."


    "Not enough money," grunted Mian, simply. "Every end of these roads has a major family at the end of it. If anyone controlled the small cities in between, and took their share of the coin passing through, someone or other would get upset. It happened in the city of Russet Vale, to the north." He paused. "That''s where I met you, when the liger Starbeasts poured from the mountains."


    Sobon let that roll of of her, although Alassi''s spirit tried with some effort to recall her circumstances from back then. At last she recalled--a lesser mission she had put beneath her quickly. She mostly remembered the inconvenient travel and poor lodging. "That was a long time ago," Sobon said, half keeping an eye on Mian''s reaction, but mostly trying to understand the city before her.


    "Yes. I was a child, and you were..." Younger. Mian didn''t voice the thought, although Sobon thought the aether wave that carried it was embarrassingly clear. "...magnificent. I can still recall the battle so clearly. Although I was so far away... a drop of blood landed on me. I meditated on that single drop of blood for two days, absorbing its qi, and by the time I woke up, you were already gone."


    Sobon considered responding, but a noise from ahead turned out to be a pair of messengers, stopping at a respectable distance. The guard commander moved forward, and so did Sobon, more than half expecting that at least one of the messengers would be for her, and she wasn''t disappointed.


    "Lady Alassi," said one of the messengers, a distinctly Djang young man with high Copper qi--in other words, hardly any. But he was young, Sobon thought, although he had a heavy sense of something laid over him, like an aether blanket smothering him. He had bowed as soon as he saw her approach. "The City Lord has requested that I direct you to your place of residence." The other messenger, much more perfunctory, was directing the commander to something, which Sobon didn''t bother to listen in to.


    So Sobon gathered Lui and Mian, and the three of them followed the messenger, who as it turned out, had some kind of speed enhancement pattern laid over him. Although Sobon could plainly see it sapping his qi to the point of exhaustion, he struggled to maintain a fairly rapid pace, more than his short legs could natually make. Of course, he wasn''t much past Lui''s age, and she didn''t have the same pattern to benefit her.


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    "Slow down, boy," Sobon said. "My granddaughter can''t keep up that pace any more than you can."


    "I''m fine, Grandma," Lui protested, but Sobon would have said the same even if she were. As it was, the girl had been losing steam throughout the whole day''s walk.


    "My pardon, Lady," the boy simply said, and did his best to match his pace to Lui''s. Sobon studied the boy, and then Lui, but although the two did trace glances, and both had traces of curiosity, neither tried to speak to the other.


    "What can you tell me about this residence?" Sobon broke the awkward silence.


    "Ah. Your pardon, Lady, but it is only a small house. The Lord believed that in spite of your... status, it would be to your liking. It is a bit behind the Way of Silver."


    Sobon glanced at Mian, to see if he understood that.


    "The Way of Silver is a side road with several of the crafts shops," he filled in. "I''m sure you went there for your uniform, if nothing else."


    Sobon nodded, mentally considering the view of town from above she''d seen. Once they entered the city proper, she began filling out a mental map; though nowhere near what cyborg prosthetics could handle, the data-bundle that the Corona had given her did allow datagram storage, as well as letting her access what the AI had sent. Storing, recalling, and editing a map was nothing, though she would have paid good money to have a second mental eye again, or at least a good prosthetic interface.


    Finally, the small group turned into the Way of Silver, and Alassi found that she did know the road. It was an astonishingly clean avenue, more than the trade road, and there were several young people--children or apprentices--sweeping or cleaning as they passed through. All of them had qi, save one, a youngish brat with a limp who was polishing windows at what Sobon believed was a jeweler''s, until Alassi translated the sign as something more like an Inscriptionist.


    Soon enough, though, they took a side road off of the Way of Silver into one of the many expensive, well-kept districts that Sobon had noted from a distance. Close in, every house that they passed was contained in a walled courtyard, with aether inscriptions of some sort providing advanced protection. She tried to keep a frown off her face--at this point, she still wasn''t entirely certain whether she was being gifted property or allowed rent, possibly free rent, but either way, this area seemed a bit upscale for that.


    When at last their guide brought them to a stop, Sobon was finally able to recontextualize. It was a small house--for this area. It was walled, but in poor repair. And it was very obviously abandoned, with the gate half torn from its hinges.


    The guide immediately turned and bowed again. "With your permission, Lady..." Sobon didn''t know what he wanted, and nodded, and the boy produced a key from nowhere and raised it up to the damaged gate.


    There was no need to insert the key. A pulse of qi forced the gates open, although the damaged hinge made a terrible noise as it moved. When Sobon felt the aether fields had fully relaxed, she stepped through the gate, looking around. The courtyard was small and made of muddy clay, with the remnants of paving stones leading to the main house. There were two shacks on either side of the courtyard, each of which was big enough to fit a bed, comfortably, and had a door for privacy, but not a great deal more.


    The main house was larger, but not large. Sobon stepped inside to find himself in a living space that included a kitchen on one end, and a sealed back section that included what appeared to be a bathing room, a separate toilet, one main bedroom, and two small rooms that could be a bedroom, work room, or storage. Even the main bedroom wasn''t large, though Sobon wouldn''t have cared even if he couldn''t do anything about it.


    He returned to find Lui and Mian looking around, appreciatively, and the guide looking a little nervous. "And this is mine?"


    "Ah... yes, Lady. The City Lord will have the documents put in your name as soon as tomorrow, but tonight, this place is reserved for you alone."


    She considered. "What are the laws about qi inscriptions on the walls?"


    The boy twitched. "My understanding is limited, my lady. I will ask. But each wall here is separate from those around it, so there should not be much difficulty."


    That was all Sobon wanted to hear, and he dismissed the boy, who gave her the key to the qi seals, and then departed. Sobon could feel the key''s qi in her hand, and although it and the matched seals on the gate didn''t seem complex, she simply used the key to wave the gate shut. It made noise, again, but that was a problem for another day.


    "Are we really going to live here?" Lui was inside the main home, looking around. "It''s not much of a kitchen..."


    Mian stepped in to look, but just scoffed. "It''ll do," he declared. "I''ll get us food, if you''ll register me with the gate."


    Figuring that out was slightly more difficult, but only just, and Mian had an idea of what to do--though Alassi wasn''t sure where he would have picked up such a skill. He simply pressed a hand to the gate while Sobon willed the key to authorize him, and he could control it with a wave of his hand. Sobon, naturally, studied the mechanisms behind it, and after stepping outside and experimenting, decided that she could have picked the lock on any home with a similar system in instants.


    Instead of fussing about that, though Sobon studied the damaged hinge, and with a minimum amount of effort, replaced the physical mechanisms with a pure-aether binding that held the gate up off the ground. It woudn''t do in the long term, if for no other reason than that it looked very odd, but Sobon didn''t want anyone complaining about the noise.


    "You really are amazing," Lui said, and Sobon turned to look at the girl, to find that she had a look on her face that... that Sobon wasn''t sure she could read. "Can I ask...?"


    "It doesn''t seem normal, does it?" Sobon looked at it. "It''s not. Qi is complicated, but this is... fundamental. It''s from somewhere else." Of course, the Ri''lef engineer had told her not to use raw aether, or not much. Sobon would stick more to those rules when she had mastered the database of qi inscriptions, or whatever, that the engineer had promisd would follow up the initial burst transmission. Sobon made a mental note to follow up, if she didn''t hear from the Corona soon. For now, though, she just looked at Lui. "And you... are you alright?"


    "I''m scared," Lui admitted. "I wasn''t... I wasn''t expecting you to take me away from my father. I guess after... after what happened, I understand. I felt like I was... in danger, a few times. Especially when those men, or ones like them, were around." She shifted, nervously. "I thought that was just a part of the job, and that I''d have to grow up strong and deal with it. Dad said something like that. Uncle Mian said to come to him if I was uncomfortable."


    Sobon let out an irritated breath. Again, in small ways, Tuli had been responsible for it, though Sobon could admit the man had only a few other options. At least now, he would have to explore those options, and not endanger his own daughter. "Do you trust Mian?"


    "Yes. He has a good..." she hesitated. "I feel like he is a good man."


    Sobon took those words for what they were, and looked at Lui. "Did you think your father was a good man?"


    The girl trembled, and Sobon knew that it had been an unfair question. So she wrapper her arms around the girl, keeping her anger inside. She knew that Lui was bright--she must have known, or at least suspected. But she also was just a girl, and children... trusted. Too easily.


    Sobon wasn''t sure what would happen next, but she resolved not to be too trusting. Even with this small boon, this world had not earned her trust, not yet.

 22. Alassi - Ascension, Part 4

    Through the night and the next morning, Sobon used time in which she appeared otherwise idle to review the many documents regarding qi inscriptions. It was very close to being an impossible task; their notes built on top of complex aether geometry where idea that aether spins were actually reality layers was taken as a basic assumption. Although Sobon could do the math in her head, converting their math to the Crestan standard notation, a lot of their fundamental assumptions required her to trust that their math was correct--even when their math and hers differed slightly.


    Now, Sobon could accept this--it was a fundamental nature of aether to shape reality according to inbuilt laws. A world in which aether worked one way, and a world in which aether worked similarly, could coexist, and visitors like Sobon could even commute back and forth with regularity. The degree to which her numbers and the Ri''lef numbers differed was less than 5%, though that difference was before a lot of amplification factors were layered on top. As Sobon studied her own mental comparison, side by side, she could even see that in certain ways, the Ri''lef aether patterns made more sense, if one''s purpose was to guide an entire civilization into adapting to high aether.


    Crestan military aether patterns were solid, though, and they fit his purpose better. The standard cycle and thorn easily paralleled the concept of ''generator and battery'' that was fundamental to technology, allowing deep integrations into automated systems. In contrast, the ''layers'' model gave people something to explore, which was something Sobon had no interest in.


    Sobon wrote a brief argument along those lines and sent it back to K''val, tagged as lowest priority, knowing nothing would come of it even if the Ri''lef engineer had the time to consider her words. Even if the entire engineering crew agreed, trying to change the planet''s aether structure was an enormous task; even so, Sobon was curious about their counter-arguments, if not curious enough to cause a fuss in order to get answers.


    It took the course of the morning for Sobon to be confident that she understood the fundamentals of the qi inscription language, and from there, very nearly the whole field was open to her. There were some concepts that would be tricky to translate--for example, they insisted on a spatial expansion glyph tied to unmoored pocket dimensions that were loosely bridged, when Crestan standard patterns tied them directly to real space. But overall, Sobon was quite certain that she could translate most Crestan aether patterns to Qi inscriptions.


    To confirm that, she traced the outer boundary wall, finding aged protection glyphs, and translated them. It wasn''t much--a structural reinforcement set, a noise-deadening set, and a set designed to prevent the wall from being scaled from the outside by making it frictionless, except to those registered to the gate key. That was the most advanced logic she found except for the gate itself, whose logic was bound entirely on a separate block firmly sealed in place. As Sobon had determined the evening before, though, the gate logic was simplistic, with no protections against logical flaws. Especially now that she knew the language, Sobon could disable it in any number of ways, especially once she was close.


    By the time she finished examining the plate, it was almost noon, and Lui and Mian had been watching her for a while.


    "It''s not exactly quality work," Sobon summarized as she turned to the two, "but given the price we paid, it is more than adequate."


    Lui looked a bit confused, but Mian snorted, clearly guessing that the house was given freely. The cook coughed slightly to clear his throat. "Do you intend to improve it, then?"


    "Yes. A number of things need fixing, and what doesn''t need fixing can be... improved." She studied Mian, who still had his large butchering blade sheathed next to him. She eyed the sword. "I suppose I can also improve your weapon, if you like."


    Mian turned and looked at it, and Sobon didn''t miss the hesitation. "Honestly, Alassi, I''d rather learn whatever I need to learn to grow stronger. The blade will protect me until it breaks. I can''t ask much more of it than that."


    Sobon tilted her head to the side a bit, reassessing the man, but mostly turned her attention to Lui. "And you, Lui..."


    The girl, though, was uncomfortable from the moment Sobon began looking at her, squirming slightly where she sat. "Honestly, Grandma..."


    "I know," Sobon cut her off, with a sigh. "You are a kind girl, Lui. I know that you don''t wish anyone harm, and all the power in the world wouldn''t change you for the better." She came over and sat next to the girl, who raised her shoulders defensively on instinct, but Sobon simply put a hand on her back. "I want to give you the chance to decide your own future, and if that is free from the world of qi, then I will support you. But I want you to understand that there is no escaping--"


    "I know," Lui cut her off, the girl showing the first bit of backbone that either Alassi or Sobon had seen. "Whatever those men... whatever men like them wanted from me, it isn''t good. And I can''t be defenseless. But I don''t..." her voice failed her, and she looked down and away, at nothing but dirt.


    "There are other ways to fend them off aside from doing it yourself," Mian said, as gently as he could, into the quiet. "If you could learn inscriptions, or something else, from your Grandma, then your best customers will fight to make sure you''re protected. A good inscriptionist is worth too much to just end up forgotten." Mian glanced at Sobon as he said that, and Sobon returned the glance.


    [ He never did learn why people called me the Blood Witch, ] Alassi thought. Her mind, all through Sobon''s study of the modern qi inscriptions, had been quiet, offering only the occasional advice. [ Or at least, not from me. We use the old ways, and those are best with life-rich fluids. But it is possible, if you wish to disguise your nature... ]


    But Sobon only mentally shook her head in return, making her mental voice clear. [ I am not a spy, Alassi. I am a warrior. ]


    [ If he followed me out of love, he will not be happy that I... ] Alassi''s thoughts drifted off, ashamed and unclear.


    [ I know. ] Sobon returned to the conversation, but Lui had been silent. "If you want to learn--"


    "Not inscriptions," Lui said, sounding strangely tired. "I can see them, Grandma. Even the ones you laid, they are so... cold. Empty. I don''t think I could do that."


    Sobon sat back slightly, reconsidering. Advanced empathy, then? Interesting. "If you are that sensitive, you could become a healer."


    Again, Lui shook her head. "Wounds... they hurt me. Other people''s, I mean. Even the dead..." she shook her head to clear it, eyes squeezed firmly shut.


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    "Alchemy, then," suggested Mian into the silence. "I don''t know much about it, but I lived near an Alchemist, in Russet Vale. Man would know from sniffing the air whether someone had touched his plants overnight. Said everything had to be perfect." The large man chuckled, and held up a single hand, making a plucking motion. "When I was young, I once took a single leaf from one of his plants as I was passing by. The man found me in the city half a day later, fuming. I was sure nobody saw me, and I don''t know how he found me. Even I didn''t know what I''d be doing that day. But he knew, and he found me."


    Lui looked at him, and although Sobon couldn''t see her face, she thought the girl was smiling. "If it was a spirit plant... it probably knew on its own."


    That surprised them both, and even Alassi, although the old witch spirit was less so. "You''ve seen a spirit plant before?" Sobon asked, wondering if she had missed something at the inn.


    Lui looked back at her. "Traders," she said, simply. "A year ago, in the spring, there was a man bringing a whole load of them in, and he asked me to help carry the plants up to his room, and back down in the morning. I could see depths to them like they were people, almost. They paid attention to the change in location, and they knew I wasn''t someone they knew. But they relaxed once they knew I was safe."


    [ The girl has talent, ] Alassi thought, satisfied.


    [ A talent you were going to let wither, ] Sobon returned sharply, and the witch spirit withdrew instantly. Sobon closed her eyes, though she suspected Lui had seen something of the byplay in her features, somehow. The girl was too sharp. "I will do whatever I can to help you find a place, Lui." That seemed like a good time to let drop another bomb, or two, since Mian was here. "And also... there is likely to be another, though I don''t know when."


    Lui and Mian both looked at her, confused. "Another?" asked Lui.


    "You know this already, Lui," she began, and looked to Mian. "But I am not who I used to be, Mian. A spirit from..." Sobon hesitated, but Alassi helped her find words. "...from distant heavens came to give me purpose, but it has also taken my freedom. That spirit is Sobon, and he is in control of my life, now."


    As anyone would have predicted, Mian''s fists clenched, and strong feelings surged through him. "So, that morning..."


    "In one way, Alassi is dead." Sobon stood, moving in front of the two of them. But Mian wasn''t meeting her eyes, and Lui was looking at him instead. "Few can know this truth, Mian. Few, but not none. Before me, there was another. And in that life, there was another innocent caught up in things. Sobon has sent her a message, so that if she wants to meet him again, she can come here. She may come; she may not. But she was a good person, and she deserves to be kept safe, just as Lui does."


    The man was silent for a long moment, and Sobon let him think.


    "I thought it was odd," Mian said. "Immediately after that morning, you became so strong. Different." He got up, the sword coming to his hand naturally, though still sheathed. He looked at the sheath. "That woman was truly broken by the world, huh?"


    Alassi sent Sobon a wordless request, and he let her come forward.


    "Yes," Alassi spoke with her own voice, and somehow, Mian knew, looking up at her. "Yes, Mian, I was broken. But not by anything that you saw, or understood. Because one day, in one battle, my life as a warrior was taken away. But less than a week later..." her mouth turned up into a snarl, and images that Sobon didn''t want to dwell on, but was not terribly surprised by, either, passed through her mind. "I was betrayed. I could have been healed. The field doctor was a half-noble, and he fancied my body. He would only allow me to heal properly if I..." she shook her head. "And even when I refused, I was attacked. And told that it was all because I was a woman."


    Alassi''s spiritual pressure, which was still dwarfed by Sobon''s own, somehow leaked out, and both Mian and Lui made immediate note of it, stiffening, but not fleeing. Not from her. "In this world, the fact that I am a woman who would not heel to the side of their masters made me worthless. I saw then that even if I regained my strength, it would not be enough. There would always be stronger men, crueler men. Men who would seal away my future to use my womb." The woman looked down, putting one hand on her abdomen, and Sobon felt the stirring currents of qi of the old witch''s spirit.


    "In a way, I was pleased," she said, "when I passed the age, when my body decided it was finished. If it were only me, alone, then it would be cruel to have my younger body back. To know that it is useful, again." Her fingers, like claws, dug into the flesh of her abdomen, though not strongly enough to do any harm. "But I am not alone. And... and Sobon," she pronounced it slightly wrong, "does not see this flesh as a woman. He sees a warrior. He believes without question that he could make this flesh the better of any man on this planet."


    "Yes, Mian, the woman that I was, was broken by the world." Alassi''s eyes locked onto the younger man''s, and he shivered. "But it is better this way. Because if you had found me when I had been a victim, and if you had avenged me, even if you had brought me back, I would still be second to a man. And somewhere deep inside of me, I would have hated you."


    Mian looked back at her, unsure of what to say, but Alassi just took a deep breath.


    "But." She let her breath out. "I do not hate you, Mian. And I think that by the time Sobon is done, I will not hate myself. Whether I live on after that, or whether that is the end of my life, I do not know. But Sobon is sure, in the depths of his soul, that while there is man and woman, the truth is that there is cruelty and justice. That when a woman does evil, or a man does evil, evil is done. And when a woman does good, or a man does good, then good is done. In his thoughts, a person is not one or the other. They are their actions. And his mind tore apart my past, and acknowledged evil in others, and acknowledged evil in me, and saw evil as evil."


    "If you only came chasing me because I am a woman, Mian, then go." Alassi''s voice carried with a hard edge, and although Sobon had not given her authority to say that, he let her speak. "I would sooner carve my uterus out with my own hands than be used to carry children against my will. Even if I live again after this, love and marriage are furthest from my mind. Because I do not wish..." she paused, and Sobon helpfully gave her words. "...I do not wish for my granddaughter, and I would not wish for any new daughters of mine, to live in a world filled with evil men."


    There was a short bit of silence, and then Mian spoke up, his voice surprisingly calm.


    "Then you should find evil men and kill them. In this life, and in the next."


    Alassi blinked, the hard edge of her spirit blunted by his words. "...Yes," she said, a little off guard.


    "Because in the end, it is not only women that suffer when evil men do evil things, Alassi." Mian stood up and stepped towards her, but not more than one step. "Because yes, I wished for a world with you in it. But not a world in which you were broken, by me or anyone else. And the world in which you were not broken was taken away by an evil man. And if I had been your son, and not an admirer, I would have said the same. Because I would cease to believe in a world where women can be strong enough on their own. Because that''s what I felt when I found you."


    Mian half turned away, not seeming to want to look at her any more, and Alassi felt some relief at that. "Because if I couldn''t have you, Alassi, I would still want to believe that out there was a strong woman who I could be with. And to see strong women brought low just because someone wished it so... that breaks the souls of men as well as women." He stopped. "I watched you for so long, Alassi. Looking for any sign, any spark of the woman you were."


    Alassi was hit hard by that, but Sobon didn''t let her reel from the blow, or show it too strongly.


    "I suppose if there''s one good thing from all of this," he said, finally, "it''s believing that you can heal. That I can heal. Because maybe you couldn''t on your own. And maybe, without this... Sobon, I wouldn''t have, either. But we aren''t alone."


    Alassi felt like withering, but Sobon pushed back in charge, adjusting her spirit to be the one that was fully in control. Mian and Lui both noticed, she knew. "And that is why I will find others that I want to protect," Sobon said, her voice calm and level, in sharp contrast to everything that had come before. "People like Lui. Like you. And like Ki''el, who may find her way here. I won''t find them all, and I won''t kill all the evil men in the world who have hurt them. That isn''t my mission. But I will help people, save people, and heal people, as I can."


    Sobon turned to look at the gate, and the inferior qi inscription at its base. "And if I''m going to do that," she said, "I''m going to need to improve this place."

 23. Alassi - Ascension, Part 5

    Sobon was not, by any stretch of the imagination, an architect. As such, the first upgrades she made to the walls were simple, brutal, and clinical. Her first action was ripping out all the existing enchantments, which was essentially trivial from this side, given how they''d decayed. She used standard Crestan spiritual markers to mark the wall''s corners and a little added math to define a set of boxes that were completely contained within the material of the walls themselves. Then, with a subtle application of the native qi inscriptions, she simply defined that entire region within the walls as a single, continuous, but oddly-shaped space, separate from the real world--a pocket dimension that just so happened to overlap with the real world almost perfectly.


    Sobon could have done the same in Crestan aether script, and would again later, but for now, her purposes were better served with the wall region existing outside of normal space. With it separated, Sobon spun up every aether dyanmo she had, charging all their thorns while she very carefully began to script out a mixture of Crestan and Qi techniques. It was nothing amazing--in fact, it was brutal and inefficient. Once she had the script finished and an adequate amount of power to start, her pattern began working through the material of the wall, reforging it into a flawless, if somewhat changed, whole.


    It was well known in materials science that flawless materials essentially didn''t exist--on an atomic scale, there was no point in even pretending. Flaws were critical in some materials to provide flexibility, which improved overall strength. But flaws were also the place that materials began breaking apart, and once you removed enough of them on a large piece like this, many materials became so hard that it was difficult to find a place to begin breaking them. And since the wall contained no small amount of carbon, silicon, iron, aluminum, and sometimes even titanium, it wasn''t hard to rearrange the material into layers of armor around a core of leftover junk. What was more difficult was keeping the volume of the material exactly the same, given the shifting densities of the material, and given all the flaws in the original. Sobon simplified by leaving occasional spherical voids when the material was insufficient.


    For all that you could see on the outside, though, work that ended up taking Sobon more than a day seemed to have done nothing at all, and when she released the spatial script and brought the wall interior back to the real world, both Lui and Mian looked at her, confused but unwilling to question her.


    "Only a start," Sobon said, without clarifying, then put aside her reforging script and worked on replacing the defense and privacy wards. For the most part, Sobon didn''t worry much about finding an ideal solution--she reinforced the armor layers of the wall within its bounds and created force barriers that would keep anything from going over the wall or attacking from above, without bothering to try to key it to anyone or anything.


    For the gate mechanism itself, Sobon replaced all of the physical hinges with a pure aether mechanism, just to balance things out for now, and she improved the gate''s authentication with a triple lock--one that checked the person''s soul and qi core signatures, and also required a simple coded qi pulse. The first attempt required Sobon to be the one to register new entrants, and it lacked some advanced features that Sobon would wish, like any kind of panic mechanisms.


    It''s not as though she paid no attention to what was happening in the interim. While the wall was reforging, and in between modifications to the gate, Alassi helped Lui to rearrange things that Mian had bought until they found something that made them all comfortable. Mian, for his own reasons, took one of the sheds. Lui had looked ready to take the other for herself, but Sobon convined her she had every right to stay in the main house if she preferred. And when it seemed like that was what she really wanted... Besides which, Sobon had plans.


    Sobon''s own understanding of spatial expansion patterns wasn''t extensive. Although Sobon knew many foreign space forces used spatial expansion to cheat on the size of their spacefaring vessels, Crestan designers didn''t. According to the few classes where it had been discussed, spatial expansion had a larger effect on your ability to warp ships than it should, and Crest wants its ships lean. Ships in the Rapier class that she''d served on were high aspect ratio, nearly a kilometer long but less than a hundred meters in width and height. From certain angles, it was a pain in the ass to target, and it could run away from a bad engagement like few other ships in known space. When, of course, the situation didn''t demand it stand and fight.


    However, there were field bunker patterns that could squeeze an entire company into a space barely contained by all its exit doors, and that pattern was required knowledge for aether techs. It wasn''t comfortable--it was cramped, part of the spaces were taken up by mechanical spaces, and aether was awful at creature comforts--but the ruthlessly efficient packing had a long and storied history of hiding oversized forces behind enemy lines.


    So Sobon carefully removed the floor of the other shed, marked out the geometry, then expanded downwards, creating a deep shaft where none should have existed. This was no Qi inscription--Crestan patterns extended natural space, creating a disturbance when it was created but requiring minimal upkeep. Then, she marked and expanded outwards from the shaft, creating what should have been an underground bunker.


    It was a bit more complicated than that. The expanded space had an awkward relationship with the planet''s mass, so gravity was a little off. Sobon navigated the empty space like only an experienced spacer could, making small motions and never overreacting, but when Lui poked her head in and accidentally knocked a bunch of pebbles down the hole, she couldn''t help gasping.


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    "Grandma, what...?" The girl leaned down, watching the pebbles swish around near the entrance, uncertainly.


    "Mm. It''s complicated if you don''t know the basics." Sobon finished laying out the quartz rod she had formed from the sandy soil, and engraved with spatial stabilizing marks. Once the bounds were properly stabilized, the expanded space would require almost no maintenance. "Gravity comes from the center of the world, and everything falls towards it. But this extra space dulls the effect of it--"


    "Grandma, I don''t understand what you''re saying," Lui said, poking at the floating pebbles.


    "The entrace to this space is ''down'', but not as strongly as normal," Sobon simplified. "I''ll make it normal, later."


    Although Sobon listened for more questions as she worked, she was surprised when Lui simply asked, "Is it safe to come in?"


    "Yes, of course."


    Lui was a gentle child, but a bit clumsy, and when she hopped into the hole in the floor, the gravitic shear pulled at her in odd ways, and it was all she could do to only bang her head into the walls twice. Sobon turned to watch, but the girl''s panicked flailing quickly became her stubbornly wedging herself into a corner, with small uses of qi that Sobon doubted she was even aware of. Once she had her bearings, she explored the odd sense of weight that the room gave her, slowly testing various motions with the tenacity of a stubborn child.


    "It''s interesting, isn''t it?" Sobon didn''t try to offer advice, and she didn''t think the girl would want any. "It''s not a deliberate effect, just how the world reacts when you intefere with it."


    "You''ve seen... I mean, Sobon has seen..." Lui caught herself against the wall. "Sorry. I mean, I guess I know that you''re..."


    "I''m Sobon. I usually am, although Alassi is in here."


    Lui nodded. "Do you... interfere with worlds, where you come from?"


    Sobon just laughed. "Not as often as some." The worlds and worlds she couldn''t talk about, especially when it came to the Founders, drifted through the back of her mind. "But gravity--what you think of as weight--it''s only normal, the way you think of it, close to the ground. And there are places in the heavens that are far from the ground indeed."


    Lui looked "up" for a moment, before remembering that the hole was now "up", and even then, there was nothing to see but the roof of the shed. "What are the heavens like?"


    Sobon considered the question, before going back to marking up the quartz rod with stabilizing scripts. "It''s a bit like the ocean shore. There are cities on worlds, and great seas of nothing between them. Ships cross them, and are posted out in that sea, for many years at a time."


    "I''ve never been to the ocean." Lui''s voice was small.


    "If Ki''el makes it here, she will tell you about it. She was from an island village." Sobon paused. "Be gentle with her. She lost that home, and her family." Sobon didn''t need to look to sense Lui''s polite but resolute nod. "Both the ocean and the heavens have their hidden horrors. But one of the greatest horrors is always other people. Ships of war, and pirates. Thieves and murderers. Desperate people who have chosen a road they cannot turn back from, and will do whatever they must to win, or to escape." Sobon fused two rods together to form a corner, then took the next segment and began carving.


    "But the horrors are what happens out beyond the reach of civilization. And civilization, if it survives, is capable of great things." Sobon paused. She wasn''t really a poet, and finding things to say about civilization was hard. "The largest city I ever saw... if you raised a mountain in the middle and stood on its peak, you couldn''t see the edges." That barely said anything, really. There were some very small mountains out there, and Sobon was thinking of a very large city indeed.


    "How?" breathed Lui, and Sobon smiled quietly to herself, resuming her carving. "How can you fit so many people in to a place, safely?"


    "Hard work and good design. For ages, the hardest problem was clean water. Later, it was keeping the... the qi clean and even, everywhere." Sobon didn''t try to elaborate, this time, instead barely touching on the topic. "Cleaning. Transportation. Communication. Policing. Emergency response. Corrupted leaders. Greater things are only possible as you fix one problem after the next one. Every time a civilization fails to live up to its responsibilities, centuries of progress are threatened. Too often, they are lost. And with success comes complacency, always. People forget what will happen if they refuse to work towards the future."


    "Is it... really possible, if we could just do all those things right, though?"


    "Just?" Sobon gave a single, but honest, bark of laughter at that. "Learning to do something like that for the first time can take centuries, and only if the conditions are right."


    Lui was quiet for a long moment. "The qi... the energy of this city is already so upset. Too many powerful people who hate each other. I felt it before I could see it. The barriers help, but..." Sobon heard her push off the wall, and glanced over to see her coming up behind. Sobon stiffened, but allowed the girl to grab hold. "I worry."


    [ She is definitely too sensitive, ] Sobon groused at Alassi, but the woman''s spirit didn''t bother replying except with a vague sense of smugness. "I know," Sobon said, tiredly. "If I stay long enough, or come back, I''m sure I''ll end up involved, one way or another. But as long as there is a place here, then I''ll start by making it safe."


    "Can it really be safe? Enough?" Lui''s voice was quiet, and the sound of her fear was unmistakable.


    That wasn''t an unreasonable question, given the kind of enemies Sobon expected to make, but she was dismissive of it anyway. "Safe enough, yes. But nothing is perfect." She set aside the engraving, almost done, and gave Lui the hug that the girl definitely needed. "And when I have time, I''ll teach you about ...qi, so that you can escape. There shouldn''t be a problem any time soon."


    "Even after what happened?"


    Sobon didn''t let the question phase her. "The greatest problem would be if you were attacked when I''m not here. But, I don''t expect to leave before this place is well defended." That was a practical matter; Sobon knew, and not just from the Ri''lef notes on qi, that there was a period of adaptation to high aether. Sobon expected she could raise her qi capacity to the highest possible without outside help, and then perhaps higher, if the Ri''lef would help her with their... starbeast nonsense, or if they could help her create an analogue out of other materials. "While I''m here, you shouldn''t worry."


    Lui nodded, but stayed there for long minutes after.

 24. Alassi - Ascension, Part 6

    Sobon con-sid-ered the "hid-den base-ment" sta-bi-lized only af-ter every cor-ner and edge was lined with a sta-bi-liz-ing rod. The next step re-quired a bit of con-vo-lut-ed log-ic that Sobon had to work out with a men-tal scratch pad; it reg-u-lat-ed the ef-fect of grav-i-ty, pro-tect-ed the rods from harm, sealed off out-side ob-ser-va-tion, and iso-lat-ed the in-ter-nal space, ex-clud-ing the nar-row re-gion by the edges where the rods were. From in-side, you wouldn''t even know there was a nar-row me-chan-i-cal space pro-tect-ing the base-ment, while from the out-side, there was al-most noth-ing to de-tect--just a very odd bunch of rods, none of them aether-rich, in a very nar-row space.


    All in all, by the time that part was done, you''d be hard pressed to jump down the hole and not be-lieve you were in a base-ment, if one with weird, qi-formed walls. That didn''t mean it was done; ide-al-ly, an-oth-er set of rods in-side of that would be the real de-fens-es for the space, and then a phys-i-cal set of walls and floors would be fab-ri-cat-ed on top to hide those. But what Sobon want-ed most was the abil-i-ty to prac-tice his art with the cer-tain-ty of no out-side ob-ser-va-tion, and this pro-vid-ed that much.


    Ac-cord-ing to the Ri''lef notes on qi, Sobon was sup-posed to acclimate his body to high aether lev-els by soak-ing each or-gan in it one at a time. For the lo-cals, this was com-pli-cat-ed; even at Sobon''s Gold Qi rank, many of them were still learn-ing to use qi, with-out un-der-stand-ing the un-der-lay-ing prin-ci-ples. Most-ly, they didn''t have the in-stinct to cre-ate pure, at-tuned aether, so there was a se-ri-ous dan-ger they would sat-u-rate their or-gans with qi that be-longed to oth-er peo-ple and things in the world around them--an easy way to com-plete-ly cor-rupt an aether struc-ture. For-eign aether would con-tin-ue to op-er-ate by its own rules, and it was dan-ger-ous to leave that in-side of your own sys-tem.


    Of course, Sobon''s dy-namos pro-duced pure, at-tuned aether--it was their pri-ma-ry pur-pose. So while the lo-cals would spend ages very slow-ly pu-ri-fy-ing ex-ter-nal qi in or-der to sat-u-rate their or-gans with aether, Sobon could do it al-most at will. That didn''t mean it was wise to dump in un-lim-it-ed amounts, of course, but Sobon had nev-er in-tend-ed that. If any-thing, her ex-per-i-ment with try-ing to evolve her pre-vi-ous squir-rel body, which had end-ed dis-as-trous-ly, proved that the lo-cal ''qi'' wasn''t some mir-a-cle pow-er ca-pa-ble of more than raw aether. No, Sobon intended to act on the safe side, and acclimate her-self in a man-ner sim-i-lar to the Crestan Marines Aether Adap-ta-tion Pro-gram.


    That it-self was es-sen-tial-ly an au-to-mat-ed, sur-gi-cal ver-sion of the same con-cept. Sobon had un-der-gone it when he was pro-mot-ed to a Class VI cy-borg; his own per-son-al aether gen-er-a-tors were mon-i-tored for their pu-ri-ty, but once they were churn-ing out raw at-tuned aether, he was put to sleep for a few days while the aether was pumped into one fleshy bit af-ter an-oth-er, mak-ing sure that they could all han-dle enough aether to not be poi-soned when his cy-borg bits were work-ing at their rat-ed ca-pac-i-ty. In the-o-ry, it shouldn''t have been nec-es-sary--the cy-borg bits were well shield-ed, and the aether rou-tines locked into spec-i-fied re-gions that shouldn''t have even need-ed shield-ing--but war put stress on even the best laid plans, and war-riors need-ed to be ready for any-thing.


    So Sobon sim-ply put to-geth-er a se-ries of scripts that would build up aether in-side of her or-gans and bones, one at a time, and ded-i-cat-ed a cou-ple right-hand dy-namos to the same. She could have used high-er forms of aether--and may in time--but she had the most right-hand dy-namos, and this first pass pro-vid-ed the most im-por-tant ben-e-fit--at-tune-ment. While Sobon had been able to get Jom''s body to ac-cept his will, even un-der duress, it had fought him, be-cause in the end, it had nev-er be-longed to him--in fact, it had nev-er be-longed to Jom. Aether at-tune-ment made one a mas-ter of one''s own flesh, and when the first lit-tle bits of Alas-si be-gan to prop-er-ly re-spond to Sobon''s will and in-tent, she fi-nal-ly be-gan to breathe a sigh of re-lief.


    This had nev-er been so dif-fi-cult with the cy-borg parts of Sobon''s body. Un-like bi-ol-o-gy, they were pure from the start. Bar-ring soft-ware is-sues, good aether-tech pros-thet-ics were what-ev-er you need-ed them to be. Ex-cept of course af-ter tak-ing sig-nif-i-cant dam-age, like from your ship ex-plod-ing around you.


    At the end of that day, Mian re-turned from the city look-ing brighter than Sobon had ever seen him. "Lui, Alas-si," he said, near-ly bounc-ing as he shut the gates be-hind him. "I spoke to-day with an al-chemist, Fau Mide. When I said that Lui was a very sen-si-tive girl, she seemed in-ter-est-ed. I said I would bring you to speak to with her to-mor-row." At that, Lui perked up. It was nice, Sobon and Alas-si agreed, to see a look of hope on her face.


    Still, Sobon con-sid-ered qui-et-ly. She could take the op-por-tu-ni-ty to vet the so-called al-chemist, or al-low Lui and Mian to do it. The choice had con-se-quences; be-ing too pro-tec-tive might cause a re-ac-tion in the al-chemist, and the oth-er lo-cals, but not pro-tect-ing Lui if she need-ed it might lead to some-thing worse.


    "Grand-ma Alas-si?" Lui''s voice broke through Sobon''s thoughts, and she made her choice in that mo-ment, turn-ing to look at the body''s grand-daugh-ter, who Sobon him-self had start-ed to think of as her own.


    "Tell me about this al-chemist," she or-dered Mian, and the man''s face--which had been shad-owed by some-thing, doubt per-haps--cleared up and be-came thought-ful.


    "Thought-ful, I think. She had a hard edge, but the air in her shop was clean. The qi around it was straight-for-ward. I as-sume there were wards to make sure of that."


    Sobon fit those to-geth-er into a rough im-age, and nod-ded. "Al-right. If you think she''s worth trust-ing, then I''ll leave it to the two of you." Lui bright-ened again, but in Sobon''s mind, it was equal-ly im-por-tant to see the sat-is-fied look on Mian''s face. Be-cause Sobon want-ed the girl to be hap-py--but she also trust-ed that Mian was an adult, and put at least a lit-tle thought into things.


    That evening, they all went out to get food in the city in-stead of cook-ing for them-selves. Al-though Sobon wasn''t keen to spend the boun-ty mon-ey quick-ly, she wasn''t too stuffy to want to cel-e-brate, at least from time to time. It did mean can-celling the aether-at-tune-ment pat-tern, but Sobon trust-ed that she still had time.


    The restau-rant that Mian had found was not just a com-mon inn, and its price was a match for its at-mos-phere. The three of them were tak-en to a side booth, and a po-lite Djang woman in a de-cent ap-prox-i-ma-tion of fine clothes took their or-ders. All three of them had a healthy ap-petite. Mian had a heavy rice and meat dish, with some very heav-i-ly spiced pep-pers lay-ered thick, and sauces thick enough that Sobon had no idea their con-sti-tu-tion. Lui had some-thing more like a meat and veg-etable pie, al-though it was sealed on the top and di-vid-ed into sec-tions. Sobon her-self had a meat-gar-nished sal-ad, which the serv-er as-sured her was made from qi-rich plants. It was tasty, with var-ied tex-tures and spices, and Sobon could tell that the qi was calm and di-gestable, some-how, but Sobon re-gret-ted not get-ting some-thing more in-ter-est-ing af-ter smelling both of the oth-ers'' din-ners.


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    Over din-ner, Mian talked more about the al-chemist''s shop and the woman her-self. Short and thin, he said, with a freck-led face and deep-col-ored hair that she kept wrapped up in a scarf. She looked young, but with enough qi that she could be old-er than she looked. She scowled when she thought Mian was wast-ing her time, but took him se-ri-ous-ly when he spoke. Her shop was clean, with lit-tle on dis-play but what ap-peared to be an ex-ten-sive back room. Al-though Mian didn''t know enough to re-al-ly test her, she didn''t seem to be idle. Mian fig-ured that meant that she kept busy.


    In the end, by the time they all were home and abed, Sobon was hope-ful that, if she ac-cept-ed Lui, it would be good for the girl. Noth-ing was ever cer-tain, but the pic-ture added up to some-thing good.


    The two left rel-a-tive-ly ear-ly in the morn-ing, and when they did, Sobon felt tru-ly alone for the first time in a bit. Not in a dis-tress-ing way; it sim-ply meant that Lui and Mian had their fo-cus else-where, and weren''t think-ing about her, and that was fine. She found her-self stand-ing in the mid-dle of the court-yard, con-tem-plat-ing, when she de-tect-ed a spir-i-tu-al pres-ence. That might have meant a num-ber of dif-fer-ent things--every-thing from an ac-tu-al lo-cal spir-it of some kind, to a lo-cal mage, to a plan-e-tary spir-i-tu-al god, or pos-si-bly one of the Ri''lef en-gi-neers, pro-ject-ing across the world with an ad-vanced aether mech-a-nism.


    She kept a men-tal eye firm-ly fixed on the spir-it, but couldn''t tell much of any-thing from its form or aether sig-na-ture. It chose to ap-pear hu-manoid, but its pres-ence was bare-ly a shad-ow, hid-ing what-ev-er it was ca-pa-ble of. What-ev-er it was, it passed through Sobon''s de-fens-es like they didn''t ex-ist, and paused to look at Sobon, watch-ing her watch-ing it. Sobon didn''t speak first, though she did pro-ject a gen-er-al, in-quis-i-tive spir-it wave.


    [ Crestan, ] the spir-it sent back. [ What does ''myth'' mean to you? ]


    Ri''lef, then. Sobon con-sid-ered the ques-tion, and how best to an-swer it. Even hav-ing thought about sim-i-lar ques-tions re-cent-ly, it was a very open-end-ed ques-tion with a lot of very deep and mean-ing-ful prob-lems buried in it. In-stead of try-ing to bun-dle up her thoughts, Sobon spoke slow-ly, out loud, trust-ing that the spir-it was pay-ing care-ful enough at-ten-tion to ''hear'' her.


    "Myth... is some-thing wide-ly be-lieved, but rarely or nev-er ver-i-fied. It is both very dan-ger-ous, but also nec-es-sary for so-ci-ety to func-tion."


    There was a re-ac-tion in the spir-it when Sobon said ''nec-es-sary'', or per-haps just be-fore, when she was putting the thought to-geth-er. [ Why do you be-lieve it is nec-es-sary? ]


    "Not all myths are. My peo-ple have spent cen-turies think-ing about the foun-da-tion-al so-cial myth--the ones that give lead-ers the right to rule. Ul-ti-mate-ly, it is nec-es-sary for it to be myth, be-cause the process of con-firm-ing that it''s true in-ter-feres with gov-er-nance. But in those times when you aren''t con-firm-ing it, when you aren''t pos-i-tive that some-one de-serves to rule, then that gives oth-er pow-ers a chance to sneak in and at-tempt to cor-rupt the sys-tem."


    The spir-it, in her mind''s eye, shift-ed its pro-jec-tion to be a hu-manoid fig-ure, if in-dis-tinct, with its hands clasped be-hind its back--with a sort of in-for-mal, but schol-ar-ly air about it. [ As long as a leader has the pow-er to rule, why do they need a myth of le-git-i-ma-cy? ]


    "That''s an old ar-gu-ment," Sobon said. Sobon had first heard it him-self in pub-lic school-ing, and al-though he hadn''t been sat-is-fied by the an-swers back then, in ret-ro-spect, it was much clear-er. "If you are al-right with your rule slow-ly de-cay-ing, then you don''t need the myth of le-git-i-ma-cy. But you ei-ther de-lib-er-ate-ly cre-ate a myth of le-git-i-ma-cy, or the peo-ple cre-ate one for you, and the myth cre-at-ed by the peo-ple will be flawed. When-ev-er your ac-tions don''t line up with the myth, peo-ple start to be-lieve that you shouldn''t rule. If that hap-pens con-stant-ly, be-cause the myth doesn''t rep-re-sent the ac-tu-al lead-ers, then peo-ple start to be-lieve that the rule is ac-tive-ly il-le-git-i-mate. Peo-ple work-ing for an il-le-git-i-mate ruler will sab-o-tage it in small ways, and those add up over time."


    The spir-it''s fig-ure re-act-ed sub-tly, but its in-dis-tinct form made read-ing the re-ac-tions dif-fi-cult. [ What qual-i-ties make a leader worthy of rule? ]


    "That--" Sobon start-ed to say one thing, and then an-oth-er, and then a third, be-fore qui-et-ing. "I think if I could an-swer that ques-tion, I would be do-ing some-thing else with my life be-sides risk-ing it in a bat-tle for an-oth-er world''s fu-ture. I''m a Ma-rine, not a philoso-pher."


    [ You could have fooled me. ] The fig-ure''s spir-i-tu-al voice car-ried an un-der-tone of hu-mor, but Sobon thought it was the kind of ''pure'' tonal ad-di-tion that meant it was pho-ny. [ What makes a leader un-wor-thy of rule? ]


    "There''s no an-swer to that. Or, no sin-gle an-swer." Sobon shook her head. "If an en-tire so-ci-ety wants to be led by a bru-tal dic-ta-tor, can an out-sider say that their leader is wrong to an-swer that call? If a so-ci-ety wants to be meek and pow-er-less, can an out-sider say the leader is wrong by let-ting them stag-nate? If a leader does some-thing that so-ci-ety doesn''t want, suc-ceeds, and ar-gues that their ac-tions were nec-es-sary to suc-ceed, is the leader right? And even if they are, should so-ci-ety for-give them?"


    "Mas-ters Cuil and Tare--they were fa-mous Crestan philoso-phers--talked a lot about the spir-i-tu-al health of a so-ci-ety. In the-o-ry, you mea-sure a good or a bad leader by whether they im-proved or harmed the spir-i-tu-al health of so-ci-ety. But a lot of peo-ple who came af-ter seemed to hold to that phi-los-o-phy while be-ing so..." Sobon shook her head. "I don''t even know. What-ev-er they did, it wasn''t right. But why? I could spend years study-ing my own peo-ple''s his-to-ry and not be able to tell you."


    [ So you do not be-lieve it is as sim-ple as suc-cess. ] The spir-it''s tone was even, if some-what un-pleas-ant.


    "It can''t be. Suc-cess is a mea-sure of pow-er, and so-ci-ety grants every new gen-er-a-tion pow-er. How much varies by class, ed-u-ca-tion... and many oth-er things. You can''t just say that some-one is wor-thy of lead-er-ship be-cause they were giv-en pow-er. They also have to have goals that align with..." Sobon paused, look-ing for words, then shook her head. "...with some-thing that So-ci-ety wants. I don''t know. A greater good, maybe."


    [ Is the dri-ve to cre-ate greater good enough to for-give sins? ]


    Sobon paused, then stud-ied the spir-it again. Some-thing about the ques-tion seemed out of char-ac-ter for the Ri''lef, at least, giv-en what she had seen of them so far. "That''s a means and ends ar-gu-ment. I was taught not to trust any-one who tries to ra-tio-nal-ize evil, but then I joined the mil-i-tary. We are..." She con-sid-ered her words very care-ful-ly. "We are the em-bod-i-ment of bring-ing about good by do-ing evil. Ob-vi-ous-ly, we be-lieve it is pos-si-ble to do so. We also take care not to do too much evil, not by our own will. But we are be-ing com-mand-ed from above, and we can''t do much about those or-ders."


    "In short," Sobon fin-ished, "It''s com-pli-cat-ed, and I don''t have an an-swer for you. Now..." Sobon stud-ied it. "Who... or what, are you ex-act-ly?"


    The spir-it pro-ject-ed a sense of amuse-ment, and van-ished, leav-ing Sobon with no an-swers.

 25. Alassi - Ascension, Part 7

    When Lui re-turned at the end of her day, she seemed pleased, as did Mian, al-though he had a dif-fer-ent rea-son. Lui''s time with the al-chemist had turned out well, al-though the girl didn''t yet un-der-stand the many nu-anced com-plex-i-ties. Ap-par-ent-ly, the woman had for a long time re-fused to take an ap-pren-tice from the lo-cals, ex-act-ly be-cause so many of them were not spir-i-tu-al-ly sen-si-tive enough. Lui would only say that the woman "com-plained a lot" about the var-i-ous youths who had passed through her shop, and that she was pleased that Lui could iden-ti-fy plants by their auras, when they looked very sim-i-lar to the eye. Ap-par-ent-ly, this was a crit-i-cal part of com-bin-ing plants into spir-i-tu-al med-i-cines, some-thing which Sobon could claim to knowl-edge of at all, and might have doubt-ed un-der dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stances.


    Mian, in-stead, had stepped out of the alche-my house and al-most im-me-di-ate-ly run afoul of the city guard chas-ing a thief. Mian, on a hunch, had gone the oth-er way, and caught a group of crim-i-nals in the mid-dle of a more sub-stan-tial rob-bery while the nor-mal guards were dis-tract-ed. It was too many for Mian to tack-le sin-gle-hand-ed-ly, but he had drawn their at-ten-tion by chal-leng-ing the strongest of the group. In the end, he held that one for the guards, and al-though many of the oth-ers got away, Mian had at least been able to iden-ti-fy most of them.


    That thought con-fused Sobon, un-til Mian and Lui both re-mind-ed him that she could fo-cus her qi sens-es on some-one to learn their name, with Mian adding spe-cif-ic de-tails about how the dif-fer-ent qi lev-els let some peo-ple shield them-selves from oth-ers, at least in part. Sobon had been aware of some of that--it had come up be-tween Jom and Xoi Xam--but for some rea-son, Sobon her-self nev-er man-aged the trick of it, and it had nev-er seemed all that im-por-tant.


    [ Re-al-ly? ] Alas-si had seemed a lit-tle sur-prised, when Sobon strug-gled and failed to get Alas-si''s own sens-es to work for her. The spir-it tried, her-self, and was able to pass a data-gram back to Sobon, which had more in-for-ma-tion than the crude stream Jom had been able to un-der-stand. [ Even with Iron Qi, I was able to read spir-its. Per-haps it''s be-cause you spend all of your time us-ing that pu-ri-fied ...aether qi, or what-ev-er it is. ]


    [ Just aether, ] Sobon replied, dis-tract-ed. In one way, that ex-pla-na-tion did make a bit of sense; Sobon''s soul, to use an im-pre-cise term, was not ac-cus-tomed to the plan-et''s qi, even if the bod-ies she had in-hab-it-ed had qi cores. Even now, Sobon in-ward-ly chafed at the idea of pass-ing com-plex, wo-ven streams of mut-li-spin aether through the deep-est reach-es of her ''self''. Even if she could gen-er-ate an ab-solute-ly pure ver-sion of the same--and Sobon wasn''t sure that she could--each of the dif-fer-ent spins that were a part of qi had their own pur-pos-es and uses. Us-ing such a com-plex en-er-gy when she only need-ed a tiny part of it, to do some-thing in par-tic-u-lar, struck Sobon as egre-gious-ly waste-ful. The en-er-gy wasn''t de-signed for peo-ple who un-der-stood aether, and Sobon knew it. So it felt... a lit-tle prim-i-tive, in spite of the fact that it was ac-tu-al-ly high-ly ad-vanced.


    "In truth," Mian was say-ing, "some of those scamps should have been iden-ti-fied by the peo-ple near-by. I think some of them might have sym-pa-tized with them, which makes me wor-ry about the town guard. I''ll do some look-ing into it in the next few days, while Lui is work-ing with Miss Fau."


    Sobon nod-ded at that, then shift-ed to look at the cramped quar-ters that her now-fam-i-ly called their own, which more re-al-is-ti-cal-ly was Sobon''s. She con-sid-ered for a long mo-ment be-fore speak-ing. "I don''t mind help-ing, if the only rea-son they are steal-ing is need. But we can''t take them in, or at least, not more than a cou-ple, and only if they''re very trust-wor-thy. I in-tend that in time, this place will have many se-crets."


    Mian glanced over at the hut where he knew Sobon had cre-at-ed the fake base-ment. "You are putting a lot of work into a lousy house, Alas-si. Are you sure you don''t want to try to get a bet-ter one?"


    Sobon just shook her head. "I don''t have the time or in-cli-na-tion to be picky. With all the ...mys-ter-ies of qi, that I know, if I want this place to be a fortress or a palace, whether I have this much room or a hun-dred times as much, I could make it work." That wasn''t quite cor-rect, but it might as well be. The Crestan Navy didn''t like us-ing spa-tial ex-pan-sion for warp-ca-pa-ble ships, but that was the only re-stric-tion he had ever been taught. Prop-er-ly re-in-forced, ex-pand-ed space was just fine; even on Crest, some ter-res-tri-al pow-er plants and fac-to-ries kept their most volatile and dan-ger-ous process-es in spa-tial pock-ets for the sake of con-tain-ment. The Ri''lef use of pock-et di-men-sions as their de-fault mode of spa-tial ex-pan-sion sug-gest-ed that they were per-fect-ly fine with both space ma-nip-u-la-tion and tele-por-ta-tion be-ing used en masse on their plan-et, so Sobon didn''t see any rea-son to hold back. Though... she did send off an-oth-er low-pri-or-i-ty note to the Ri''lef en-gi-neer, who she not-ed had not got-ten to her last query.


    "I''m hon-est-ly sur-prised the City Lord was will-ing to give you this much," said Lui, look-ing around the small space, still with the small smile that had not left her face all day. "Just for tak-ing down a bunch of crim-i-nals..."


    Sobon waved her off and shook her head at that. "Not be-cause of the boun-ty. Be-cause I taught him how to break through into Gold Qi." Lui just looked sur-prised at that, but Mian stiff-ened. Sobon caught the man''s eyes, but he made a silent ges-ture that Sobon in-ter-pret-ed as, ''lat-er''. "He ap-par-ent-ly had been stuck for a while. I im-pressed on him the need for my... ex-per-tise to re-main se-cret, and he promised he would. I didn''t specif-i-cal-ly ask for prop-er-ty, just that I had a way to keep peo-ple I care for safe. I sup-pose this was an easy way to ac-com-plish that."


    Mian leaned back slight-ly at that. "Keep-ing peo-ple safe... yeah, I sup-pose so. Es-pe-cial-ly since you still need to leave." He frowned. "But... if you taught him the se-cret to reach Gold, a small house like this might be con-sid-ered a cheap gift. De-pend-ing on how se-ri-ous he was, you might make sure that he doesn''t plan to of-fer you a bet-ter house lat-er on."


    Sobon con-sid-ered that, her frown slip-ping too eas-i-ly into the clas-sic Alas-si frown. So far, she hadn''t heard any-thing from the City Lord one way or an-oth-er--which, when she con-sid-ered the way he''d grov-eled at the inn, might well mean that he was go-ing to be ner-vous-ly await-ing some kind of word. "I will talk to him to-mor-row."


    "Prob-a-bly best," Mian agreed.


    Lui, con-tent to be left out of that con-ver-sa-tion, looked up at the evening sky. When Sobon no-ticed, she turned to look, watch-ing the be-gin-nings of red tint the sky, with the low-er, white clouds pro-vid-ing a nice con-trast against it. "Pret-ty sky," of-fered Sobon.


    "Do you know why the sky is red at dusk?" she asked, sud-den-ly.


    Mian snort-ed. "I heard some-one say it was a link to the an-ces-tral realm, or a dy-ing god''s blood. Nev-er felt any sort of odd qi about it, though."


    So Sobon talkd light-ly and vague-ly for a while about light and dif-frac-tion, mak-ing a quick prism out of aether, but the in-di-rect sun pro-vid-ed no con-ve-nient proof of con-cept. It wasn''t hard to gen-er-ate a light source, but when she had full con-trol over every as-pect of the demon-stra-tion, there was less rea-son to be-lieve she was talk-ing about the fun-da-men-tals of the uni-verse. Still, both of the two looked suit-ably fas-ci-nat-ed.


    "I''ve seen col-ors off of a glass be-fore," con-firmed Lui. "And the... lens-ing, through wa-ter. So I sup-pose it makes sense."


    Sobon just nod-ded at that, let-ting her demon-stra-tion piece lapse. "There is al-ways more to learn in the world, even for me. But now..." she stood up. "We should rest."


    The next day, Sobon de-part-ed some time af-ter Mian and Lui, af-ter lock-ing up the house. Al-though she wasn''t pos-i-tive where the City Lord could be found, she re-mem-bered his aether sig-na-ture more than well enough to throw to-geth-er a track-ing script. It was no sur-prise that her feet brought her back down the Way of Sil-ver, down the main trade route, and then up a road on the oth-er side which was the Way of Di-a-mond, which led to a state-ly build-ing with a di-a-mond promi-nent-ly fea-tured above the main en-trance. In front of the city hall, as-sum-ing that''s what it was, was a wide plaza with a promi-nent foun-tain, around which a few peo-ple milled.


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    One of them in par-tic-u-lar, a qui-et man who was def-i-nite-ly not Djang in fea-tures or cloth-ing, sat with his eyes closed fac-ing down the Way of Di-a-mond in what looked like a med-i-ta-tion pose. It was only when Sobon passed close to him that she felt a strange twinge in the aether, and she glanced at him and frowned, at the same mo-ment that he opened his eyes, glanc-ing at her.


    Sobon''s ini-tial im-pres-sion of the man was that he was serene, but with in-cred-i-ble qi. Al-though his core only dis-played five gold stars, Sobon sensed more aether depth in him than she had sensed in re-cent mem-o-ry. That might not mean pow-er, specif-i-cal-ly; Sobon knew that aether was tricky, and qi was com-pli-cat-ed. Still, she con-sid-ered him qui-et-ly, but did not pause her steps, and the man let her go.


    There was a line of peo-ple go-ing all the way out the door. Sobon didn''t queue up, and the guards didn''t ac-cost her when she sim-ply stepped past the line and into the build-ing. Once in-side, she found her-self in a mod-est-ly large re-cep-tion hall, where the sin-gle line met with a sin-gle grey-haired bu-reau-crat who, in the uni-ver-sal way of bu-reau-crats, went through all the mo-tions need-ed to ad-dress each per-son in line in a way that was not rushed, and yet still showed that he bore a great deal of stress and weight on his shoul-ders.


    It was an-oth-er func-tionary stand-ing by the edge of the room who im-me-di-ate-ly no-ticed her and hur-ried over. This one was a young woman, a po-lite and un-ques-tion-ably false smile paint-ed on her face, who bowed with-out im-me-di-ate-ly say-ing any-thing.


    So Sobon just said, "Please in-form Lord Shi-da that Lady Alas-si would like a word at his con-ve-nience. It is not ur-gent."


    Sobon sensed the qi pulse, but the woman straight-ened out of her bow. "I be-lieve that the City Lord is busy meet-ing with Lord Xoi at the pre-sent time, but I will make sure that he is no-ti-fied. If you would like to wait in-side...?"


    Sobon start-ed to sug-gest that she would wait out-side, and per-haps talk to the man by the foun-tain, but Alas-si warned her that it would be tak-en as a sign of of-fense. So Sobon sim-ply let her-self be led into a side room, where she was served a sort of qi-laced tea drink and then left alone. Alas-si could only guess how much drink-ing count-ed as ''po-lite'', but Sobon found her-self gen-er-al-ly unim-pressed with the tea. It wasn''t that the drink tast-ed bad; clear-ly the drink had been pre-pared very dili-gent-ly and with qual-i-ty in-gre-di-ents. How-ev-er... per-haps ex-act-ly be-cause of that, it had a coat-ing of very stale aether to it. Rigid and un-com-pro-mis-ing, it left a lin-ger-ing sen-sa-tion that Sobon could only para-phrase as ''tra-di-tion,'' as though any de-vi-a-tion in fla-vor, tex-ture, or even aether com-po-si-tion might be seen as of-fen-sive.


    It wasn''t over-pow-er-ing in its in-ten-si-ty, and it wasn''t tru-ly aw-ful in its na-ture. But the very first sip tast-ed to Sobon like Alas-si in that dusty up-stairs room, with win-dows that had not been opened in years. From that mo-ment, Sobon only drank if she sensed some-one else ap-proach-ing the room, or thought some-one else was mon-i-tor-ing.


    Fi-nal-ly, the same func-tionary ap-peared at a dif-fer-ent door, bow-ing and say-ing, "The City Lord will see you."


    Sobon was led through a back hall-way and up stairs. Just as they ap-proached a mas-sive door that Sobon thought was close to the back end of the build-ing, the door opened and a lean man with what Sobon pri-vate-ly con-sid-ered a ridicu-lous mous-tache stepped out. It wasn''t large so much as it clear-ly took ef-fort, and all for a re-sult Sobon would nev-er have cho-sen while male; it was thin, ex-tend-ing out to each side be-fore turn-ing sharply down, the ends curl-ing back to-wards his chin line. Qi kept it clean and firm, Sobon sus-pect-ed, but she couldn''t imag-ine mak-ing such a styl-is-tic choice. And his clothes...


    Sobon let her eyes stay on the man''s face for a mo-ment, feign-ing po-lite-ness, and then looked for-ward, try-ing not to look at the silk suit. It wasn''t of-fen-sive, ex-act-ly. Some-what like Xoi Xam''s ap-pear-ance when she met him at the hos-pi-tal in ...what was the Bilg home-land even called? Sobon had no idea, and wasn''t sure she cared. But Xoi Xam''s clothes and be-hav-ior had all been part of a sin-gle co-he-sive im-age, and this man''s were as well. Only... Sobon had con-sid-ered at the time that Xoi Xam was sim-ply dis-guis-ing her-self as meek and hum-ble when she was ac-tu-al-ly quite dan-ger-ous, and this man''s suit was also mak-ing him look dis-arm-ing, af-fa-ble.


    Sobon thought there was a sharp-ness be-hind his eyes as he con-sid-ered her in pass-ing, but she couldn''t tell what thoughts were be-hind them, or if it had any-thing to do with her at all.


    The City Lord''s of-fice, once she was in-side, was ex-pan-sive and with-out pur-pose. Lit-er-al-ly speak-ing, it was most-ly emp-ty space; it was need-less-ly tall, and al-though the walls were dec-o-rat-ed with book-shelves, most of the floor space was emp-ty. A small desk was placed in the cen-ter of a large set of floor to ceil-ing win-dows that looked out over rear gar-dens, with sev-er-al foun-tains each sur-round-ed by flower and herb col-lec-tions that Sobon had no in-ter-est in iden-ti-fy-ing. Sev-er-al qi lights hov-ered near the ceil-ing, though they were not sus-pend-ed by chains or any-thing sim-i-lar.


    Lord Shi-da him-self spent a few mo-ments fin-ish-ing writ-ing some-thing down, then hur-ried-ly stood and bowed. "My lady Alas-si. I am very sor-ry, I have been re-miss. I had re-quest-ed a dif-fer-ent house for you, but it seems my clerks--"


    "I am more than con-tent with the house I was giv-en," Sobon said, rais-ing one hand and con-tin-u-ing for-ward to the chair set near the desk.


    "But..." He less-ened his bow and made ob-vi-ous looks to the side, where sev-er-al chairs were set with-out a cen-tral table, for a more re-laxed at-mos-phere. "I, ah, was in-ves-ti-gat-ing why the pa-per-work was mixed up, and that is why I did not--"


    "Be at peace, Lord Shi-da," Sobon said, and took a seat across his desk. "And sit down. I hate all this for-mal non-sense."


    Lord Shi-da''s face twitched slight-ly at that, but he sat down. "I had in-tend-ed... ah, there was a prop-er no-ble''s man-sion that was aban-doned some months ago. It was to go to auc-tion soon, but I be-lieved it would suf-fice. It seems--"


    "Lord Shi-da," Sobon didn''t shy away from mak-ing her tone en-tire-ly clear. "I pre-fer some-thing sub-tle. And I know ways to ex-pand the space with-in, which I have al-ready be-gun. I do not wish to change to a new place af-ter the work I have al-ready done."


    At the men-tion of ex-pand-ing space, Lord Shi-da''s face took on a very tense look and a very pal-lid col-or. "Spa-tial ex-pan-sion, my Lady? Are you cer-tain?"


    "I am more than pro-fi-cient." Sobon con-sid-ered the look on his face. "Is this a prob-lem?"


    "No! No, my Lady Alas-si. It is... a rare skill. The last time I saw a Space Ring at auc-tion, it was the most high-ly de-sired item. I was made to un-der-stand... that even among in-scrip-tion-ists, con-trol over space was a rare bit of knowl-edge in-deed."


    "It is one of many things as-so-ci-at-ed with my... pa-tron." Sobon had to take a mo-ment to re-mem-ber how she had phrased it ear-li-er. It was only a mo-ment, but she was sure that Lord Shi-da no-ticed it. "I am most-ly here to-day to make sure you un-der-stand that I want to keep the house. Should it be de-ter-mined that I am killed, the own-er is my grand-daugh-ter, ...Kalai Lui." Sobon al-most stum-bled over the name. It wasn''t Alas-si''s own sur-name, but Tuli''s. In truth, she hadn''t giv-en it even a mo-ment''s thought.


    "Of course, Lady Alas-si. Now that I know... the pa-per-work will only take a mo-ment." Sobon no-ticed the man fir-ing off sev-er-al qi puls-es, and re-ceiv-ing a few in re-turn. She also no-ticed that, un-like the at-ten-dant from ear-li-er, it showed on his face when he had to con-cen-trate on the task. Then, per-haps that was part of why the at-ten-dant had her face in a con-stant, po-lite mask. "Of course, I have been search-ing for guards to ap-point to your res-i-dence--"


    "Again, I wish it to be sub-tle," Sobon in-ter-rupt-ed, firm-ly. "I''ve al-ready im-proved the de-fens-es some-what. If any-thing, builders and ma-te-ri-als would be use-ful. Specif-i-cal-ly builders that can keep a se-cret."


    For some rea-son, Lord Shi-da''s face in that mo-ment was know-ing, sat-is-fied, al-most preda-to-ry. Sobon was en-tire-ly un-sure of what ex-act-ly that was sup-posed to mean, ex-cept that some-one was go-ing to end up un-hap-py, and she didn''t think it would be her. "Of course, my Lady Alas-si."


    "One last thing," Sobon said. "My Lui may be ap-pren-tic-ing with the al-chemist, Lady Fau Mide. What do you know of her?"


    Lord Shi-da''s face in-stant-ly be-came in-ter-est-ed, and he glanced away for a mo-ment as he thought. "Fau Mide. Her fam-i-ly came from a war zone to the north, Emer-ald Hill I be-lieve. It is... more dis-tant than our names might im-ply.  They see many Starbeast invasions from the mountains to the north, there.  A re-bel-lion from the war-rior sects there was put down by the Di-a-mond Lord some years ago, and war-rior ser-vice has been manda-to-ry there ever since. Lady Fau served her time will-ing-ly, but then left the Emer-ald Hill re-gion and served as a wan-der-ing al-chemist. My pre-de-ces-sor gave her hous-ing here if she would stay, and she agreed." His eyes cleared up and he met Sobon''s own. "She has been fair in all deaings I am aware of, though oth-ers have tried to cheat her. None would say she is less than com-pe-tent. I am un-sure of ex-act-ly how deep her knowl-edge and skills go, but she is re-spect-ed."


    Sobon smiled at that. "That is what I wished to know. Thank you." At that, she stood, and left the City Lord''s of-fice, ig-nor-ing his hur-ried bows be-hind her.

 26. Alassi - Ascension, Part 8

    Be-fore Sobon even left the build-ing, a dif-fer-ent at-ten-dant hur-ried over with a set of doc-u-ments, which she scanned, and then al-lowed Alas-si to sign, tak-ing one copy for her-self while an-oth-er re-mained at the City Lord''s hall. It was a sim-ple le-gal doc-u-ment, one that Alas-si was al-ready fa-mil-iar with--in fact, it had much less legalese than the deed for the inn, which had been a de-tailed agree-ment be-tween Alas-si, Tuli, and a banker. This was al-most uni-lat-er-al, giv-ing own-er-ship of the prop-er-ty to Alas-si, and all rights that the City Lord him-self had the au-thor-i-ty to grant.


    Alas-si her-self was quite pleased by this. [ Among oth-er things, I be-lieve this al-lows us--well, you. Or any-one, I sup-pose--to op-er-ate a busi-ness there. One of the rea-sons why we built the inn so far away was that it would cost much more to own a busi-ness close to the city, or with-in it. I nev-er checked, but I''m sure the shops on the Ways of Gold and Sil-ver are so ex-pen-sive to pur-chase that only a no-ble fam-i-ly could af-ford them. ]


    Sobon hadn''t con-sid-ered ex-act-ly how re-strict-ed prop-er-ty deeds might be, but nei-ther was she sur-prised. Con-trol of prop-er-ty was a very easy way to con-trol pow-er in any world, and good lo-ca-tion in busi-ness was pow-er-ful. Still, as Sobon dis-missed the at-ten-dant and made her way back out-side, her mind was on the small signs, here and there, that things were wrong in the city. The slums, the peo-ple pos-si-bly sup-port-ing the thieves over the guards, and the fact that there were deed re-stric-tions against busi-ness use on most prop-er-ty, en-sur-ing that poor-er peo-ple had to have mon-ey to be-gin a busi-ness. Com-bined with the ex-is-tence of slums... that would prob-a-bly pre-vent the ex-is-tence of low-cost, lo-cal food or sim-i-lar, as well.


    Sobon let those thoughts clear as she quick-ly searched the plaza area for the man from ear-li-er, but he had left his spot at the foun-tain. Sobon frowned, but only briefly, and al-lowed her feet to car-ry her past the same spot on her way back out. There was no sig-nif-i-cant sign, ex-cept maybe the slight-est touch of aether where he was sit-ting and med-i-tat-ing.


    In-stead of head-ing di-rect-ly back, Sobon let her-self wan-der gen-er-al-ly in the di-rec-tion of the Al-chemist where Lui was, al-though she didn''t get par-tic-u-lar-ly close. Once she could see the place, and got a gen-er-al im-pres-sion of the aether there, she de-cid-ed she was sat-is-fied. There were plen-ty of things that might have been wrong--stale aether would have been the most sub-tle one, but af-ter the tea she was served, it was on her mind--but the aether was smooth, blend-ing in to the sur-round-ings while still hav-ing its own ob-vi-ous char-ac-ter. Like-wise, the sur-round-ings were calm, with sev-er-al oth-er crafts shops of var-i-ous kinds around, none of them hav-ing ob-vi-ous bad char-ac-ter. Just down the road, near where Sobon de-cid-ed to turn back, was a tea house. Sobon was sure that she could have sat there and in-ves-ti-gat-ed the shop at her leisure, but she didn''t want to be in con-trol of Lui''s life.


    So she glanced around at the shops, pre-tend-ing to be in-ter-est-ed in those in-stead. The only ones that re-al-ly in-ter-est-ed her were in-scrip-tion-ist shops, of which there were two, one clos-er to the al-chemist''s and one clos-er to the trade road. Of the two, Sobon liked the aether of the for-mer shop bet-ter, but de-cid-ed to poke her head in to the clos-er one, to avoid tempt-ing her-self to mon-i-tor Lui and Fau Mide.


    The in-scrip-tion-ist''s shop was wealthy enough to have a full time sales-per-son, who stiff-ened im-me-di-ate-ly when it was ob-vi-ous that Sobon was com-ing in. She was young, per-haps re-lat-ed to the real crafters, with her hair done up neat-ly and fine silk clothes, but Sobon didn''t like see-ing such a young lady force a mask over her fea-tures, hid-ing every last one of her thoughts. It wasn''t the prin-ci-ple of the thing, but the ex-e-cu-tion--she was too good at sup-press-ing her own feel-ings, which spoke of heavy-hand-ed dis-ci-pline. It doubt-less served a pur-pose, and per-haps served it well, but it was one of those things that dam-aged a per-son''s spir-it.


    Sobon stud-ied the girl, but also and more ob-vi-ous-ly stud-ied the var-i-ous in-scribed items in the shop, tak-ing men-tal notes where she could of the in-scrip-tions. Al-though the Marines had not taught her aether med-i-cine, be-yond first aid, she was keen-ly aware that forc-ing one''s spir-it into a pat-tern that didn''t fit it would re-duce your sen-si-tiv-i-ty to aether sig-nif-i-cant-ly. And the girl did show just the slight-est signs that she might be a bit aether-in-sen-si-tive, al-though Sobon was only guess-ing, as the oc-ca-sion-al aether wave or ping passed by with-out her ob-vi-ous-ly notic-ing.


    "Is the Lady in-ter-est-ed in in-scrip-tions?" the girl asked fi-nal-ly. "We have many tal-is-mans and seals avail-able, and the Mas-ter is ca-pa-ble of set-ting up ad-vanced for-ma-tions."


    Sobon con-sid-ered, look-ing around. "Is the Mas-ter avail-able?"


    The girl men-tal-ly fum-bled for a mo-ment be-fore send-ing off a qi pulse, al-though she kept her face al-most straight. "I be-lieve he will be in a few mo-ments."


    Sobon took the time to study the most ad-vanced item she could find, a jew-eled amulet hang-ing on the wall that was dense-ly packed with qi in-scrip-tions. Al-though Sobon was sure that part of the script was on the rear, out of sight, what she could see from the front was a large set of de-fen-sive scripts, many of them specif-i-cal-ly trig-gered to some source of dan-ger or oth-er. A few of the tricks were clever; the most broad trig-ger would de-fend the wear-er if her own qi didn''t will-ing-ly mesh with an in-com-ing aether ef-fect above a cer-tain in-ten-si-ty. That would al-most al-ways be the case when be-ing at-tacked, but might have also blocked some types of heal-ing, es-pe-cial-ly while the bear-er was un-con-scious. An in-tent fil-ter was at-tached there, to pro-vide an ex-cep-tion, but Sobon wasn''t en-tire-ly sure she liked the so-lu-tion.


    Sobon didn''t miss the sound of the in-scrip-tion mas-ter com-ing up a set of stairs from a shield-ed base-ment, and shift-ed her at-ten-tion to the sim-plest in-scrip-tion in the shop--an en-hanced dag-ger. It was dis-tinct-ly less im-pres-sive than her broom han-dle work, mere-ly en-hanc-ing the strength of the steel it-self, and do-ing so by fill-ing it with a spe-cif-ic type of hard-en-ing qi. Sobon hadn''t looked too close-ly at the qi types--it seemed most-ly point-less to her, as much of qi''s spe-cif-ic func-tions did--but they had a va-ri-ety of spe-cif-ic prop-er-ties and en-hance-ments, and were gen-er-al-ly themed around el-e-ments and ef-fects. This dag-ger was es-sen-tial-ly be-ing told by its in-scrip-tions to be-have more like an ide-al dag-ger--in oth-er words, strong, sharp, and re-sis-tant to wear.


    Where-as Sobon''s broom han-dle had sim-ply cre-at-ed a cut-ting edge from pure geom-e-try and force planes. Every bit of en-er-gy put into the pro-jec-tion was do-ing what she asked of it, as op-posed to this... ide-al-is-tic crap.


    "May I help you, my Lady?" Sobon glanced at the mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist, who was a mid-dle-aged man with sharp eyes, his fea-tures clean ex-cept for a sin-gle, short sec-tion of beard hang-ing from the cen-ter of his chin. Sobon didn''t like him; al-though most of his aether was calm and even, there was a sin-gle flaw buried deep in-side, and it wasn''t small or sub-tle. Out of view, per-haps, but no less real.


    "I am some-what in-ter-est-ed in your process," Sobon said, glanc-ing around, but find-ing no bet-ter ex-am-ple than the dag-ger. "Though not the de-tails of in-scrip-tion. For in-stance, this dag-ger." She nod-ded at it. "I see the in-tent and the pur-pose of it. But is this re-al-ly the best way to cre-ate such a weapon?"


    The in-scrip-tion-ist frowned, and Sobon could feel a riot of emo-tion run-ning through him, and it felt like much of it swirled around that flaw, though not di-rect-ly through it. Pride, she sus-pect-ed, or some-thing close enough. Ar-ro-gance, maybe. "Met-al qi is the best way to en-hance met-al weapons, of course. This is a very sim-ple ex-am-ple." He im-me-di-ate-ly turned to an-oth-er blade, a stan-dard sin-gle-edged sword with a gen-tle curve. "For in-stance, this one uses met-al qi for re-in-forc-ing and en-hanc-ing the blade, but its cut-ting pow-er is en-hanced with blood qi. Once it has opened a wound, it will pen-e-trate much fur-ther than nor-mal. Of course, this is best with stab-bing at-tacks." He moved on to an-oth-er, some-what short-er blade. "This uses thun-der qi to ex-tend the tip of the blade when mak-ing slic-ing at-tacks. It is in-tend-ed to de-ceive the op-po-nent into think-ing they have dodged, and re-quires ac-tive in-tent to use."


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    Sobon stud-ied both ex-am-ples. The blood cut-ting sword... Sobon thought it was over-built, most like-ly be-cause it had to steal pow-er from an op-po-nent''s blood, which would op-pose the in-tent. It would build up pow-er nec-es-sary to over-come that re-sis-tance, and then hold onto blood once it had at-tuned some. Again, Sobon could see the point and pur-pose of it, but it was in-ef-fi-cient. The ''thun-der'' cut-ting sword used light-ning qi and a bit of geom-e-try--it was the clos-est Sobon could see in the room to her bar-ri-er blade, but it too built up a lot of func-tions in or-der to work with, and there-fore, work around the spe-cif-ic na-ture of qi in-volved. Af-ter all, light-ning was an el-e-ment that flowed from one thing to an-oth-er--it didn''t just hang around do-ing noth-ing.


    "What about a blade that would re-spond to the user''s qi, what-ev-er type of qi they chose to use?"


    The man frowned. "That would be... com-pli-cat-ed, my Lady."


    Sobon just raised her eye-brows. "Oh?"


    The in-scrip-tion-ist met her eyes, but Sobon wasn''t sure she could un-der-stand what she saw there. "There are too many vari-a-tions on how qi could be used in-side of a sword, and a prop-er in-scrip-tion would need to res-onate with the na-ture of qi and its pur-pose. Hold-ing blood qi along the edge of a blade is very dif-fer-ent from do-ing the same with light-ning qi, or fire qi, or met-al qi. It would be triv-ial to sim-ply provide qi-con-duc-tive chan-nels through the weapon, but that would not en-hance or mul-ti-ply the pow-er of the qi. Such chan-nels would sim-ply be al-low-ing a novice to do what a qi mas-ter can al-ready do."


    Sobon dis-agreed, of course, but won-dered if it was a dif-fer-ence in per-spec-tive, ed-u-ca-tion, or phi-los-o-phy. "I would ex-pect that a mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist such as your-self could cre-ate not only chan-nels, but also re-lease the qi from that chan-nel along the blade, while shield-ing the blade from the re-lease it-self. Al-though it would not work for every qi na-ture, it would be a fun-da-men-tal tool that al-lows a war-rior to more eas-i-ly prac-tice do-ing the same with their qi."


    For some rea-son, that sim-ple sug-ges-tion set the mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist to sweat-ing. Sobon just looked at him, gen-uine-ly cu-ri-ous why a few sim-ple words had got-ten him up-set, but af-ter a mo-ment, he sim-ply cov-ered it up by putting a thought-ful look on his face.


    "I had not con-sid-ered that ap-proach, my Lady, he said, sim-ply, and then cleared his ex-pres-sion, de-lib-er-ate-ly. "Do you have any oth-er de-sires, my lady? Or any de-sire to pur-chase some-thing?"


    Sobon made a show of look-ing at every-thing dis-played, one at a time, be-fore say-ing, "Not to-day," and then walk-ing out.


    Sobon took a me-an-der-ing path through the city on her way back home, but al-though she not-ed var-i-ous shops and roads on her walk, she was most-ly think-ing about the in-scrip-tions she''d seen. It put into con-text some of what the Ri''lef had sent her about qi and in-scrip-tions; there were many words in the lan-guage of qi in-scrip-tion that were high-ly spe-cif-ic, as they ap-plied to not only some spe-cif-ic na-ture of qi, but also a spe-cif-ic ap-pli-ca-tion. The set of scripts, for ex-am-ple, that held light-ning-type qi in space rel-a-tive to the blade were more com-plex than just con-tain-ment, re-lease, and shield-ing, as Sobon had sug-gest-ed. It in-stead cy-cled through a num-ber of states, each state stor-ing and dis-charg-ing the qi in spe-cif-ic ways.


    But the ''words'' in the script that did that were fun-da-men-tal con-cepts, and even the cy-cling func-tion was a spe-cif-ic mul-ti-word phrase that ap-peared in the doc-u-ments, all so that the elec-tric dis-charge of the qi would look re-al-is-tic--a con-cern for the Ri''lef en-gi-neers putting such a sys-tem to-geth-er. See-ing it in ac-tion, Sobon could imag-ine adapt-ing the cy-cling func-tion to cre-ate a vi-brat-ing cut-ting edge, per-haps with small ser-ra-tions to ex-tend the range of the ac-tu-al cut-ting sur-face slight-ly. It would have, ul-ti-mate-ly, much more ef-fect than turn-ing a lit-tle bit of cap-tured "blood qi" into an ad-di-tion-al cut-ting edge.


    By the time that Sobon re-turned to her house, she had near-ly for-got-ten about the mys-tery man at the foun-tain. But as she reached out men-tal-ly to un-lock the gate, she paused, look-ing down the street.


    Where, by all ac-counts idly, the same man walked out of an al-ley-way, his eyes look-ing away at some-thing else, a pleas-ant look on his face.


    It didn''t take him long to turn back her way, of course, and he smiled broad-ly when he saw Sobon stand-ing there, and walked in her di-rec-tion. He didn''t raise his voice, or try to speak un-til he was rea-son-ably close. "Good day, Lady," he sim-ply said, smil-ing. "I see that for-tune has brought us to-geth-er once more."


    "I doubt it was sim-ple for-tune," said Sobon, not dis-guis-ing the sus-pi-cion in her voice.


    "Fate, then." The man made a pleas-ant, if shal-low and short, bow, one more per-for-ma-tive than sub-servient. "I am known as Kibar. And you, lady?"


    Sobon, hav-ing been re-mind-ed that peo-ple could read one an-oth-er''s qi, con-sid-ered the ques-tion a mo-ment be-fore re-ply-ing. "You may call me Alas-si."


    "Charmed. Al-though, that is not quite who you are, is it?" The look in his eyes wasn''t ma-li-cious, more like a man who en-joyed find-ing and keep-ing se-crets, though Sobon still wasn''t sure how much to trust him.


    "It is a name. It is mine." Those were true enough, though Sobon''s thoughts con-tin-ued on, rec-og-niz-ing that the man seemed to want to chat, and what-ev-er he in-tend-ed to do, it might be bet-ter to at least see where it was go-ing. "But a name is only a word to de-scribe a per-son. Too of-ten, it says very lit-tle."


    "Ex-act-ly so." The man''s smile widened for half a mo-ment. "If any-thing, it is the very fact that it is yours that makes it mean-ing-ful. It can nev-er be-long to any-one else, af-ter that."


    Sobon chose not to even en-gage with that in-sin-u-a-tion. "Did you have some-thing you need-ed, sir Kibar?" The word ''sir'' that she used, ac-cord-ing to Alas-si, was some-what less po-lite than call-ing a per-son a lord. For-mal, but not near-ly as re-spect-ful.


    "Only a chance to speak with a beau-ti-ful and in-tel-li-gent woman," Kibar said in turn, with hard-ly a pause. "I won-der, my lady... what do you be-lieve that fate is?"


    That was a ques-tion that Sobon didn''t want to an-swer, be-cause she knew that the an-swer she had was tech-ni-cal, in-volved time ma-nip-u-la-tion, and wouldn''t be looked fond-ly on by most. Still, she was still orig-i-nal-ly a cy-borg, and could think on her feet. "It ties us to some-thing larg-er than our-selves", she said, that sum-ma-ry not touch-ing on the Ri''lef''s con-cept of a mas-sive fate-al-ter-ing struc-ture de-signed and built by aliens to ma-nip-u-late the course of the en-tire world.


    "It does," the man replied, cheer-ful-ly. "To the past of our peo-ple, and to its fu-ture. We were fat-ed to meet, to-day. The Spir-its willed it."


    Sobon con-sid-ered the man, what he had said, and the sud-den flick of tan-gled aether that she had felt when she passed by him. Per-haps that was ex-act-ly true--that a spir-i-tu-al god, or oth-er greater spir-it, had placed him in her way specif-i-cal-ly to en-tan-gle her into some scheme. "And do you trust the spir-its?" She stud-ied him, and the sub-tle but deep aether be-hind him.


    Al-though she ex-pect-ed him to be equal-ly blithe about that ques-tion, in-stead he paused, let-ting his smile slip a lit-tle as he con-sid-ered. "That is the question, isn''t it? The spir-its have pow-er, enough to shape des-tiny. But not all spir-its are well-mean-ing. It would not be dif-fi-cult for us to fall into the sway of a spir-it who means ill. Many have done so in the past, and many, I am sure, will fall into such traps in the fu-ture." Still, his smile re-turned. "I do not trust all spir-its. But I trust my [kar-ma]."


    Sobon blinked, sur-prised that the man went out of his way to ful-ly en-com-pass a spo-ken word with a data-gram trans-la-tion. It wasn''t as though the word made no sense--Alas-si rec-og-nized and un-der-stood it--but the man still put his heart into say-ing the word, fill-ing it with mean-ing, if not in-tent. To him, kar-ma was a near-ly in-de-scrib-able love that had guid-ed him through hard times, a love that had ex-ist-ed for him be-fore he was born, and which trust-ed him and which he trust-ed in turn. In short, it was a con-nec-tion to some-thing which, at least to him, was kind and benev-o-lent.


    Sobon was not ful-ly over her dis-trust of the man, or what-ev-er spir-i-tu-al backer he had, but she con-sid-ered. It wouldn''t be hard to be cyn-i-cal, dis-card-ing the man and his spir-i-tu-al ally. And it would be shock-ing-ly easy to be-come en-tan-gled with him and his kar-ma. But in-stead, Sobon closed her eyes and gen-tly re-leased sev-er-al waves of aether in var-i-ous pat-terns, try-ing to find and dis-en-tan-gle the web that had brought the man to her doorstep.


    When she found some-thing like a small aether knot, Sobon got a sense that be-yond it was a kind en-ti-ty, but not a bril-liant one. Sobon sent it a pulse of some-thing like grat-i-tude, but qui-et-ly re-moved the knot with-out any fur-ther dis-cus-sion.


    "It is good that you have good... kar-ma," Sobon said. "But my pur-pose is heavy, and com-plex. I do not hate you, or your kar-ma. But I do not trust you to lead me where I need to go."


    For some rea-son, the smile on the man''s face had slipped, and he looked... strange. Still, he was a bright man, and he con-sid-ered her words, and not mere-ly the ac-tion that he had clear-ly sensed her tak-ing. "It is al-ways good when a good per-son knows what they must do in life. But you are sure...? That you do not need, or want...?"


    "I be-lieve the word you are look-ing for is ful-fill-ment," Sobon guessed. In a word, that de-scribed the man; he seemed kind, and was loved, and led to good things in life. "I have more im-por-tant mat-ters than my own spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment." And with that, Sobon fi-nal-ly un-locked her gate, open-ing it with a touch of aether, and giv-ing the man a look that was quite plain in not invit-ing him in. "I wish you a good day, sir Kibar."


    He plas-tered a con-fused smile on his face, and gave his shal-low bow again, and Sobon walked in-side and closed the gate af-ter her.

 27. Alassi - Ascension, Part 9

    Sobon spent much of the rest of her day prepar-ing ad-di-tion-al quartz rods from the sandy soil, while also spend-ing part of her at-ten-tion at-tun-ing her bones and mus-cles to aether. It felt very good to have a body that was be-com-ing at-tuned; both Sobon and Alas-si could feel the world so much more clear-ly, al-though Alas-si''s sens-es, be-ing at-tuned to qi and not aether, strug-gled. For Sobon, at-tun-ing her body to pure, un-tainted aether left her feel-ing more and more like she was stand-ing on breezy cliff, her nose catch-ing scents as they min-gle and me-an-der on a jour-ney from some-where far away to al-most any-where else.


    [ Your po-et-ry is aw-ful, ] Alas-si groused. [ And I just don''t like this feel-ing. It''s so hard to sense what else is out there when there is this... field of noth-ing al-ways right there, in the way. It''s... be-yond my ex-pe-ri-ence. It feels like it should be a sign of some-thing hap-pen-ing, but it''s just... you. ]


    [ Well, I did steal your body and your life, ] Sobon re-mind-ed her, suc-cess-ful-ly sup-press-ing any in-stinct to feel bad for the old woman. It wasn''t as though she hadn''t had her chance. [ You will grow used to it. ]


    By the end of the day, when Mian and Lui re-turned, Sobon had used up all of the free sand in the court-yard, down to a depth of a foot or so. That had turned out to be a rel-a-tive-ly large por-tion of the lo-cal soil, and so Sobon had been forced to leave re-gions close to the build-ing foun-da-tions untouched. The re-sult-ing dip in the rest of the soil was noticeable, but Sobon wasn''t in-ter-est-ed in that part of the aes-thet-ics. And giv-en that she had craft-ed a large num-ber of the thin rods...


    "You look like you had a good day," was all Mian said as he closed the gate be-hind the two of them.


    Sobon shift-ed her at-ten-tion eas-i-ly, fin-ish-ing her thoughts offhand-ed-ly as she looked at the two. Mian was in a ri-otous-ly good mood, his spir-it pos-i-tive-ly spin-ning, and he''d clear-ly gained a star, ap-proach-ing the top of Iron and the edge of Sil-ver. Lui looked good, too, if tired. "You both as well."


    Lui was ob-vi-ous-ly about to speak, but Mian stepped over her with-out notic-ing. "I found what I was look-ing for--cor-rupt pa-trollers, of course. Not a whole lot of them, per-haps two or three, but they had a wealthy pa-tron who had put pres-sure on the city pa-troller''s guild not to take ac-tion. I wasn''t sure that I had the right group, but... some-one tried to kill me, so I must be get-ting close. Not any-one re-al-ly strong, yet." He took his mas-sive butch-er sword out of its sheath, and Sobon could see that it was once again blood-stained, and slight-ly more chipped than it had been. His eyes fol-lowed Sobon''s to the blade. "Only wish I could use my qi bet-ter. The strength is nice, but I feel like I need an in-script-ed blade to make bet-ter use of it."


    Sobon con-sid-ered, for a long mo-ment, be-fore look-ing to Lui. The girl had shrunk slight-ly, dis-ap-point-ed that Mian had got-ten his words in first, and so Sobon spoke to her. "And you, Lui? You seem hap-py."


    "I am, very much." Lui''s smile widened, and was per-haps a lit-tle hard. "I saw Lady Mide mak-ing a pill. Al-though I couldn''t fol-low every-thing that was go-ing, on, I think I un-der-stand the process, and she liked that. She has me prepar-ing a few sim-ple in-gre-di-ents, now. It''s very care-ful work." Her smile slipped a lit-tle, and she looked down at her hands. "I... wor-ry a lit-tle. My hands have al-ways shak-en, some-times. Es-pe-cial-ly when I''m scared. But it didn''t hap-pen at all, to-day."


    Sobon stood and moved over to her body''s grand-daugh-ter. With her hands more or less at-tuned, now, Sobon could feel the flow of aether through them with much high-er sen-si-tiv-i-ty, al-though it was far from per-fect. She took the girl''s hands and felt along them, her fin-gers trac-ing up and down the aether struc-tures of the arm. Lui sucked in a breath at first--the girl was still fair-ly shy, even here and with her--but Sobon was gen-tle, and Lui didn''t so much as flinch at the con-tact, or her search-ing mo-tions.


    "There is a lit-tle knot," Sobon said af-ter a mo-ment, "but it isn''t a flaw, ex-act-ly. You''ve al-ways..." Sobon sought for words to de-scribe at-tune-ment. "...felt more at-tached to your hands than the rest of your body, haven''t you?"


    Lui looked em-bar-rassed at that. "Uh... well, yes? I saw so many dif-fer-ent kinds of hands when I was serv-ing. Some were strong, oth-ers frail. Some were fat, and oth-ers... not." She looked down at her hands, and then quick-ly away. "I... got com-ments on them, a lot. But most-ly, I just knew that I had to hold the plates and mugs with-out let-ting any-thing drop, and many of them were heavy, when I was young. I guess... I thought about them a lot?"


    It was Alas-si who thought she un-der-stood, and Sobon let her come for-ward to speak, her voice chang-ing sub-tly. "You hat-ed them, in oth-er words."


    Both Lui and Mian snapped their at-ten-tion to the woman. Alas-si let the girls'' hands drop, but not be-fore briefly squeez-ing her. "I didn''t hear them; I didn''t lis-ten. But I know the com-ments you must have heard. Al-ways about how you would be a good moth-er or a good woman, how you would find a good man. Nev-er about your strength or your will, and they would nev-er ask about your de-sires or dreams. And I know you had dreams, Lui. I didn''t..." The woman frowned, but Sobon forced her to speak. "I didn''t... care, back then. I should have. But I did hear you talk-ing about them, about run-ning your own busi-ness some-day, about show-ing your fa-ther that you could do it. They were good dreams."


    "The way they looked at my hands," Lui agreed, qui-et-ly, "al-ways seemed wrong to me. Some-thing in their eyes saw some-thing in my hands. I don''t know what."


    Alas-si and Mian both chose not to an-swer that, and Sobon didn''t dis-agree.


    "You can be proud of your hands," Alas-si said, though it took Sobon to push her into break-ing the awk-ward si-lence ear-ly. "I don''t know... what Sobon saw, ex-act-ly. But I ex-pect your hands shake when you doubt and fear, be-cause they are at-tached close-ly to your spir-it, and your spir-it is very sen-si-tive. As long as you can keep this," she tapped Lui''s chest, clos-est to her heart, "calm and sta-ble, your hands will an-swer you. Of that I have no doubt."


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    Lui con-sid-ered, but nod-ded. "Thank you, Grand-ma Alas-si."


    The woman tsked slight-ly, but Sobon didn''t force her way back in front. The woman con-sid-ered her grand-daugh-ter, and then the man be-side them. "It isn''t all bad, you know."


    The two of them tensed, but Alas-si just sighed.


    "I... should have been dead. I don''t think I ever re-sent-ed him... re-sent-ed Sobon for tak-ing away my life, or not af-ter the first mo-ment. It stopped be-ing my life a long time ago." Alas-si shook her head. "I sup-pose you both know that well enough. You were both wait-ing for me to come back. I was just wait-ing to die. Maybe I am dead. Maybe Sobon just keeps me here to ask me for help. I don''t know, and as I un-der-stand it, he didn''t have any choice in this, ei-ther. But it''s not tor-ture for me to be locked away. It isn''t painful, re-al-ly, es-pe-cial-ly know-ing that he would do the right thing. Has done the right thing."


    "Sobon is a man?" Mian''s voice was some-where be-tween doubt-ing and scan-dal-ized. Lui turned to look at him, a dis-ap-prov-ing look on her face.


    "As I re-call, one of his first thoughts was so dis-mis-sive of the dif-fer-ence be-tween men and women that he con-sid-ered it lit-tle more than shapes. He has worked to think of him-self as me, since then." Alas-si shrugged. "He has not dis-re-spect-ed my body or my will, which is more than I can say about many."


    Sobon, with an ef-fort of will, dis-tanced her-self from the con-ver-sa-tion by think-ing about Mian''s sword, in or-der to give the woman space to talk. In truth, al-though Sobon had been flip-pant with the in-scrip-tion-ist, she wasn''t en-tire-ly cer-tain how mere-ly chan-nel-ing qi through the blade would af-fect it. Us-ing pure aether scripts to en-hance the blade would be triv-ial, but if Sobon was go-ing to work with qi scripts, she had to un-der-stand how they were all meant to in-ter-act with the var-i-ous qi na-tures, or what-ev-er the fla-vors were called.


    A quick pe-rusal of the Ri''lef notes on qi brought her to a sec-tion about the ac-tu-al geom-e-try of qi, which was fas-ci-nat-ing. Sobon had known that it in-volved sev-er-al dif-fer-ent spins--or, as the Ri''lef thought of them, the essence of sev-er-al dif-fer-ent lay-ers of re-al-i-ty all bun-dled to-geth-er into a sin-gle en-er-gy. Ac-cord-ing to Ri''lef thought, qi con-tained links to var-i-ous re-gions on dif-fer-ent lay-ers, each of which may con-tain in-nate scripts that link to each oth-er. These scripts were re-spon-si-ble for the "na-tures" of qi, and each na-ture of qi had dif-fer-ent ways in which those scripts would need to be cre-at-ed to work suc-cess-ful-ly.


    For what-ev-er rea-son, the doc-u-ment didn''t go into depth on what those scripts ac-tu-al-ly were, in-stead sug-gest-ing that prac-ti-tion-ers would fig-ure out how to add na-tures to their qi as long as space was pro-vid-ed to do so, and so qi was giv-en at-tach-ment points on all of its spins--us-ing the Ri''lef terms for them, Right-eous and Sin-is-ter, Gen-e-sis and Con-sump-tion, Ac-cel-er-a-tion and Re-vival, Sa-cred and Cor-rupt. The "raw" en-er-gy had some ba-sic scripts at each point to make sure that qi could still ful-fill the ba-sic func-tions of aether, and which reg-u-lat-ed what kinds of scripts could be writ-ten into the qi, but the notes also in-di-cat-ed that they ex-pect-ed--and to some ex-tent, knew for a fact--that the aether war-riors of the plan-et would dam-age those scripts when cre-at-ing qi na-tures, cre-at-ing things that did not func-tion as in-tend-ed and which could be cor-rupt-ed.


    With that back-ground, Sobon looked back over the li-brary of qi in-scrip-tion sym-bols, not-ing that there were sets of glyphs in-tend-ed to copy scripts into and out of the qi, ef-fec-tive-ly adding in-tent and na-ture to the qi, or re-mov-ing them from it. There were also de-tect-ing and block-ing glyphs of a sim-i-lar char-ac-ter, but now that Sobon un-der-stood that they were based on these qi ex-ten-sions, they made more sense. In her mind, then, she sketched out a sim-ple set of en-grav-ings for some-thing like Mian''s sword, with a qi chan-nel that strength-ened the sword, and one that emit-ted any en-er-gy from the very edge of the blade, with an op-tion-al mode for that chan-nel to re-place the emit-ted qi''s in-tent with one of pure, Sin-is-ter de-struc-tion.


    It was rough, in Sobon''s opin-ion, and it was still waste-ful com-pared to us-ing raw aether. Giv-en the size of Mian''s blade, she also knew that she could add all kinds of ex-tra func-tions if she chose, but she didn''t ex-pect the man would want it. The only real ad-van-tage over some-thing like Sobon''s bar-ri-er blade was that the blade strength-en-ing in-scrip-tion didn''t need to rely on geom-e-try, al-though the cut-ting edge script did. In the end, Sobon couldn''t con-tent her-self with the ba-sic ver-sion, adding a script to de-tect the geom-e-try of the blade, and then adapt-ing the strength-en-ing and cut-ting edges to use that geom-e-try, de-pend-ing on the user''s will and in-tent.


    Sobon came out of her de-sign fo-cus to find Alas-si and the oth-ers hav-ing a meal to-geth-er. Al-though Sobon would have let her stay a while longer, Alas-si sim-ply passed the body back, and so Sobon found her-self back in con-trol mid-chew. It was a sim-ple meal, as the ones at home of-ten were--rice and cooked veg-eta-bles, with a lit-tle spice. Sobon found her-self pay-ing at-ten-tion to the taste sim-ply be-cause it hit her out of nowhere, and she had to ad-mit, again, that Mian was a de-cent cook.


    The eyes of the oth-er two were on her, of course, but Sobon fin-ished her mouth-ful and swal-lowed. "Yes, I''m back," she said. "I thought she de-served some time with you. And I spent some time think-ing about how to en-hance your sword, if you want it." Sobon glanced at Mian, who im-me-di-ate-ly bright-ened. Sobon then turned to Lui. "And Lui... I am a war-rior, not a doc-tor, but Alas-si was right about your hands. The knot that I saw is a deep con-nec-tion be-tween body and spir-it; the con-flict comes when you can''t keep your spir-it in con-trol." She paused, frown-ing. "But sen-si-tiv-i-ty, es-pe-cial-ly height-ened sen-si-tiv-i-ty like yours, re-quires nev-er try-ing to con-quer your spir-it, which means not be-ing able to force con-trol. I am very sen-si-tive, for a war-rior, but I may still not be the right per-son to teach you how to keep con-trol with-out los-ing what you have."


    Lui nod-ded, set-ting down her own bowl of rice. "Grand-ma Alas-si had a few words, but I think I will ask Lady Mide. She is sen-si-tive enough that she must have dealt with it as well."


    Sobon just nod-ded, and con-tin-ued eat-ing. Af-ter she fin-ished, Mian lent her the sword, which--af-ter a few min-utes spent clean-ing and sharp-en-ing it--Sobon at-tempt-ed to en-grave, af-ter first run-ning through every-thing in her mind twice. The en-grav-ing process took a cou-ple hours, and Lui and Mian both left her to it, al-though Mian re-turned fre-quent-ly just to watch.


    By the end, when Sobon filled the in-tent marks with the right specifics to strength-en the met-al and emit de-struc-tive in-tent, the sword worked just the way she had drawn it up. Us-ing her own body''s qi and care-ful-ly craft-ed in-tent, she was able to shift the blade re-in-force-ment from full-body, to the cut-ting edge, to one of the broad sides of the blade, and she could ac-ti-vate the cut-ting edge emis-sion with or with-out the sin-is-ter qi fla-vor added to it, and even shift which parts of the cut-ting edge emit-ted qi.


    It felt odd, then, to hand it over to Mian, and see him com-plete-ly fail to ac-ti-vate the sword.


    "I''ve nev-er used ex-ter-nal qi be-fore," Mian ad-mit-ted, cy-cling en-er-gy into his hands but fail-ing to pro-ject it down the qi chan-nels of the blade. "I thought I knew... I thought it would be ob-vi-ous, and sim-ple. I guess I was wrong."


    Sobon just sighed. "I''ll teach you," she said af-ter a long mo-ment. "But not to-day. To-mor-row, af-ter you es-cort Lui."


    The smile on Mian''s face said that he more than ac-cept-ed that in-vi-ta-tion.

 28. Captain Mada Rui

    Cap-tain Mada Rui, for-mer-ly a Dji-panese no-ble-woman at least in name, was ex-act-ly the sort of woman who would nev-er see the con-se-quences of her ac-tions com-ing. Giv-en her 3-star Gold Qi core, it took an as-ton-ish-ing quan-ti-ty of al-co-hol to get her drunk, and yet she spent the mon-ey to do ex-act-ly that when-ev-er she made port, for as long as she was in port. If she were rich-er--and on those oc-ca-sions where she had a wind-fall, and the crew couldn''t keep the mon-ey out of her pock-ets--she would spend the ex-tra mon-ey on tasti-er al-co-hol rather than any-thing sen-si-ble, like in-vest-ments, or even ship re-pairs.


    Nev-er-the-less, the ship was hers, and her sec-ond and third of-fi-cers had learned when they could, and when they couldn''t, sneak some-thing by her. In the case of that id-iot Il-lan girl, they didn''t have to. She had been search-ing around for a while, ask-ing a bunch of ob-nox-ious ques-tion, and then sud-den-ly de-cid-ed that she had to trav-el to Djang. She was will-ing to work ship-board, so she could have made off on any re-spectable trade ship if one were in port. But she was im-pa-tient, and that brought her to Cap-tain Mada''s sec-ond, and the brat even de-mand-ed to ask the cap-tain in per-son.


    If Cap-tain Mada were sober, and sig-nif-i-cant-ly smarter, she might have seen an echo of her own past in the girl, but it was her past that she was spend-ing all of her mon-ey to for-get. That left her with an in-de-scrib-able ha-tred for the girl, and be-tween her sec-ond and her, it wasn''t hard to share an un-der-stand-ing with-out words or even qi puls-es. So they ac-cept-ed the girl aboard, and as soon as she was asleep, tied her up, beat her to with-in an inch of her life, and set off to sell her to Djang slavers. The girl alone, plus some com-mon trade goods, would more than make a prof-it on the short jour-ney. Cap-tain Mada, in her way, thought of noth-ing but the drink-ing she would do with the ex-tra mon-ey, even as her sec-ond and third did all the real work to get her ship ready to sail.


    The first sign of trou-ble was when the Third caught the girl mak-ing some weird kind of qi wave in the dead of night, and beat her for it. The Sec-ond brought it up with the cap-tain first thing in the morn-ing, but she was some-where be-tween hung over and new-ly sober, both of which were bad moods to ac-cost her in.


    It was a good half a day lat-er when the sec-ond fi-nal-ly spoke again with his Cap-tain, look-ing more than a bit wor-ried.


    "She should have bro-ken by now," he said, gruffly. "Seen peo-ple at High Sil-ver be-fore. They don''t usu-al-ly have the spir-it to keep re-sist-ing. Not in the cage."


    Mada Rui blew the man off and gave him scut work for both-er-ing her, as she of-ten did. But be-ing sober, af-ter a time, the words did sink in, and she checked the ship''s brig. What she saw there was in-ter-est-ing, to say the least. The girl hadn''t just re-sist-ed the abuse and the hos-tile qi of the prison seals; she seemed en-tire-ly out of place there. What-ev-er was go-ing on with her spir-it, it stood out from the sur-round-ings like a bea-con. From her qi alone, you would think that she was a princess mad about her break-fast, and not a pris-on-er about to lose her en-tire fu-ture.


    Nat-u-ral-ly, this pissed Cap-tain Mada off.


    "Well there, lit-tle bitch," she said, when she fi-nal-ly deigned to ad-dress the girl. "My boys say you aren''t hap-py with your fine accommodations. Even af-ter we were kind enough not to re-quire you to work for us on this de-light-ful cruise." She sneered down at the girl, her eyes tak-ing in the cuts, the bruis-es, the knee that was bent awk-ward-ly. And yet, for all that...


    "Sobon will de-stroy you," the girl said, the fire in her voice un-de-ni-able. "He is com-ing for me."


    Mada Rui rolled her eyes. In truth, the girl''s words echoed words she might have said, at an-oth-er time and place. They''ll come for me. They''ll save me. You''ll suf-fer for this. She didn''t need or want to re-mem-ber those times. She didn''t need to re-mem-ber how wrong she had turned out to be. "And what makes you think any-one is com-ing for you?"


    "The will of the world told me." Her voice was de-fi-ant.


    Mada Rui rolled her eyes. As with many sailors, she had a para-noid streak to her, but she had long since put a clamp on it. It was the only way to keep the rest of the sailors on her ship in check; the last time she had let her-self show any kind of doubt or pan-ic, she''d had a mutiny on her hands with-in half a day. The cal-lous dis-re-gard for con-se-quences she''d learned af-ter slaugh-ter-ing her crew and tak-ing on a whole new one had served her far bet-ter.


    "If the will of the world wants to talk to me, she can," scoffed the cap-tain, then raised her hand. The light-ning qi that she sum-moned had a lot of dark-ness cling-ing to it, as it had for years. She didn''t un-der-stand, al-though she knew some-where in-side of her that if she stopped car-ing, the dark-ness would con-sume her en-tire-ly. She didn''t let it, but that wasn''t any kind of kind-ness or good-ness in her heart. She just didn''t trust any-one--not peo-ple, not gods, and cer-tain-ly not nasty black qi that was try-ing to creep into her.


    She played her light-ning over the girl for a good half an hour, lis-ten-ing to her scream, then went back to the top deck.


    <hr>


    It was near mid-night when Sobon had re-ceived a ping from the Coro-na. If Sobon had been a full Cy-borg, she would have been awake in-stant-ly, but it took Alas-si''s fleshy body too long to ful-ly parse the mes-sage that came in.


    [ (Ur-gent) Re-lay from (Aether sig-na-ture of Ki''el): Help ]


    Sobon cursed flesh and blood more that day than she had since she had first ar-rived in Jom''s scrag-gly, gan-g-ly street-rat body on the verge of death. In-stant-ly, she was col-lect-ing the quartz rods she had made, her mind run-ning through what she could, and could not, en-grave on them to turn them into weapons. Mean-while, she pinged the Coro-na back. [ (Ur-gent) Re-quest rel-a-tive bear-ing and dis-tance. ]


    The re-sults of that re-quest were not pos-i-tive. Ki''el was far away, per-haps four thou-sand kilo-me-ters. Sobon forced her-self to calm, and redi-rect-ed her ef-forts to the most ob-vi-ous tool. She fused three quartz rods to-geth-er into a tri-an-gle, one that would fit across her back, and wrote in a se-ries of scripts that would pro-vide in-tense thrust, oth-ers to cre-ate vari-able-sweep wings from force planes, and a third set to at-tach the rig to her body. The re-sult was a sim-ple, user-con-trolled flight suit, one not dis-sim-i-lar to stan-dard Ma-rine rigs, if with-out the com-put-ers, weapons, de-fens-es, and com-mu-ni-ca-tions.


    It took Sobon per-haps two min-utes to de-cide that she was go-ing to in-scribe many quartz rods each with with the aether ri-fle pat-tern and an in-de-pen-dent pow-er source script, so in-stead of do-ing them each by hand, she cre-at-ed a tool to copy that ex-act pat-tern onto a stretch of rod, and broke off six-teen pieces of equal length, and en-graved them all in bulk. Then she took two rod sec-tions and carved bar-ri-er blades into them, just in case.


    When she came out of her fugue state to look around, Sobon was only half-sur-prised to find that Mian and Lui had wok-en and were look-ing at her. They hadn''t in-ter-rupt-ed; Sobon looked at the sky to see that she had been work-ing for hours, and that dawn was al-ready ap-proach-ing. In-stead of think-ing too hard about that, Sobon added an-oth-er script to the wing suit to cre-ate a di-men-sion-al pock-et, for stor-ing all of the weapons she''d made, and then used up the rest of the un-script-ed area to add a telekine-sis pat-tern.


    "Ki''el is in dan-ger," she fi-nal-ly said. "I will save her, no mat-ter what."


    "I was won-der-ing," Mian just said, his voice hav-ing only a touch of hu-mor, and much more con-cern. "You care for that girl a lot?"


    Sobon paused. Al-though her ef-forts were laugh-able if you sim-ply looked at them--a quartz tri-an-gle with some scratch-es on it--she had wok-en in the mid-dle of the night and gone into an ab-solute fury all for a young girl she had met once, for a cou-ple weeks at most, who was le-git-i-mate-ly thou-sands of kilo-me-ters away--hours away even at top speed. On a cer-tain lev-el, as a cy-borg, Sobon could see the in-san-i-ty of throw-ing every-thing into a res-cue mis-sion. And on a cer-tain lev-el, as Alas-si, some part of her was com-plete-ly de-tached, un-in-ter-est-ed.


    None of that sat-is-fied the anger in Sobon''s heart. The anger that came from see-ing a good girl aban-doned and bro-ken by her cir-cum-stances. A girl who, at least at one point, had only had Sobon to look to for help. A girl--a per-son--who she had giv-en hope to, and who might now be on the verge of los-ing all hope.


    "Yes," Sobon de-cid-ed, plac-ing the quartz tri-an-gle on her back and ac-ti-vat-ing the scripts. The suit clamped com-fort-ably into place, the en-gine script warm-ing up. She ac-ti-vat-ed all of her dy-namos, feed-ing the ap-pro-pri-ate ones into the en-gine, and reached into the di-men-sion-al pock-et to start charg-ing all of the weapon rods. "I may be gone for a few days. I hope it will not be more than that."


    "Good luck, Grand-ma Alas-si. And... Sobon." Lui was stand-ing in her door-way, look-ing wor-ried but de-ter-mined. "We''ll be here."


    Sobon looked back at them, and then, as an af-ter-thought, sent a ping to the Coro-na. [ Please mark this ex-act lo-ca-tion for me. ] A mo-ment lat-er, the ship sent back a co-or-di-nate pack-et, which Sobon filed away.


    And then she lift-ed off, through the aether de-fens-es of her home, into the sky.


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    What fol-lowed was not hero-ic, as the jour-ney part of a jour-ney of-ten isn''t. Her wing-suit was sim-ple enough that she had to main-tain some amount of con-trol over it con-stant-ly; the physics of her en-gine place-ment meant that she had to ad-just the sweep of her wings when she added or re-moved throt-tle, and she ad-just-ed her course by mov-ing the whole wing struc-ture in-stead of ad-just-ing pan-els on it. She also hadn''t added any kind of far-ings or wind screens to pro-tect her-self, which was fine, es-pe-cial-ly giv-en her own body''s strength, but it made it too in-con-ve-nient to fly faster than about half the speed of sound. If she''d brought spare rods, she could have at least giv-en her-self a hel-met, but she didn''t have any-thing on her con-ve-nient to en-grave, and de-cid-ed against stop-ping.


    Still, she made good time. Rac-ing east meant that she was rac-ing into the ris-ing sun, and Sobon knew that sev-er-al of the pow-er-ful qi users be-low and around her no-ticed her pass-ing. Some, doubt-less, were con-cerned, al-though none rose to in-ter-fere. A few did flare their qi as she was ap-proach-ing, or raised de-fens-es, but she passed them all by, mere-ly giv-ing them ex-tra room if they seemed par-tic-u-lar-ly para-noid.


    The biggest prob-lem was that she passed too close to what Sobon came to re-al-ize was the enor-mous mil-i-tary block-ade zone around the Coro-na it-self. She did not, in fact, pass close to the Coro-na; Sobon bounced mes-sages off the ship''s AI and found that she was per-haps fif-teen hun-dred kilo-me-ters away at clos-est ap-proach, but she still had to de-tour out of the way of the mil-i-tary con-trolled land and sea.


    From the mor-tal side of things, the block-ade was much more im-pres-sive than it had been in the Be-yond. Sobon flew high and fast over the area, but it was ob-vi-ous that there were enough ships in the sea to make sure no mon-sters slipped by. Clos-er to shore, there were of-ten mas-sive py-lons dri-ven into the coastal shelf which linked into a mas-sive bar-ri-er, but fur-ther out, there were qi users con-stant-ly main-tain-ing bar-ri-ers.


    Sobon even got a chance to see sev-er-al ships in a bat-tle with a mas-sive sea crea-ture, which must have been a par-tic-u-lar-ly pow-er-ful Star-beast, though she couldn''t dwell on it much.


    Af-ter get-ting around the bar-ri-er, Sobon re-quest-ed and got an-oth-er bear-ing on Ki''el''s lo-ca-tion, and when she thought she was close enough, she cast her own track-ing pat-tern. It took her a while to get close enough to find any sign of a sig-nal; with-out any kind of prop-er an-ten-na, Sobon''s range was prob-a-bly not more than a hun-dred kilo-me-ters, if that. When she did fi-nal-ly get a read-ing, she made a sharp turn to-wards it, and be-gan flar-ing all of her aether dy-namos, and all of her qi. And she ac-ti-vat-ed the telekine-sis pat-tern, pulling her weapon rods out of stor-age.


    By the time she got close, the ship she found her-self fol-low-ing was clos-ing in on an-oth-er, and it was get-ting dark. Her tar-get ship seemed in-con-se-quen-tial; small-ish, in poor re-pair, and the strongest qi sig-na-ture was be-low her own lev-el, which seemed like a nov-el po-si-tion to be in af-ter all this time. The oth-er ship, though, had black sails, and a qi sig-na-ture that was some-thing Sobon hadn''t yet seen, though by the col-or alone, Sobon as-sumed it was what Alas-si had called Ti-ta-ni-um Qi. It felt... brighter than Gold, some-how. For all that it was sil-very white, it had a qual-i-ty all its own, one that set it-self so far off from iron or sil-ver that it could only be a realm be-yond them. The oth-ers on that ship were also no slouch-es, with more than two at Gold Qi.


    Sobon cut off her en-gine be-fore she was close enough to re-al-ly see any-thing aboard close-ly. It hard-ly mat-tered; both ships were more than alert enough to no-tice some-one clear-ly mug-ging for them. Sobon wasn''t sure whether she was hap-py that the sec-ond ship, which Sobon as-sumed from the black sails alone was a pi-rate of some kind, seemed to an-gle to in-ter-cept her. For Sobon, her at-ten-tion was first and fore-most on Ki''el.


    It took some ef-fort to halt her mo-men-tum in a suit-ably dra-mat-ic way. Most-ly, she flared the telekine-sis scripts to cre-ate a gi-ant air-brake, but by the time she was close enough to stop, peo-ple board both ships were clear-ly on edge and pre-pared to strike at her. She looked down, suit-ably in-tim-i-dat-ing, and am-pli-fied her voice with an aether wave. "You will give the girl to me."


    For what-ev-er rea-son, the cap-tain of the ship re-spond-ed by fir-ing light-ning at her. Sobon didn''t have a ready shield against that kind of at-tack--re-al-ly, she''d for-got-ten to put to-geth-er any shield items, but since her weapons were in-de-pen-dent-ly pow-ered, she could use her own aether for that. In-stead of wor-ry-ing about it, Sobon took her six-teen ri-fle rods, arranged them in two cir-cu-lar sets of eight, and sim-ply checked how many shots it would take to com-plete-ly shat-ter the cap-tain''s de-fens-es and burn a hole straight through her chest.


    That num-ber was four. The fourth shot burned through about half of the ship, but as far as Sobon could sense, didn''t punch a hole in the bot-tom of the ship. Just as well, for now. The next two strongest aboard the ship also fired back, if only with poor-ly-con-trolled qi blasts, the kind that sug-gest-ed they were not used to re-al-ly long range com-bat. It only took two shots for one, and three for the oth-er.


    When no one else shot at her, Sobon swept in, tak-ing one of her bar-ri-er blades in hand and ac-ti-vat-ing it be-fore she land-ed on the deck. The crew on deck, what-ev-er else they''d been through, were too cow-ard-ly to chal-lenge her, al-though some-one be-low deck was dumb enough to come at her with a knife, and got cut in half at the waist for his trou-ble.


    By the time she saw Ki''el, in a dank and dark sec-tion of the bot-tom of the ship, Sobon was ready for this all to be done. She felt an im-me-di-ate and in-tense re-ac-tion when she saw the state of the girl, who was stand-ing there, look-ing back at her, a look on her face that start-ed out very con-fused, but then so-lid-i-fied.


    By the time Sobon cut open the door, she knew the girl had rec-og-nized her, and when Ki''el leaped at her and grabbed her into an enor-mous hug, she re-turned it.


    "I knew you''d come," Ki''el whis-pered, and Sobon felt the girl''s con-trol over her dy-namos lessen, as she stopped flood-ing her-self with right-hand aether. Sobon glanced at the cell, not-ing the en-grav-ings that flood-ed the whole place with ugly, sin-is-ter qi, and bristled at it, but closed her eyes and just held the girl. "I knew you''d come."


    "Sor-ry I''m late," Sobon said, then squeezed the girl for a mo-ment be-fore let-ting her go. The girl''s knee was bent bad-ly, and Sobon could see the pain in her face as she put weight on it. "I''ll heal your in-juries lat-er. For now, we should get out of here."


    Ki''el just nod-ded, in-tense-ly. Sobon picked her up with telekine-sis, putting the girl on her back, and strode out on deck, where the crew of the ship gave her wide berth. And... she knew that she could have just left. She even thought that she prob-a-bly ought to have.


    But that oth-er ship was clos-ing fast, and the war-rior at the head of it didn''t even both-er wait-ing. He leaped from that ship to this one, the whole ship rock-ing heav-i-ly with the im-pact, and two high-Gold lieu-tenants fol-lowed quick-ly, their leaps timed well enough that they land-ed be-side their cap-tain de-spite the heav-ing deck.


    "You''ve come a long way," the pi-rate cap-tain said, draw-ing a black-coat-ed saber from his belt. "Why don''t you stay for a bit? We''d love to... en-ter-tain a cou-ple of ladies like you."


    Sobon spent all of her own per-son-al qi on a bar-ri-er around her-self and Ki''el, and lift-ed all six-teen ri-fle rods. As ex-pect-ed, the man and his lieu-tenants didn''t stand still to be shot--but that was why Sobon didn''t fire all six-teen at once. Even miss-ing more than half her shots, the four she land-ed on the Ti-ta-ni-um-Qi cap-tain shred-ded a qi shield of some kind, and left painful but not dead-ly marks on his skin.


    "You might be dan-ger-ous," snarled the cap-tain, "but you''re only a woman. Weak and worth-less, you don''t un-der-stand any-thing about what it takes to be a war-rior!" He con-tin-ued mov-ing quick-ly about the deck, and Sobon let him, pass-ing one of her bar-ri-er blades to Ki''el, then step-ping for-ward her-self, her oth-er blade in her hand.


    The cap-tain clear-ly thought that she was ex-pect-ing a straight-for-ward duel. He ap-proached as if to give her one, then dodged and made for Ki''el. Sobon had nev-er ex-pect-ed him to fight fair, and had four ri-fle rods al-ready point-ed in al-most ex-act-ly the right spot. A lit-tle ad-just-ment was all that was re-quired for all four to strike home, al-though only the first two en-coun-tered any re-sis-tance.


    The oth-er two had ex-pect-ed her to be dis-tract-ed by the cap-tain. Both were in the air, leap-ing at her. Sobon swung her blade, cut-ting deeply into one of them, but the blade was re-al-ly the wrong tool to cut through both at once; it was only a bar-ri-er in the shape of a blade, with-out any sort of dis-in-te-gra-tion or force planes to let her cut deeply through a tough tar-get. She lost most of the mo-men-tum be-hind her swing in the ac-tion of cut-ting into him, and the oth-er tried to ma-neu-ver in to get her while she was dis-tract-ed.


    She bare-ly need-ed to step back, though, be-fore she had room to fire her ri-fle rods at the two of them, putting more holes in each of them than was re-al-ly re-quired.


    While that should have been the end of it, the pi-rate ship it-self had ma-neu-vered it-self to bring its can-nons to bear. Sobon glanced at it, see-ing the crew al-ready chan-nel-ing into large, script-lined can-is-ters along the rail, and start-ed to raise her shields, and her ri-fle rods, when Ki''el did some-thing she didn''t ex-pect.


    She leaped back across to the en-e-my ship, her bar-ri-er blade ac-ti-vat-ed and shin-ing in her hands, a look of fury on her face.


    Sobon felt some-thing like a smile across her face, al-though she wor-ried. The girl''s leg had look at least sprained, if not dis-lo-cat-ed or bro-ken. In-stead of con-tem-plat-ing, she moved for-ward, putting her bar-ri-er blade be-tween her and the clos-est can-non. It fired, and the bar-ri-er blade frayed as it took a sub-stan-tial hit in her stead; some parts of it re-mained, but not near-ly enough to take an-oth-er hit.


    Not that Sobon was even con-sid-er-ing fight-ing canons at range with a sword, or stand-ing in front of them when she could fly.


    A mo-ment lat-er and Sobon was above them, her ri-fle rods drilling through crewmem-bers when-ev-er they threat-ened her or Ki''el. With six-teen self-charg-ing rods, she could have tak-en on an army of peo-ple at Sil-ver Qi or be-low, at least un-til the rods start-ed to over-heat. And they did; quartz had been Sobon''s choice for re-in-forc-ing her home sim-ply be-cause sil-i-con was abun-dant, and not be-cause it was ide-al. From the very first shots, the rods had been hot, and the in-scrip-tions were al-ready start-ing to fray, al-though some of her rods had only fired two or three times.


    It was more than enough. Be-fore long, Sobon and Ki''el were on a ship that was doubt-less go-ing to sink, as a few of Sobon''s shots had missed and gone straight through. Ki''el, ex-haust-ed, col-lapsed, and Sobon was by her side in a mo-ment.


    "You did well," Sobon said. "Give me a minute to check the ship. There are oth-ers be-low deck."


    "Let them die," Ki''el said, caged fury in her voice. She clear-ly had not missed the signs that the ship was go-ing down.


    "If they are pi-rates," Sobon said. "If they have oth-er pris-on-ers..."


    Ki''el waved her off, and Sobon spent only a mo-ment. There were, in fact, no oth-er pris-on-ers; the oth-ers be-low deck, per-haps be-cause of the ship''s ugly black aether, tried to at-tack her on sight, and she shed no tears to end their mis-ery. By the time she was back on top, Ki''el had walked to the edge of the ship and stared out over the wa-ter, her fin-gers white as she gripped the rail-ing as hard as she could.


    Sobon came up to find her do-ing breath-ing ex-er-cis-es, try-ing to calm down.


    "We should go," she said. "And... this will feel a lit-tle weird."


    But Ki''el just looked at her, eyes as straight-for-ward as they had ever been, and nod-ded, let-ting Sobon pick her up and fly away with-out com-plaint or com-ment.

 29. Alassii - Anticipation, Part 1

    Sobon had no in-ten-tion of forc-ing Ki''el to wait un-til they got back home be-fore tak-ing treat-ment. In truth, Sobon could have erect-ed a tem-po-rary struc-ture in the mid-dle of the sea, or some-thing sim-i-lar-ly dras-tic, but all of her in-stincts were to get to safe ground, ei-ther back to civ-i-liza-tion or some-thing less ex-posed.


    In the end, al-though it took a lit-tle while to get back to sol-id ground, Sobon found a shel-tered sec-tion of coast a ways away from all else. When she set Ki''el down, the girl flinched, and im-me-di-ate-ly re-sumed flood-ing her in-jured knee with right-hand aether.


    "Let me see it," Sobon said, gen-tly touch-ing the girl''s wound-ed knee. From what she could tell, sev-er-al of the joint tis-sues were torn, and there was some dan-ger of them heal-ing wrong, al-though if any-thing, pure right-hand aether with-out any kind of in-tent would be un-like-ly to cause the body to make hasty re-pairs. And Ki''el, whether on pur-pose or by lack of train-ing, was still us-ing aether with al-most no in-tent, feed-ing her body and trust-ing it blind-ly in-stead of try-ing to con-trol it. What was most im-por-tant, though, was that the bone hadn''t bro-ken--giv-en how the girl had moved on it so far, even a small break would have made every-thing much worse.


    As she set up the more com-plex aether heal-ing pat-tern and a di-ag-nos-tic to mon-i-tor it, she be-came aware that Ki''el was star-ing. By the time that she looked up at the girl''s face, Ki''el just looked over-whelmed. Sobon gave her a small smile as she sat back against a rock. "You''ll be al-right. It will be use-able in a cou-ple hours, and we can wait on more un-til lat-er."


    Ki''el just nod-ded, her face try-ing to blank back into a sto-ic look, though she didn''t quite man-age it. "You changed," was the first thing she de-cid-ed to say.


    Sobon looked away. "Not for the first time. I didn''t get to choose. The woman who used to have this body... wasn''t do-ing any-thing with her life. She''s still in here; you can speak to her lat-er, if you like. But there are im-por-tant things that must be done." She looked back at the girl, but Ki''el just looked back, as plain as she could. "I''m glad you''re okay."


    That flus-tered her, a lit-tle, but she kept her calm af-ter some ef-fort. "At first... it was... dif-fi-cult. Very dif-fi-cult." She looked down at her hands. "I spent too long in the shat-tered ship, where you... where you had..."


    "I know," Sobon said. "I could see a lit-tle bit of it, from the oth-er side."


    Sobon could see that Ki''el want-ed to ask about that, but she plowed through in-stead. "The sense that you were there lin-gered, but not long. And yet... I was so sure. So sure that some-thing was wrong. That you were not gone. Af-ter liv-ing among the dead for so long, af-ter hav-ing buried my past once be-fore, I thought I would not be so weak. And I hat-ed my-self for even briefly think-ing that you would come back. Un-til that voice told me that you would."


    Sobon nod-ded. "It passed the mes-sages from me. And it passed your mes-sage back." She paused. The aether near-by was shift-ing, most like-ly some-one draw-ing near-er. She stood, look-ing around, be-fore adopt-ing a semi-for-mal stance. "Just a mo-ment."


    There was no sur-prise from any-one, ex-cept per-haps Ki''el, when three pow-er-ful qi war-riors land-ed near-by, all of their eyes on Sobon, and her match-ing their own in re-turn. They didn''t quite share what Sobon would call a uni-form, al-though they had sim-i-lar pos-tures and col-ors, and their qi were all aligned well enough to show that they worked to-geth-er fre-quent-ly. All of them felt above Sobon in pow-er, al-though their qi col-ors were un-fa-mil-iar; two of them shared the mul-ti-col-ored qi that Mofu''s hench-man had, while an-oth-er was at least a rank above that, with dark and light band-ings.


    With prac-ticed ease, the one in charge stepped for-ward, his aura in-tense and threat-en-ing, but his fea-tures serene. It was a mea-sure Sobon rec-og-nized eas-i-ly as in-tim-i-da-tion be-hind a civ-il mask. "Good evening," he said, po-lite-ly, his thin mous-tache twitch-ing only slight-ly. "I trust you un-der-stand that you are tres-pass-ing."


    "Only so long as it takes my com-pan-ion to heal." Sobon''s choice of a pow-er move, against the aura that was like-ly at least two col-ors above her own, was be-ing com-plete-ly re-laxed. It wasn''t triv-ial, though it would have been if Sobon had his cy-borg body back. As it was, with her in-creas-ing at-tune-ment, her body re-mained most-ly keyed to her will even when the threat-en-ing qi waves passed through her. "I re-ceived no-tice that she was in dan-ger, and I re-trieved her. When she can be moved with-out dan-ger, I will leave."


    The man and his two lieu-tenants con-sid-ered this, the pair be-hind him trad-ing looks. The one in front, af-ter a time, spoke up.


    "You un-der-stand that as a non-Djang in our ter-ri-to-ry, we have every right to de-tain you, and your com-pan-ion. Es-pe-cial-ly should you fail to pro-vide the cor-rect... doc-u-ments."


    "You could in-sist, if you chose," Sobon re-turned, feign-ing ease. While she sus-pect-ed that the ri-fle rods she had left would suf-fice to hold the three of them off, and maybe kill one or two of the less-er ones, she had no in-ter-est in be-com-ing a want-ed woman. And the rods, now al-ready de-cay-ing, prob-a-bly wouldn''t last long enough, not in a pitched bat-tle. "It would be a shame-ful waste of your re-sources, but you could in-sist."


    The two low-er-ranked war-riors tensed, but in-stead of an-swer-ing, the leader just glanced out to sea. Sobon imag-ined he was trac-ing back the path she took, or per-haps re-call-ing some sense of the bat-tle that had oc-curred. Af-ter a time, he looked back. "You don''t show any signs of cor-rup-tion or evil in-tent. And the in-juries to your com-pan-ion are ev-i-dence enough that your in-ten-tions are as you say. In-stead of... in-sist-ing, I would in-vite you to speak to my com-man-der, Lady Rai Su Anin. I am sure that she would be in-ter-est-ed in an ac-count-ing of why you are here." He held up a hand be-fore Sobon could say any-thing to ob-ject. "She is a rea-son-able woman. If she agrees that your cause is no-ble, any oth-er mat-ters will be con-sid-ered in-signif-i-cant in com-par-i-son."


    Men-tal-ly, Sobon con-sult-ed Alas-si, but the woman wasn''t fa-mil-iar with the woman, or how the mil-i-tary func-tioned in this sec-tion of the coun-try. So Sobon just shrugged. "If it''s nec-es-sary."


    When that put the oth-ers at ease, Sobon fi-nal-ly re-lent-ed, tak-ing Ki''el and al-low-ing her-self to be es-cort-ed to a rather large naval base--or per-haps, a matched pair of army and naval bases, with lit-tle dis-tinc-tion be-tween the two. Sobon had no idea how the lo-cals would draw dis-tinc-tions in their mil-i-tary, al-though she thought that per-haps there were two or more ma-jor pat-terns across the sprawl-ing com-plex. That only meant mul-ti-ple com-man-ders, each with their own rules, but there were plen-ty of dif-fer-ent things it might have meant.


    Al-though the pa-trol-men, or what-ev-er they were, did com-mu-ni-cate some things with qi puls-es, they most-ly seemed to do things the frus-trat-ing and slow, old fash-ioned way. They land-ed out-side the base''s de-fens-es, in a set-off area for re-ceiv-ing fliers, and moved into a con-trolled check-point, where the guards iden-ti-fied them-selves and stat-ed their busi-ness. Pre-dictably, then, the non-com-bat-ant in charge of the pa-per-work turned to Sobon with a kind of dull-eyed stare that felt dis-tinct-ly of stale, rigid aether.


    "Do you have iden-ti-fi-ca-tion pa-pers?"


    Alas-si in-sist-ed on some-thing, and Sobon let her come for-ward and speak. "I do not. How-ev-er, you should have records for Shi-va Alas-si, now re-tired."


    The man at the desk didn''t bat an eye-lash, in-stead turn-ing to a crys-tal globe in the back of his squat of-fice. When Sobon ex-am-ined it clos-er, she dis-cov-ered it was a mas-ter-work of tight qi in-scrip-tions, one that linked some-how into what Sobon imag-ined was a wide-spread bu-reau-crat-ic net-work. When he ac-cessed the crys-tal, it pulsed, send-ing a qi wave straight down, though that ap-peared to be a mis-di-rec-tion; Sobon just bare-ly could track it turn-ing a cor-ner and shoot-ing away. Some minute or two lat-er, a re-turn pulse came from a dif-fer-ent di-rec-tion, and the globe lit up.


    "Shi-va Alas-si, alias the Blood Witch, re-tired due to in-jury. Out-rid-er, for-eign. Grant-ed cit-i-zen-ship for ser-vice. Last known to be stuck in Iron Qi." The man turned back, look-ing Sobon up and down. "You could cer-tain-ly be her, af-ter two break-throughs." He brought for-ward a met-al plate, putting it on an emp-ty spot of desk for her. "Body and core check, then."


    Sobon let Alas-si place her hand on it and cy-cle her--re-al-ly, Sobon''s--qi through the plate. The man be-hind the desk frowned, but only for a mo-ment. The plate flashed sev-er-al char-ac-ters across it, al-most too fast for ei-ther Sobon or Alas-si to parse, al-though they thought they were var-i-ous facts about her body and aether''s com-po-si-tion.


    "Match," the man said, and with-drew the plate. "You should get new iden-ti-fi-ca-tion pa-pers be-fore you leave. Saves us the trou-ble." He looked over at Ki''el. "And her?"


    "Un-der my pro-tec-tion," Alas-si said im-me-di-ate-ly. [ Where the hell is she from, did you say? ]


    [ Some-where in the isles, ] Sobon gave a dis-mis-sive men-tal ges-ture. [ I don''t know that she ever said. ]


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "I am from an Il-lan vil-lage that was de-stroyed by pi-rates," Ki''el said. "My name is Doua Ki''el."


    The bu-reau-crat looked to the head of the pa-trol-men, who just shrugged. He sighed. "If you aren''t need-ed in the base, you should wait here."


    "She is in-jured," Alas-si in-ter-ject-ed. "If you can give me a mo-ment--"


    "If you want her treat-ed at the hos-pi-tal, she''ll be un-der guard. And you''ll pay the fee." The bu-reau-crat''s eyes locked on Sobon, or now Alas-si, with the flat, unim-pressed look of some-one whose sole job in an or-ga-ni-za-tion was con-stant-ly re-mind-ing every-one of the rules. "Sev-en sil-vra per hour. For an out-lander."


    "I can set up--"


    "I will wait here," Ki''el forced her way into the ar-gu-ment, catch-ing Alas-si''s eyes. "As long as I have a place to sit. It is far less painful now than it was on board the ship."


    [ Most like-ly, they won''t like us set-ting up a heal-ing pat-tern with-out their ap-proval, ] Sobon ad-mit-ted men-tal-ly to Alas-si. [ It would be a se-cu-ri-ty risk. ]


    [ As though you couldn''t sneak some-thing in, ] Alas-si grumped in re-turn, but closed her eyes and breathed out to re-lease a lit-tle stress. "As long as you are al-right, Ki''el."


    "I will be fine. Go." The girl''s pos-ture was very ob-vi-ous-ly that of a girl try-ing to brave her pain, as she turned and limped to a near-by bench, but they could all also clear-ly see that she was cy-cling en-er-gy through her knee, keep-ing it from get-ting any worse while def-i-nite-ly not do-ing any-thing to fix it.


    In-stead of ar-gu-ing, Alas-si looked to the pa-trol-man, who shrugged. "If the com-man-der isn''t busy, you will be done quick-ly. And then you should be free to go. I will leave one of my men here to guard her, if you like."


    Alas-si di-gest-ed that, then nod-ded, and then, with Sobon''s per-mis-sion, de-tached the quartz frame from her back, set-ting it next to Ki''el. To the pa-trol-man who had been cho-sen to stay be-hind, she glared im-pe-ri-ous-ly, and said, "Both she and that will be un-touched on my re-turn." And while every-one had looked at the frame when she drew at-ten-tion to it, the man just nod-ded, and Alas-si fol-lowed the lead pa-troller in-side.


    [ I wish I had just thought to bring mon-ey, ] Sobon grumped. [ Ki''el would do bet-ter with prop-er at-ten-tion. ]


    [ Don''t over-val-ue the army''s med-ical corps, ] Alas-si re-turned, do-ing an ad-mirable job of keep-ing her-self straight and at at-ten-tion. [ While they could have healed the dam-age to my hip, it would have tak-en months to do what you did in a week. ]


    Sobon con-sid-ered that, but it didn''t line up with what she--what Jom had seen. Or did it? Sobon had no idea how long Jom had been un-con-scious be-fore be-ing awok-en for the ex-e-cu-tion of the Bilg sol-diers. Giv-en every-thing else, Sobon had as-sumed it had come quick-ly--but Jom had also re-cov-ered from an as-tound-ing amount of in-jury, fa-tigue, and mal-nour-ish-ment. And it wouldn''t sur-prise Sobon at all if the mil-i-tary pro-ce-dures in-volved in ques-tion-ing sol-diers, de-ter-min-ing fault, and lin-ing up an ex-e-cu-tion could take weeks. It also wouldn''t have sur-prised him if that had been done overnight, if they were run tight-ly enough.


    By that time, Alas-si was stand-ing in a wait-ing room with the spare wing-man, while the pa-trol-man had gone ahead. The room had a stench to it, a stench most-ly in its aether. It wasn''t stale, un-like most of the bad aether Sobon had run into; it sim-ply car-ried an un-be-liev-able amount of re-sent-ment, all from dif-fer-ent sources, and con-stant-ly re-freshed. The feel, Sobon judged as she sensed just a taste of it, of a great many man and women who thought they were bet-ter, and de-served bet-ter, than to be sit-ting in a room wait-ing to be yelled at.


    There was a rip-ple, but just that, from ahead, and Sobon con-cen-trat-ed, try-ing to tease out which source of qi ahead was the source. When the pa-trol-man re-turned to fetch her, Sobon fig-ured she had locked on to the strongest source of qi in the im-me-di-ate area, and de-cid-ed that was prob-a-bly both the source of the rip-ple, and the per-son they were go-ing to meet. By the time the door opened and Alas-si was faced with the base com-man-der, Sobon was no longer shocked, al-though Alas-si was.


    The base com-man-der was a Djang woman who, if Sobon didn''t know bet-ter, would have passed for un-der-age, with shock-ing blue hair that per-fect-ly matched her vivid blue qi. Her qi, if Sobon were to put a word to it, was crys-talline; dense and rigid, with deep pat-terns to the en-er-gy it-self, ex-act-ly the col-or of a per-fect blue sap-phire. Her qi core had also de-tached from its usu-al place; Sobon re-called that reach-ing Gem phas-es of qi re-quired us-ing one or more Star-beast cores, so she sup-posed that this was how they were be-ing used, to let the core reach greater den-si-ties with-out poi-son-ing the body.


    Still, Sobon thought as she mea-sured the den-si-ty of the woman''s aether, this is in-ef-fi-cient. Com-plete-ly at-tuned flesh could reach that aether den-si-ty safe-ly, if it were flaw-less. Not that Sobon had any il-lu-sion that any-one na-tive to this plan-et could un-der-stand aether well enough to flaw-less-ly at-tune them-selves that deeply.


    Re-turn-ing her at-ten-tion to the com-man-der, Sobon not-ed that her at-tire was plain and mil-i-tary, and her face was set in a hard ex-pres-sion. Her fea-tures them-selves were soft and beau-ti-ful, the very pic-ture of health and youth; if her face had split into a wide smile and she had bound-ed up to Sobon and talked about what hap-pened at school, Sobon wouldn''t have found it odd, at least on the sur-face. But her aether was full of sharp edges and dead-ly por-tent, and there was a world of depth be-hind her eyes. Sobon, with-out know-ing the woman''s his-to-ry at all, would have eas-i-ly gam-bled that she was at least a hun-dred years old.


    "Shi-va Alas-si, for-eign out-rid-er, re-tired." Her voice, too, sound-ed too child-ish for Sobon''s tastes. While Sobon had af-fec-tion for Ki''el and Lui--who were ac-tu-al-ly chil-dren--this mask of youth just chafed at her. It took her only a mo-ment to put a fin-ger on why. Cy-borgs can ap-pear any age. I don''t know if she chose to look this young, but if a cy-borg did it, it would be... a sign of ill in-tent. In-tent to de-ceive and ma-nip-u-late. In-ward-ly, Sobon nod-ded, dis-miss-ing the thought for now. "You know, be-fore I was ap-point-ed to this post, I don''t know that I would have read be-tween the lines of your record. But I have over-seen more than enough dirty busi-ness to know ex-act-ly why you were ''re-tired''." The girl-ish woman ges-tured to a chair across from her, but didn''t sit her-self. Alas-si chose to. "Still, that won''t gain you any-thing, not with me. I am Base Com-man-der Rai Su Anin. I want to know why you passed through my ter-ri-to-ry, and then why you stopped on your way back."


    The men-tal back and forth be-tween Sobon and Alas-si was quick, most-ly just Alas-si mak-ing sure she didn''t step on any-thing Sobon would have cho-sen not to say. "I re-ceived word from an ally that my dis-ci-ple had been kid-napped. I flew out with all haste and re-claimed her. We paused to let her heal in-juries. There is lit-tle else to it."


    "A dis-ci-ple, now." The woman--Alas-si in-formed Sobon that her giv-en name was the last two words, and so she was Com-man-der Rai or Su Anin to her friends--glanced over her, her ad-vanced qi flick-er-ing out and pierc-ing through any shad-ows that Sobon might have tried to con-ceal. Sobon, for the most part, hadn''t been deeply scanned by peo-ple since she was Jom, and it was un-com-fort-able to re-mem-ber that her aether dynamos would be eas-i-ly vis-i-ble, even when con-cealed. "You have de-vel-oped an un-usu-al tech-nique in your re-tire-ment. In-ter-est-ing. But it seems a bit ear-ly for you to claim your-self wor-thy of be-ing any-one''s mas-ter, when you haven''t even passed the Gold-en Wall."


    "I do not choose to re-veal all my ca-pa-bil-i-ties," Alas-si said, some-what ner-vous. "And I have fo-cused much of my at-ten-tion on in-scrip-tions since then." That, from Alas-si''s per-spec-tive, was en-tire-ly a bluff, but a brief back and forth sug-gest-ed that Sobon would hap-pi-ly back her up if chal-lenged on it.


    Which proved to be nec-es-sary. Com-man-der Rai scoffed at the proclamation, and ap-peared a sword out of what Sobon mo-men-tar-i-ly thought was thin air--al-though she and Alas-si both quick-ly no-ticed the in-tense aether around her ring, which Sobon rec-og-nized as a com-pli-cat-ed spa-tial con-struct. "By all means, then. Tell me what''s wrong with this blast-ed thing, if you can claim to be a mas-ter. Don''t wor-ry, it''s only a Bis-muth-ranked in-scrip-tion.


    The term, once spo-ken, locked into Alas-si''s mind as Bright Met-al qi lev-el above Ti-ta-ni-um, with the hid-den col-ors to it. She frowned, but tried to keep a straight face, ac-cept-ing the sword and un-sheath-ing it, lay-ing bare a rel-a-tive-ly com-plex set of runes up and down the blade. At Sobon''s in-sis-tence, and with Com-man-der Rai''s ap-proval, she also re-moved the hilt, lay-ing bare an-oth-er set of runes down the tang.


    Sobon, for her part, spent most of those few mo-ments try-ing to fo-cus on the com-man-der''s spa-tial ring. Al-though she couldn''t get a very close look at it, she mem-o-rized as many of the scripts and con-structs as she could see be-fore shift-ing her at-ten-tion to the blade. When she did, though, she al-most re-gret-ted be-ing dis-tract-ed; the blade it-self was a high-ly con-vo-lut-ed mess that played with qi na-tures and had a num-ber of spir-i-tu-al locks and seals on it to con-ceal the spe-cif-ic spir-i-tu-al in-tent that went into its con-struc-tion.


    Com-man-der Rai gave them sev-er-al mo-ments to study the blade, busy-ing her-self by star-ing at some of the pa-per-work on her desk, al-though she didn''t move to pick it up or ri-fle through it.


    "If that''s too much be-yond your abil-i-ty--"


    "No," Alas-si said, stay-ing in front of Sobon but re-peat-ing what he said. "There are flaws in its struc-ture, but the largest prob-lem seems to be that the blade''s chan-nels for steel qi and blade qi are re-versed." She took one fin-ger and touched it, gen-tly, on a pair of en-grav-ings. "The cut-ting edge can be en-hanced by sword qi, but the in-scrip-tion is try-ing to en-hance the en-tire width of the blade with cut-ting pow-er."


    There was only a mo-ment''s pause, and then the Com-man-der gave a sin-gle, sharp laugh. "Full marks! Im-pres-sive. Al-though my un-der-stand-ing is that the er-ror is the oth-er way around--that the glyphs for steel and blade qi were placed in the wrong or-der, rather than that the chan-nels were re-versed."


    Alas-si shook her head at that, even with-out need-ing Sobon to cue her. She had, in part, fol-lowed Sobon''s log-ic as she ex-am-ined the scripts. "No," she said, "There are a num-ber of sup-port-ing char-ac-ters nec-es-sary to en-hance and fil-ter the spe-cif-ic qi na-tures, and the sets of script for steel and blade qi are dif-fer-ent. I think, giv-en how tight the writ-ing is, the qi glyphs were set be-fore the chan-nels were put in."


    Com-man-der Rai hummed, and then, with-out ob-vi-ous ef-fort, the blade lift-ed from Alas-si''s hands, along with the hilt and pom-mel that she had set aside. The blade was put back to-geth-er in midair, and then van-ished back into the Com-man-der''s spa-tial ring. "Very well. I ad-mit you have learned enough to at least take on a dis-ci-ple. And I will freely grant that res-cu-ing your dis-ci-ple is a wor-thy use of a mas-ter''s time."


    "I would even be will-ing to for-give your at-tack on one of our pri-va-teer ships, if you are will-ing to do us a few fa-vors. I''ll even throw in med-ical at-ten-tion for your dis-ci-ple at no cost."


    Sobon and Alas-si both shared an im-me-di-ate and in-tense headache, but Alas-si just put on a po-lite mask, one that showed in no un-cer-tain terms that she was dis-pleased, and said, "What ex-act-ly do you want me to do?"

 30. Alassi - Anticipation, Part 2

    Sobon found her-self ac-tu-al-ly com-fort-ed, in a strange way, when the first "fa-vors" of the Base Com-man-der in-volved what should have, by rights, been me-nial tasks--if, that is, there was an ed-u-ca-tion sys-tem in place that turned out peo-ple with good knowl-edge of in-scrip-tions, which this world def-i-nite-ly did not have. Rather than ask-ing her to de-sign de-fens-es, churn out weapons, or ex-plain the deep na-ture of the cos-mos... Com-man-der Rai asked Sobon to han-dle "a few main-te-nance tasks."


    A flawed en-er-gy con-duit. Glitchy pri-va-cy wards. A wa-ter heater, of all things, whose out-put wasn''t prop-erly con-trolled. A med-ical di-ag-nos-tic tool that had been dam-aged. A num-ber of train-ing items that were worn past their us-able life-time. A launch plat-form for pa-trollers, which was es-sen-tial-ly an aether cat-a-pult that also briefly keyed open a sec-tion of the de-fens-es. A cleans-ing sta-tion that re-moved dirt and grime--but which, Sobon''s friend-ly guide sug-gest-ed, had been trashed in the night some-time af-ter it had stripped rather ex-pen-sive dyes from a no-ble-woman''s dress.


    Most of the qi that Sobon en-coun-tered, she could read and un-der-stand even if she couldn''t have made them from scratch--or wouldn''t have done the same way, at the very least. It felt good to be us-ing Sobon''s aether tech train-ing, even with the need to walk it through the Ri''lef notes on qi and qi in-scrip-tions. While very lit-tle of Sobon''s ac-tu-al job as a Ma-rine was cre-at-ing or even main-tain-ing aether scripts, they were re-quired to un-der-stand aether scripts in-tu-itive-ly, de-tect any flaw in a run-ning pat-tern, and if nec-es-sary, in-sert their own spir-it into a dam-aged ma-trix in or-der to pre-vent the worst pos-si-ble out-comes.


    As Sobon fixed one of the last of the small bits, her mind went back to the troop car-ri-er that had al-most sur-vived the end of the Rapi-er, and the Ma-rine--Sobon chose not to dwell on her name or face--who had sac-ri-ficed her own body to tele-port the boat clos-er to home. It was a raw wound, still, and not the first. It was just one of a great many things in life that re-mind-ed Sobon that best ef-forts were not enough, not with-out strat-e-gy, sup-plies, and as-sis-tance.


    And how much of that did Sobon have? When pit-ted against a world-span-ning em-pire with the great-est war-riors on the plan-et? Here in a mil-i-tary base--one that might be his en-e-my some-day, but for now was friend-ly--some part of Sobon''s mind fi-nal-ly re-laxed and be-gan rolling for-ward. Sobon''s knowl-edge was valu-able, and the Djang would have en-e-mies. The base that Sobon had set up was too close to the bor-ders of the Em-pire, though, far too close to be used as a mil-i-tary stag-ing point. By the time Sobon had gath-ered any sig-nif-i-cant force, she would be on their radar.


    What Sobon had seen of the world at large, though, pro-vid-ed con-text, if per-haps not in the ways the lo-cals--or pos-si-bly the Ri''lef--would have liked. Star-beasts were, some-how, a glob-al phe-nom-e-non--and yet the Coro-na was the source of all of them. That meant that the world was spa-tial-ly linked to-geth-er. In the back of her mind, Sobon be-gan putting to-geth-er a plan, and col-lect-ing ques-tions for the Ri''lef--but didn''t send them, not from here.


    In the end, Sobon oc-cu-pied a full day, and two nights rest, on the "few main-te-nance tasks" that Com-man-der Rai had se-lect-ed. In that time, Ki''el had im-proved great-ly, al-though she and Sobon didn''t have any pri-vate space, noth-ing that ei-ther of them felt com-fort-able dis-cussing more than her health in. Dur-ing her free evenings, Sobon also did some re-pairs to her ri-fle rods and mod-i-fied her flight kit, as well as re-pair-ing the bar-ri-er blade rod that she had used to block a strike. She did her best not to work on ei-ther when she sensed any-one around, though that might still have been too lax, if they had stealth spe-cial-ists here; still, Sobon was con-cerned about hav-ing them ready should there be any need.


    The fol-low-ing morn-ing, Sobon was es-cort-ed again to Com-man-der Rai, but not in her of-fice. In-stead, Sobon was brought to the oth-er end of the base, to a naval dry dock where a... Sobon would call it a mid-sized war-ship, was in for re-pairs. That might have been too cyn-i-cal, or per-haps too gen-er-ous; the naval ves-sel could sup-port dozens, and it had mas-sive plates in-side and out-side full of qi scripts. From what Sobon could see, there were per-haps three or four to-tal in-scrip-tion-ists do-ing the ac-tu-al work of main-tain-ing those scripts, and they looked ex-haust-ed. Sobon imag-ined that, mil-i-tary pri-or-i-ties be-ing what they were, they had nev-er had a mo-ment to spare in their du-ties.


    Sobon glanced side-long at Com-man-der Rai as she came up along-side her; even hav-ing been in-vit-ed in, Sobon knew what she was be-ing shown. The girl-ish woman was stand-ing in front of a set of boards on which the script schemat-ics were laid out, though at a glance, some of them were miss-ing. It was an ex-haus-tive plan, Sobon thought as she let her at-ten-tion drift to the ver-i-ta-ble wall of blue-prints.


    An ex-haus-tive plan whose ma-jor flaw, at least as far as Sobon could see, was lack of a ded-i-cat-ed pow-er plant.


    "I be-lieve you see it," was the first thing that Com-man-der Rai Su Anin ac-tu-al-ly said, most like-ly be-cause she sensed Sobon''s anx-i-ety as she stud-ied the scripts. "And I imag-ine you''re won-der-ing if I ful-ly un-der-stood your tech-nique. I imag-ine that I know what it does, but no, I didn''t un-der-stand it, and I still do not. And I do rec-og-nize that you won''t will-ing-ly share the de-tails, es-pe-cial-ly not for as small a price as pass-ing freely through our ter-ri-to-ry." The woman took a deep breath, and fi-nal-ly turned to look at Sobon. "Un-der very dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stances, I might have tried a num-ber of tricks. In-stead, with the hopes that we may work again in the fu-ture, I will sim-ply re-quest an-oth-er fa-vor, one I hope will be sim-pler, and less... ob-jec-tion-able."


    Sobon met her eyes, find-ing the Com-man-der was her-self at least a bit ner-vous, in spite of her much, much high-er qi lev-els. That was good, in Sobon''s es-ti-ma-tion--it meant she wasn''t ex-pect-ing to solve her prob-lems with brute force. "I ap-pre-ci-ate your for-ber-ance."


    Sobon''s choice of words must have been odd, be-cause the woman was mo-men-tar-i-ly sur-prised, but cov-ered it with a smirk. "Don''t ap-pre-ci-ate it yet. I''m hop-ing that you can help us solve one par-tic-u-lar prob-lem with this de-sign. Here." She tapped a fin-ger in the mid-dle of one of the script sheets.


    In Sobon''s first re-view of the doc-u-ment, she''s as-sumed it was a main en-er-gy dis-tri-b-u-tion cen-ter. And func-tion-al-ly, it was. The scripts were com-plex, and took some re-view-ing, but it was all set up to take en-er-gy from a num-ber of sources, com-bine them sta-bly, and then redi-rect them to a few out-put chan-nels ac-cord-ing to cer-tain log-ic, some of which was clear-ly miss-ing. Not miss-ing from the de-sign, ex-act-ly--there were notes sug-gest-ing that they were on oth-er doc-u-ments, which were not pre-sent.


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    "Some of what you are see-ing should in the-o-ry be tight-ly con-trolled se-crets," Commander Rai said, "and they most cer-tain-ly would be, if they were work-ing prop-er-ly. I have it on the high-est au-thor-i-ty that dif-fer-ent lev-els of qi can be com-bined us-ing this de-sign, tak-ing only as much from our sailors as they can give, but eas-ing the strain on our great-est war-riors. And yet..." Com-man-der Rai made a face, which end-ed up look-ing like a pout on her child-ish fea-tures. "And yet, in spite of every-thing we have set up to pre-vent ex-act-ly this prob-lem, every ad-di-tion-al source or qi in-creas-es the strain on the great-est war-rior. I have been at the cen-ter of this for-ma-tion be-fore, and I have felt it my-self. It is like..."


    Sobon was al-ready trac-ing the de-sign in her mind. "I imag-ine it is like feel-ing every-one else''s qi be-ing cir-cu-lat-ed through your own body, and war-ring with you for con-trol over the ship. A dan-ger-ous and un-pleas-ant feel-ing, even when it is your own al-lies."


    There was a mo-ment of si-lence, as Sobon ex-am-ined the sheets of pa-per. There were two main prob-lems here--one was ex-plain-ing what she knew in a way that wouldn''t give the lo-cals any greater in-sight into qi than they al-ready had. And the oth-er... was try-ing to fig-ure out a way to ac-tu-al-ly fix the de-sign, giv-en the qi in-scrip-tions that Sobon knew. It wasn''t ac-tu-al-ly a triv-ial prob-lem, not giv-en how the sys-tem was orig-i-nal-ly de-signed.


    "You are right, of course. I am be-gin-ning to think that I have un-der-es-ti-mat-ed you, Lady Shi-va."


    "Alas-si, please," Sobon cor-rect-ed idly. "Some of my knowl-edge is greater than my-self, Com-man-der Rai. And I do not in-tend to give away such se-crets, not for any price. What I can tell you is that your de-sign is fun-da-men-tal-ly flawed." Sobon con-sid-ered two or three dif-fer-ent ways of ex-plain-ing, frown-ing heav-i-ly, be-fore fi-nal-ly try-ing some-thing much sim-pler. "Your de-sign com-bines pow-er and con-trol in a way that makes the prob-lem in-evitable. Qi is both pow-er and con-trol, but they can be sep-a-rat-ed. It would be eas-i-est if it were done from the very be-gin-ning. Pa-per."


    Al-though Com-man-der Rai could have eas-i-ly passed the task to an-oth-er, a quick touch of her qi made a table, pa-per, and some-thing like a pen-cil ap-pear from her space ring. Sobon sketched out the con-cep-tu-al ba-sics, a num-ber of lines and log-i-cal con-nec-tions be-tween them, and tried to phrase what she was about to say next very care-ful-ly.


    "I trust at your lev-el, Base Com-man-der, you un-der-stand that qi na-tures, while they try to repli-cate nat-ur-al phe-nom-e-na, are very much per-son-al to the user. They are cre-at-ed, not nat-ur-al them-selves."


    "A strange way to say the ob-vi-ous, but yes."


    "Then it should be pos-si-ble to cre-ate ar-ti-fi-cial qi na-tures."


    "It has been done. Forg-ing qi, for in-stance, was ar-ti-fi-cial-ly made."


    Sobon nod-ded. "The ide-al way to sep-a-rate pow-er and in-tent is to cre-ate and use some oth-er form of qi, call it Com-mand Qi, to com-mand the ship, while all oth-er qi pressed into the chan-nels is con-vert-ed to en-er-gy, and all com-mand and con-trol is stripped from it. Com-mand Qi would have, for ex-am-ple, lay-ers of au-thor-i-ty, such that the high-est ranked of-fi-cer is al-ways in com-mand, even over the great-est strength of qi, should you have an ex-em-plary cap-tain but a stronger war-rior aboard. And it should rec-og-nize spe-cial-ists, so that a gun-ner or sailor can com-mand their scripts with only per-mis-sion from above, and not re-quir-ing ac-tive per-mis-sion."


    "Com-mand qi..." Some-thing in Com-man-der Rai''s voice was sud-den-ly very alive. Sobon looked up from her pa-per to see the girl, and she did still look like a teenag-er to Sobon''s eyes, with such a deeply ex-pres-sive look on her face that she looked pos-sessed. Sud-den-ly, the face that nor-mal-ly seemed like a po-lite mask worn by some-one shal-low and na?ve looked more like an adult face strain-ing to push through a ny-lon bed-sheet, dis-tort-ing the mask and re-veal-ing that some-thing was al-ways fun-da-men-tal-ly wrong un-der-neath.


    [ And this is the prob-lem with look-ing for-ev-er young, ] Sobon groused to Alas-si, who was suit-ably dis-turbed her-self. [ Youth is the time be-fore you''re done grow-ing. Peo-ple are al-ways sup-posed to look their age, or at least, they should look close. That face would look nor-mal on an adult. ]


    [ I''m not sure it would look nor-mal on any-thing, ] Alas-si re-turned, dis-gust-ed.


    In re-turn, Sobon framed up a men-tal pic-ture of an adult ver-sion of the Com-man-der with the same look on her face. It was an in-tense look even then, and if Sobon pre-tend-ed that she had been wear-ing a po-lite mask pri-or, she could imag-ine that drop-ping the fa?ade would still be some-what dis-turb-ing. But it was, fun-da-men-tal-ly, a per-son re-con-sid-er-ing decades of ex-pe-ri-ence. It was a look that fun-da-men-tal-ly didn''t be-long on a child''s face, but on an adult, it was mere-ly rare, and per-haps sur-pris-ing.


    "I see," said Com-man-der Rai af-ter a long mo-ment of con-tem-pla-tion. For whichev-er rea-son, her face didn''t re-lax back into a child''s, al-though it did smooth some-what. "In truth, Lady Alas-si, I was not pre-pared for an an-swer so... en-light-en-ing. Com-mand qi would be an an-swer to a great many dif-fi-cul-ties, would it not? Its use here is sim-ply a per-fect en-cap-su-la-tion of the con-cept." She swept her arms, sum-mon-ing a num-ber of swords into the space be-fore her, and con-cen-trat-ed. Sobon could see that the blades them-selves could float or move--and Com-man-der Rai was try-ing to iso-late the very con-cept of com-mand-ing the swords to do her bid-ding, to cre-ate a pure Com-mand Qi.


    Sobon stepped back, tak-ing his in-com-plete sketch of the com-mand rings, as sud-den-ly the Base Com-man-der found a way to touch those swords with this new, in-com-plete form of qi, and then in-ex-pert-ly and hap-haz-ard-ly swung them around, do-ing dam-age to sev-er-al of the blue-prints and far more of the walls and floors. But with each sec-ond that passed, with each swing of a blade, her form and tech-nique im-proved.


    There was a lot that Sobon want-ed to say. About com-mand, and how it was dif-fer-ent from dom-i-na-tion. But she held her tongue; she per-haps had al-ready said too much. In truth, Com-mand Qi as a con-cept was close to raw aether--pu-ri-fied of all oth-er con-cerns, re-spon-sive to will, but also, if done prop-er-ly, it would pass in-for-ma-tion back up the chain of com-mand. If Sobon were to give odds, though, she didn''t ex-pect any-one on this plan-et to get the con-cept right, least of all an im-pe-r-i-al mil-i-tary that was al-ready dom-i-nat-ing much of the world. She imag-ined it would quick-ly be-come cor-rupt-ed, no mat-ter what she said.


    The less she at-tached her-self to the dis-as-ter that came from this, the bet-ter.


    Still, Com-man-der Rai''s in-tent look was sat-is-fied, when her swords stopped swing-ing. "Com-mand. Right. Pow-er and in-tent, sep-a-rat-ed. This is..." She shook her head. "This is a greater gift than some lit-tle fa-vor, Lady Shi-va. I feel that I owe you some-thing sub-stan-tial, now. With this..."


    Sobon could feel the woman''s Sap-phire Qi ex-tend-ing out from her body, across the en-tire mil-i-tary base. Al-though there were oth-er qi sources near enough in strength to con-test hers, Sobon imag-ined that like any spe-cial na-ture of qi--once she fig-ured out how to use it--Com-mand Qi would ex-ert even more force than usu-al when used cor-rect-ly. Sobon watched it flow, care-ful-ly hid-ing her con-cern.


    Af-ter a few mo-ments, how-ev-er, the girl re-tract-ed her qi, and Sobon didn''t sense any-thing gone ter-ri-bly wrong. Sobon raised her eyes, but Com-man-der Rai''s face had cleared, and now showed a much clear-er and younger look on her face again, if one that still showed traces of hid-den mal-ice, and deep-er thoughts that didn''t be-long on a child.


    "Yes, this is a great gift. Your debts are now ful-ly dis-charged, and I be-lieve I owe you at least a few things. Shall we start with din-ner, tonight? Your dis-ci-ple is, of course, in-vit-ed."

 31. Alassi - Anticipation, Part 3

    Sobon met with Ki''el some time be-fore din-ner, and was pleased to find that the girl''s knee was fair-ly well healed, though her sys-tem was be-gin-ning to get clogged by sticky med-i-c-i-nal qi, as Jom''s had been. With a lit-tle ex-tra time to kill, Sobon de-cid-ed to study it, tak-ing a cou-ple sam-ples of the qi and form-ing aether and qi pat-terns that would re-veal the spe-cif-ic com-bi-na-tions of in-tent that went into it, while also promis-ing to Ki''el that she would ex-plain more lat-er on.


    In truth, Sobon knew to ex-pect some com-bi-na-tion of ac-tu-al in-sight and child-ish mis-un-der-stand-ings. She was some-what sur-prised, though, to find that the ac-tu-al make-up of med-i-c-i-nal qi seemed al-most to be a cor-rup-tion of some-thing much bet-ter de-signed. Some of the qi seemed to be tak-en from plants, which was no sur-prise; it had ex-act-ly the sort of deeply for-ti-fied, sto-ic na-ture of an en-ti-ty which could only act upon the world from with-in, hav-ing no mus-cles to speak of. And there were lay-ers of hu-man in-tent, some of which guid-ed the med-i-c-i-nal qi, oth-ers of which re-ject-ed parts of it.


    But those lay-ers of in-tent were then buried by an-oth-er lay-er, which forced high-er en-er-gy into and through all of the calmer, more pro-duc-tive aether pat-terns. The in-tent was clear--high en-er-gy plus med-ical qi had to equal high-er pow-er med-ical qi, right? Sobon made a face. It wasn''t even ex-act-ly wrong, just poor-ly done. The am-pli-fi-ca-tion in-tent, if you want to call it that, was dis-mis-sive of many of the sub-tleties, and so the high in-ten-si-ty heal-ing also came with dam-aged, left-over qi that was vi-o-lent-ly torn away from the whole it had been a part of.


    In all, it was a pass-able at-tempt at med-ical aether, Sobon de-cid-ed, and easy enough to repli-cate if you had the right plants to sup-ply the base, though she would still pre-fer to use the Coro-na''s med-ical pat-terns where pos-si-ble. Plants had a place in most worlds'' med-ical his-to-ries for a great many rea-sons, but in the end, they were sim-ple en-ti-ties who had no un-der-stand-ing of ad-vanced an-i-mal bi-ol-o-gy or mind. Both chem-i-cal-ly and in spir-it, plants touched on fan-tas-tic in-sights, but ap-ply-ing those in-sights to a hu-man could be prob-lem-at-ic.


    "Hm," was all that Sobon ac-tu-al-ly said out loud, af-ter study-ing the sam-ples of med-ical qi for a good half an hour, then shook her head. "Well, it''s in-ter-est-ing, but my ad-vice is what it would have been be-fore. Flush out the med-ical qi with your own aether once the treat-ment is done." She glanced out a near-by win-dow, to get an un-der-stand-ing of the time. "We are in-vit-ed to a din-ner with the Base Com-man-der tonight. I pro-vid-ed her... some in-sight. Per-haps too much."


    Ki''el gave Sobon a look, which in-clud-ed a bit of judge-ment that Sobon sup-posed she had earned. "In-sight. De-spite what these peo-ple have done."


    Sobon shrugged. "I don''t think it will let them take over the world. And in truth, I ex-pect they will... mis-un-der-stand. We can speak more on it, lat-er." Sobon flicked a med-ical di-ag-nos-tic pat-tern over Ki''el''s knee again, al-though she had al-ready done so when she came in. It just... re-as-sured her, see-ing that the girl would be able to walk with-out do-ing more dam-age. "For now... we should prob-a-bly get some-thing to wear."


    Ki''el looked dis-gust-ed at that, and Sobon didn''t blame her. In truth, Sobon had no in-ter-est in play-ing fa-vors with even a high-rank-ing mil-i-tary agent, but there was a spir-i-tu-al as-pect to dis-play-ing one-self a cer-tain way, one that res-onat-ed deeply in peo-ple''s hearts. As at the Bilg mil-i-tary base... it could be very easy to con-vince a per-son''s spir-it that one per-son was right, and an-oth-er one wrong, if out-side fac-tors res-onat-ed with those truths. And while Alas-si''s clothes were in good con-di-tion, nei-ther she nor Sobon had picked them for so-cial pur-pos-es. Ki''el, who had picked up new clothes since Sobon had last seen her, had a mis-matched look that showed clear-ly that she would take what-ev-er she could get with-out com-plaint.


    Al-though Sobon end-ed up ar-gu-ing for a mo-ment with the med-ical or-der-ly in charge of Ki''el, the two were able to leave peace-ful-ly with-in a few min-utes, and Ki''el flushed out her sys-tem with her own right-hand aether as the two walked out of the base and into a large town at-tached to the base, which Sobon ex-pect-ed the lo-cals would also la-bel a ''city''. A few ques-tions asked and an-swered led them to a fan-cy-look-ing cloth-ier''s shop, whose name, if Sobon''s lim-it-ed un-der-stand-ing of Djang writ-ing was cor-rect, was some-thing like "Transcendent Gem Shin-ing Per-son''s Hon-or Shop." The char-ac-ters seemed a bit am-bigu-ous, and Alas-si sug-gest-ed they might have mul-ti-ple read-ings, but Sobon frankly didn''t care about the de-tails.


    As with the shops Sobon had seen in Emer-ald Val-ley, there was a youngish girl sta-tioned near the door, whose de-meanor was that of a man-nequin un-til pressed into ser-vice as a sales-per-son. For-tu-nate-ly, she passed Sobon and Ki''el off to a more know-ing fig-ure with-in min-utes, es-sen-tial-ly the very mo-ment Sobon men-tioned din-ner with the Base Com-man-der. And thus was Sobon in-tro-duced to a chub-by man in very el-e-gant, well-fit-ted clothes, who in-tro-duced him-self as Man Gai.


    "Wel-come, wel-come," Man Gai said, look-ing ac-tu-al-ly pleased to have some-thing to do. Al-though his eyes tore over every bit of Sobon''s and Ki''el''s bod-ies and clothes, Sobon could sense noth-ing to his gaze but pro-fes-sion-al in-ter-est. "You are look-ing for clothes, but more than just that, I think? Nei-ther of you shows in-ter-est in the art of cloth, but I sense that you are pow-er-ful peo-ple, in-ter-est-ing peo-ple. I think there is much in-side to show off."


    Ki''el bris-tled at that, or per-haps at the chub-by man eye-ing her, but Sobon just spoke qui-et-ly. "We would sim-ply like to rep-re-sent our-selves well in front of Base Com-man-der Rai at din-ner. We do not need to... dom-i-nate, so-cial-ly. But we would like to pre-sent our-selves as peo-ple who will not be con-trolled."


    Gai tapped his chin with one pudgy fin-ger, meet-ing Sobon''s eyes, and then nod-ded. "You have your se-crets, and wish to keep them."


    "Ex-act-ly." Giv-en what Sobon had seen of Djang cloth-ing so far, she had sus-pect-ed that a re-spect-ed cloth-ier would un-der-stand these sub-tleties.


    Some-how, with lit-tle more than that from ei-ther Sobon or Ki''el, the man be-gan his work, call-ing out to back rooms for cloth of var-i-ous col-ors, ma-te-ri-als, and pat-terns. Al-though it end-ed up tak-ing a cou-ple hours--only the first half-hour or so re-quir-ing their ac-tive at-ten-tion--by the end of it, Sobon and Ki''el were dressed in clothes that even Ki''el had to ad-mit were a per-fect fit for them, at the very least in their cur-rent cir-cum-stances.


    Ki''el was dressed in what Alas-si rec-og-nized as Djang fight-er''s wear, and which Ki''el her-self would lat-er ad-mit was clear-ly in-spired by Il-lan style, though Ki''el had not told him she was from the Il-lan isles. It was mod-est-ly cut in many ways, styled for free move-ment, and if Sobon looked close-ly, she could con-vince her-self that it was in-tend-ed to take some bat-tle dam-age with-out los-ing its over-all struc-ture; the pieces that clung to her pri-vate parts were re-in-forced, but sub-tly, and al-though the piece in to-tal hung from her shoul-ders, once she fas-tened it shut, the low-er part would hang off of her hips even if the up-per part were de-stroyed.


    Sobon''s own dress was ma-tron-ly, ac-cord-ing to both Ki''el and Alas-si, and Sobon could agree as she looked in the mir-ror that they gave her the look of a wise old-er woman, if one stiffer than Sobon hoped she was. Sobon her-self couldn''t quite pin what gave off the im-pres-sion, and stopped try-ing; it was enough that it was a good piece, with sev-er-al sub-tle and less-sub-tle tex-tures that blend-ed to-geth-er well, and Sobon was pleased to find that there were also many sub-tle, hid-den pock-ets on the in-te-ri-or and ex-te-ri-or of the gar-ment. Alas-si also be-grudg-ing-ly ad-mit-ted that the dress had styl-is-tic nods to her peo-ple, but didn''t say more than that, and Sobon didn''t press.


    Sobon paid for the clothes with a stipend that Com-man-der Rai had giv-en her, most-ly un-sur-prised that the ex-per-tise didn''t come cheap. Sobon chose not to hag-gle, al-though Alas-si warned it would be wise, and the two walked out as Man Gai bowed and wished them well, while his spir-it shone with a ra-di-ance that sug-gest-ed Sobon had prob-a-bly over-paid. In truth, Rai had giv-en her a sub-stan-tial amount of mon-ey--around a hun-dred gildra, gold-edged coins that Alas-si con-veyed were ten sil-vra, sil-ver edged coins apiece.


    The coin names, Sobon not-ed, were them-selves not Djang, and Alas-si ad-mit-ted that many peo-ple used the old Ijian names for cur-ren-cy, which it-self had his-to-ry. Be-cause be-fore the Djang em-pire had been the Ijian Em-pire, and be-fore them had been oth-ers. There were some places that in-sist-ed on us-ing Djang names for cur-ren-cy--but the cur-ren-cy was the same, and ef-forts by the Djang Em-pire to squash the old names had failed. [ Failed com-plete-ly, ] Sobon grumped qui-et-ly to her-self, [ if even their mil-i-tary base guards don''t use their own names. ]


    [ In truth, the Djang names are aw-ful. I was told that they have some-thing to do with qi, but I nev-er un-der-stood, and most peo-ple don''t ei-ther. It is why the Djang Gildra have gem shapes along the sides. Elec-tra, above Gildra, have di-a-mond edges specif-i-cal-ly, and Pla-tra, above Elec-tra, have flame edges. But they in-sist that the of-fi-cial names of the coins are No-ble Gem, and Lord''s Di-a-mond, and Im-mor-tal Flame coins. It would have been bad enough if they were sim-ple names, but they''re em-bar-rass-ing to say. ]


    Sobon in-ward-ly re-turned Alas-si''s com-ments with amuse-ment, but didn''t let the ex-pres-sion show through her face. Since there was still a lit-tle time, Sobon found her-self wan-der-ing to-wards an-oth-er in-scrip-tion-ist''s shop, al-though she sus-pect-ed that if they were any good, they would have been hired by the Base Com-man-der to fix some of the prob-lems Sobon her-self had dealt with. Or... per-haps they sim-ply wouldn''t want to be hired to fix wa-ter heaters and cleans-ing sta-tions.


    Sobon found her-self pleased, then, to walk into the shop and find it well-stocked and with two ob-vi-ous guards. Her eyes roved around the room, tak-ing in a num-ber of dif-fer-ent items, and she filed away var-i-ous rune com-bi-na-tions as she looked around, both the ones that seemed cor-rect and the ones that were ob-vi-ous-ly mis-takes.


    "No eye shop-ping," said a woman be-hind the counter af-ter a mo-ment. "Our de-signs are pro-pri-etary. Buy some-thing or get out."


    Sobon glanced over to find, for the first time in a while, a Djang woman whose dress well and tru-ly didn''t fit her style. She was dressed al-most shab-bi-ly, and Sobon not-ed that al-though she looked ful-ly adult, she was short, freck-led, and her hair a mess. She was, how-ev-er, in-tent-ly carv-ing into a bracelet with a sty-lus, one whose carv-ing point nar-rowed down to an in-sane-ly stiff hair.


    Ki''el bris-tled, and Sobon won-dered why the girl seemed to take an in-stant dis-like to the lit-tle grem-lin. "How are we sup-posed to shop with-out look-ing at your wares?"


    The woman paused, very care-ful-ly re-mov-ing the sty-lus from the work, then point-ed it at Ki''el with-out look-ing up. "Not talk-ing to you, dum-b-ass. You''re too stu-pid to steal my de-signs. You," she point-ed the sty-lus at Sobon, "I can sense what you''re do-ing. You''re not just look-ing, you''re read-ing. Buy some-thing or get out."


    Sobon couldn''t help but smile and laugh at that, a re-ac-tion that nei-ther Ki''el nor the shop-keep-er seemed to un-der-stand im-me-di-ate-ly or ap-pre-ci-ate. She shook her head. "You are a sharp one," she said, and went back to glanc-ing around, though not with the in-ten-si-ty she''d had. "I don''t in-tend to com-pete with you, I am only pass-ing through."


    "Com-pete," scoffed the woman, set-ting down her sty-lus and rais-ing her head. She had in-tense eyes, and looked weary. "I''m just sick of peo-ple copy-ing what I''ve done and claim-ing they''re mas-ters be-cause of it. And al-ways, al-ways they get things wrong. Worse, they do all that af-ter not even hav-ing the de-cen-cy to buy some-thing. Just walk in, look around, smile through their teeth, and open up a shop claim-ing to be mas-ters. And then, af-ter that, they come back, des-per-ate-ly try-ing to look like they aren''t try-ing to steal my work as they bore holes in them with their eyes. It''s pa-thet-ic."


    Sobon nod-ded along, glanc-ing over the items. "Your work does seem bet-ter than oth-ers I''ve seen. Most of them rely on care-ful in-tent in the glyphs, not just the lay-out of the script. I can see how--"


    "It''s both, of course," the woman in-ter-rupt-ed, sud-den-ly hop-ping up on the counter and swing-ing her legs over the front, show-ing that her feet were bare. Her loose shorts might have also been... some-what im-mod-dest, but Sobon didn''t care. The woman, like Sobon, seemed pleased to have de-cent con-ver-sa-tion, for once. "But the tru-ly pro-found in-scrip-tions re-quire pro-found in-tent, and pro-found in-tent with-out pro-found in-scrip-tions is use-less." She raised her hand, and a knife from be-hind the counter flipped into her hand, as though of its own ac-cord. Then, with-out even flinch-ing, she drove the knife straight into her own thigh--and re-moved it again, as Ki''el gasped, to show that the blade had left no mark on her own body. "Pro-found truths re-quire pro-found minds to un-der-stand, while com-mon peo-ple can only stare in won-der and won-der what kind of cheap trick you just pulled."


    Sobon stud-ied the knife, but tried not to fo-cus on the in-scrip-tions them-selves. "That''s cer-tain-ly not a cheap trick," Sobon ad-mit-ted, try-ing to make sense of what she''d seen. "Spa-tial pock-et?"


    "Got it in one." The woman sheathed the knife and tossed it hap-haz-ard-ly over her shoul-der. "Spa-tial mag-ic is a fas-ci-nat-ing dis-ci-pline even for the great-est in-scrip-tion-ists, but it''s only knock-ing on the doors of a greater truth. What that truth is still es-capes even me, but I can see it. I just don''t un-der-stand it." The short woman kicked her legs idly, like a child, but only as she was think-ing hard about some-thing. As soon as she came back to her-self, she stopped. "I get the feel-ing you know what I''m talk-ing about."


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    Sobon let a grin spread over her face. "I know a great many thing, enough that I too must keep se-crets. Es-pe-cial-ly, if you''ll par-don my say-ing so, from the Em-pire."


    The shop guards trad-ed ner-vous looks, but the woman sitting on the counter just nod-ded. "They won''t touch me, not as a na-tive Djang, but any for-eign-er who has some-thing they want, some-one will try to take by force. I un-der-stand. Per-haps some-day I''ll take a trip, and we can talk far from any lis-ten-ing ears." She paused. "Oh. I am Lai Shi Po. Just in case, as you say, you''re a for-eign-er and don''t know my shop from a hole in the ground."


    Sobon laughed. "Shi-va Alas-si, from Emer-ald Val-ley to the west. Though I don''t know if that is al-ways where I''ll be, or what I''ll be called." Sobon paused, very care-ful-ly as-sess-ing Lai Shi Po, be-fore quick-ly throw-ing to-geth-er a pri-va-cy pat-tern and send-ing her an aether pulse. [ If you go to the city, have the guards di-rect you to Sobon. It is... a slight-ly com-pli-cat-ed mat-ter. ]


    The woman nod-ded, out-ward-ly ig-nor-ing the aether con-struct, al-though she had a strange look in her eyes. "I doubt I''ll go that way right away, but per-haps. The re-mote parts of the Em-pire are al-ways in-ter-est-ed in buy-ing up a few spa-tial rings for a hefty prof-it." Lai Shi Po snort-ed. "Those are al-ways the worst to have copied. Usu-al-ly, they copiers will say it''s some-one else''s work, which means that when they in-evitably fail, some-one else''s rep-u-ta-tion gets dragged through the mud. It''s why I don''t even put them out for dis-play, or sell them to oth-er in-scrip-tion-ists."


    "Hm." Sobon let her-self sound a lit-tle dis-ap-point-ed, al-though it didn''t sur-prise her. Any-one who did a bad job of mak-ing a spa-tial ar-ti-fact was play-ing a dan-ger-ous game, al-though since the Ri''lef''s qi script re-lied on spa-tial pock-ets, it was more like-ly that the con-tents would sim-ply be-come lost. "Well, we have a din-ner to get to, but... what about a pro-tec-tive ar-ti-fact for my com-pan-ion, here?"


    In the end, they left for din-ner a good forty gildra lighter, but Sobon had both a pro-tec-tive bracelet that Ki''el wore on her wrist, and also, Lai Shi Po had thrown in what Sobon rec-og-nized as a non-func-tion-al spa-tial ring, one with the cor-rect in-scrip-tions but no in-tent. The two had trad-ed amused looks at that, Sobon rec-og-niz-ing it as a test, but she sim-ply pock-et-ed the item with-out com-ment.


    The restau-rant Rai Su Anin had cho-sen was, to sur-prise, ex-treme-ly ex-pen-sive and ex-clu-sive, the ex-act sort of place that Sobon had known she would feel en-tire-ly out of place walk-ing into with her pre-vi-ous clothes. Even the ones she had bought, though they were in per-fect con-di-tion and well-made, were in-ex-pen-sive com-pared to any-thing else she saw with-in. The maitre d'' who met them at the front, a tall and thin woman who could have ri-valed Alas-si for hav-ing a per-ma-nent frown etched onto her face, gave their wear clear and un-mis-tak-able dis-ap-prov-ing looks, al-though she di-rect-ed the two of them to the Base Com-man-der''s pri-vate table with-out com-ment.


    The in-side was lav-ish, and al-though Sobon could have found rea-son to com-plain about it, in truth she found it at least a bit re-fresh-ing. Not be-cause Sobon, in his old life, had hung out at in-cred-i-bly ex-pen-sive restau-rants in the past; no, it sim-ply was a much small-er con-trast to mod-ern restau-rants than any-thing else she''d seen. There were a few ta-bles through-out the mid-dle of the room, with qi fields for pri-va-cy, and a num-ber of pri-vate booths along the edges. There was live mu-sic be-ing played by well-dressed mu-si-cians, who were both very ob-vi-ous-ly be-ing seen not to be spy-ing on any-one, and also, very clear-ly spy-ing on who-ev-er they could. Wait-ers hur-ried to and from back doors to the kitchen, and every-thing was kept im-pec-ca-bly clean and fresh smelling. There were even sev-er-al wa-ter-falls, set against the sup-port-ing columns that held up the sec-ond floor, which had a bal-cony look-ing down on the first floor, which pro-vid-ed a pleas-ing mo-tion and sound.


    Sobon was a lit-tle sur-prised that the Base Com-man-der didn''t take a sec-ond-sto-ry table; in-stead, they were tak-en to a pri-vate booth on one side of the low-er floor. Sobon not-ed that the booths to ei-ther side were filled, but with stiff peo-ple that seemed mil-i-tary them-selves, and she also not-ed that the pri-va-cy screens were not ful-ly set up, so that the guards on ei-ther side could hear the Base Com-man-der, at the very least if she shout-ed.


    "Lady Shi-va, and your dis-ci-ple. Doua Ki''el, I be-lieve?" Com-man-der Rai ges-tured to the bench across the cir-cu-lar table from her, as she re-laxed into her own couch, mak-ing no mo-tion to get up. "Please, be seat-ed."


    Sobon made no ef-fort to be for-mal, and with-in mo-ments, a serv-er that Sobon had not no-ticed hang-ing around near-by ar-rived, look-ing very pa-tient and for-mal. "Good evening. Do you need to be told what we have avail-able?"


    "I''ll have my usu-al," Com-man-der Rai said, dis-mis-sive-ly, and the serv-er shift-ed his eyes to Alas-si and Ki''el."


    "What-ev-er the chef rec-om-mends," Sobon said, not par-tic-u-lar-ly keen on learn-ing a menu she wouldn''t like-ly see again.


    "Fish and rice," was all Ki''el had to say.


    The serv-er sim-ply bowed and backed away, and Com-man-der Rai gave a wry grin. "As with a great many war-riors I have met, Lady Shi-va, you don''t seem to ap-pre-ci-ate the fin-er things in life. In truth, in my first hun-dred years of life, I was much the same." She lift-ed a wine gob-let smelled it, and set it down with-out drink-ing. "By the time I could no longer pre-tend that I had lived one full life in its en-tire-ty, I be-gan to re-al-ize that I tru-ly did not en-joy liv-ing that way. Al-though death does not come eas-i-ly for those of us in the Gem Phase of Qi, it still can come. It would be a pity to live an-oth-er full cen-tu-ry and still re-gret my life."


    Ki''el shift-ed un-com-fort-ably, clear-ly un-cer-tain of how to deal with a girl that looked her age speak-ing of a cen-tu-ry of life, but Sobon ig-nored it. Al-though Sobon was tempt-ed to talk about his own past--since Com-man-der Rai would like-ly not know all the de-tails of Alas-si''s--she stuck to the more ob-vi-ous an-swers. "I have my own re-grets in this life, Com-man-der Rai," she said. "Of time that I''ve wast-ed. Mis-takes made, and things left un-done. If I live long enough to see some of those mis-takes atoned for, per-haps there will be time for pleas-antries af-ter-wards. And if I do not live to see those mis-takes atoned for, I don''t be-lieve that crea-ture com-forts in the mean-time will make up the dif-fer-ence."


    Com-man-der Rai''s face dark-ened with those words, enough that it took the youth-ful cast off her fea-tures again, if not quite as much as Sobon''s in-sight into qi had. "Re-grets," she said, lean-ing back onto the couch and let-ting her arms splay over the top of it. "Yes, war-riors have those. And I sup-pose that is part of why you no longer wish to be a war-rior. Those of us raised to war, es-pe-cial-ly, are told to bond with our teams, work close-ly with them, and then thrown into a mess that all but guar-an-tees we won''t all come back alive."


    "By the time we are old enough and wise enough to un-der-stand what we could have done dif-fer-ent-ly, we can-not undo the at-tach-ments, can-not change back into the chil-dren we were be-fore." Her eyes flicked to Ki''el. "We can-not re-move the stains on our skin, or the mon-sters from our souls. We have be-come war-riors, through and through." One hand reached out to take the wine, and she swirled it and smelled it, but didn''t drink.


    "It is not only war-riors who have scars," Ki''el said, her voice heavy with judge-ment. "My peo-ple were tak-en by pi-rates. My home--my fam-i-ly raped and mur-dered by peo-ple who went on to sell the sur-vivors as slaves. And I am led to be-lieve that the buy-ers were Djang."


    "I wouldn''t doubt it," Rai Su Anin said, with a sigh. "The Di-a-mond Lord Him-self au-tho-rized a pro-gram of pri-va-teers, ships who would pil-lage to sell peo-ple to us. Not us, the mil-i-tary," she cor-rect-ed, her oth-er hand com-ing up to stop Ki''el be-ing riled up. "No-ble fam-i-lies, most-ly. There is too much work that needs to be done, too much mon-ey to be earned. If the no-ble fam-i-lies did the kind of aw-ful things they do to slaves to oth-er Djang in-stead, this coun-try would tear it-self apart. It''s eas-i-er to pre-tend we are civ-il when we don''t see our-selves in the vic-tims."


    Sobon could see the many in-tense feel-ings on Ki''el''s face, and put a hand on her arm. Ki''el shot her a glare, and Sobon met her eyes. "I think this is not a healthy con-ver-sa-tion to have, Base Com-man-der," she said, "though I am sur-prised you speak so open-ly about your own peo-ple''s sins."


    "Sins... that is a word for it. There are many for-eign con-cepts around evil. The Djang tend to fo-cus on the de-mon-ic, and I ful-ly agree that slav-ery is a de-mon-ic thing, but it is one that some em-brace as a source of pow-er." Com-man-der Rai fi-nal-ly took a sip of her wine. "But every word for evil be-comes un-der-stat-ed, even mean-ing-less, in the face of suc-cess, does it not? The few... pri-va-teers that I have had the un-pleas-ant for-tune to meet all had de-mon-ic qi in-side of them. But they were all of them suc-cess-ful. If I were to ar-gue that they should not have been demons... would any of them have seen suc-cess? The world would be a bet-ter place, but if they sunk into pover-ty and de-spair as a re-sult, wouldn''t they dis-agree?"


    "I can-not be-lieve--" Ki''el be-gan to say, but the Com-man-der raised her voice to drown it out.


    "I don''t agree with what they do," she said, with-out much emo-tion in her voice, "and I nev-er will, young Ki''el. I do not have the scars you have, but I see plain-ly that what they do cor-rupts them, the Djang, and the world at large. What I am try-ing to say, and what you would do well to un-der-stand, is that theirs is an evil that will not dis-ap-pear as long as it is giv-en a place to thrive. It must be erad-i-cat-ed, and as a mem-ber of the Di-a-mond Lord''s Army, I am not per-mit-ted to do so. What-ev-er ar-gu-ments you have, they are not with me."


    "I can-not take your words as any-thing but the words of a cow-ard," said Ki''el, ac-cus-ing-ly.


    Sobon didn''t sense any re-ac-tion in Com-man-der Rai, but did sense dis-com-fort from the booths on ei-ther side. They were in-ter-rupt-ed, though, when the servers re-turned, plac-ing three dish-es on the table. Ki''el had some kind of thin-ly sliced fish in sauce over rice and veg-eta-bles, while Sobon had a sur-pris-ing-ly mod-ern-look-ing dish of bread-ed and deep-fried meats and veg-eta-bles, with heav-i-ly spiced sauces over a small-er bed of rice. Rai had a mix-ture of sev-er-al dif-fer-ent items, but only a lit-tle of each--meats, dumplings, fried veg-eta-bles, all arranged around a sin-gle cup of sauce that smelled ex-treme-ly in-tense.


    "I am not hun-gry," Ki''el start-ed to com-plain, but Sobon put a hand on her arm, again, send-ing her a brief pulse of aether. [ It mat-ters how you phrase it to your-self, ] Sobon tried to say. [ The food isn''t hers, and the mon-ey she paid doesn''t taint your soul. This is just... tak-ing some small part of her re-sources for your-self. You might as well eat it. ]


    Ki''el looked back at her, strug-gling to put to-geth-er an an-swer-ing aether pulse. [ No like her. ]


    [ I know, ] Sobon said. [ Just eat. ]


    When Ki''el be-grudg-ing-ly start-ed eat-ing, Com-man-der Rai fi-nal-ly spoke. "Cow-ard... in a sense, I sup-pose. I could re-tire and fight the em-pire, but it would only get me killed. Al-though I have nev-er met the Di-a-mond Lord him-self, I am told that he is greater than any war-rior in our army, and pro-found-ly so. As though even our great-est war-riors, even the ones at the Flame Phase of Qi, are be-neath him. And those war-riors who are in the Flame Phase of Qi... they are so far be-yond me that to chal-lenge them would be fol-ly." The girl-ish woman dipped one of dumplings in sauce and bit into it, tak-ing a long mo-ment to chew and sa-vor the fla-vors.


    "In the end, all cow-ardice is un-will-ing-ness to face our own death or in-jury. In that sense, you are right. I will not face death, not when it won''t change the Di-a-mond Lord''s mind."


    Sobon took the time to eat her own food, and Ki''el forced her-self not to speak, which Sobon thought was a lit-tle out of the girl''s char-ac-ter. So Sobon de-cid-ed to change the top-ic. "What can you tell me about the Di-a-mond Lord? What do the peo-ple who have seen him say about him?"


    "Very lit-tle," Com-man-der Rai ac-knowl-edged. "There was a pan-ic some years ago, when every-thing changed for the sec-ond time. They said that at that time, some-thing hap-pened to the Di-a-mond Lord. And since then, very lit-tle has come down from him. But peo-ple still meet with him to dis-cuss mat-ters of em-pire. They say that his per-son-al ma-sion on the Great Moun-tain is so full of pro-found ar-ti-facts that every-one who vis-its rais-es their qi just by lay-ing eyes on things that the Di-a-mond Lord had made. And yet... they also say that peo-ple fear to meet him. As far as I know, none have died vis-it-ing him, per-haps be-cause none were fool enough to chal-lenge him. He is far enough be-yond them all that no one dares ques-tion his will, or his wis-dom. But there has also not been a time since the Em-pire was found-ed that he has fought."


    Some-how, amidst her speak-ing, Com-man-der Rai man-aged to keep eat-ing, re-ly-ing on qi waves turned to ver-bal speech, in-stead of let-ting the waves car-ry the in-tent them-selves. Most like-ly, Sobon thought, that was so that the guards would know what she was say-ing, or per-haps be-cause she wor-ried Ki''el wouldn''t un-der-stand. It didn''t mat-ter, ei-ther way. "When every-thing changed, the sec-ond time?" Sobon asked, hop-ing the woman would clar-i-fy.


    "Mm," Com-man-der Rai nod-ded. "Of course, there was the ap-pear-ance of the Star-beasts. That was the first change, when the world tru-ly be-gan to shift to a more pro-found state. But some years af-ter that, there was a shift, and the na-ture of it was un-clear. Some-thing that a few clear-ly know of, but which none will speak about. Since then, the Di-a-mond Lord has changed. I be-lieve, or per-haps sim-ply hopoe, that he is in seclu-sion, try-ing to reach new depths of pro-fun-di-ty. None will say what oc-cu-pies him, only that some-thing clear-ly does. Some-thing more im-por-tant to him than mat-ters of Em-pire."


    He''s try-ing to get into the Founder''s fa-cil-i-ty, Sobon thought, the idea stick-ing to her and sour-ing her stom-ach. Al-though the food wasn''t bad, the idea that the man--giv-en all else that he''d ac-com-plished--was still ac-tive-ly work-ing at it ter-ri-fied Sobon.


    I''m al-ready tak-ing too long. There is too much at stake. Sobon tried to keep the pan-ic down, and most-ly man-aged, but she couldn''t stop it from re-turn-ing to the fore-front of her mind. So she shook her head, and asked what she hoped was a sim-ple, in-no-cent ques-tion.


    "I''m not too fa-mil-iar with the ge-og-ra-phy. How far is the Great Moun-tain from here?"


    The look that Com-man-der Rai gave showed enough cau-tion that Sobon knew that the woman sus-pect-ed some-thing from Sobon''s tone or nerves, though she clear-ly wasn''t sure what Sobon was think-ing. "It is in the very cen-ter of the Em-pire, the One True Moun-tain that puts all oth-er moun-tains to shame. Raised by the Di-a-mond Lord, it stands upon the great-est nexus of ge-o-mat-ic pow-ers in the world. Those who fol-low the Di-a-mond Lord can al-ways feel it, shin-ing like a bea-con in the night. But as to how far..." she shrugged. "Per-haps two thou-sand Li from here? For a long time, I have been more fo-cused on maps of the sea and the near-by lands, not the in-ner ge-og-ra-phy of the Em-pire."


    "I see." In truth, Sobon had guessed the gen-er-al di-rec-tion while fly-ing east, but had been far more in-ter-est-ed in find-ing Ki''el to wor-ry about it. How that she was sure... it was a lit-tle dif-fi-cult not to try to fly clos-er, but Sobon had no doubts that some-one like the Di-a-mond Lord would sense her com-ing, es-pe-cial-ly once she was ac-tu-al-ly strong enough to do some-thing of con-se-quence.


    For the rest of the din-ner, both Sobon and Ki''el most-ly plas-tered on masks of po-lite com-pa-ny, and lit-tle else was said of note. Both of them were too dis-turbed to en-joy their food, al-though Sobon did take her own ad-vice to Ki''el, and con-tin-ued eat-ing. It was, af-ter all, good food--ex-cel-lent-ly spiced and per-fect-ly cooked, it de-served what-ev-er cost the Base Com-man-der had paid. But when all was said and done, like Ki''el, Sobon re-al-ly wasn''t in-ter-est-ed in en-joy-ing the Djang lux-u-ries.


    And so, af-ter fin-ish-ing their meals and en-dur-ing a few more un-in-tend-ed barbs from the Base Com-man-der, they left.

 32. Alassi - Anticipation, Part 4

    With Com-man-der Rai''s in-sis-tence that Sobon was free to go, Sobon would have im-me-di-ate-ly set off, but there were a cou-ple ex-tra tasks that she and Ki''el saw to in the morn-ing. One was get-ting a set of pa-pers for Alas-si and Ki''el, which of-fi-cials in the town out-side the base saw to on a timescale only a bu-reau-crat would call fast. Then, Sobon met one last time with Com-man-der Rai to speak on the mat-ter of that ''fa-vor'' the woman sug-gest-ed she owed.


    Sobon knew well that she could have any num-ber of dif-fer-ent re-quests, but giv-en that she didn''t have over-whelm-ing trust for the woman, she lim-it-ed her-self to two spe-cif-ic things.


    "Of-fi-cial mil-i-tary per-mis-sion to fly across the coun-try," Sobon said, "And as-sis-tance with buy-ing a small piece of prop-er-ty some-where in Djang, any-where near a ma-jor city. Not im-me-di-ate-ly, but when I am ready to do so."


    The woman had giv-en Sobon an inscrutable look. Sobon knew that both re-quests were very rea-son-able--cur-rent-ly, al-though Alas-si had a cer-tain lev-el of cit-i-zen-ship for her mil-i-tary ser-vice, she had been told by Alas-si that it was the low-est lev-el, be-low non-Djang res-i-dents, com-mon Djang res-i-dents, and Djang no-bles. While the mil-i-tary it-self would some-times hold the rights of a war-rior over the rights of a com-mon res-i-dent, few oth-ers would, and very few in-deed would ever hold the rights of a non-Djang over those of a full-blood cit-i-zen. And the per-mis-sion to fly would do lit-tle to pre-vent Sobon from get-ting in trou-ble if, or rather when, she end-ed up do-ing any-thing more than trav-el-ling.


    "The first is easy," Base Com-man-der Rai said af-ter a few mo-ments, "at least in this sec-tion of the coun-try. How-ev-er, any bear-er to-ken I give you will only af-fect sol-diers with-in my purview. When you trav-el over any oth-er sec-tion of the coun-try, you may be chal-lenged, and the to-ken will only en-sure you are seen by the near-est mil-i-tary com-man-der. As for the sec-ond..." she shrugged. "I can give you a bear-er to-ken or a writ, and sug-gest some peo-ple who would re-spect it. I trust that you un-der-stand, how-ev-er, that land own-er-ship is very com-pli-cat-ed. The pol-i-tics of it, es-pe-cial-ly for a non-Djang, will be ex-haust-ing. And es-pe-cial-ly for a non-Djang still in the Com-mon Met-al phase of Qi. It will im-prove slight-ly when you are pro-mot-ed to Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, but..." she shrugged. "Not a lot."


    "I have need of it, so I will sim-ply need to make do," was all Sobon was will-ing to say to the woman.


    The last task, which Sobon un-der-took in pri-vate while oth-er things were be-ing done, was ad-just-ing the way that her flight frame op-er-at-ed, adding a wind shield and sep-a-rate sup-ports for Ki''el, and ad-just-ing the an-gle of the thruster. Sobon had got-ten the hang of fly-ing with Ki''el''s added weight on the flight from the ship, but ad-just-ing the an-gle of the thruster slight-ly let her use more of the wings'' lift ca-pac-i-ty for ma-neu-ver-ing if nec-es-sary. Sobon was not ex-pect-ing to get into any aer-i-al dog-fights--she sus-pect-ed that if any of the lo-cals de-cid-ed to fight her while she was fly-ing, they would be most-ly ex-pect-ing her to stand and fight, in one lit-er-al way or an-oth-er.


    Sobon''s flight to-ken and prop-er-ty writ were de-liv-ered at the same time, along with a map of ma-jor mil-i-tary bases in the Em-pire, each with a cir-cle that sug-gest-ed ei-ther the size of the base or the size of their con-trol ar-eas; which ex-act-ly was un-stat-ed. It also, of course, showed the mil-i-tary cor-don area around the Coro-na, al-though it was sim-ply marked as "dan-ger", and it marked a rel-a-tive-ly large sec-tor of the Em-pire as be-ing, Sobon as-sumed, un-der Base Com-man-der Rai''s ju-ris-dic-tion, with a few unlabeled points that Sobon as-sumed were cities. Sobon com-mit-ted the map to mem-o-ry, and with the Coro-na as a guide-point, found her own lo-ca-tion. She didn''t know where home was on this map, not yet, but it wouldn''t take much ef-fort to find out.


    Sobon took off with-out any fan-fare or fur-ther good-byes, Ki''el sto-ical-ly pressed against her. Her first task was to get clear of the mil-i-tary base''s in-flu-ence, to a place where she could get a rel-a-tive-ly clear trans-mis-sion path to the Coro-na, and ping it with a cou-ple re-quests.


    [ Re-quest cur-rent co-or-di-nates for my-self and the Coro-na, and a ter-rain map if you have one. ] was the first, and when the Coro-na pinged her back, she sent along a cou-ple packed que-si-tons to the Ri''lef en-gi-neer. With the co-or-di-nate pack-ets, and a slight-ly more de-pend-able ver-sion of the map she was able to place her-self, the Coro-na, Emer-ald Val-ley, and the mil-i-tary bases along the way into a sin-gle men-tal map.


    Then, go-ing some-what slow-er just as a mat-ter of low-er ur-gency, she fi-nal-ly turned in the di-rec-tion of what was tem-porar-i-ly, at least, home.


    Ki''el was in a bet-ter mood, no sur-prise, with her knee very near-ly com-plete-ly healed. She spent much of her time look-ing down and around, for a good long while, al-though she seemed a bit un-com-fort-able with the height. Be-fore long, though, she switched to practicing speak-ing with aether puls-es with Sobon.


    [ You speak to (Will of the World)? ]


    Her first at-tempt caught Sobon off guard, but Sobon''s sub-con-scious would have cap-tured any halfway valid aether pack-et un-der al-most any con-di-tion. That was less a mat-ter of Sobon''s own will, and more of a pro-grammed re-flex giv-en to him by the Crestan Mixed Marines. [ Yes. That is not what it is. ]


    [ It friend. ]


    [ To us. The Djang war with it. It came with the Star-beasts. ] Sobon wasn''t sure ex-act-ly how to phrase that with-out sound-ing like she was in-crim-i-nat-ing her-self, but she thought she did well enough.


    [ Star-beasts friend? ]


    Sobon looked down at Ki''el, who was look-ing back up at her, still an in-tense look on her face. [ No/maybe. (Will of the World) is (Tidal Coro-na), an-oth-er war-rior from be-yond the world like Sobon. Sobon is work-ing with those war-riors. But Star-beasts are beasts. ]


    Ki''el was qui-et for a mo-ment. [ Thought com-pli-cat-ed. Lost part. ]


    [ (Will of the World) Coro-na al-lies with Sobon. Star-beasts ally with Coro-na. Star-beasts may not ally with Sobon. ]


    [ Ah. ] Ki''el was qui-et. The next pack-et was con-fused, as though Ki''el didn''t quite know how to put it to-geth-er. [ Coro-na Sobon im-mor-tal-type? ]


    Sobon men-tal-ly picked that a part, just to try to get an ap-pre-ci-a-tion for what Ki''el was think-ing, but re-lied. [ Coro-na makes Sobon im-mor-tal. If Sobon dies again, the Coro-na will help. ]


    [ Would... Coro-na im-mor-tal Ki''el? ]


    Sobon was qui-et for a long time, think-ing about that. In truth, she had no idea what re-sources the Coro-na had, or didn''t have, but she didn''t want to com-mit to any-thing. And also... as much as she liked Ki''el, and Lui, and prob-a-bly would like oth-ers, she couldn''t ex-pect to be able to ask those kind of fa-vors, not when it had no bear-ing on her mis-sion. [ Un-sure/no. Ex-pen-sive. ]


    Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    They were qui-et for a while, as Ki''el con-sid-ered that. In truth, Sobon didn''t think the girl would re-ally want to live again, es-pe-cial-ly not the way Sobon had. She was prob-a-bly tough enough, but get-ting thrown into some-one else''s whole life, liv-ing along-side their spir-it, and pulling them out of their suf-fer-ing and mis-ery by force of will...


    [ Lat-er. Sobon said, in-sight. Djang mil-i-tary. ]


    Sobon mo-men-tar-i-ly lost her train of thought, but reshuf-fled things in her mind and picked up the thread. [ She want-ed fa-vors. She showed me a prob-lem, a war-ship not work-ing the way it should. I chose a small part of the prob-lem and showed a way around it. The wouldn''t have un-der-stood it oth-er-wise. ]


    [ War-ship work now? ]


    [ No. Maybe make new war-ships in many years. Not stronger, work bet-ter. ] That was slight-ly de-cep-tive, but not an out-right lie. If the Djang did every-thing right, they would make a war-ship with sep-a-rate com-mand and pow-er lines as a proof of con-cept, and only af-ter prov-ing that con-cept, mas-sive-ly ex-pand how much pow-er they could put into their weapons and de-fens-es as a sec-ond or third ver-sion. But the en-gi-neer-ing ex-per-tise it would take to de-sign the ship around the con-cept of Com-mand Qi with-out flaws, in a sin-gle it-er-a-tion, was more than Sobon ex-pect-ed from them--es-pe-cial-ly since Com-mand Qi it-self had to be cre-at-ed from scratch, and then for-mal-ized into a con-cept that the Djang could use in a de-sign. Sobon could imag-ine that fifty years might pass with-out any fin-ished, func-tion-al war-ship de-sign based on Com-mand Qi, but for an im-mor-tal like Com-man-der Rai, she might over-see the whole pro-ject and still be in a po-si-tion to take cred-it, or even com-mand, when it''s fin-ished.


    [ No im-prove-ments now? ]


    Sobon hes-i-tat-ed be-fore mak-ing a promise about that, and Ki''el seemed to no-tice. In truth... even if they didn''t re-ar-chi-tec-ture their ships, if they prac-ticed split-ting their qi into com-mand and pow-er, they might be able to im-prove their ship''s func-tions, at least a lit-tle. [ No im-prove-ments now. If they are smart, small im-prove-ments in a few years, more lat-er. I don''t think they''re smart. ]


    [ Nev-er ex-pect a dumb en-e-my. ]


    Sobon laughed a lit-tle at that. Her thought was bet-ter formed than most, or per-haps Sobon just trans-lat-ed it very eas-i-ly. [ I know. Nev-er (un-der-es-ti-mate) the en-e-my. ]


    Ki''el was qui-et, then ques-tioned her again on the med-ical qi, which she''d also promised to talk to her about. So she re-layed her ear-li-er thoughts, about how it was healthy heal-ing qi from plant ex-tracts that was slight-ly dam-aged by be-ing am-pli-fied, leav-ing be-hind im-pu-ri-ties. And af-ter a time, she asked an-oth-er ques-tion, and an-oth-er.


    All the while, Sobon kept their flight as sta-ble as she could, and ma-neu-vered around mil-i-tary bases and cities. Above, the sun crawled through the sky a lit-tle too slow-ly, as they trav-elled west fast enough to change the ap-par-ent time of day. Sobon also not-ed, as they flew, the pow-er-ful qi to the north that she as-sumed was the Di-a-mond Lord, try-ing to get a rough es-ti-mate on ex-act-ly how in-tense it was. It wasn''t re-al-ly nec-es-sary to lo-cate it; Com-man-der Rai had said that he lived on the ''Great Moun-tain'', and the ter-rain map from the Coro-na left no ques-tions about that. The only fea-ture in the mid-dle of the na-tion that was worth of such a name was also un-am-bigu-ous-ly ar-ti-fi-cial, a mas-sive moun-tain in the mid-dle of a wide plain with its top cut per-fect-ly flat.


    Sobon wasn''t able to tell much about the Di-a-mond Lord from his qi alone, and nev-er ex-pect-ed to. But as she flew, she stud-ied, us-ing only pas-sive tech-niques. Even that was dan-ger-ous--aether, as a gen-er-al rule, con-nect-ed things, and it was very easy for pow-er-ful users of aether to no-tice some-one else look-ing at them. De-pend-ing on their pow-er, and who was do-ing the look-ing, some would be very para-noid about any-one pay-ing at-ten-tion to them. All Sobon re-al-ly got from it was a vague sense that she re-al-ly was sens-ing the aura of a sin-gle per-son, which broad-cast qi with cer-tain, spe-cif-ic prop-er-ties. Prop-er-ties that, Sobon thought, were af-fect-ing the qi of all oth-ers in the coun-try, and per-haps the world.


    When there was even a slight stir in re-sponse to Sobon''s analy-sis, she sim-ply let her mind slip aside, us-ing prac-ticed aether tech-niques to de-flect any re-turn at-ten-tion. For what-ev-er rea-son, Sobon didn''t imag-ine that her stealth was suc-cess-ful... but also thought that the Di-a-mond Lord didn''t ob-ject to Sobon, or even her analy-sis. For whichev-er rea-son, the gaze that passed mo-men-tar-i-ly over her seemed... un-sur-prised.


    Still, Sobon had to force her-self not to hold her breath as the Di-a-mond Lord''s at-ten-tion came and went. She was sure that so far, she had done noth-ing to be on the Em-per-or''s radar, not un-less he had sensed her ar-rival, or rein-car-na-tions, or if Sobon were par-tic-u-lar-ly un-lucky, her com-mu-ni-ca-tions with the Coro-na. More wor-ry-ing, though, was that idea he had some un-der-stand-ing of Fate-ma-nip-u-lat-ing aether spins--that he had some im-pres-sion about what was com-ing, and per-haps, that he had al-ready de-tect-ed, and per-haps even pre-pared for, an en-counter to come.


    The Ri''lef had talked about aether struc-tures that could ma-nip-u-late fate, for-wards and back-wards in time, but--


    [ You think-ing, ] Ki''el not-ed, break-ing into Sobon''s thoughts.


    Sobon shook her head to clear it, putting those thoughts aside for now. [ Think-ing about my duty. About try-ing to do the im-pos-si-ble. ]


    [ Duty? ] Ki''el''s men-tal voice was a lit-tle wor-ried, and Sobon rec-og-nized that all of her un-der-stand-ing of the sit-u-a-tion had come since leav-ing the girl. But com-mu-ni-cat-ing via aether puls-es, about this in par-tic-u-lar...


    [ Lat-er, ] She replied, and Ki''el left it at that.


    It was late af-ter-noon when Sobon and Ki''el made their way back to Emer-ald Val-ley. They were prob-a-bly lucky not to have been in-ter-cept-ed by any-one at all--or per-haps, there sim-ply were too few de-fend-ers of the na-tion to go pry-ing into a pow-er-ful qi user who was sim-ply pass-ing through. Ei-ther way, with a lit-tle help from the Coro-na, Sobon was able to di-rect her-self straight at the city, and once she was close, it wasn''t dif-fi-cult to find her way back to her own small bit of prop-er-ty. She could--prob-a-bly should--have stopped at the gates like a nor-mal per-son do-ing busi-ness, but Sobon was tired, hav-ing dealt with sev-er-al dif-fer-ent kinds of frus-tra-tion and dan-ger. In a city where she was one of the few real pow-er-hous-es, Sobon cared lit-tle for what the guards would think about her very ob-vi-ous-ly go-ing home.


    When she ar-rived, Lui was still at work, but Mian was there to greet her, im-me-di-ate-ly of-fer-ing a lo-cal ver-sion of a salute when she came in through the front gate. "Alas-si!" He hur-ried over, and his eyes fell on Ki''el. "And you must be Ki''el, the friend she went to save."


    Ki''el, for what-ev-er rea-son, pos-i-tive-ly blushed at that, or maybe at Mian''s at-ten-tion. "Y-yes," she said, look-ing away from the man. "I am Doua Ki''el, and I... I am a friend of Sobon."


    For what-ev-er rea-son, it took Mian a mo-ment to straight-en his thoughts out, though it shouldn''t have sur-prised him that Ki''el thought of him as Sobon and not as Alas-si. It was only a mo-ment, though, and he nod-ded. "Of course, I wel-come you, Ki''el. Though, I sup-pose that is for Alas-si to do, since it is re-al-ly her home?"


    Sobon just rolled her eyes, re-mov-ing her flight pack and set-ting it down. "I don''t re-al-ly care about be-ing for-mal, Mian."


    "Of course." He smiled, look-ing at Ki''el. "Well... I am Dat-ta Mian. I was a fol-low-er of Alas-si, not Sobon, but Sobon has been kind to us all. The oth-er one who lives here--"


    He was in-ter-rupt-ed by Lui open-ing and rush-ing through the gates. Sobon turned, hap-py to see her but a lit-tle sur-prised that she seemed so ex-cit-ed by her re-turn, af-ter only a cou-ple days.


    "Grand-ma Alas-si!" The girl leaped at Sobon, and Sobon caught her in a hug. "I''m re-al-ly glad you''re safe." She squeezed once at let go, turn-ing to the girl and bow-ing. "I am Kalai Lui, grand-daugh-ter of Alas-si."


    "Doua Ki''el. I am a friend of Sobon''s." She paused, look-ing tense, and in the si-lence, asked, "You do know... that Sobon..."


    "I know what hap-pened to my grand-moth-er. I have spo-ken with her." Lui looked down, clear-ly still a lit-tle con-fused or overwhelmed, but con-tin-ued eas-i-ly. "Sobon... brought her back, in a way. It was painful watch-ing her, be-fore. Since then, she has said more to me than in many re-cent years. I''m not hap-py that... but..." She shook her head. "I know what hap-pened."


    Ki''el re-laxed at that, and Mian clapped his hands to-geth-er. "Now... per-haps a meal to cel-e-brate? In town?"


    "Oh! I''m get-ting paid by Lady Mide. A sil-vra a day when there is no busi-ness, and a share more than that when busi-ness is good. And I have been think-ing about my hands, since we were talk-ing about it be-fore you left..."


    Sobon kept a smile on her face, one that she tru-ly did feel, even as she couldn''t help wor-ry-ing about the prob-lems still to come.

 33. Alassi - Anticipation, Part 5

    It was in the middle of the night, a few nights later, that Sobon was forced awake by a familiar spiritual presence. The last few days had been good, or at least pleasant--Ki''el had settled in, and Sobon resumed fully attuning Alassi''s body to her personal aether. She had recycled her rifle rods, but since they were now flawed in their aether structure from overuse, she transformed most of the material, and the power sources she had engraved into the rod, into a simple power battery for the walls. And she had spent some time examining the inert space ring that Lai Shi Po had given her, but not tried to fill in the intent, not yet.


    Now, in the middle of the night, the spirit that had come to speak with her before was there, Sobon knew, in the courtyard. Sobon went out to meet it, half surprised that it maintained its sedate behavior, after having fled last time, the moment Sobon questioned its origin. Or... had it really fled? Or simply refused to answer?


    [ (Spiritual visitor), ] Sobon pulsed the greeting along with notes of caution and inquiry. She was careful to choose a mental concept that didn''t imply either (Spiritual life-form) or (Spiritual projection of another).


    [ Crestan. ] The entity''s spiritual voice was clear, and Sobon noted, its inquiry was carefully directed such that the others sleeping nearby wouldn''t hear it. Although, Sobon thought, Lui had been awakened when Sobon got up, and Ki''el was sleeping restlessly. [ How much power is too much? ]


    That... Sobon''s mind ground to a halt at the question. The last time it had come, it had asked about myth, and entertained Sobon redirecting the topic to the right of a leader to rule. Why the philosophy? [ There is no universal answer, ] Sobon replied after a long moment. [ An individual can have great power they never use, or abuse their power while having almost none. Advanced society is built on increasing how much power their people have. And societies who give the unworthy too much power always fail, whether societies involve high aether weapons or sharp sticks. ]


    [ You deny that there are societies that are unworthy to survive, but will not fall from within, and will not fall from without. ] There was an edge to the spirit''s voice.


    Sobon took a deep breath, accepting that she was wrong. A civilization could be evil to its enemies and good to its citizens, and as a result, become too strong to defeat. The thought that an unworthy civilization would necessarily fail had been... a bit naive, even based on Crest''s own history. [ If you are asking how much power a society can safely have... I don''t know. I feel like in order to find out, you would need to study an advanced society. ]


    [ How would you study such a society? ]


    [ I''m a Marine, not a sociologist ] Sobon snapped back instantly, not shying away from adding deep undertones of frustration to the thought, but she at least entertained the question. [ I don''t know. But I feel like the morals of a society aren''t a mystery to people that look at it, although they can be hidden. If a people say they mean well but do terrible things, they don''t mean well. If they say they are honest but hide their sins, then they aren''t honest. ]


    [ You do not believe some amount of concealment is necessary in governance? ]


    [ You know that''s different, ] Sobon snapped again, irritated to be pressured on these matters in the middle of the night. Vaguely, she sensed Ki''el stirring, and noted that Lui was definitely aware that something was going on, although she remained in her room. Mian, as far as she could tell, was still asleep. [ There is a difference between concealing things that would require proper context to understand, and concealing things... ] How did she even phrase it? What exactly was she trying to say? [ ...concealing things that even those with proper context disagree on, in order to limit the amount of disagreement. ]


    [ How does this fit into your ''foundational social myth'', and the right to rule? ]


    If the spirit''s intention was to distract Sobon, that question had the opposite effect, solidifying her thoughts. [ Governance will always be complicated, and it isn''t my job to judge whether people do that job right or wrong. But what you are asking is whether concealing things is right or wrong for a ruler. There''s no single answer, and there never will be. It would take a specialist with full information to determine if something was right or wrong, and that is a part of the answer you are searching for. Hiding information specifically so that the educated do not have an opportunity to disagree will always be unethical. ]


    [ So, how much power is too much? ]


    The abrupt conversation shift irritated Sobon. She suspected that the spirit was trying to get her to reach some specific answer. [ Why do you care about my answer? ]


    [ Are you not currently seeking great power? ]


    Sobon scoffed at that, the sound quiet in the silent courtyard. [ Anyone who knows I am from Crest...] She paused, unsure of what rational-intuitive objection she was trying to offer. Instead, she shifted her argument. [ I do not seek or desire to lead these people, only to protect them. I do not believe that I am some great infallible being who should, or will, rule this world in place of its current leaders. I come from a place ruled by (experts), not warlords. ]


    [ Then, how much power is too much? ]


    [ If I knew that my objective could be obtained without using power, I would do so. ]


    [ If your objective could be obtained without using power, would the power you have be too much? ]


    [ Are you being obnoxious on purpose? ] Sobon withheld a storm of emotion, not letting it spill out into her words, except around the edges.


    [ Yes. ] The spirit''s reply was amused, and it ignored a frustrated and wordless burst from Sobon. [ I know what your purpose is. Your mission on this world will shift before you accomplish it. ]


    [ You are not Ri''lef, ] Sobon accused directly, and the spirit, smugly but calmly, gave an affirmative reply. [ I do not know who you are, but I cannot trust your word on this matter. The matter at hand is too important for me to be distracted from it. ]


    [ I do not ask you to take my word for it. The questions you have asked will lead you to your answer. It will not lead to your success. ] The spirit adjusted its presence just slightly, giving an air of a person with a considering tilt to their head, although the image of their body remained abstract, fuzzy. [ In consideration for your honesty, I will offer the same. One question, at least. ] At the same time, on another layer of aether, a message was laid out plainly, using a form of double-speech that was only common among those who did a great deal of aether conversation. [ I may choose not to reply. ]


    A number of questions rolled through Sobon''s mind, although above all, she recognized that she was being played. The almost flirtatious back and forth was a play to make the spirit seem ever more legitimate, although whether it actually was or not was hard to tell. It might have been a planetary spiritual god, watching over Sobon with every intent to help, or the Diamond Lord himself, teasing out how much of a danger Sobon was.


    Sobon chose her words as carefully as she could. [ Do you stand on the side of those who subjugate those seen as lesser to the Djang? ]


    The spirit''s posture shifted slightly in response. [ That question is irrelevant to me, ] it answered, a little stiffly, [ but I do not. ]


    Irrelevant? Definitely not the Diamond Lord himself. Unless he truly doesn''t concern himself with matters of state anymore. When the spirit didn''t appear to be immediately leaving, Sobon formed another question. [ Are you currently searching for greater power yourself? ]


    [ To answer the question you intended to ask, no, I am not. But an honest reply to the question as asked can only be that yes, I am. ]


    When there was another pause, Sobon hesitated, then finally asked, [ What question do you believe I intended to ask? ]


    There was a very smug emotional pulse in reply, and then the spirit said, [ Your people will be contacting you soon. In answer, I believe, to your earlier question. ] And then it disappeared.


    <hr>


    There are a great number of things Sobon might have expected after that. But what she did not expect was, within five minutes, for another relay chat to come in from K''val, the Ri''lef engineer. Sobon frowned as she accepted the call, boosting her mental processes so that she could keep up with the packetized thoughts.


    [ Replying to Sobon, the (Summoned) warrior of Crest, ] it began, [ this is K''val, the Corona''s (industrial second). Please reply if you are able to communicate at this time. ]


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    [ (Accepting), this is Sobon. K''val, I have been in contact with a (unclassified spiritual entity) that seems aware of your presence and current actions. They do not declare themselves as Ri''lef, and do not appear hostile. Are you aware of any such entity? ]


    There was a pause. [ There are several deity-class spiritual entities who have been partially briefed on our purposes, however, I am not involved with those matters. Please direct a briefing to the Corona. ] Then, a second thought, clearly previously composed. [ Regarding your most recent transmission. You are correct that there are spatial faults linking the Starbeats sources across the planet to the crash site of the Corona. And you are correct that they also link to the Founders'' facility, or at least, the location where that facility should be. Unfortunately, because the existence and nature of these spatial links are Founders'' secrets, I cannot give you a full map of them. I will, however, authorize the Corona to give you specific directions such that you may enter one spatial fault and arrive at another. For security reasons, you may not be allowed to ask too many times. ]


    Sobon signaled an affirmative, and then, [ Do you have a list of the coordinates for all spatial faults? ]


    [ For similar reasons, that is restricted. You may ask the Corona to direct you to a nearby fault. ]


    Sobon considered. [ What level of aether toxicity can be expected at these faults? ]


    The return packet, as Sobon fully expected, wasn''t pleasant. It was well past the limit of cell toxicity, and undeniably lethal. Sobon would need a powerful, external source of shielding, which was the next part of the plan. [ Will it be possible, at an arbitrary future date, to request directions to a winnable confrontation with one or more mature Starbeasts? ]


    [ Yes, we were expecting you would ask eventually. We have the ability to direct Starbeasts at various levels of maturity through direct and indirect links, and can ensure nonlethal encounters. Although you should be able to avoid the effects of poisoning from a lesser core with shielding and attunement, we would suggest you refrain from requesting materials until you can handle them comfortably. ]


    Sobon ackowledged that, then after a long moment, passed along another set of thoughts. [ In discussion with a local, they described two points in history when the world changed. One was the arrival of the Corona and the appearance of the Starbeasts. The second, sometime later, sounded like it may have been when their leader discovered the Founder facility. Can you confirm the basic events? ]


    There was a relatively long pause after that, which Sobon assumed was the Engineer conferring with someone. When K''val replied, though, there was caution underlaying the transmission.


    [ Broadly incorrect, ] he said. [ Our understanding of the events suggest that the locals broke into the Founder facility before our arrival, and the aether levels were raised at that time. The Corona''s AI confirms the existence of a third event that altered the planetary flow of aether, but we aren''t sure of its origin. Our assumption is that it has to do with the facility, but we have not tracked any of the expected changes from it since then. ]


    Sobon frowned, but beore she could reply, there was another transmission.


    [ I am also being reminded by vocal members of our working group that I am obliged to once again censure your use of non-local aether patterns, and your dismissive attitude towards keeping certain secrets. Please understand that we are measuring mythological (drift) and (shear) levels, not directly monitoring your behavior. There is a mythology (shear) surrounding you that is significant enough to cause a fault if not handled properly. ]


    Sobon, if she were in any sort of company, would have had to conceal outward signs of confusion from that, but didn''t chose to as she stood alone in the courtyard. [ You''re going to need to define mythological (shear). ]


    There was only a beat, and the return packet was flavored with irritation. [ Mythological shear is a term for when a person or artifact appears so foreign that it cannot be accounted for by accepted social myth, and therefore is considered unique, transcendent, or anathema. Starbeasts are still suffering from the consequences of mythological shear, and they are a good example of why it is a problem. Although in several ways they are comparable to local aether-adapted species, they are treated specially, with people deifiying and mythologizing everything from their cores to their bodily fluids. If you reach certain levels of mythology shear, you can expect a significant rise in obsessive behavior from others. If it rises to the level of a mythological fault, you may be completely unable to avoid attention. ]


    At that, Alassi''s spirit stirred slightly. [ I am sure that when they added Starbeast meat and blood to our meals, in the army, it had an effect on our qi levels. Perhaps not a large amount, but... ]


    Sobon, patiently, pushed a thought to her. [ What the engineer said was only that it wouldn''t have more of an effect than a comparable aether animal, like the Bassar. ] To K''val, she replied, [ How does one measure mythological shear? ]


    [ Much of this is protected information, but the aether foundations of myth are a function of Sacred and Corrupt aether, which you should already know are Time and Fate-linked. For lack of a better description, "Mythic aether" searches for a source, and if it cannot find one, it gathers until it creates one. You do not want to be a unique source of myth, as it will interfere with everything you come into contact with, attaching itself to your every word and bowel movement. It is better to tie all of myth to existing foundations, or if necessary, create false sources of myth that you are merely tied to, or a vessel for. ]


    With barely a pause, K''val continued. [ And that is all exactly why we, despite very much needing your help, would appreciate it if you would stop making it look like you are the source of your own special powers. My colleagues, broadly speaking, would phrase that more harshly. ]


    That brought to Sobon''s mind images of the City Lord bowing and scraping to her. It made a certain sense, although Sobon could also convince herself that the Ri''lef were either mistaken or overstating things. The people here seemed to worship power, and very few people would pay attention to exactly where the power came from or whether it seemed unnatural.


    That thought warred with Sobon''s instinct to trust an engineer from an advanced society that specializes in exactly these sorts of things. Sobon knew the engineers weren''t infallible--and would never have argued that they were--but it was very rarely a good idea for a Marine to argue with a specialist. And in truth, Sobon didn''t yet have any strong or deep understanding of the local culture. There was an element of doubt, one Sobon didn''t intend to completely crush, but the Ri''lef insight into these topics was deeper than any others she had access to.


    [ The implication of your request does include the idea that a stand-in could be created to explain my ascension, ] Sobon pointed out in return, after a few seconds of thought that amounted to a fairly long pause in their conversation. [ The tools that I''ve mainly used are my aether (dynamos) and some limited aether scripts. My only real protoge so far has only been introduced to the (dynamos), and I''ve introduced it using the symbol ?, which could simply be a spiritual truth that was revealed in some way. I won''t argue that the scripts have an obvious outside source, but I feel like they could be explained away. ]


    [ We haven''t seen your workings enter into the planetary mythos, just the drift and shear related to your ascension. The problem with revealing your source is exactly that it would be copied. A part of our intentions here are to limit the aether development on this planet, not accelerate it. ]


    Sobon started to object, then thought about it. In truth, Sobon had little understanding of where and how the locals gathered qi, except that it was completely inferior, and that many of them gathered it passively or while fighting Starbeasts. She was tempted to assume that was how everyone got stronger--but she hadn''t bothered to ask. The only time she''d actually studied someone trying was back with Ki''el, on the island. There had been others, the slaves freed at the inn, but they were both weak and grasping at straws, and Sobon had paid them little mind. [ I acknowledge the problem and will seriously consider how my methods may need to change or be adapted. I will need to do more research with the locals to determine how my methods compare to theirs. ]


    [ If you get involved with local qi development efforts, send us occasional briefings. Although we are able to study them remotely, we have not been in contact with any of them. There is a substantial difference between what they''re doing, and what they think they''re doing. We''d like to know more about the latter. ]


    Sobon sent a wordless acknowledgement, and the Ri''lef seemed to cut the connection. After a few moments, Sobon noticed that the others in her home were all watching her again, with even Mian having woken to sit with the others, watching Sobon stand there in the courtyard, having an obvious aether conversation with no one at all.


    "I don''t feel like there''s any reason to watch me," she said as she turned to look. Of the three of them, Lui and Mian both seemed somewhere between relaxed and fascinated, while Ki''el... perhaps just because of her nature, was watching as though worried something awful was going to happen.


    But Mian just shook his head at her. "I can''t imagine not wanting to watch, Alassi. Or, I guess, Sobon." He grinned. "There are times when your qi is completely understandable. But whoever you were talking to, whatever you were talking about, it was..." Mian seemed to find himself lost for words.


    "It felt like you could put the whole world inside a single thought, a single moment in time," Lui said. "I can''t even imagine what... what kind of insights into the world are hidden in those thoughts, but I can sense them shining like diamonds in the night."


    Something in the girl''s honest admiration made Sobon momentarily confused, and for some reason, ashamed. She wanted to object, to say that her thoughts were something more ordinary... but then, the Ri''lef had talked about how fate-linked aether works, and how it was a problem for Sobon in particular. And the spirit had forced her to talk about worthiness to hold great power.


    Sobon shifted, looking away not out of embarrassment, but out of frustration. It was her nature and her purpose to focus on the job at hand, and she would prefer not to have to worry about the... aesthetics, of what she was doing. "There''s still nothing to look at."


    "It was a glimpse." For some reason, it was Ki''el who spoke up. "A glimpse of something we will never be able to see anywhere else. Something you will probably never speak of. If we do not watch for ourselves..." When Sobon glanced at her, the girl looked away. "We would never know it even happened. And that would be a sad thing."


    A sad thing? Sobon wasn''t sure how to fit that thought within her worldview. Marines were sent across a warzone on the whims of higher officers, without ever understanding the details. They could only understand the overall structure, and trust... though, Sobon realized, she was hiding the structure from them. And even if she wanted to reveal it, how much could she really say? Would it be enough for them to satisfy their curiosity, or their worries?


    "Go back to bed," Sobon said, tiredly. "We... we can talk more in the morning." She hadn''t really intended to mean it as a promise, but as the words came out of her mouth, she was sure that was exactly what it was, for better and for worse.

 34. Perspectives

    Mian started the next morning grouchy.


    Although Sobon Alassi had said they would talk in the morning, it was obvious that Lui, due to her obligations to Lady Fau Mide, would determine when Sobon was willing to talk. Lui was apologetic, of course; Mian had always found her to be a sweet child, and although he had little attachment to the girl, he had defended her by instinct, and not only because she was Alassi''s. There was something pure and good to her, which Mian envied as much as he wanted to protect it.


    When Mian was young, he thought he would be a hero. Alassi, the Blood Witch, had encouraged him to think that there was hope out there. A world of women warriors who would be his equals and, though he was too young to understand at first, perhaps lovers in time. But by the time that he caught up to Alassi... she had been broken by the world. He had heard rumors, and chased them. Not only of her injury, but of being chased out of the Diamond Lord''s army. He had expected to find her furious, righteous. Standing tall. But the woman he found was not capable of leading him to become a warrior. Even if he had risen on his own, he could not convince himself she would ever stood up to take a place at his side.


    What he saw when he looked at Lui was someone like that younger version of himself, a girl who had a dream, but needed a path forward. Neither Alassi nor he could ever be what she needed, to believe in the future and have the courage to face it.


    But Sobon Alassi, this woman, she had saved Lui while she was young enough to appreciate it, and for that, Mian envied the girl, and privately swore that he would protect her. It was the only fragment left of his dream of being a hero that still made sense, after Alassi had been defeated, broken, and then (though Mian tried not to think of it in such terms), replaced.


    And so Lui went to work for Lady Fau for the morning, Mian escorting her there and then returning on his own to wait, restlessly. He truly wasn''t sure what to expect from Lady Sobon''s revelations. She had intended to teach Mian more of qi cultivation, but the rescue of her other pupil had interfered. Mian didn''t resent her for that; Ki''el was an intense, serious girl, who had immediately taken some tasks on to herself, and was willing to take a job if necessary, although Lady Sobon had not forced her to, not yet. She had a good, straightforward spirit. And... Mian could also see that Lady Sobon had taught her something, because she had the strange ring-shaped qi cores that Sobon had used.


    Mian was not yet close enough to her to consider her a little sister, as he did Lui, but he was impressed by her in spite of her young age.


    When finally noon came, Lui returned on her own, although she could have signaled Mian to come and get her. The girl wasn''t powerful, but she had strange and subtle ways, like her grandmother... and like Lady Sobon. But she was growing comfortable with the city, and it wasn''t far or difficult to get from here to Lady Fau''s place.


    Sobon Alassi, who had spent the morning in her hidden dimensional space, finally was willing to invite them all in once they had a brief midday meal. Mian, as usual, marvelled at the absolutely, perfectly straight walls, and at the sense that the walls and entrance well and truly sealed them away from the world. But his main attention was focused on Sobon Alassi, who seemed... uncertain.


    "Most of what I would like to say to you, are secrets that I must keep within a close circle of trust," she said, as she raised some very strange form of qi. It was not the very light, very dense, and very pure form of qi that she often used; it felt more like a unique flavor of normal qi. "I need all of you to agree--to swear--that you will keep my secrets, now and for the rest of your lives."


    Lui and Ki''el swore to it easily. Mian... hesitated, and was willing to swear, although his heart wavered. However, when Lady Sobon''s strange qi began to pass over, he felt a depth to it, like echoes of the future. And Mian closed his eyes and considered, really considered, if there was any circumstance where he would actually turn against Laddy Sobon, and against Alassi, and Lui, and Ki''el.


    And the qi that was testing him clung to something deep inside, watching his thoughts, but seemingly satisfied.


    Sobon Alassi seemed to relax, and somehow, looked tired, though her spirit seemed strong. "The most important thing you need to understand," she said, her words paced out, perhaps a little forced, "is that the Starbeasts are not an invading force."


    It was a strange thing, Mian would acknowledge looking back. Deep down, he recognized that it truly was an exceedingly important thing to learn, though he could not imagine why it would be a place to start such a lesson.


    But Sobon''s thoughts moved on, her words uncertain in their pacing, although they carried no hint of deception. "Far beyond this world, in a place much like the place I came from, there are... powerful beings, who are interested in the success of your world. They visited, in secret, at times in your past, and they left behind an anchor, which would allow them to visit again. But some time ago, that anchor was disrupted, perhaps by the Diamond Lord. And the powerful beings, being busy, sent a subordinate to check on the world in their stead."


    The words all meant something to Mian, but his mind was where Sobon had said it should be--at the beginning, at the Starbeasts. As Sobon wove her tale, Mian wondered--were they the powerful beasts? The subordinates?


    "The subordinates came on a great vessel from the skies, but they were struck down, we believe by the Diamond Lord, or someone of similar power. And these subordinates were trapped here, but not powerless. The created the Starbeasts so that they could harvest their cores, and other materials from their body, and use them to repair their vessel."


    A world exploded behind Mian''s eyes, as though he had reached enlightenment in that instant. Beings so powerful that they could create the Starbeasts just to harvest them. Beings so powerful that their farm animals threaten to destroy our civilization. But Mian also understood what came next, even before Sobon said it.


    "But the Djang, and many others, are harvesting them before these subordinates can. So they must make more, in order to have a chance of going home, and reporting to their masters. And there is a great chance that if they do not recover the anchor, if they cannot accomplish the mission their masters gave them before those masters discover this betrayal, that the wrath of those masters will strike down on this entire world."


    Mian shivered, his mind conjuring images of vastly powerful wizards in the sky, a look of displeasure on their noble, bearded faces, who but raise a hand and all of the Djang empire is wiped out in a dark flash. His soul imagined spiritual pressure the likes of which he had no language to describe, annihilating his entire existence just by releasing their tight grip over the infinite qi within their cores. And... some part of Mian, though he didn''t understand it, felt certain that there was a deep truth to that image, a truth that was more terrifying than any supposition, any illusion.


    "But these subordinates were not warriors," Sobon was saying, as Mian found himself already exhausted, his spirit having nearly had a qi deviation just from the concept. "They searched for one from beyond this world, and they found... Sobon. Why me, and how, I do not know." She turned to Ki''el, the girl looking somewhere between paralyzed and fascinated. "When I met you, Ki''el, I didn''t know all of this. But when I die, these subordinates ensure that I live again. And the last time... after I died, there on the boat with you, I met them. And they gave me my mission."


    "I must find a way into the depths of the Djang Empire, to find the Anchor that the Masters left behind. I must protect it, and anything else that was stolen, away from the Djang, and from anyone else who would take it, at all costs, so that when the Masters return, they will not destroy this world in a rage. And I do not know how long I have."


    Mian, who had turned to look at Ki''el when Sobon did, turned his eyes back to Sobon, only to find that somehow, now, some part of him saw past the flesh. When he looked, he did not see Sobon Alassi, or even Lady Sobon. He saw something straight as a blade, with the heart of a soldier. Something powerful and wise, patient and knowledgeable, something that could have cut through any opposition--if only it were allowed to be at its full power.


    And he understood in his spirit what he had recognized in his mind once or twice, that Sobon was not advancing her qi to some great height. No, Sobon Alassi was recovering. If she only fully healed, she would be a warrior perhaps as great as the Diamond Lord, perhaps even greater. She had been dismissive of slavers and callous towards the city lord, had casually offended a noble Young Master and his bodyguards because like those Star Masters she spoke of, she had held the stars themselves in her hands, and considered them only warm.


    The author''s narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    And somewhere inside of Mian, the little boy who had believed in heroes took a breath for what felt like the first time in decades. A small part of his spirit that had been entirely dead began to move.


    Perhaps, there was room in this world for a boy with the spirit of a hero, yet.


    <hr>


    Ki''el considered Sobon''s words with as much of an even keel as she could hold. It was... difficult. Although she knew Sobon had simplified what she was saying, it was still difficult to place it all into a single idea. That someone was... or was not, now, watching over the world, felt like a story. She herself had barely any attachment to the concept of "Starbeasts", as it was not a thing her people had needed to fight off, although she was aware they existed in other places. No, the danger to her and her family had come from humans alone.


    It was Sobon''s next words that were more interesting to her.


    "Qi," she said, slowly, with an edge that Ki''el thought might have been to pry the others from their thoughts, "is also not natural, although this is not a concept you should even hint of to others. The power that I use," and Sobon nodded to her, "is in a way, more primitive. Qi is a combination of many forms of aether, all to create an energy which people can explore and grow alongside of, instead of mastering the way that I did, with advanced math and powerful tools."


    This was what Ki''el was looking for; an explanation of the mysterious power that Sobon had granted her. She had spent some time meditating, although she did not understand what she saw there; she was sure that the Left and Right-hand aether she wielded were some part of qi, but how exactly they related was stil unclear.


    "I don''t think I could raise someone, even from birth, to be the kind of aether user I am," Sobon said, as the others were digesting her words. "I was not taught to be a teacher, and I don''t know which lessons I was taught need to be given, or in what order. There was a whole world of knowledge that may mean nothing and do nothing, or it may have been key to my understanding. History, philosophy, math and science." Sobon shook her head, and looked intently at Ki''el, and then briefly at Mian, before turning back.


    "Equally important, the methods that I have to generate and purify aether--aether dynamos, which I taught to Ki''el as the Cycle and Thorn--are something the Masters do not wish spread on this world. I don''t think they will care as long as it remains a few close companions of mine, but these are not techniques to boast about or show off."


    Ki''el, though, just nodded through that, speaking up as though Sobon had been addressing her own private thoughts and doubts. "I have already felt that it is very different," she said, "different enough that many people are confused and afraid. The ones who captured me," she made herself catch Sobon''s eyes, just because she... she felt a need, perhaps, though she couldn''t put it into words. "They were angry, and afraid, because they could not break me. Although I was also afraid, the ring, the Cycle," she used his word, "it was the only air that I could breathe in that place. I know they intended me to choke, as though to death, if a person''s spirit can die."


    Sobon looked pained, and nodded at her, as though she understood, but said nothing.


    "But even before that," Ki''el looked away, "even qi cultivators that I met seemed very different. They all had..." she struggled to find words to describe it, and seemed to fail. "Smells," she finally suggested. "Things that were a part of their qi, and perhaps should not have been. And I think they could tell when they saw qi that did not smell, that there was something wrong with themselves. And I do not think the liked it."


    "Grandma''s qi now is strange," agreed Lui, "but not a bad sort of strange. It is colorless, where others are cloudy. Even Lady Fau, who has a very straight soul, her qi has some..." The other girl tilted her head a little, her face bunched up in thought. "Burnt remnants, I suppose. Like the charred leaves left behind when doing alchemy, or the dregs of tea. But Grandma... I mean, Lady Sobon--"


    "Just Sobon, please," Sobon interrupted. "Or you can call me Alassi, or Grandma, if you like."


    Lui shook her head at that. "...Sobon made Grandma''s aura clear up, removing a lot of old things that were in it. And I feel like Ki''el," she didn''t quite pronounce Ki''el''s name correctly, although the girl was close enough that she wouldn''t bother correcting her, "has also been recovering, and removing things from her spirit. I don''t... I don''t know." The girl paused, for a long moment, but shortly before someone else could speak up, she spoke again. "I wish that we could share a method to clear other people''s spirits, like that. Lady Fau tries to make medicines to do it, but each one leaves something behind as well."


    Sobon considered that. "I''ll think about how we can work with that. It might help make us money, or alliances."


    Ki''el made a face at that. "Alliances," she felt the disgust behind her words. "All I know of alliances is that no one came when we needed them. And all I care for in all of qi and aether is to have the power to protect those who need it." With some care, she withdrew the quartz rod that Sobon had given her on the ship from her pants, and from the look on Sobon''s face, she suspected the woman had forgotten about it. After taking care to make sure she was holding it correctly, she triggered the rod, and a blade of pure aether appeared around it, a blade she knew was wickedly sharp.


    "I do not know what amount of power that is, but I do not seek any more than that," she said, holding the blade so that the flat of it pressed against her forehead. She knew that the weapon itself, like the floor and walls of Sobon''s hidden room, was only an artificial thing, and not a destructive force. She had thought about it, and felt that it suited her. It did not need to intimidate, or corrupt, or corrode. Only cut those that needed to be cut, and block things which needed to be blocked.


    "That is honorable," said Mian, and Ki''el felt that although he was Djang, he might actually mean it. Not that she doubt Sobon, and her choice to accept Mian into a circle of trust, but Ki''el was not a trusting sort. Less so, after her most recent adventure.


    <hr>


    Lui smiled at the nervous, and often angry, Illan girl, although Lui didn''t know exactly where that was. She and Ki''el had only spoken a few times, and Ki''el had said that they were a people on many islands south and east of Djang. Ki''el''s spirit was badly bruised, and although Lui didn''t want to say it, she thought the girl was putting too much energy into her spirit, more quickly than she could handle it.


    But she was also very straightforward, and Lui knew she wasn''t deceiving anyone, or intending to ever deceive anyone. And since Lui knew... or sort of knew, that she was bad with liars and deceivers, that made her feel safer. Her father had lectured her several times, when people had made excuses and taken advantage of Lui''s confusion, but it simply wasn''t in her nature to confront others.


    "The only other thing I will say about qi, and aether, for now," Grandma Sobon said, "is that there are many flavors of aether, and qi includes pieces of almost all of them. The way I was taught them is very precise, but perhaps you would all better appreciate different names for them." Lui looked at her, and found that Grandma Sobon had a strange look on her face, as though displeased by what she would say next.


    "The most fundamental types of aether are Righteous and Sinister," she nodded to Ki''el, "what I called Right-hand and Left-hand to you. Righteous helps sustain and reinforce a body, but only a little, and Sinister interferes with a body, and slows it down."


    Even those words, when they met Lui''s ears, sparked something inside of her head, something that she was seeing in Lady Fau''s alchemy, the patterns and swirls that even the respected alchemy master could only acknowledge, and barely even describe.


    "Beyond that first level of aether are others, and each layer can break down into each of the lesser energies below it, but not perfectly." Sobon shook her head. "Above Righteous and Sinister are Genesis and Consumption. Genesis appears to flow endlessly out, and consumption seems to flow endlessly in, but in truth, each is a closed cycle. That which flows out, disappears after travelling a ways, and that which flows in reappears around the edges." Sobon shook her head. "In truth, it isn''t that part of it. Genesis is good for pushing energy into things and spaces around you, and Consumption pulls energy out of them. Depending on how they are used, either can be healthy, or damaging."


    Although Lui didn''t fully understand, and didn''t understand Alchemy much yet at all, she waited on every word that Sobon gave with bated breath. She had seen, and sensed, these things. Pills that seemed to endlessly breathe out. Ingredients that seemed to drink greedily from their surroundings. Even before she had begun learning alchemy, she had sensed mushrooms and herbs that had strange effects of those sorts.


    "Above that level are dangerous energies. Powerful, but dangerous, and even I use them sparingly." Sobon frowned. "Acceleration aether makes the thing it affects seem to move faster. It... experiences more time than other things, which can be very bad in some cases, but very good in others. Its opposite is Revival aether, which attaches to something''s past, and attempts to pull its current form back to what it was. While this has some uses, it can also be very dangerous. It can stop a wound from closing, or even reopen it, and it can keep a person childish and naive when they ought to have learned their lesson."


    That last thought broke something inside of Lui. It wasn''t a large thing--it was very small indeed, in some ways. But it was something that had always held her back. And she remembered her father''s eyes on her, and her mother''s, from when she was very young. And she felt something like a squeeze on her head that relaxed, now.


    Lui felt everyone''s eyes on her, and some part of her wanted to flinch back, but Sobon stepped up, putting her hands around Lui''s shoulders, and holding her. And Lui, uncertainly, let herself explore what her thoughts were now, when some part of her had stopped holding into the past, when she stopped dwelling forever on the few happy moments when her parents had been all smiling faces and warm hugs. The past before Papa and Grandma Alassi had become cold and empty people.


    And although the world suddenly seemed much colder, with that small thing in her mind broken, Grandma Sobon was warm, and the others also seemed to step up and offer warmth and concern. And although Lui was not sure she was happy that she was beginning to grow up, again, she could also recognize that she wasn''t alone. Although she had been, for years... now, she wasn''t.


    And she held on to her new Grandma, and wept bitter tears.

 35. Sobon and Lui

    From that day on, Sobon''s life was busier. It wasn''t exactly a surprise, although Sobon felt like she was making a mistake by bringing others into hers, the Ri''lef''s, and ultimately, the Founders'' business. Of course, if the Founders found the planet unworthy, they would all die; but it seemed to be, ultimately, a much cleaner path towards safety to not have people involved who were still learning the ropes.


    Especially since, in many ways, Sobon was still learning, and had learning left to do. Sobon had needed some way to bind the three into an oath, and so had forged together a prototype "Oathbinding Qi"; she would have preferred to use raw aether, but oathbinding was a Superior, or in Ri''lef terms, a Sacred art, one that pressed itself into someone''s fate. So far, Sobon had been loathe even to create Onwards and Reverse Aether Dynamos, since each would consume a great number of lesser dynamos in order to forge, dynamos that must be meticulously crafted to be compatible; since qi included components of Sacred Aether, though, she could just use the abundant energy for this purpose.


    And Oathbinding was one of the few easily crafted aether methods at that level; you didn''t need to examine a person''s whole future, only determine whether and how much they would resist the binding itself. In truth, all of them had resisted in their own ways; Lui was certain that there were moments when honesty was best, down to the foundations of her soul, while Ki''el had an attitude much like Sobon''s own, where she would chafe at restrictions if it got in the way of her moving forwards. More surprising was Mian, who had a burning desire to rise, and been seen rising. Although his honesty won out in the end, he had some urge to stand in a crowd and proclaim uncomfortable truths, challenging the fates to intervene.


    Or something.


    The biggest surprise of the day, though, was Lui''s transformation. Only in retrospect was it obvious that Lui had a minor, natural aether effect preserving her innocence. When she discovered it herself, it melted, and Sobon''s impression of her spirit changed from child to woman, despite the girl''s young age. The facts involved didn''t change much; Lui simply no longer turned a blind eye to all of the darkness she had already faced through her life. The borderline sexual abuse, the coldness of her father and grandmother, the unfairness of her mother''s death, the loneliness and emptiness of her life in the mountains.


    Sobon was not the only one to be instantly concerned, but she was the only one with a technical understanding, and so she spent part of her time in the following days speaking directly to Lui.


    "How do you feel?" Sobon started out their first private session sitting down with the girl, alone, in Lui''s private room.


    "I don''t know how to say it. Older, maybe." Lui looked down at her hands, and Sobon could see someting in her facial featuers, again, like the girl wanted to cry.


    Sobon just looked for a long moment, weighing her words. "I care for you, Lui, and so there are some things I want to make clear. I am not going to try to make you go back to being innocent, and I would never ask you to do that to yourself. However..." She drew out the word. "I believe that the small knot of Revival Aether helped you maintain your high spiritual sensitivity."


    Lui looked at her grandmother, and Sobon sensed an undercurrent of dissatisfaction, now. "The world did always seem kind of... loud. And now I feel like it might be too loud."


    Sobon nodded. "What you need to understand is that spiritual sensitivity is a function of purity, in a way. Generally, there are two ways to get there. First is to start naturally sensitive, like you have, and the other is spiritual attunement." She took a deep breath. "I believe you have a kind of natural attunement to your hands, and to your eyes. Those are good things, but you don''t have enough aether--enough spiritual energy within your body, to resist harmful flux. And yet, too much energy, or the wrong kind of it, can overwhelm your senses, making you see less of the world outside."


    Lui, at least, relaxed. "You want to teach me to cultivate my aether, or qi."


    "I don''t know," was Sobon''s honest answer. "Lui, I am a warrior of my people, not a doctor. I was chosen to be a warrior in part because I had high aether sensitivity, but the techniques we used to increase my power while keeping that sensitivity are beyond me. I understand the principle, but I cannot imagine how many generations of trial and error were necessary for them to master what they already understood in principle." Sobon took a breath. "If your master, Lady Fau, gained or maintained her sensitivity, it may be that she understands the process better than I do."


    Lui nodded, a serious look on her face.


    "What I do know," Sobon said, "is that aether is a binding, a link across time and space. Part of what lowers sensitivity is the spirit making a mistake." She frowned, trying to find exactly the right words to say what she was trying to say. "Your spirit is a living thing, and while it is a part of you, it isn''t your soul itself. The ideal is for your spirit to trust your soul, first and foremost, and it should... how do I phrase this." Sobon frowned deeply, her mind already going to her discussion with Commander Rai about Command Qi, though it was mostly the wrong concept here.


    "It should listen to me?"


    Sobon gave a half-nod, half-shake of her head, but continued Lui''s thought. "And it must always be able to expect that you will listen to it," she said. "Nothing else should seem more likely to listen to your spirit, than your own soul. Usually, this isn''t a problem--the only time something deliberately tries to get in the way is when some hostile spirit is attacking you. But if your spirit is desperate, it can try ''speaking'', in a way, to other powerful spiritual things nearby. That might not only be other spirits. It can also be parts of your body that are screaming out in pain, for instance--anything that produces a strong spiritual presence, even if only for a moment."


    Lui definitely looked confused, and Sobon waved a hand and tried to reset the conversation a little.


    "Suppose that you burn your hands, even just a spot of skin on your fingertip," Sobon said after a moment. "A part of the spirit in your hands is afraid, and desperate. It cries out, and looks for anything else which can offer it aid. Before you, your soul," Sobon reached out and tapped Lui''s head, "can think to respond, your body''s instincts respond for you. This is partly a physical phenomenon, but it''s also spiritual. Your hands searched for an answer, and a part of your spirit--but not your soul--answered. From then on, your finger will split its attention, telling your soul everything that it does now, but also telling it to that part of your body that answered its call."


    Some part of it seemed to be getting through to Lui, who had closed her eyes and seemed to be meditating.


    "In this way, injuries lower your spiritual sensitivity. This is a simple and known example of the phenomenon. It only really becomes a problem if it happens over and over again, until your spirit trusts your body rather than your soul. But depending on when, exactly, it happens, it can be difficult or almost impossible to untangle, to bring a spirit back fully into alignment. Since you are already deeply connected to your hands and your eyes, you will feel a shift if they become confused. Remember what happened, how it felt, and why. If you can do that, you should be able to untangle the spiritual confusion and restore the sensitivity."


    "In short," Sobon finished, "understand that your sensitivity is... a close partnership with parts of your spirit. If your spirit is ever in crisis, you must find a way to help it, to prove that you are on its side. I suspect you will have a strong urge to do that anyway," Sobon could feel a smile creeping into her voice, "but I want you to understand that those feelings are not an illusion."


    Lui''s face, which had become sterner since she had stopped crying, looked sad again. "I... already feel like I''m in crisis," she said, an edge of exhaustion in her voice. "I... I like you, Grandma... Grandma Sobon," she said, and it sounded like it took something for her to say the words. "But sometimes it''s hard to... to have hope for the world. For myself. Not because of sky warriors that might kill us, but because..." she took a deep and shaky breath, as she tried to hold in the tears.


    This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.


    "Because of everything you''ve seen and everything you''ve been through." Sobon just nodded, although internally, Sobon cursed. What this girl needs is a psychiatrist, not a Marine in her dead grandmother''s body. "You can talk to us. To all of us," she stressed, feeling mostly sure that both Ki''el and Mian would want to help the girl, but not having asked, exactly. "And I think to Lady Fau as well. You spent your early years leading one kind of life, Lui. Your future is already very different than it was going to be."


    Lui looked distressed, like she wanted to say something but couldn''t put it to words. "I..."


    "We will talk again. Tomorrow, and every day, if you need it." Sobon just took the girls'' hands and squeezed them. "Find the words. I will listen."


    Sobon was halfway through the door when she felt an aether wave from behind her. [ I am not free. ]


    Sobon paused, looking back, but the girl only looked ashamed.


    Sobon was, and wasn''t, sure she understood. And she turned back, and knelt next to the girl, and put her hands around Lui''s shoulders and gave her a hug. Because Sobon didn''t understand much of what the girl was going through, but it was hard to forget just how different this world was from Crest.


    How limited everyone felt here, trapped by powerful forces that might crush them at any moment. How Lui had been uncertain about leaving her father and the inn behind, and how she often seemed conflicted.


    "You feel like you should be doing something else," Sobon said, sitting back. "Don''t you?"


    "Papa needs me. I know he does. And you..." Lui looked ashamed. "You were so dismisive of him. But he... is my father, and I love him."


    Sobon looked at the girl, weighing things. Finally, though, she sighed. "I don''t intend to ignore your thoughts or feelings, Lui," she said. "But you are wrong about your father. You are his daughter, and he does love you. But." She considered her words once, twice, and then again, then shook her head. "I''m not sure I could explain it to you."


    "Try," said Lui, in a small voice.


    So Sobon just sighed. "Your father doesn''t need you," she said. "Or if he does... that is a choice. A weakness. A refusal to work with others. Lady Fau is a person who cannot work with just anyone, because she has specific needs in an assistant. But the only special reason for you to be the one working for your father, is because you were his daughter. He already had you, so he didn''t go looking for anyone else."


    "Your father can hire poor help easily, and good help with time, effort, and good fortune. Making do with poor help is painful, frustrating, and terrifying. It is a crisis of faith much like what you''re going through. But it is ultimately part of running a business. Pushing through that until you can find the good help is a task that no one wishes to go through, but it is for the better. He can find people better at assisting with the operation of an inn than you would ever be."


    Sobon left unsaid that she suspected Tuli was already collapsing under the strain, and his own bad decisions. He had been willing to work with, or at least be bought off by criminals. They would want an accounting for what Sobon had done, and they would expect to continue to be allowed to use his inn for their purposes.


    "I just... want to help," Lui said, and there was a river of emotion in her voice, one that surprised Sobon. "I was so happy, there, to see people be happy. And I was happy to be useful to Papa. I felt like I had a place there, a purpose." She sniffled, and wiped at her nose. "It''s... it''s not like I don''t appreciate Lady Fau. But walking away... walking away from Papa when he needs me..."


    Sobon shifted a little bit. "You can send him some of the money from your job." In truth, she was loathe to recommend the girl do anything but cut Tuli off, but she suspected the girl would have to learn, in her own time, what kind of man he was, or would become. And... it wasn''t as though Sobon was completely sure she was right about Tuli. She was, after all, not a psychiatrist, nor a spy.


    Lui looked down, but nodded, sniffling. "Money was always tight," she said after a long moment. "When... when lady Fau first paid me, I thought it was too much. I couldn''t help thinking about the days when the inn had no visitors at all, and we counted every Copra that we spent on our own food." She did straighten a bit. "I... I know that would help."


    "Mian or I will help you send it," Sobon promised. "But Lui..." she considered what to say, and what not to. "...not all of it. You need to save for your own future as well, and you should pay for your own expenses."


    Lui finally pulled back and met Sobon''s eyes again, nodding. "I will help pay for things here, too. I don''t know what you were paid--"


    "Don''t worry about my finances," Sobon said with a smirk. "I have more than enough skills that I can get paid to use." Some of them would require materials, and possibly some would have other costs, but Sobon wasn''t concerned. Not when she could deadly produce weapons out of sand.


    The two talked a little while more, before Sobon finally turned in for the night. In the days that came, she spent more time talking with Lui, and trying to be an amateur psychiatrist with some mild success. The girl had relaxed some after that first night, enough that Sobon wasn''t afraid she was going to shatter like glass, but she still had far deeper thoughts than someone her age should need to have.


    <hr>


    Sobon was fortunate, given how many things she had to do, that Ki''el and Mian seemed to agree between themselves to train together, with Ki''el showing Mian what she knew of Sobon''s Cycle and Thorn, and Mian showing Ki''el how to use a sword, or in her case, Sobon''s barrier blade. Although Sobon saw flaws in both of their understandings, she did her best to focus on more practical things.


    First, of course, was her aether. She reviewed several times the Ri''lef notes on Qi, finding that she had long surpassed the minimum requirements to advance out of Gold Qi, and as such, her core could have, and perhaps should have been protesting. However, Sobon hadn''t been growing her personal aether; the act of attuning her body was one that consumed aether, and to a lesser extent qi. She was being careful not to waste energy, but she certainly wasn''t piling on.


    No, there was a challenge that the Ri''lef had placed over the end of Gold Qi, one that required attunement to pass, a challenge that the locals called the Golden Wall--though Sobon knew little more than that about how they understood the challenge. For the Ri''lef, the concept was simple--once you had attuned a significant part of your body, your core would unconsciously emit a signal, which the local spiritual gods would pick up on, and one would monitor you. If one signaled such a god, they would be smited, and forced to defend against a significant aether attack.


    But the point wasn''t surviving the attack. Buried within the dense aether would be a key required to unlock the next tier of advancement. A qi warrior would likely have to suffer several attacks, counting on their attuned body to repel the qi storm, until they could see the key buried in the blinding storm of energy, grasp it for themselves, and transcend their current level.


    It''s cute, Sobon thought. Advancing by facing a tribulation. Less cute was the fact that the locals would need to understand the requirement for attunement itself, which would be difficult if someone didn''t spell it out for you. Sobon, for her part, simply walked a ways out of the city one evening, signaled the god, accepted the key on the first strike, and walked back to the city with newly-minted Titanium Qi.


    The spiritual god that performed the attack was itself interesting--a bird-shaped being with some intelligence, but clearly non-human thinking. Sobon passed it a few aether packets, but it was uninterested in talking, and only interested in some kind of reward that it got for playing its part in the scheme. Sobon was a little surprised that it was so mercenary, but ultimately put it out of mind.


    Titanium Qi was interesting in the way that it transformed Sobon''s qi. Sobon had described the qi of this level as "brighter," when she saw it in others, but now that she got to examine it, it seemed like the qi was changing the aether spins it was composed of. While all levels of qi seemed to contain all different spins, her lower level qi had been mostly Right- or Left-hand spins, and now, those were mixed almost equally with Inner- and Outer-spin aethers.


    Sobon suspected, although it wasn''t stated in the notes, that this would be a bit of a problem for locals'' future attunements, because the outer and inner spins would be more likely to attune the body at their level without first fully attuning to left- or right-hand aether. Sobon''s body, now, was essentially completely attuned to Right-hand aether, and that would serve as a foundation for higher-spin aethers to come.


    Either way, Sobon returned calmly, only to have Mian lead the others in a celebration of Sobon''s "achievement." They went out to dinner, Mian and Lui professing that they were very proud of Sobon for advancing, while Ki''el had the kind of quiet contemplation that made Sobon sure the girl understood that Sobon was cheating.


    Then, perhaps they all did, and they were all just accepting Sobon among them in their own ways. Sobon accepted the praise as magnanimously as she could, not quite suppressing the fact that her qi was already rocketing ahead, exactly because she was already attuned. It was fine for her to let her body adapt over time; in truth, there weren''t a lot of alternatives.


    Sobon still had a ways to go, and there was always a chance that she would need to act in a panic later, but there wasn''t all that much faster that she could safely go.

 36. Alassi - Education, Part 1

    Among the many tasks that vied for Sobon''s attention was money, and in that respect, spent much of the next day and change studying the complex inscription that was the inert space ring he had gotten from Lai Shi Po. Although she had quickly gotten the idea of exactly what kind of intent was intended to be put in the empty inscriptions, it was worth double checking the logic.


    So Sobon used the mental white board provided by the Ri''lef''s memory augments, the ones that had come with the Corona''s knowledge databases, and sketched out the entirety of the spatial ring''s inscriptions, annotating the diagram with the obvious logic behind it. As Sobon had suspected, a quality space ring was vastly more complex than simply placing a bit of pocket dimension within the physical substance of the ring; the majority of it was various kinds of user interfaces, with a whole section of the ring set up using what amounted to logic glyphs. But with no provided intent, almost none of those logic glyphs meant anything. Or to phrase it another way, they could mean almost anything.


    Even so, there was a logic to it. There were arrays to detect what kind of objects were in the space ring, and arrays to detect the will of the user, and attention directed at the ring in particular. Once Sobon was in the mind of crafting a user interface, she began to see patterns. One whole block might have been interpreting words, especially names, and testing whether the user meant one thing or another by them. Another might pushing an impression of each object in turn to the user, so that they could know everything inside, and select one. Another section seemed to connect to the insertion and removal arrays, and might alter the way either one behaves, perhaps to put an object in a specific place in the ring, or make an item leave the ring in a specific orientation in the user''s hand, or out in front of them, perhaps on a floor or table.


    Sobon made three different marked-up copies of the design, refusing to be satisfied until she had a version that accounted for every character on the ring, and which had a layout that an intellectual, perhaps even elitist woman like Lai Shi Po would approve of.


    However, Sobon found herself disapproving of the result, not beacuse Lai Shi Po had failed, but because the woman was forced to work within the bounds of flavored qi. That was, admittedly, a guess, but it was a guess that had successfully accounted for characters on the ring that Sobon would have little use for otherwise, characters that held, added, or modified specific properties to the qi flows within the ring.


    Sobon chose not to experiment with the first ring, and instead filled in the intent the way she thought Lai Shi Po had designed it. Encouragingly, when she was done, the ring functioned in exactly the way Sobon''s diagrams suggested it should. Sobon was able to take various objects, stuff them into the space ring, and then either recall them by name, or rummage through the ring and select them by hand.


    Sobon did these experiments, of course, in the courtyard, which meant that Mian and Ki''el were able to see. Sobon was aware, as she focused, that Ki''el recognized the ring, and explained briefly about Lai Shi Po, to which Mian responded fairly loudly.


    "Lai Shi Po!" He whistled, loudly, setting his blade down entirely. Sobon glanced over, noting the nicks in the blade, and remembering that she hadn''t actually taught the man to use external qi, not after needing to run and fetch Ki''el. Without that, the enhancements she''d put into his blade were just inert. Perhaps damaged now. "Isn''t he famous? I''ve never seen anything of hers, but I know I was in town--not here--when there was an auction, and everyone was talking about a work from Lai Shi Po."


    "She," Ki''el said, smugly. "And you have seen something by Lai Shi Po." She held out her wrist, showing off the bracelet that hung there.


    Sobon returned her attention to her work after that, mentally adding one more item on the list of things to do.


    Once she had confirmed that the ring seemed complete, of course, Sobon dedicated a new scratch sheet to an improved version, though that wasn''t her next order of business. In fact, Lui had been approached by a man who claimed to be a builder and that the City Lord had asked him to work for Sobon. Since he had not re-appeared or left much in the way of details, Sobon dedicated a large part of the morning to tracking him down, finding a business called the Tosh Min Do Building Company.


    The only one obviously present was a man Sobon would learn was the son of the current president, who took Sobon to meet his father, using a private transport array that left them somewhere outside of a mansion, somewhere in the mountains. After some words with the guards, the father, Tosh Min Fam, came out and spoke briefly to Sobon, saying that he was currently busy under contract and would be for another couple months, but they could possibly spare a couple workers to do light work.


    Sobon put the decision off, but asked for references to raw materials suppliers, and with the son, Tosh Min Dim''s help, she visited many of them over the course of the afternoon, collecting things like sand, topsoil, stone, clay, glass, coal, leather, cloth and thread, and various metal stocks into her space ring. Tosh Min Dim watched that part of the process with obvious envy, but said nothing.


    One of the more interesting finds, though Sobon didn''t say anything to the suppliers, were large lumps of volcanic stone, which were not exactly given away cheaply, but were clearly understood by the locals to be decorative. Sobon, using an aether detection pattern, recognized them as being dense with chromium, aluminum, and other minerals that she wasn''t sure the locals had isolated yet.


    Of course, exploring and refining metal structures was a time-consuming task, and not on Sobon''s immediate to-do. No, the purchase she was happiest with in that regard was the bulk coal, which--while it wasn''t pure carbon--was close enough that Sobon could adapt her relatively few material disassembly and synthesis patterns to creating diamond.


    There were plenty of uses for diamond--but even if Sobon could mass-produce the stuff, which she could not, the most practical use was as fill for engravings. Carbon, and therefore diamond, was an excellent channel for aether; however, its resistance to aether was low enough that it was a poor material to engrave upon. An engraver who tried to place an aether pattern in the negative space left when engraving diamond would find that the pattern slipped out readily, tanging with itself and fouling the intent. Even when using it as fill, one had to use different methods, adding firmer resistance at the boundary between concepts.


    But diamond, partly because it conducted aether well and partly because it conducted heat well, was still an excellent choice for simple but high-energy patterns. Sobon synthesized a large quantity of diamond dust and contained it in a small clay jar, then formed a basic rod from the relatively low-quality local steel, added something like a hilt grip to orient the holder, then did a more thorough engraving of the basic barrier-blade pattern.


    In truth, while she had formed the two barrier-blades with the express intention of giving one to Ki''el, she hadn''t expected the girl to become attached to hers. The quartz rods could in theory hold up to the strain of the barrier blade indefinitely--but only if it''s not being used to defend against, or attack, a strong qi field. The one that Sobon had used to defend against a cannon blast had survived the strike, but not without damage.


    To save herself some trouble, Sobon did include in this version a version of the blade that was much blunter, so that she could more safely use it while training, and added another mental switch to start or stop venting cutting aether from the cutting edge of the blade itself.


    It was perhaps fortunate that she showed the result to Ki''el at that stage, because the girl made a face at the notion of cutting aether. "I feel that the form of the blade itself is very pure," she said, her voice very blunt. "I do not wish for a greater ability to cut. If it is required, I will find a method to do so on my own."


    Sobon frowned, but took the girl''s words to heart, and instead added aether channels instead of vents, and adding a third form of the blade, which replaced the form of it entirely with something more like a baton. With her qi, or aether, guided along the length of the blade or shaft, she could add her own intent at her leisure, and reinforce the strength of the it without straining the aether scripts the rest of the time.


    When she was happy, and Ki''el didn''t seem to object, she finished the design, measuring and sizing the weapon to Ki''el''s hand, adding a metal crossguard that matched a similar aether structure that would appear when it was active, and then filling the engraving with diamond powder and fusing it with a script. Then, she wrapped the hilt, and offiered it to the girl.


    Even the deactivated hilt looked right in Ki''el''s hand, Sobon thought. It was slim and dangerous, but not aggressive, not yet. Even when Ki''el activated it, and even when she enforced it with her own aether, the blade didn''t radiate power. If not for its disappearing act, one would be tempted to think it was just a normal blade of a strange material.


    As she switched it to the blunter sword, and then finally the baton, Sobon could sense Ki''el''s increasing comfort with the weapon. It wasn''t hard to imagine someone trying to take advantage of her, when she was holding back and using the baton form, only for the girl to convert it to a sword form if she believed that her opponent really deserved it.


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    That evening, after finishing their meal together, Sobon looked to Ki''el and Mian, and said, "Tomorrow, I need to teach you about manipulating aether, and qi." The two nodded, Mian looking excited, and Ki''el determined. Although she still had much to worry about--still including money, in spite of knowing that she''d accomplished much by succeeding at Lai Shi Po''s test--Sobon couldn''t look at them and not see that they needed guidance. And, as far as Sobon was concerned, she would need to be able to count on them to at least take care of themselves, and Sobon''s home. Not that there was anything they could do, if the Djang elite figured out who their opponent was, but against local threats.


    So in the morning, they gathered, after Lui stepped out to go to the alchemist''s. Mian''s eyes had a strange expression in them, one that Sobon wasn''t able to quite determine. Sobon, after measuring both him and Ki''el--noting again that the girl was on the threshold of gold qi--cleared her throat and began.


    "My first body when I was brought to this world was a boy named Jom," she said. "He was a street rat in a Djang colony on the other side of the world, more or less. He had so little control over qi that the locals couldn''t even measure it--less than a half-star, they said. They considered him absolutely worthless."


    "I was able to take his body and spirit into Iron Qi within a few days. This, Mian, is your first lesson regarding aether--aether is a part of life, inextricably. There is nothing which is truly alive, which is not already touching the aether." Sobon glanced at Ki''el, who also seemed interested. Mian, though, was having a moment. He''d done that a few times, lately.


    "Aether is a special substance in the ...world," Sobon corrected her language at the last moment. "It connects things, and it grows in complexity and strength over time. While your body has its pieces and parts, the aether within is what connects it, giving birth to soul and spirit. Your soul is you, fundamentally, while your spirit is how your body thinks of itself."


    "To use qi at all, the aether of your soul must connect to your spirit. You take the soul''s aether and travel within your spirit, connecting each part of you more deeply to your soul itself. To use what you know of as external qi, your soul''s aether must be able to pass entirely through your spirit to the world outside. That can be done in many ways, but the important thing is making sure it is done safely."


    "Because the outside world is not a part of your spirit. You cannot connect to it safely. Instead, you must send part of your spirit out. This requires you to communicate your will to your spirit, and it requires your spirit to either trust your soul... or have reason to try despite a lack of trust."


    "I was able to make Jom''s shattered spirit, which contained no qi, do what I commanded because it knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if it did not, it would die, and because I was able to give it directions so clear and precise that even an inexperienced spirit could follow them."


    "What Ki''el has been trying to teach you, Mian, is that you can press energy out from your spirit. I will watch more closely while we practice, but from what I''ve seen, your soul hasn''t connected all the way down to your hands yet. Traditionally, the exercise to achieve this is to meditate, and focus inwards. The parts of you that feel whole, and connected to you... you take your inner energy from those places and let them flow to other areas. Don''t try to force it; you''re more than likely just end up pushing in the wrong place. Feel the currents that are already there."


    Mian took Sobon''s words to heart with intense sincerity, and Sobon shifted her focus to Ki''el, who was listening, but with a tilt to her head.


    "These are not the same lessons you gave me," she said, not letting that sound like an accusation.


    Sobon shook her head. "You were already able to manipulate energy outside of your body," she said. "The intent you were putting into it was wrong. It felt dangerous. But you were connected through most of your body, perhaps because of the exercises you were doing."


    Ki''el absorbed that, but just nodded, her face clearing. Either she had an answer to that, or didn''t care to think too hard about it.


    "In your case, you needed--or, I wanted you to have your spirit create pure aether. When you learned to create the dynamo--the cycle and thorn, that was you learning to manipulate aether outside your own body. From the mark that I left on the pier, and from the spiritual sense you had of my dynamos, that inspired you to use aether and not qi."


    "You also said that aether is not only energy, but place."


    Sobon nodded. "It''s difficult to find the right words for it, especially when talking to... people who are new at this." She frowned, not liking to have to choose her words that carefully. "Building a structure like the cycle, from a thing that connects everything together, sounds like it could be very easy. But forming it in such a way that it connects to nothing but itself is tricky. Some ways of explaining it might make you think that you can just form it in place, but that will connect it to the air and the world around you, and that''s... not a good idea."


    "Impure," Ki''el responded, and Sobon nodded.


    "You have mostly Righteous cycles, I notice," Sobon said after a short pause. "That''s not a bad thing, but--"


    "You can call them right and left if you prefer," Ki''el said suddenly. "It is how you introduced them to me."


    "I really ought to get used to using the other names," Sobon said, with a sigh. "I don''t really like them, but I feel like more people will understand them. And naming them after spins... that concept only makes sense to someone using the Cycle. Where I came from, everyone did. But Alassi tells me that the named ''Sinister'' provides meaning, that people understand it. And that makes it valuable."


    Ki''el shifted a little, looking uncomfortable. "Perhaps," she said. "I simply... spent a lot of time trying to keep the word in mind. I feel uncomfortable trying to re-learn it."


    Sobon laughed, just briefly, but enough that Ki''el looked like she wasn''t sure if she should be happy or insulted. "I will use both," Sobon said, "but I will always refer to the dynamos by their spins, if it helps." She took a deep breath. "You have seen that there are dynamos that produce advanced aether. I don''t think I can explain the math to you, but there are ...worlds above ours which aether travels through. If you arrange an equal number of left and right dynamos in just the right position, you can pull aether in a loop through the next higher world. Then, by passing your own spirit through that aether loop, you can create another dynamo through that dimen--that world."


    Ki''el looked suddenly interested, her face lighting up with intelligence that Sobon knew she had, even if she wasn''t in a position to use it often. "Then, the aether passing through these worlds gives them the essence of those worlds?"


    Inwardly, Sobon cursed the Ri''lef and their layered essence paradigm. She knew she was explaining the math badly--and she understood that it was easier for some people to grasp. But it was wrong, and she didn''t like their explanation. "That is... one way to look at it. But like the left and right hand dynamos, the two aethers of each level are the same flow in different directions, with different consequences. The second level--"


    "The second level are Genesis and Consumption. You said that Genesis flows out, and Consumption flows in."


    Sobon nodded. "Those are the ''spins'' of that aether, outward and inward. If you imagine a sphere--a ball, the outward and inward aethers seem to flow through the entire ball at once, one outwards and one inwards." She held up a hand. "I know it makes no sense, I do. The world is simply complicated."


    "But several cycles together can pull on the world and create this flow naturally."


    "They can, because they already brush the edges of the world above them, just as they brush the edges of our world, below." Sobon let her consider that for a long moment. "However... that topic is beyond what you should be focusing on now. If you want to prepare for that, someday, your first task is to create very pure dynamos that have exactly the same core size--the size of the ring, the size of the thread that creates them, and the rate at which they naturally turn. Once you can easily create dynamos, it is alright--even a good idea, to destroy old ones, especially ones that are less pure."


    Ki''el nodded. "I notice that your own are not large. Are they not meant to be?"


    Sobon shook her head. "There are uses for large dynamos, however, we--meaning I also, am too weak to survive using them. The body and spirit must become used to extra aether slowly. With my last advancement, I can rebuild my dynamos to be bigger, but not by too much. And also, when we pass aether through our spirit, it advances our qi cores, which are meant to measure our advancement."


    Ki''el nodded. "I still have yet to break into the next level of my qi. It feels like--"


    "There is a lock," Sobon said. "A small lock on the beginning of the level, and a larger lock on the end. I can show you, but not where Mian can overhear. Apparently, hearing it too early can cause complications." She gestured for Ki''el to follow her into the basement, and once they were within, pressed her aether to produce a model of Ki''el''s qi core out of hazy light.


    "This is what your qi core looks like now," she said. "I imagine that you can see it, in your mind?" When the girl nodded, Sobon highlighted the points of the star, which themselves were really more like knots in structure. "I first thought of these things as being nothing more than decoration, but you can press your will into them in certain ways. To advance to Gold, there are two steps. If you feel like you''re doing it wrong, you probably are--so stop."


    Sobon took a deep breath, and then shifted the image to show the knots pulled away from the center, revealing something beneath. "The first step is revealing the core itself, which is only possible by manipulating the star points. Once you do, however, you will feel something. I didn''t really stop to experience it much myself, so I may be bad at explaining it. At the base of each of these peaks is a part of your soul. There will be brief openings into your core once it is revealed, and you must ensure that the parts of your soul at the base of each star point are able to find their way through those openings, one at a time."


    "Once all ten pieces of your soul enter your core ...well, it will be different for you than it was for me. My soul was, and remains, external to this body, in many ways. For you, however, your soul will merge with your spiritual core, becoming the place in which you store qi. And... I guess other things, later."


    Ki''el, who had been concentrating intently with her eyes closed, cracked one eyelid to half-glare at Sobon. "You... guess."


    Sobon gave a frustrated and dismissive shrug. "I spoke with... enlightened beings. Cores work differently here than where I come from. I will learn more in time, but that is mostly for later."


    Ki''el, for once, let out an actual, loud sigh, seeming actually put out by Sobon''s admittedly flaky mastery over all things aether. Sobon put one hand on her hip, glaring at her pupil, but Ki''el didn''t say more, and simply returned her inner focus to her core.


    When the two of them came back up to the courtyard, less than an hour later, Ki''el had advanced to Gold Qi.

 37. Alassi - Education, Part 2

    Some parts of what Sobon had to teach, she preferred to teach all three of them at once, and so she wait-ed un-til evening, when Lui was done with her work. Al-though Sobon was tempt-ed to spend the time on an-oth-er pro-ject, Ki''el and Mian both had stum-bling blocks on their im-me-di-ate tasks that re-quired her at-ten-tion. None of them were crit-i-cal, just... dif-fi-cul-ties.


    Af-ter din-ner, though, Sobon gath-ered the three of them, Lui bright eyed de-spite hav-ing tired her-self out at work. The girl''s ex-pres-sions were nev-er quite the same, now, but that naivety had also been mask-ing a de-ter-mi-na-tion, a need to ac-com-plish things. Sobon re-mind-ed her-self to talk with the girl more fre-quent-ly, and make sure that the oth-ers did too, but that was not for this mo-ment.


    "I don''t know how the peo-ple of this world view it," Sobon said, "but since they--some of them--seem to be able to be-come tru-ly spir-i-tu-al-ly strong, they can''t be far from the truth. But... here are the fun-da-men-tals to be-com-ing a pow-er-ful aether or qi war-rior."


    "First is awak-en-ing, when peo-ple who have the tal-ent learn to ma-nip-u-late what you would call in-ter-nal qi, and con-nect soul to spir-it. Mian is still in this phase, and some who have ac-cess to aether or qi nev-er leave it. Dur-ing this phase, very lit-tle of use is re-al-ly gained. At the be-gin-ning of Sil-ver Qi, on this plan-et, you have what is ap-par-ent-ly the first of sev-er-al... cleans-ings, in which your qi core will re-forge your body. That''s... not a na-tive func-tion of aether, but it helps."


    "At the start of Gold Qi, your soul con-nects to what Alas-si and Ki''el have told me is called your dant-ian. This... works dif-fer-ent-ly for me, be-cause I am not pre-cise-ly the soul of my body. The dant-ian is meant to hold qi in a way that your core strug-gles to be-fore that, and it is the point at which ex-ter-nal qi be-comes more use-ful as a skill. How-ev-er, ex-ter-nal qi is not the path for-wards to ad-vance-ment."


    "The phase that starts at Gold Qi and ex-tends for a long time af-ter that is what we call acclimatization, and it builds the foun-da-tion for your spir-i-tu-al abil-i-ties. You must un-der-stand..." Sobon paused, and sighed. "Aether is pow-er-ful, but it is also dan-ger-ous, in many ways. You can make mis-takes with your in-tent, and they can... de-stroy you." Sobon looked at Ki''el, who had a pained ex-pres-sion on her face. "But also, aether... aether and qi can be ei-ther at-tuned, or not at-tuned. At-tuned aether does not re-spond to the will of an-oth-er, but un-at-tuned aether can be-come at-tuned to any liv-ing thing, even plants and fun-gus. And... un-at-tuned aether can at-tach to small parts of your body. If this hap-pens, the body''s in-nate self-ish-ness can be am-pli-fied by aether, and it can de-cide to grow and change on its own, against your will. This is called mu-ta-tion, and it is a dead-ly thing. The worst ex-am-ples of it can-not be cured even by the med-i-cine of my peo-ple. At best, it can be vi-o-lent-ly re-moved, and new body parts grown in place."


    "In-nate self-ish-ness?" asked Lui, with a look on her face like she had half-un-der-stood what Sobon was say-ing, where Ki''el and Mian most-ly didn''t at all.


    "I am sure that Lady Fau is teach-ing you, Lui, that the body is made of parts and pieces. All liv-ing things are, and the small-est pieces are too small to see. They build up into larg-er tis-sues, and tis-sues form into or-gans, and the or-gans work to-geth-er to form the body. But you must un-der-stand that the small-est pieces, and es-pe-cial-ly the tis-sues, can still be con-sid-ered sep-a-rate from the whole, form a cer-tain point of view. Nor-mal-ly, this doesn''t mat-ter; even if they ob-ject to their cir-cum-stances--even if you don''t use a mus-cle un-til it wastes away, for ex-am-ple--they have no way to con-trol their cir-cum-stances, and can only trust the body, and you as the soul, and do what they were al-ways meant to do. They fol-low rules, be-cause they have no oth-er op-tions."


    "But aether gives them op-tions. Whether your mus-cles have a grudge for not be-ing used prop-er-ly, or whether your skin is tired of too much sun, or even if you mere-ly feel hun-gry or tired, a cell or tis-sue or or-gan that de-sires to change its cir-cum-stances can. This means that it no longer fol-lows the rules of the body; it rebels, and it has the pow-er to do so suc-cess-ful-ly. But these are not in-tel-li-gent, not even as in-tel-li-gent as beasts. They only know them-selves and their de-sires, be-com-ing a mon-ster that grows from with-in your body it-self."


    All three of them looked dis-tressed at the con-cept, and Sobon lift-ed a hand in a paci-fy-ing ges-ture.


    "This doesn''t hap-pen of-ten, even in this world, I think. But all this ex-plains why the ac-clima-ti-za-tion is nec-es-sary. Be-cause while the awak-en-ing con-nects your soul to the spir-it of your body, you must soak the tis-sues and or-gans of your body in aether that re-sponds to your will and not theirs, so that they grow used to the ex-is-tence of aether but know that they can-not reach it. Even when you start chan-nel-ing large amounts of aether through your body, it is not... con-fused."


    "But this is not fin-ished the first time you do it. As you use more com-plex and more pow-er-ful aether, it is more and more com-mon that your con-trol slips, and aether--even aether at-tuned to you--be-comes loose in your body. If it is too pow-er-ful, your spir-it will try to con-trol that aether on its own, for its own safe-ty. And be-cause your body''s spir-it and your soul are linked, it may suc-ceed even when the aether is attuned to you. When your tissues and organs have access to attuned aether, either they continue to follow the rules of the body, and you are fine, or it starts to rebel, and there is a chance your body will be-come self-ish and mu-tate into a mon-ster. To avoid this, as you be-come stronger, you must re-forge your body again and again."


    "But there is a lim-it." Sobon frowned. "My peo-ple use aether so pow-er-ful that even if it were at-tuned, it could not be chan-neled through a liv-ing body. Past a cer-tain point, if you want to use pow-er in a body, or if you sim-ply wish to sur-vive in a place where there is enough nat-ur-al aether in the air around you, you must cre-ate ar-ti-fi-cial tis-sues and or-gans, re-mov-ing all weak-ness and pro-duc-ing some-thing that is not alive, but ful-fills the func-tions of liv-ing flesh and bone. I do not know where the peo-ple of this world draw that line, but I can tell you that Star-beast cores, and I as-sume oth-er qi beast cores, are an ex-am-ple of this."


    "At that lev-el of pow-er, once a person has replaced their whole body with an artificial version that tolerates the highest levels of aether, then a per-son becomes tru-ly dan-ger-ous. It would take some-one of that lev-el of strength to have tak-en down the... the ship of the Mas-ter''s As-sis-tants, the ones who are stuck on this world. That ship had de-fens-es so pow-er-ful that no nor-mal qi user could pierce them. A per-son at that pow-er lev-el could not safe-ly fight in a city with-out de-stroy-ing it, not at their full strength."


    "So the Di-a-mond Lord must be at that lev-el?" Mian''s ex-pres-sion was some com-bi-na-tion of fas-ci-nat-ed, but also a lit-tle queasy. The oth-er two both showed more dis-com-fort with the idea of that lev-el of pow-er, with-out any in-ter-est.


    "I would imag-ine, though I''ve nev-er seen him." Sobon sighed. "In the-o-ry, there is a step be-yond even that, but it is not im-por-tant. A be-ing that tran-scends hav-ing a body can only live with-in pure aether, and pure aether ex-ists be-yond this world, in vast strings that con-nect the stars."


    "Those are the gods?" Ki''el asked, her voice more cu-ri-ous than in-ter-est-ed.


    "No." Sobon shook her head. "Or rather, not ex-act-ly. It may be pos-si-ble for aether be-ings to reach down into a world, but they would have no rea-son to. Spir-i-tu-al gods are sim-ply the most pow-er-ful class of aether spir-its that can ex-ist in a world. Aether spir-its... are very dif-fer-ent from liv-ing bod-ies, though they of-ten are born from the a body''s spir-it upon death. An aether spir-it still con-tains much of what we rec-og-nize as liv-ing will, where the process to as-cend into a true aether be-ing... which, to cre-ate a term for you, I will call a ti-tan, that in-volves strip-ping away every-thing but the soul it-self. An aether spir-it lives in har-mo-ny with what they once were, but a ti-tan must ei-ther con-sume, dom-i-nate, or de-stroy every-thing that is not its pure self."


    "Your peo-ple have met these en-ti-ties?" Ki''el seemed... a lit-tle in-trigued?


    Sobon shrugged. "The vast strings of aether are also used by some of us, out there, for trav-el-ling be-tween the stars. They com-mu-ni-cate, some-times. I have nev-er been in-volved with one." Sobon paused. "I should also say that the... the Mas-ters that I spoke of be-fore. They are a spe-cial class of be-ing that ex-ists above every oth-er liv-ing be-ing in their abil-i-ty to use aether, but be-low the Ti-tans, or so I would as-sume. No one knows how they have the abil-i-ty to use so much aether, but we do know that they are con-di-tioned from birth, us-ing se-cret ways that they will nev-er tell us. Their whole lives re-volve around con-tain-ing and con-trol-ling aether so pow-er-ful it would de-stroy a mor-tal be-ing. The chil-dren of their race are per-haps more pow-er-ful than I have ever been, or ever be. Just one of their war-riors could de-feat armies of our peo-ple, with-out car-ry-ing any weapons."


    "How many would it take to de-stroy our world?" Mian still sound-ed fas-ci-nat-ed.


    Sobon just snort-ed. "This world? One would be enough. But they wouldn''t only come with one, if they were an-gry. Not be-cause they need more war-riors to do the task, but be-cause like all armies, they have lead-ers as well as war-riors. No, they would send a war-ship, and en-sure that what-ev-er they chose to do, was done right. If they want-ed to de-stroy the world, no piece would re-main."


    Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.


    Since that thought had suit-ably dis-turbed every-one, Sobon changed the top-ic.


    "All that''ve dis-cussed so far is sim-ply the process of gath-er-ing aether into the body. The stages of ac-clima-ti-za-tion in-volve us-ing aether from each tier--first, Right-eous and/or Sin-is-ter. Then, Gen-e-sis and/or Con-sump-tion. Then, Ac-cel-er-a-tion and/or Re-vival. And then, for those who can han-dle it, the tiers of aether be-yond that. I, and most of my peo-ple, would strug-gle to con-trol more than the third tier, but that is still a very pow-er-ful and dan-ger-ous amount of aether."


    "Which aether from each tier you at-tune your body to pro-vides dif-fer-ent ben-e-fits. Be-ing in-nate-ly at-tuned to Right-eous aether makes it very dif-fi-cult for hos-tile aether to in-vade. Sin-is-ter at-tune-ment en-hances your abil-i-ty to use aether to at-tack oth-ers, and weak-ens the world around you. Gen-e-sis aether is use-ful for peo-ple who cre-ate aether pat-terns out-side their bod-ies, while Con-sump-tion aether sig-nif-i-cant-ly im-proves your abil-i-ty to gain aether, and weak-ens in-com-ing ef-fects. Ac-cel-er-a-tion aether im-proves your re-ac-tion and think-ing speed, while Re-vival aether vast-ly im-proves your re-gen-er-a-tion and can make you near-ly un-kil-l-able."


    "That sounds..." Lui was frown-ing.


    In-stead of wait-ing for Lui to fig-ure out what she want-ed to say, Sobon fin-ished her thought. "Most peo-ple don''t at-tune en-tire-ly to one side or the oth-er. The great-est ef-fects come when you do, be-cause each half of a tier of aether weak-ens the oth-er. I am pure-ly at-tuned to Right-eous Aether, now. Un-less I have rea-son to change, I will at-tune to Gen-e-sis and Ac-cel-er-a-tion. These are are all con-sid-ered Right-hand, or if you pre-fer, Right-eous-type aether, be-cause..." she paused. "...be-cause of the math that un-der-lies them. There is sim-ply a pat-tern that con-tin-ues from one to the next, and there is a sim-i-lar left-hand pat-tern con-nect-ing the oth-er three. But there is no penal-ty for tak-ing dif-fer-ent types at dif-fer-ent tiers; Right-eous and Con-sump-tion are just as com-pat-i-ble as Right-eous and Gen-e-sis."


    Lui was still look-ing con-fused, so Mian spoke up. "When you talked about them, my first in-stinct was that one set was for at-tack-ing, and an-oth-er de-fend-ing. But they don''t line up with your right and left. Right-eous is de-fen-sive, but so are Con-sump-tion and Re-vival."


    "You can think of them more as ''do-ing'' and ''un-do-ing,''" of-fered Sobon. "Aether is not specif-i-cal-ly for war-riors. The uni-verse can be split into forces that build and forces that de-stroy, but even then, you of-ten build in or-der to de-stroy, or de-stroy in or-der to build. And as I said be-fore, each high-er tier of aether splits into those that lay be-neath. Not only is Gen-e-sis some-times right-eous and some-times sin-is-ter, but Ac-cel-er-a-tion some-times has the ef-fect of gen-e-sis, and some-times has the ef-fect of con-sump-tion. The de-tails of that..." Sobon had them all in her mind--the the-o-ret-i-cal frame-works for break-ing down aether were a fas-ci-nat-ing study of meta-physics--but doubt-ed she would be able to ex-plain them even to schol-ars of this world, much less a cou-ple chil-dren. "...are prob-a-bly be-yond you."


    "What about the aura of the pi-rates?" Ki''el asked Sobon, and she looked over at the girl. "You told me at the time that it gave them the strength to crush oth-ers, but cor-rupt-ed them. That it gives them courage against their foes."


    Sobon nod-ded. "That''s an ad-vanced top-ic, and re-mem-ber that they use qi, and not aether. But the pi-rate cap-tain from that time was in Gold Qi, and he was at-tuned to both Right-eous and Sin-is-ter aether, and part-ly to Con-sump-tion. Right-eous..." Sobon frowned. "You will need to re-mem-ber that Right-eous Aether does not mean that you are a good per-son. It pre-serves the self, but it can be used by tru-ly evil men, and Sin-is-ter aether can be used by the good."


    "How-ev-er, while he had a mix-ture of at-tune-ments, pro-duc-ing an aura like that is uses Gen-e-sis aether. You can al-ways use types of aether that you are not at-tuned to; the at-tune-ment pro-vides pas-sive ben-e-fits, and also, your internal re-sis-tance to your own, at-tuned aether is low-er than your resistance to using any oth-er aether type. Which..." Sobon paused, as the thought crossed her mind. "...would mean that at-tun-ing to any pure aether spin would make it dif-fi-cult to at-tune to qi, be-cause qi is built from many dif-fer-ent pieces. I''ll have to think more about that."


    "In any event, one of the oth-er ad-van-tages of at-tune-ment is that you can place aether pat-terns--I mean, scripts, with-in the tis-sues and or-gans of your body, as long as those scripts re-main with-in the tier of aether that you have at-tuned to, and as long as you don''t chan-nel so much aether through it that it pass-es the safe lim-its I talked about ear-li-er." He looked at Ki''el. "The ri-fle shots--the ranged weapons I used be-fore, use so much en-er-gy with every shot that even now that I''m at-tuned, I couldn''t use them with-in my body. Not only would it like-ly cause mu-ta-tions with-in my body, but the pas-sage of that much aether would de-stroy the or-gans out-right. That''s how even as a squir-rel, I could de-feat a war-rior at Gold Qi."


    Ki''el nod-ded, not seem-ing sur-prised. Mian and Lui... seemed con-fused when Sobon men-tioned be-ing a squir-rel, but she de-cid-ed not to ex-plain.


    "Once you have de-cid-ed on a pat-tern and placed it with-in your body, it can be dif-fi-cult to re-move or change, and more dif-fi-cult to re-place. The body tis-sues adapt to it, like form-ing scars around a wound. If you wish to com-plete-ly re-place a pat-tern, or change it in ways that go against the ex-ist-ing pat-tern, you have to re-move it and thor-ough-ly heal the scar-ring. That is why I''m not plac-ing any scripts into my body at this point. The scripts that I most need fo-cus on Genesis, to en-hance my abil-i-ty to use oth-er scripts in the space around me. While less-er pat-terns would be use-ful, and while I may even have the room to set them up, that is my fo-cus right now."


    "These pat-terns are for tech-niques?" Mian, to his cred-it, seemed to be most-ly fol-low-ing along.


    "They help," Sobon an-swered, with a tone to her voice that sug-gest-ed he was wrong. "You can use aether tech-niques with pure ex-ter-nal ...qi as long as you mem-o-rize how, and ded-i-cate your spir-it to per-form-ing it, but there can be many de-tails. I... I think that most peo-ple in this world use qi na-tures to help them. Be-cause qi was..." Sobon paused, and, re-mind-ing her-self that she wasn''t lec-tur-ing in her bunker, chose a dif-fer-ent way to say it, just in case any spir-its were eaves-drop-ping that she hadn''t de-tect-ed. "Qi is meant to be shaped into spe-cif-ic forms. You can cre-ate types of qi that have spe-cif-ic prop-er-ties, and those prop-er-ties can con-tain part of a tech-nique, so that you don''t need to mem-o-rize it. You can also use pat-terns in your body, or in your equip-ment, so that you only need to split your fo-cus a lit-tle in-stead of a lot."


    All three of them nod-ded at that, and Mian looked re-lieved. Sobon thought the man had got-ten im-me-di-ate-ly stressed when Sobon sug-gest-ed mem-o-riz-ing an en-tire tech-nique. Sobon didn''t think of the man as stu-pid, but he def-i-nite-ly wasn''t quite as sharp as Ki''el and Lui were, or per-haps he just hadn''t found some-thing that caught his at-ten-tion in the same way that they had.


    "Like plac-ing pat-terns in your body, though," Sobon said when it seemed like the three had ful-ly di-gest-ed what she''d said, "cre-at-ing qi with the pat-terns you want in it is some-thing of a com-mit-ment. Your qi core will repli-cate types of qi that you... that you have es-tab-lished?" Sobon dou-ble checked the Ri''lef notes on qi cores, un-sure of how to phrase what she''d read there. "Once you firm-ly es-tab-lish your own fla-vor of qi, it will be dif-fi-cult to change it. Cre-at-ing new fla-vors of qi, or chang-ing an ex-ist-ing one to fix a flaw or add new abil-i-ties, takes time and ef-fort, and it is dif-fi-cult to do cre-ate any-thing with-out flaws."


    Sobon was sur-prised that Lui piped up. "What distinguishes... what you call fla-vors, from qi na-tures?"


    Sobon nod-ded at her, smil-ing a lit-tle. "Qi na-tures are ar-ti-fi-cial, but they look and feel nat-ur-al. Cre-at-ing qi with a na-ture of fire will feel cor-rect to you, be-cause you know how fire is sup-posed to look, and more im-por-tant-ly, you know what the con-se-quences of fire are sup-posed to be. But what I was call-ing a ''fla-vor'' of qi is spe-cif-ic to you and what you need from your qi. If you cre-ate fire qi, but you need it specif-i-cal-ly to burn away im-pu-ri-ties while leav-ing oth-er things un-touched, that is a spe-cif-ic fla-vor of fire-na-ture qi. If you de-cide lat-er that you also want to ''burn'' your fire qi as fuel to in-vig-o-rate you, you will need to add that fla-vor to your fire-na-ture qi, or else cre-ate a sec-ond, sep-a-rate fla-vor of fire-na-ture qi. Does that make sense?"


    Lui nod-ded ex-cit-ed-ly, and even Ki''el seemed in-ter-est-ed, when Sobon was be-gin-ning to think the girl was un-in-ter-est-ed in any of the more ad-vanced con-cepts.


    Mian, though, was frown-ing, his mind churn-ing through some prob-lem. "So if we want-ed to cre-ate a qi na-ture that was com-plete-ly unique to us... could we?"


    Sobon shrugged. "The qi I used to hold you to your oaths was some-thing I cre-at-ed for that pur-pose. But es-pe-cial-ly for be-gin-ners, it''s dif-fi-cult to fig-ure out how to do all the com-pli-cat-ed things you want qi to do. Some-times it''s easy to put it in words but not de-scribe how to do it, and some-times, it''s easy to un-der-stand on a soul lev-el but dif-fi-cult to put into words. Many peo-ple learn by ob-serv-ing oth-ers, and in that way, qi na-tures are also a learn-ing tool. Fire users un-der-stand what fire is ca-pa-ble of by look-ing at oth-er fire users, and fire-type in-scrip-tions, or by ob-serv-ing nat-ur-al fire and its many prop-er-ties and nu-ances."


    "To be blunt," Sobon said, "part of what you need in or-der to make qi work cor-rect-ly is to un-der-stand the very na-ture of the uni-verse, and how it op-er-ates. But it would take me a decade to teach every-thing I know, and I don''t have that time. And what I know is far from every-thing, and also there is also a whole world to teach about de-sign-ing things from scratch, and..." Sobon shrugged. "Per-haps if I achieve my mis-sion, I can spend a life-time teach-ing you, and oth-ers that are wor-thy to learn it all. But not now."


    Sobon ig-nored that the three were look-ing at her, again, with the star-ry eyes of youths be-ing in-formed that their se-niors un-der-stand things they do not. She knew that, in a way, it was un-fair to even tease that knowl-edge, but it was im-por-tant to draw the line around why. Why she could cre-ate com-plex aether pat-terns and hold them in her mind, why she could forge sand into quartz with her will alone.


    "I know I make it look easy," Sobon said, at the same time she fin-ished the thought in-ter-nal-ly. "I know I make it look like aether and qi are sim-ple things that any-one can learn. I have spent longer than any of you have been alive be-ing trained to be what I am to-day, and I am a poor teacher. You all have the po-ten-tial to do great things, but I can''t make it hap-pen in the time we have."


    "I want you to think long and hard about what you want to achieve, and I will teach each of you what I can in or-der to make it pos-si-ble. I will cre-ate tools, and show you pat-terns. But if you ask me to help you with a task that will take a life-time, I can-not. At most, I can show you the first steps, and tell you how the next few should go. In the end, your fu-ture will be in your own hands. I can only... in-spire you, I hope. To keep learn-ing, and keep grow-ing, for the rest of your lives."


    The oth-ers nod-ded, and Sobon dis-missed them for the evening, the three of them go-ing off sep-a-rate-ly to think about their fu-tures.

 38. Alassi - Education, Part 3

    Sobon chose, once the rest were think-ing about their ad-vance-ment, to spend her time work-ing to repli-cate Lai Shi Po''s space ring, or rather, make a sub-sti-tute. The two main prob-lems with repli-cat-ing her des-ign were the ma-te-ri-als, and the fine en-grav-ings; Lai Shi Po''s ring was some al-loy that Sobon might have iden-ti-fied in time, but prob-a-bly could nev-er have repli-cat-ed, since she doubt-less had some spe-cif-ic sup-pli-er. For such a small en-chant-ed item, even with Sobon''s un-der-stand-ing of the sub-tleties, ma-te-ri-als mat-tered; the dense-ly packed scripts could leak out and in-ter-fere with one an-oth-er, or aether flux could slip from one en-grav-ing to the next.


    And while Sobon could cre-ate the tools nec-es-sary to write any script in any size, it took ef-fort to de-sign such a tool for a giv-en ring ma-te-r-i-al, size, and shape, and more ef-fort to de-sign a tool flex-i-ble enough to be reused for any item. A more mod-est pro-pos-al was just an en-graver that was more or less man-u-al, with a vari-able aperture on its en-graver, and a sec-ond head to fill the new space with di-a-mond and fuse it.


    More prac-ti-cal-ly, though the whole de-sign was eas-i-er if Sobon sim-ply made it big-ger. She was sure there were cul-tur-al and prac-ti-cal rea-sons for space rings, but for some-one in the process of learn-ing, there was lit-tle rea-son not to work with a bracelet. It got rid of most of the com-pli-ca-tions, and let Sobon ex-am-ine how the aether pat-terns in-ter-act-ed with the ma-te-ri-als.


    Al-though Sobon had seen, ear-li-er in her ca-reer, ba-sic ta-bles of aether and ma-te-r-i-al in-ter-ac-tions, and had even mem-o-rized parts of them at one point. But that was a lot of high-ly com-plex data, and while Sobon had it in her cy-borg data-base ever since, she no longer had ac-cess to that, and had no rea-son to look at it in a very long time, so it was no longer in her own per-son-al mem-o-ry. More than that, even if Sobon could get the same data from the Coro-na, it would still take a lot of ex-per-i-men-ta-tion to see how the the data af-fect-ed this de-sign.


    There were ba-sics, of course. Sta-ble mol-e-cules were good chan-nels, and lighter el-e-ments had low re-sis-tance to flow. Heav-ier el-e-ments gripped the aether more tight-ly, let-ting you an-chor pat-terns more pre-cise-ly, and stor-ing aether sta-bly. But the ways in which ma-te-ri-als re-ject-ed aether were more nu-anced. Some trapped it, some re-flect-ed it, some re-fract-ed its cur-rents in var-i-ous di-rec-tions. Re-ac-tive ma-te-ri-als gen-er-al-ly were ac-ti-vat-ed by aether, con-sum-ing some of its pow-er. Those had to be planned around, en-sur-ing that any side ef-fects were de-sir-able, though that was nor-mal-ly ir-rel-e-vant when work-ing with-in a sin-gle met-al al-loy.


    That was, as-sum-ing you could get the pu-ri-ty high enough. Sobon could write pat-terns to make a pure sub-stance, like di-a-mond, but she was in-ter-est-ed in com-plex met-al al-loys, some of which were not straight-for-ward struc-tural-ly or chem-i-cal-ly. That''s why she wasn''t try-ing to roll her own vari-ants of steel, or at least, not yet. The lava rocks were, among oth-er things, a source of chromi-um, which was a nice, un-re-ac-tive met-al, not only for the pur-pos-es of aether, but for mun-dane chem-i-cal cor-ro-sion. The lo-cals didn''t seem to have dis-cov-ered it, or at least, the met-als sup-pli-er Sobon had met had no idea. But the rocks were also a good source of mag-ne-sium and alu-minum, which in con-trast were both high-ly re-ac-tive met-als.


    In-stead of try-ing to mix them into an al-loy, though, Sobon mere-ly fab-ri-cat-ed a struc-ture where the dif-fer-ent met-als were placed where she thought they be-longed, bond-ed to-geth-er. She knew her first at-tempt would be na?ve, and it was. It was also time con-sum-ing enough that af-ter she fin-ished the blank, she de-cid-ed she would need to work on a more vi-able in-come source for the short term.


    It was easy enough to come up with some-thing sim-ple. Al-though Ki''el''s aether blade was a bit more ad-vanced than Sobon re-al-ly want-ed to share, much less mass-pro-duce, and the work she''d put into Mian''s blade was too much for a sim-ple prod-uct. But there was a hy-brid, with the sim-plic-i-ty of Ki''el''s blade and the ma-te-r-i-al an-chor of Mian''s.


    In-stead of us-ing Mian''s butch-er sword as a tem-plate, though, Sobon chose a straight sin-gle-edge sword with a chis-el tip, and forged the blank out of lo-cal steel. The whole of the en-grav-ing was placed with-in the tang, and it amount-ed to lit-tle but qi gath-er-ing, stor-age, and re-in-force-ment, in-clud-ing chem-i-cal re-sis-tance. There were a to-tal of sev-en points defin-ing the geom-e-try, cre-at-ing one line to re-in-force the blade, an-oth-er re-in-forc-ing the chis-el tip, two to re-in-force the rear, and two more con-nect-ing the rear to the tip. Even with-out turn-ing the geom-e-try into planes of force, it wouldn''t yield as long as it was fu-eled with qi--ex-cept to an at-tack that pierced through the cen-ter of the blade. That wasn''t an im-pos-si-ble sce-nario, but adding even one force plane ex-pand-ed the log-ic and pow-er drain by a large per-cent-age.


    The sword, un-like Mian''s, was in-tend-ed to be used by peo-ple with-out ex-ter-nal qi, and there-fore it had to sip at pow-er. Any-one hold-ing the blade would slow-ly charge it, and any time the re-in-force-ments were need-ed, a lit-tle pow-er was con-sumed. For an every-day swords-man, though, it was sim-ply a sword that nev-er need-ed sharp-en-ing, one that would soon-er drain all of their qi through their hands than yield to an-oth-er sword.


    Sobon, one she had con-firmed that the de-sign worked as in-tend-ed, made ten, placed them with-in her stor-age ring, and went to vis-it the City Lord. As be-fore, she not-ed that Kibar, the man who talked about spir-its and fate, was seat-ed at the foun-tain with his eyes closed. She passed by him, nei-ther avoid-ing him nor mov-ing clos-er. There was no sub-tle sense, this time, of her com-ing to the at-ten-tion of the god that stood be-hind him, but even so, Kibar''s eyes opened as she passed, and he re-gard-ed her, say-ing noth-ing.


    Sobon was able to meet again with Lord Shi-da, who was once again very def-er-en-tial.


    "Lady Alas-si! Con-grat-u-la-tions on your... break-through." The man seemed at once in awe and ashamed to see that Sobon had al-ready reached Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, when he had not even ful-ly ad-vanced a sin-gle Gold star dur-ing the same time. He bowed again, servile in-stincts com-mand-ing him, but straight-ened when Sobon made it clear she didn''t ap-pre-ci-ate that. "I was not in-formed that the break-through we felt was you, al-though giv-en its brevi-ty, I should have guessed."


    "If I''d want-ed it known, I would have said some-thing, Lord Shi-da."


    The man nod-ded, though as al-ways, he seemed ill at ease. "How may I help you, Lady Alas-si? I be-lieve that you should have been con-tact-ed by the builder I rec-om-mend-ed...?"


    "He is busy at cur-rent," Sobon waved the thought away. "No, Lord Shi-da, I would like to dis-cuss mon-ey, and more specif-i-cal-ly, I would like to sell some-thing."


    At the men-tion of sell-ing some-thing, Lord Shi-da''s eyes be-came more guard-ed. "Some-thing, my lady?" Sobon moved her hand to the table and re-moved one of the swords from her space ring, but was ful-ly aware that the man''s eyes locked onto her space ring. "Lady Alas-si... would that hap-pen to be a gen-uine Lai Shi Po space ring?"


    Sobon''s opin-ion of the man went up a touch, even as she paused, plac-ing her hand over the sword for a mo-ment to leave the ring ex-posed. "Yes, and no. I had the good for-tune to stum-ble upon Lai Shi Po''s shop when I went east, to res-cue my com-pan-ion. It seems I made a good im-pres-sion on her, be-cause she gift-ed me an in-com-plete ring as a test. Un-til I can repli-cate the en-tire thing, I see no rea-son to claim cred-it, so if asked by any-one else, I would sim-ply call it..." she smirked. "An... ac-cept-able im-i-ta-tion of Lai Shi Po''s work. Though I am cu-ri-ous, how did you rec-og-nize it on sight?"


    "Hm? Oh." Lord Shi-da''s face had fall-en slight-ly at Sobon''s ca-su-al tone, and he tight-ened it up into a some-what tense smile. "It''s the ma-te-ri-als, of course, Lady Alas-si. I am sure you have no-ticed the sub-tle dam-as-cus col-orations. They say that Lai Shi Po or-ders ten thou-sand ring blanks at a time, and only ac-cepts be-tween one and ten. Her stan-dards are such that any-thing less than per-fec-tion is in-ad-e-quate."


    Sobon nod-ded. She had no-ticed the strange-ness of the ma-te-ri-als, but had hoped that Lai Shi Po had a bet-ter so-lu-tion for get-ting them than count-ing on ran-dom chance in the forg-ing process. Still, it made sense; some-one with her in-ten-si-ty and skill would like-ly be able to tell if a ring blank could be used, but not nec-es-sar-i-ly be able to put into words why, or what the smith should do in or-der to ac-com-plish her goals.


    "Well... I in-vit-ed Lai Shi Po to come vis-it, and she men-tioned per-haps sell-ing more of her work this far west, though I do not know if or when she will come."


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    That thought had Lord Shi-da''s eyes bug-ging out again. "My lady... if that is so, then the mere pres-ence of Lai Shi Po is it-self an-oth-er gift of yours to this city." He made a head bow, meant once again to ap-pear servile, be-fore turn-ing his at-ten-tion to the blade. "And this... the sword is what Lady Alas-si would like to sell?"


    Sobon nod-ded, mov-ing her hand away from it. "It is a sim-ple de-sign. I''m cu-ri-ous what you see and sense in it."


    The City Lord picked it up with rev-er-ence, but stud-ied the en-tire-ty of what was ex-posed with a frown on his face. "There is no ob-vi-ous in-scrip-tion work, but... clear-ly an in-scrip-tion was done. With-in the hilt?" He took a firm grip on the hilt, and his eyes flicked to it. "Pas-sive-ly ab-sorbs qi. And I sense... threads. No, thin qi chan-nels. Re-in-forc-ing the blade?"


    Sobon nod-ded. "The way the chan-nels are set up, they will not bend or shift as long as there is qi to pow-er them. If pres-sured, the pat-tern in the hilt will draw more qi to en-sure that the blade re-mains per-fect-ly stiff and sharp." She drew an-oth-er from her ring, and stood up and away from the desk, ges-tur-ing for Lord Shi-da to come. "Try it. Edge to edge."


    The city lord looked pen-sive, then sus-pi-cious, but the two of them moved into the am-ple free space of the man''s ex-ces-sive-ly large of-fice, and then with no warn-ing and lit-tle ap-par-ent ef-fort, the man swept for-ward into a fast and flaw-less thrust, his feet leav-ing the ground as he swept his en-tire body be-hind the blow.


    Sobon, even an-tic-i-pat-ing the at-tack, was sur-prised by the man''s flu-id-i-ty and poise, and was on the de-fen-sive im-me-di-ate-ly, knock-ing the sword away and step-ping the oth-er di-rec-tion. Lord Shi-da fol-lowed up with a straight-for-ward se-ries of slices and chops, mix-ing in only the oc-ca-sion-al stab, and Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly start-ed sweat-ing as she par-ried each in-com-ing strike, then im-me-di-ate-ly had to shift to de-fend again.


    When Shi-da stopped and be-gan to ex-am-ine his blade, though, he was en-tire-ly cool, un-per-turbed by the mo-tion. "Flaw-less," he de-clared, run-ning his fin-gers along the very edge. "No chips or gouges at all. And yours, I be-lieve, is in the same con-di-tion?" Sobon held her own blade out, and he took it with his oth-er hand, eye-ing the oth-er weapon. "In-deed. The re-in-force-ment runs to the very tip of the blade, and the wider rear sur-face is also re-in-forced. To block with-out us-ing the edge, I imag-ine." He eas-i-ly re-versed his grip on Sobon''s sword and re-turned it to her, then moved back to the desk and set the one he''d been hold-ing down.


    "These are qual-i-ty swords. I imag-ine the pas-sive draw is so that they can be used by those not trained in ex-ter-nal qi." At Sobon''s nod, he be-gan to stroke his chin. "At the same time, they pro-vide no, or lit-tle, ben-e-fit to those war-riors who do have ex-ter-nal qi. They are not in-tend-ed for use by mas-ters at all, but more than ad-e-quate for a guards-man. If noth-ing else, the fact that they could stand up to a qi-re-in-forced blade with-out dam-age is worth some-thing."


    "Be-cause the re-in-force-ment is fo-cused on the cut-ting edge," Sobon point-ed out, "the re-in-force-ment will also help pierce qi de-fens-es, though it will drain the wield-er to do so."


    Lord Shi-da picked the weapon up again, and with a mo-ment of hes-i-ta-tion, heav-i-ly re-in-forced the qi around one hand while stab-bing it with the oth-er. Sobon raised an eye-brow, but the man didn''t press hard enough to come close to in-jur-ing him-self, al-though she could sense the qi around his hand sep-a-rat-ing and spark-ing from the dam-age.


    "In-deed. It is a pure cut-ting ac-tion, and not a de-struc-tive qi na-ture, but it will help." He set the blade down, and moved to the oth-er side of the desk. "I would glad-ly pay one gildra per sword, though I would ad-vise Lady Alas-si that oth-ers may pay more or less. In par-tic-u-lar, there are guilds that hire non-cul-ti-va-tors as guards, who would like-ly be very in-ter-est-ed, while most of the no-ble fam-i-lies would have no in-ter-est at all, or very lit-tle at best. And even those who are in-ter-est-ed will hag-gle much more than I will on the price."


    "I have ten at pre-sent," Sobon said, mov-ing back to the desk her-self and set-ting the blade in her hand down, then ap-pear-ing the rest of them. "I trust you un-der-stand, Lord Shi-da, that I am good at a great many things, but these sort of ne-go-ti-a-tions are not my forte."


    To his cred-it, Lord Shi-da chuck-led at that, rather than be-ing un-com-fort-able or rude. "I have had the for-tune to meet a great many peo-ple, Lady Alas-si, and none of them has been per-fect. Of-ten enough, those who fo-cus on al-most any-thing to an ex-treme let slip their abil-i-ty to be so-cia-ble. It is enough that you un-der-stand in gen-er-al what your work is worth. I would be hap-py to as-sist on mat-ters such as these, or else I can point you to-wards those who can be trust-ed to know bet-ter."


    Sobon just nod-ded at that. Lord Shi-da took a mo-ment to con-firm that all of the swords laid out were the same, and sent off a qi pulse mes-sage, but then seemed to pause and con-sid-er.


    "Lady Alas-si..." He turned to her. "It would per-haps be too for-ward of me to sug-gest that you have some need to train in sword-play, but I be-lieve that you would do with a great deal more prac-tice, and per-haps the at-ten-tion of a mas-ter. I would be re-miss if I didn''t of-fer to rec-om-mend you to a sect. I my-self was nev-er ac-cept-ed into one, but as a City Lord, I have some sway."


    Sobon had to prod Alas-si to ex-plain ex-act-ly what that im-plied, here. [ I''ve nev-er vis-it-ed one or even seen one of their peo-ple, but the sects are sup-pos-ed-ly de-vot-ed to the study of qi and mar-tial arts, ] she said in brief. [ They are en-tire-ly sep-a-rate from the na-tions they oc-cu-py, and many who join them spend their whole life med-i-tat-ing on the ways of qi. It was a Djang tra-di-tion orig-i-nal-ly, and it is still strongest in their part of the world, but it has spread along with their em-pire. Some romanticize the sects as be-ing a pure quest for truth, while oth-ers de-mo-nize them for be-ing sin-gle-mind-ed in their search for pow-er. ]


    "Some sway, but not enough for them to share the se-cret to en-ter-ing Gold Qi?" Sobon let doubt fill her voice.


    Lord Shi-da just shook his head. "Sects do not share se-crets, Lady Alas-si. Their knowl-edge is giv-en to their mem-bers, not spread. They search for tal-ent and knowl-edge, and are will-ing to take rec-om-men-da-tions should a new prodi-gy or great tal-ent ap-pear. There is only one that is close- by, the Scin-til-lat-ing Glac-i-er Sect, which is deep in the moun-tains. I am sure that they would agree your rate of progress qual-i-fies you as a prodi-gy, even... at your age."


    Sobon didn''t have to think hard about it. "I do not have the time or in-cli-na-tion to spend a great deal of time learn-ing in a re-mote lo-ca-tion, Lord Shi-da. I would be... in-ter-est-ed, to speak to a mas-ter of qi, if I could trust them to keep cer-tain things se-cret. Es-pe-cial-ly, to un-der-stand their teach-ing meth-ods, and perhaps offer something in return."


    Lord Shi-da seemed to un-der-stand that. "I will pass on a dis-creet in-quiry, though I am not sure that the Glac-i-er Sect has a mas-ter that would meet your stan-dards. I know of sev-er-al oth-er sects, but I will need to find out more to rec-om-mend any of them."


    Sobon stood and nod-ded at Lord Shi-da, who sent off an-oth-er qi pulse. A side door opened, and one of the staff came in with Sobon''s mon-ey, which she took, then bowed to the City Lord, and left.


    Out-side, Sobon was not sur-prised to find that Kibar had again moved away from the plaza foun-tain, only this time, she no-ticed him stand-ing in a side street, watch-ing her. Al-though Sobon moved past him, Kibar sent her a qi pulse, one that was mod-er-ate-ly well put to-geth-er, al-though they con-tained too much of the man''s voice in-stead of be-ing a pure mes-sage.


    [ I have been think-ing about spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment, as you said, ] the man''s qi puls-es felt a lit-tle heavy in Sobon''s mind. [ You seem to draw a dis-tinc-tion be-tween ac-com-plish-ment and ful-fill-ment. Why do you seek ac-com-plish-ment if not for ful-fill-ment? ]


    Sobon kicked her mind into high gear only long enough to craft a per-fect-ly formed re-turn pack-et, most-ly out of spite for the man''s heavy and pon-der-ous thoughts. [ That''s a stu-pid enough ques-tion to be of-fen-sive, ''sir'' Kibar. I have a pur-pose which, if I fail, will re-sult in a great deal of death and suf-fer-ing. The quest doesn''t make me hap-py, and I don''t ex-pect it to. While there is more to spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment than self-ish want and need, the idea that a per-son won''t do the right thing un-less fulfillment awaits them at the end is a doctrine of he-do-nism. Dif-fer-ent peo-ple have dif-fer-ent needs, and spir-i-tu-al ful-fill-ment is just one of many. ]


    Sobon could sense the man be-ing briefly over-whelmed by the mes-sage pulse, but didn''t stop to bandy more words with him. What-ev-er the man and his pa-tron god be-lieved, it was ob-vi-ous to Sobon that they were ex-pect-ing her to be some-one very dif-fer-ent than she was. Dif-fer-ent, Sobon thought, than Alas-si may have been, too, al-though she wasn''t think-ing hard about it.


    On the walk back, though, Alas-si seemed to con-sid-er that. [ Ful-fill-ment... ] the dead woman''s thoughts rat-tled around in Sobon''s head, when she fi-nal-ly deigned to put words to them. The woman''s spir-it was un-fo-cused, per-haps a bit dis-tressed. [ I had be-lieved such a thing was im-pos-si-ble. That af-ter all my mis-takes and fail-ures, and all my bad for-tune, there was no place for me in the world. Some-one who said oth-er-wise... if they could have got-ten me to be-lieve it, they might have man-aged to change me. ]


    [ What do you think now? ] Sobon could sense that the woman wasn''t any-where near done think-ing through the mat-ter.


    [ My own time is over. I think that if I had any de-sires of my own, it would be to see Lui suc-ceed, and since you are help-ing with that, I see no rea-son to sep-a-rate my fate from yours. And... I can ac-knowl-edge that you have made me, and Lui, and Mian, and your... adopt-ed daugh-ter, Ki''el, stronger. I am not sure what one like sir Kibar could of-fer me, to make me ful-filled, but it would need to be at least that much. I... don''t think I''d be hap-py... search-ing only for my own com-fort if Lui and the rest were left be-hind. It would be too much like go-ing back to who I was. ]


    [ I am hap-py to have your trust, ] Sobon re-turned, as she drew near to home. [ For my-self, spir-i-tu-al gods wor-ry me. I am sure that for those who have no plans for their own life, it is fine to let them guide you. But even back on my own world, I felt like they would lead me away from where I want-ed to go, and to-wards where they want-ed me to be. Per-haps it is un-kind to as-sume, but I would rather not be... en-tan-gled with them. ]


    Alas-si con-sid-ered that for a long time af-ter-wards.

 39. Alassi - Education, Part 4

    Al-though Sobon''s aether was be-gin-ning to set-tle and heal enough for her to be-gin the next stage of at-tune-ment, and al-though Mian ap-proached her want-i-ng to dis-cuss ex-ter-nal qi, Sobon forced her-self to spend the next full day de-sign-ing and get-ting the ma-te-ri-als to make a spir-i-tu-al sen-sor ar-ray. The ma-te-ri-als were the stick-ing point; the sen-sor ar-ray re-quired both an an-ten-na por-tion, for which Sobon''s di-a-mond was an ac-cept-able ma-te-r-i-al, but also a de-tec-tor por-tion, which was some-thing that usu-al-ly re-quired spe-cial-ized ma-te-ri-als--ide-al-ly, high-ly re-ac-tive met-als, but ones just sta-ble enough that they wouldn''t de-cay due to aether ef-fects alone.


    Gen-er-al-ly, in aether tech-nol-o-gy, this was done with very heavy el-e-ments, and the heav-ier the bet-ter; it was a pri-ma-ry use for the transuran-ic met-als, when placed with-in spe-cial-ized sys-tems to pre-vent or lim-it ra-dioac-tive de-cay. Sobon had no in-ter-est in try-ing to find an ide-al sub-sti-tute; the "cheap and easy" so-lu-tion to the prob-lem was bis-muth. It wasn''t quite heavy enough, and it wasn''t quite ra-dioac-tive enough, but its crys-tal struc-ture was com-pat-i-ble with ex-ist-ing de-signs, and its aether in-ter-ac-tions pre-dictable enough.


    Un-for-tu-nate-ly, the lo-cals here had some-thing of an at-tach-ment to bis-muth, since it was also the name and col-oration of a rel-a-tive-ly high qi rank--one just above Sobon''s, now. Or, to be clear--the qi rank was based on the iri-des-cent col-ors of bis-muth ox-ide that forms on the sur-face of the met-al. Ei-ther way, the few peo-ple that Sobon could im-me-di-ate-ly find to sup-ply her with even a lit-tle bit of the met-al were out of stock, and only will-ing to make promis-es in-volv-ing weeks or months and a lot of mon-ey.


    Weird-ly enough, though, this quest had her cross-ing paths with Kibar, and not in any of the usu-al places. He was sim-ply walk-ing by, when he spot-ted Sobon look-ing rather cross as she left a shop.


    "Lady Alas-si." His words were for-mal, if a bit sullen. "You look per-turbed."


    Sobon might have snapped at him, but so far, the man had been harm-less. "I am search-ing for ma-te-ri-als," she said. "Un-suc-cess-ful-ly."


    "Tru-ly?" Kibar glanced at the shop, seem-ing-ly con-fused. It wasn''t ex-act-ly a world-class shop; Sobon had gone to the shops in the Ways of Gold and Sil-ver first, and end-ed up in more of a back-al-ley shop-ing dis-trict by the end. "If I may ask, what is it that you are so des-per-ate to find?"


    "I am not des-per-ate. I sim-ply have a spe-cif-ic use for a sam-ple of bis-muth, and there are none to be found."


    "Bis-muth..." the man frowned, putting one fin-ger on his chin. "Strange met-al, and stranger that it lends its name and col-or to qi, is it not? I have sev-er-al sam-ples, but I have yet to find any mean-ing-ful con-nec-tion be-tween the met-al and any prop-er-ty of qi that jus-ti-fies its pro-found place-ment in the heirar-chy." He looked again at Alas-si, and this time, Sobon could de-tect no trace of the man''s for-mer smug coun-te-nance. "I wouldn''t mind part-ing with a sam-ple, if the Lady would be will-ing to en-gage me in... civ-il dis-course. Noth-ing more than that."


    Sobon did take the time to clear her mind and make sure that there was no spir-i-tu-al sense here that she was walk-ing into some kind of trap, sig-nif-i-cant or oth-er-wise, but the man re-al-ly seemed like some-thing she had said, or some-thing else that had hap-pened to him, had shocked him into a new way of think-ing.


    That is what led to Sobon fol-low-ing the man, with some cau-tion, to an out of the way slum, where he as-cend-ed some poor-ly built but well-main-tained stairs to a very small apart-ment on the top floor of a rick-ety three-sto-ry build-ing. From a ways away, Sobon wouldn''t have re-al-ly ex-pect-ed to even find a three-sto-ry build-ing in the area; a small but deep shift in the ter-rain meant the top floor was only bare-ly taller than the two-sto-ry build-ings near-by.


    Kibar''s quar-ters, as-sum-ing that''s what they were, were clean and spar-tan. Sobon could sense a hid-den chest in the cor-ner that con-tained a pock-et di-men-sion, much like Sobon''s ring and in-progress bracelet, but in-stead of go-ing to it, Kibar wan-dered to a bit of cracked ma-son-ry, and shift-ed it aside, show-ing coins and oth-er small items in a small hol-low in the wall.


    The sam-ple of bis-muth that he with-drew was the size of his thumb, which was a bit larg-er than Alas-si''s thumb, and more than enough for Sobon to work with. But as he re-placed the ma-son-ry and held it up to the light to look at the col-ors that shined off of it, he spoke slow-ly, and again, Sobon found the man''s voice to be... sub-dued.


    "I was first told of the ex-is-tence of the spir-its when I was a very young boy," he said. "In truth, even when I look back on my life, I do not see any places where their guid-ance has led me astray. And yet, af-ter you have so firm-ly dis-missed the con-cept of be-ing led by the spir-its, I be-gan to won-der. Per-haps they did not lead me astray, but did they lead me to the best fu-ture I could have had?"


    "What was sur-pris-ing was that when I be-gan to think like that, they be-came up-set." Kibar low-ered the bis-muth and turned, then tossed it to Sobon, who caught it out of the air, and took a mo-ment to study the sam-ple with her eyes and sens-es. It was def-i-nite-ly large and pure enough, al-though there was some kind of large im-pu-ri-ty with-in the crys-tal. "Since then, I feel... dis-placed. I am not sure that I un-der-stand." A mo-ment or two af-ter fin-ish-ing that sen-tence, Kibar added a tiny spir-i-tu-al pulse, to sug-gest an end-of-sen-tence be-yond what was im-plied--that he was done speak-ing and ac-tu-al-ly ask-ing a ques-tion.


    Sobon took it in stride, putting the sam-ple away in her space ring. "I think you''ll find the an-swer un-sat-is-fy-ing. You be-gan be-liev-ing in mean-ing and pur-pose, but you have en-coun-tered some-thing that has no mean-ing and no pur-pose. Spir-its have a dif-fer-ent per-spec-tive, but they are still..." Sobon had to con-sult briefly with Alas-si to find a word that had the right con-no-ta-tions to con-vey what she meant. "...peo-ple. They have faults and flaws, and es-pe-cial-ly, they have emo-tions. They can be hurt, and they can be shal-low. Their per-spec-tive and their na-ture can let them lead peo-ple, if that''s what they want to do. But some-times, it isn''t what they want, ei-ther be-cause that is not their na-ture, or be-cause they are hurt or dis-tressed and sim-ply stop want-i-ng to. That hurt is not pur-pose or mean-ing. It is, sim-ply..." Sobon again searched for a word. "...vul-ner-a-bil-i-ty."


    "Vul-ner-a-bil-i-ty." Kibar''s voice had just a touch of bit-ter-ness. "That is a rea-son...?"


    "Rea-son is not mean-ing or pur-pose, sir Kibar." Then, tak-ing a bit of a gam-ble, she fetched the sam-ple out again. "Let''s talk about bis-muth. You won-der what its mean-ing and pur-pose is? In truth, it has none. In-stead of mean-ing or pur-pose, bis-muth has prop-er-ties. Once you un-der-stand its prop-er-ties, it ceas-es to be mere-ly a flawed, brit-tle met-al." She moved the sam-ple in her fin-ger and raised her hand as though to fore-stall an ob-jec-tion, al-though Kibar didn''t seem to be rais-ing one. "I won''t pre-tend that your spir-i-tu-al guide is lit-tle more than a tool, the way that even the best of ma-te-ri-als is only a tool. Peo-ple that think of oth-er peo-ple like that are of-ten un-kind and un-de-serv-ing."


    "In-stead, the fact that I un-der-stand bis-muth is what will let me give it pur-pose, where you could not. And that is part of why I don''t trust your ''spir-its.''" Idly, pro-ject-ing an aether pat-tern around the bis-muth crys-tal, she re-moved the im-pu-ri-ties and the ox-ide lay-er, re-shap-ing what re-mained into a small-er, sol-id cube. The im-pu-ri-ties and ox-ides she let fall to the floor at her feet. "I''ve been led by peo-ple who un-der-stand noth-ing be-fore. I''ve been a sol-dier, and be-ing led is how be-ing the mil-i-tary works. That will al-ways be a large part of who I am."


    "The sense I got from your so-called spir-it is one that didn''t know and didn''t care about my his-to-ry or my fu-ture. I would be-lieve it meant well, but that doesn''t mat-ter if it doesn''t un-der-stand. I will not sim-ply be a pret-ty piece of crys-tal held by some-one who doesn''t un-der-stand."


    It wasn''t un-til Sobon spoke that it re-al-ly oc-curred to him, the for-mer Cy-borg, that he was re-al-ly now a she, a woman, in a world that seemed to ex-pect cer-tain things from women. The pret-ty shop-keep-ing girls that were sim-ply dec-o-ra-tions for their store-fronts came to mind, as well as Xoi Xam and Rai Su Anin. Sobon had known, of course--Alas-si''s own fu-ture had been ru-ined by a sex-ist bas-tard who want-ed to black-mail her into sub-mis-sion. But it was still a very dis-tant thought that peo-ple were look-ing at her, Sobon, with those same eyes. Or, it had been.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    Kibar had said he want-ed to talk with a pret-ty woman. Sobon had rec-og-nized it as flirt-ing, but not put it into con-text, not least be-cause Kibar hadn''t turned out to be any kind of scum. A fool, per-haps, and a fool who Sobon now re-al-ized was ac-tive-ly search-ing for a wife, and who still har-bored some hopes that Alas-si would be it.


    Once again, Sobon found that she tru-ly hat-ed be-ing a flesh and blood thing. What she wouldn''t give to re-place her body with suit-able pros-thet-ics, carv-ing away all of those ugly bits of bi-ol-o-gy that cared so damned much about re-pro-duc-tion and re-plac-ing them with weapons, data-bas-es, gen-er-a-tors, tools. She fought the urge to show her ugly feel-ings on her face, though she couldn''t quite stop the stress and tense-ness from reach-ing her fea-tures.


    "And you, sir Kibar," she added, as new feel-ings rolled through her, "I do not be-lieve that you will ever un-der-stand me, but even if you could, I would be un-in-ter-est-ed in try-ing. I have work to do, and I do not be-lieve you will ever be a part of it."


    The fi-nal-i-ty of her words did strike some-thing in Kibar, and al-though she soft-ened her exit with "Thank you" and some oth-er mol-li-fy-ing words, byt he time Sobon walked out of the man''s room, she could tell that he had tak-en the com-plete re-jec-tion for what it was.


    When Sobon re-turned home, she was in no mood to an-swer Mian''s ques-tions, al-though she re-tained enough good na-ture to apol-o-gize and sched-ule a bet-ter time. Mian, too, fac-tored into things; Sobon stud-ied the man, who was still smit-ten by Alas-si, but he also seemed like he was will-ing to move on and look for an-oth-er woman, not in-ter-est-ed in Sobon and will-ing to ad-mit that Alas-si her-self was all but gone.


    In-stead of en-gag-ing with those thoughts di-rect-ly, Sobon spent the rest of the day and night in her hid-den base-ment, as-sem-bling the spir-i-tu-al sen-sors, form-ing di-a-mond an-ten-nas, bis-muth de-tec-tors, and crude brass sup-ports, then as-sem-bling a sec-ond full set with dif-fer-ent an-ten-na tun-ings. At the very least, none of this work re-quired Sobon to ex-per-i-ment; it was fair-ly stan-dard Crestan gear, and she had craft-ed sim-i-lar out of spare parts and garbage on a mis-sion be-fore. With the aether rou-tine data-base pro-vid-ed by the Coro-na mak-ing up for her own lost data-base, she sim-ply had to grind through the math and cre-ate the struc-tures ac-cord-ing-ly.


    Even so, the sun was al-ready ris-ing when Sobon had got-ten to the point where she could be-gin script-ing a dif-fer-en-tial sig-nal ma-trix that con-nect-ed the two de-tec-tors. A DSM Scan-ner was a half-pas-sive sen-sor, mean-ing that it was still de-tectable by the spir-i-tu-al-ly at-tuned, but its aether sig-na-ture was much, much small-er than any ac-tive sen-sor. That wouldn''t like-ly stop the Di-a-mond Lord, or any-one else, from notic-ing that they were be-ing ob-served, but they shouldn''t be able to tell from which di-rec-tion, not as long as Sobon wasn''t us-ing any ac-tive pow-ers to pierce shield-ing.


    The DSM script it-self, though, was com-plex enough that Sobon couldn''t en-grave it in a morn-ing, and she had promised Mian to speak af-ter break-fast. So she set aside the work, join-ing the oth-ers for their meal.


    "You seem up-set," Ki''el said. "You have been ever since you re-turned."


    Sobon just nod-ded. "I am fine. I was... re-mind-ed. That I am not who I used to be, and that I have to deal with the same things every-one else does. In this case... with how peo-ple view women."


    Both Lui and Ki''el flinched in sym-pa-thy at that, al-though Sobon wasn''t ex-pect-ing it of Lui. Then again, from the few con-ver-sa-tions she''d had since Lui had start-ed grow-ing up again, if that was the right way to phrase it, the girl was not as naive as she had been, and had be-gun re-flect-ing on what she''d seen when she was younger. Al-though she seemed too young to re-al-ly un-der-stand what the men at the inn had want-ed or in-tend-ed when they were be-ing crude and crass... per-haps it was right that she was learn-ing while she was young, and not dis-cov-er-ing these things when she was of age, and al-ready in the line of fire. No, put that way, of course that was right.


    If Sobon had her way--his way--he would have equipped both Lui and Ki''el with plas-ma can-nons, just in case, but that wasn''t the way of things on any world. Still, Sobon en-joyed the thought.


    "It was for-tu-nate-ly noth-ing, and noth-ing should come of it," Sobon clar-i-fied af-ter a mo-ment. "But I..." She searched for words, un-sure of ex-act-ly what she want-ed to say. "I would much pre-fer to be a war-rior with-out sex or gen-der. That is who I was, be-fore, and it''s still who I am in-side. I have no in-ter-est in nav-i-gat-ing peo-ple''s ex-pec-ta-tions, and their in-ter-est gains me noth-ing. It is noth-ing but an ir-ri-tat-ing dis-trac-tion."


    Ki''el nod-ded firm-ly at that, al-though Lui seemed like she didn''t quite agree. Mian, per-haps not hav-ing en-coun-tered these thoughts be-fore, was look-ing be-tween the three of them as though try-ing to get a read on the sub-text that he was miss-ing.


    Ki''el spoke up af-ter a mo-ment of si-lence. "I do not think that it is wrong to be a woman, and I do not think that I will mind be-ing a moth-er some day, but I in-tend to live my life as a sword. Un-til I find some-one I... ac-cept," she added some sub-text to that word that Sobon didn''t feel any need or de-sire to un-tan-gle, "I would not wish for any-one else to pre-tend to be-ing close with me. These things that the Djang call beau-ty are shack-les, and I will nev-er ac-cept them.


    Lui seemed un-com-fort-able, and Mian more-so, but Sobon just nod-ded. "There will be those who do not un-der-stand, but there is no need to con-cern your-self with that, not un-til and un-less they in-tend vi-o-lence. Just be aware that those peo-ple do ex-ist, and you may need to fight or flee in or-der to sur-vive."


    Ki''el nod-ded at that, and Mian stepped into the qui-et. "Ki''el... I agree that no one should force you to be any-thing you are not. But I don''t see beau-ty as a shack-le."


    Lui nod-ded em-phat-i-cal-ly at that. "It''s not!" She protest-ed. "Beau-ti-ful peo-ple are... beau-ty is..."


    Sobon wait-ed to see what she had to say, but when she seemed not to find a way for-ward, Sobon spoke up. "My peo-ple would say it is a mat-ter of [gen-der]," she said, trans-mit-ting the word''s in-tent when she felt like the lo-cal lan-guage didn''t quite con-vey it. "Gen-der is a spir-i-tu-al qual-i-ty that isn''t sim-ply about your flesh. Peo-ple''s souls res-onate with peo-ple of sim-i-lar minds, and re-ject those who are in-com-pat-i-ble, and gen-der is a foun-da-tion of that, some-thing prim-i-tive and in-her-ent. If some-one asked me, or Ki''el, to be-come ''women'' in the sense of be-ing... beau-ti-ful, sub-mis-sive peo-ple, like many we''ve seen in this city, it would be no dif-fer-ent than ask-ing the same of Mian, or Lord Shi-da, or Tuli. They would be ask-ing us to res-onate with in-com-pat-i-ble peo-ple and in-com-pat-i-ble ideals."


    "But at the same time," Sobon spoke up as both Mian and Lui seemed like they want-ed to protest, "we can''t ask you not ac-cept beau-ty, be-cause the beau-ty you see draws you to-wards peo-ple like you. If we asked you to re-ject what you felt and what you want-ed, to be-come like us, you would find few peo-ple ''here'' that are like you. You would only find peo-ple like ''us''." She nod-ded at Ki''el, who was watch-ing her with a rapt look on her face.


    "I don''t think beau-ty is an in-com-pat-i-ble ide-al with be-ing a pow-er-ful war-rior," Mian protest-ed. "I be-lieve that a pow-er-ful woman can look how-ev-er she likes. There is no rea-son why pow-er and sex can-not go hand in hand."


    Lui, for her part, was con-flict-ed, and mum-bling some-thing about ''beau-ty'' and ''spir-i-tu-al'' as she tried to wrap her mind around the com-plex-i-ties of what Sobon had said.


    Sobon just shook her head. "Mian, and Lui, and Ki''el... I can tell you for cer-tain that we could spend weeks or years try-ing to find the ex-act words to ex-plain how we feel. The truth is that there is a truth. It is not writ-ten in stone; our feel-ings are im-per-fect, and they can change. But my per-son-al feel-ings are that my gen-der, and my sex, should not mat-ter ex-cept if and when I choose for them to mat-ter. But the peo-ple who dress their daugh-ters up and have them stand for hours in their shops to at-tract cus-tomers are say-ing that those girls'' gen-der and sex al-ways mat-ters. That they should al-ways be aware of their sex, and should al-ways be act-ing in a way that is de-ter-mined by their sex. That is what is of-fen-sive."


    "If some-day, I em-brac-ing be-ing a woman--and I have some doubt that I ever will--but if I do, it will be no one else''s con-cern. And if I am re-born a man, next time, I will be of-fend-ed if peo-ple tell me that my be-ing a man mat-ters, just as I''m of-fend-ed when peo-ple tell me be-ing a woman mat-ters. I am nei-ther man nor woman." Sobon put down the dish with the last of her break-fast. "I am only Sobon."


    The oth-er three con-sid-ered those words, with Ki''el be-ing the least per-turbed of the three. But Sobon, see-ing that Mian was thor-ough-ly dis-tract-ed, de-cid-ed to just go back to her base-ment work-shop. The whole con-ver-sa-tion was ir-ri-tat-ing; nec-es-sary, but ir-ri-tat-ing. Most-ly, it just re-mind-ed Sobon that there was an-oth-er whole world out there, one full of peo-ple and lives that she had nev-er ex-pe-ri-enced. It wasn''t as though she didn''t want--and hadn''t want-ed, past tense--more friends, who lived in-ter-est-ing lives filled with col-ors, and gen-ders, and oth-er in-ter-est-ing things. And for all she knew, if she ever had a chance to ex-plore the world, if things were at peace and she wasn''t tasked with dis-man-tling a world-end-ing dis-as-ter, she might fall in love or... or oth-er-wise, be-come some-thing she def-i-nite-ly isn''t right now, and has nev-er been.


    But she''d be damned if she was go-ing to let some-one ma-nip-u-late her into some bull-shit, and that was all she was ex-pect-ing from this world. Even on Crest, when she looked at her peers she saw re-la-tions that start-ed on ac-ci-dent and end-ed in tears. She wasn''t go-ing to get tan-gled up, not now, and maybe not ever. She just couldn''t af-ford to.

 40. Alassi - Education, Part 5: Mofu Gin

    Af-ter all of that, of course Sobon wasn''t go-ing to ig-nore her promise to Mian. He, and Ki''el, wait-ed pa-tient-ly for her to be-gin un-til af-ter Lui had left in the house court-yard. Ul-ti-mate-ly, Sobon start-ed with the easy ques-tion.


    "How do you use your in-ter-nal qi? With a vi-su-al-iza-tion, an in-stinct, a feel-ing?" She stud-ied Mian, who closed his eyes and con-sid-ered the ques-tion.


    "Mm. An in-stinct might be a way to phrase it." Mian cocked his head. "I know I heard peo-ple talk-ing, when I was younger, about uti-liz-ing qi with your ''heart'' and your ''guts''. And I''ve lis-tened to peo-ple talk-ing about cir-cu-lat-ing your qi, and done those sort of ex-er-cis-es, let-ting it cir-cu-late through my body. Af-ter what you said the oth-er day, that my qi wasn''t reach-ing all the way to my hands... I sup-pose that was part of it. But the thing that is most con-nect-ed to me isn''t my hands, it''s my heart. I''m not sure how to move from one to the oth-er."


    Sobon nod-ded. "My spe-cial-i-ty was al-ways with... what you would call en-grav-ing, or aether tools, and I''m not the best at ex-plain-ing per-son-al aether. But we were taught that there are gen-er-al-ly nine cat-e-gories of per-son-al aether users, bro-ken down by where their cen-ter is. Those types are the mind, the sens-es, the voice, the heart or lungs, the stom-ach, the hands, the feet, the skin, and the mus-cles."


    "War-riors who are cen-tered on the heart cir-cu-late pow-er through their en-tire bod-ies, but it''s dif-fi-cult to use ex-ter-nal qi. They ex-pect all parts of their body and spir-it to syn-chro-nize dur-ing a fight. As long as your ex-ter-nal qi can also syn-chro-nize, there should be no prob-lem. Tools that match your spir-it, for ex-am-ple, or at-tacks and de-fens-es that you can put your en-tire spir-it be-hind. You are very dif-fer-ent from Lui, who I think would be Hand or Sens-es-cen-tered, or me, who is Mind-cen-tered."


    Ki''el was frown-ing, and Sobon looked at her. "If you can''t tell what your cen-ter is, Ki''el, it''s prob-a-bly skin or mus-cles, be-cause most of the rest are fair-ly ob-vi-ous. Giv-en what you''ve said about want-i-ng things to be pure, I would imag-ine that you are a skin-cen-tric war-rior. That means that you want to draw a sharp line be-tween your own aether and the world''s; any-thing that might in-trude feels dirty and in-va-sive. Mus-cle-cen-tered war-riors are gen-er-al-ly not as... calm as you are. And most of the rest would be able to place their cen-ter some-where."


    "Skin..." Ki''el mused, qui-et-ly. "It feels like an... ad-e-quate de-scrip-tion." She re-fo-cused her eyes on Sobon. "It al-most feels like it should be an in-sult, to say that I am fo-cused on my skin. For much of my life, my skin has not been any part of my think-ing. And yet, the way you de-scribe it is too fa-mil-iar."


    "Not fo-cused. Like I said last time, your en-tire spir-it is alive, and that in-cludes your skin, and bones, and in-ter-nal or-gans. Those parts of your spir-it con-tribute to your whole; your skin has its own na-ture sep-a-rate from all oth-er parts of your body, and that na-ture is in part to sep-a-rate the hos-tile out-er world from the frag-ile in-ner one." Sobon shrugged. "There are also those whose aether is cen-tered in oth-er or-gans, but they gen-er-al-ly are not good for war-riors. But your cen-ter is only the start-ing point; in time, you should adapt your soul to cen-ter it-self in every part of your body at once."


    Mian''s eyes bulged at that idea. "Is that how strong you are? Or were?"


    "I was not a per-son-al aether spe-cial-ist, and I lived with... an ar-ti-fi-cial body. I syn-chro-nized with every part of that ar-ti-fi-cial body, but it did not con-tain liv-ing spir-it. That''s be-side the point, how-ev-er." Sobon took a deep breath. "For you, Mian. When you wish to use ex-ter-nal qi, you can-not fo-cus it in your hands, or any oth-er part of your body. That kind of fo-cus doesn''t work for your heart-cen-tered spir-it, not to start. You can only cir-cu-late it, and vent it. The vent-ed aether should still be con-nect-ed to you, so with that, you can con-nect to your sword, or oth-er aether tools, as long as they have qi chan-nels."


    "Vent it?" Mian sound-ed a lit-tle in-trigued, but cau-tious-ly, as though he wasn''t sure if it was good or bad news.


    "As you might think, it''s not ef-fi-cient, but it is the way you''ll have to start. As a heart-cen-tered war-rior, your whole body wants to be in the same state, so vent-ing aeth--vent-ing qi means re-leas-ing it from your whole body at once." Sobon stud-ied the look on his face. "This is fa-mil-iar to you."


    "...Maybe." But Mian was qui-et, clear-ly think-ing, so Sobon turned to Ki''el.


    "If you re-al-ly are a skin-cen-tral user, it makes sense that you would only want tools that use pu-ri-fied aether. You prob-a-bly won''t en-joy us-ing ex-ter-nal aether, be-cause skin keeps things in, not just out. From what I''ve seen, I think you''ll be able to get over it, if you choose, but stay-ing true to your skin-cen-ter will help you ad-vance. In-stead, keep-ing aether fo-cused with-in your-self and your tools, or fo-cused just on the edges of it--the skin of it--will feel nat-ur-al. Now that you have reached Gold Qi, your next task will be to be-gin at-tun-ing parts of your body to your qi. You will prob-a-bly feel an in-stinct to fo-cus on your skin, flesh, and mus-cles first--and you can prac-tice with those pieces, but the parts of you that need the at-tune-ment most are the ones you feel least con-nect-ed to, not the parts you are al-ready syn-chro-nized with."


    "For you, as with me, it''s fine to use aether from ei-ther your left or right dy--cy-cles for at-tune-ment. Ide-al-ly, you should use the same cy-cles, or only those very close to match-ing, for your en-tire body. You need to gath-er as much pu-ri-fied, at-tuned aether as you can cur-rent-ly han-dle, and not only flush any oth-er aether from a tar-get part of your body, but hold the aether over it un-til it be-comes sat-u-rat-ed. If there is any sort of re-ac-tion, stop. That may be a sign of in-jury or dis-ease, and it will in-ter-fere with the process. In the worst case, try-ing to pro-ceed while sick or in-jured may cause those mu-ta-tions I talked about. As for the quan-ti-ty of aether you can han-dle... trust your cen-ter to know what feels right."


    The two of them con-sid-ered what Sobon said for a long time. While she had been talk-ing, Mian had be-gun to slow-ly vent some of his aether, and Sobon stud-ied him, not-ing that the process of vent-ing was help-ing him cir-cu-late pow-er to his hands and feet. Since he was dis-tract-ed, Sobon went and fetched Mian''s sword, and re-paired the nicks and gash-es in the blade from his spar-ring with Ki''el, and re-con-sid-ered the scripts on the blade.


    She con-tin-ued work-ing on it right up un-til the mo-ment she was dis-tract-ed.


    <hr>


    Lord Mofu Gin could be con-sid-ered an ar-ro-gant man, even by his own stan-dards, al-though he wasn''t the sort to dwell on such things. Late-ly, he had turned his thoughts to his cul-ti-va-tion, as he fi-nal-ly had ob-tained an-oth-er Star-beast core, and was work-ing on in-te-grat-ing it into his left hand, match-ing the one he had in-te-grat-ed into his right hand four years ago. The house of Mofu wasn''t poor, but it was dis-placed; they were not in fa-vor in the Djang courts, and as such, any-thing that took more than mon-ey to pro-cure--such as Star-beast cores, or the kind of mil-i-tary ap-point-ments where they might get their own--was out of their reach. At this rate, it would take him an-oth-er decade, if not more, to have ac-cess to enough Star-beast cores to fin-ish his pro-mo-tion out of the No-ble Met-al phase of Qi, and into the Earth-ly Gem phase--putting him back with-in reach of the el-ders of the neigh-bor-ing clans.


    He had spent months in seclu-sion only to come out and find that his son Suno had gone and ru-ined the en-tire clan''s face by swear-ing on their house''s name, then los-ing a bat-tle to some for-eign witch a full rank be-neath him. Worse, it was wit-nessed by noth-ing less than a City Lord, and even record-ed as such with-in the doc-u-ments of the Em-pire. It had tak-en more fa-vors than the Mofu clan could af-ford to have those records in-ter-cept-ed be-fore they could spread, and now Lord Mofu Gin was be-ing tasked with the un-pleas-ant task of clean-ing up af-ter his son''s fail-ure.


    It was a de-mean-ing task for some-one at Mithril Qi, and so he had brought sev-er-al of his clan''s less-er ex-perts, each at Ti-ta-ni-um Qi. And now here they were, ap-proach-ing the so-called city''s gates, and--by whose fault, he didn''t care--the guards had yet to clear every-one away to let them pass in peace. It would have been a mean-ing-less de-lay, if Mofu Gin weren''t al-ready wrestling with in-te-grat-ing his new core tis-sues, but as it was, the in-sult was just too much for his frayed, sleep-de-prived nerves.


    He pressed on his Mithril Core, and the shod-dy gold-en palan-quin in which he was be-ing car-ried be-gan to melt around the edges, its ta-pes-tries catch-ing fire. The in-fu-ri-at-ing-ly low qual-i-ty of the fam-i-ly''s hired trans-port was only briefly on his mind, be-cause one of the work-ers hired to car-ry the damned thing couldn''t stand his qi and dropped the weight, mak-ing the whole thing be-gin to tip.


    He didn''t let it, of course. He sim-ply shat-tered the car-riage apart, stood up, and stepped down, though he pur-pose-ful-ly stepped over the man who couldn''t han-dle the pres-sure from his spir-it, let-ting that pres-sure com-plete-ly crush him as he walked over.


    There was a mo-ment of shock, when the peas-ants at the gate should re-al-ly have un-der-stood their role in this in-suf-fer-able stage play and bowed po-lite-ly to one side, but they in-stead stared. So he pulsed his qi again, re-veal-ing more of his anger at this sit-u-a-tion, and those who didn''t faint fled from him.


    If there was one thing that he hat-ed about his cul-ti-va-tion, it was that he couldn''t con-tin-ue to rev-el in the short tem-per he''d had as a youth. His in-stincts warred with his mind, now, for con-trol over his qi. A teacher in his youth had called him de-mon-ic, but he had nev-er come into con-tact with any spir-it, or not to his knowl-edge. But he could ac-knowl-edge that what his buried, depth-less rage want-ed was of-ten not what the sit-u-a-tion called for, and if Mofu Gin want-ed to clear the name of his clan, he couldn''t let the city lord es-cape, which meant not be-ing de-layed.


    That in-stinct to stay and slaugh-ter or tor-ture peo-ple for stand-ing in his way was be-neath him, even if it felt like an old friend, a fa-mil-iar com-fort. He had a task, and he could not be side-tracked.


    "With me," was all he chose to say, his qi mak-ing sure that each of his at-ten-dants heard him clear-ly. He moved for-ward with pur-pose, not quite spend-ing enough qi to tele-port for-ward, but step-ping up his mo-tions so that he pushed for-ward like a blade through the gate, and into the city streets. Screams met his ap-pear-ance, but he didn''t care.


    With-in min-utes, he was on the so-called Way of Di-a-mond, which seemed an in-suf-fer-able in-sult, link-ing this back-wa-ter in any way to the Em-pire''s own Di-a-mond Lord. An un-pleas-ant melange of less-er peo-ples were stand-ing on the road, but his eyes were at the city man-sion, a struc-ture that only bare-ly de-served to be called such, where a num-ber of guards had been drawn up, and the City Lord him-self was just ex-it-ing the build-ing, look-ing suit-able cha-grined, or per-haps just alarmed.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "Go," he or-dered, and the four Ti-ta-ni-um Qi guards rushed for-wards. Al-though the City Lord''s guards were pa-thet-ic--no more than Sil-ver Qi apiece--each and every one of them were able to block at least one blow from his war-riors, be-fore col-laps-ing of qi ex-haus-tion, their swords drop-ping to the ground one af-ter the oth-er. One of his guards took de-light in stamp-ing out the last dregs of their life force, while the oth-er three, keep-ing to task, sur-round-ed the city lord, who had the temer-i-ty... no, the hon-or-able in-tegri-ty to re-main stand-ing, fac-ing Lord Mofu Gin with his back straight.


    Mofu Gin let his foot-steps car-ry the full weight of his qi as he walked to-wards the man. It was a trick that his grand-fa-ther had taught him, and one which came nat-u-ral-ly to them; every foot-step was heavy, leav-ing cracks in the pave-ment, but each also re-leased a wave of qi that could be felt for kilo-me-ters, a wave that came with the sub-tle im-pres-sion of a foot-step and noth-ing more. Those that felt his qi wave would know that cer-tain doom had cho-sen a tar-get, but the rest would be left to their small, fevered imag-i-na-tions.


    "You are Shi-da Ken," Lord Mofu said, "sup-pos-ed-ly, the City Lord of Emer-ald Val-ley."


    The man bris-tled, and shiv-ered, but held him-self straight. "I am."


    "You are the one who has slan-dered my son, Mofu Suno."


    "My re-port was ac-cu-rate." There was doubt and ter-ror in his voice, but ir-ri-tat-ing-ly, no sub-servience. No sub-mis-sion.


    Not that that would have saved him from his fate. He had to re-strain him-self from putting the full weight of his qi into his voice, know-ing that the man''s gold-en qi would shred if he did. "You will take me to the for-eign woman who shat-tered my son''s core and then bru-tal-ized him."


    Shi-da Ken glanced in a strange di-rec-tion, then an-oth-er, but nod-ded, and be-gan to move. Mofu Gin only paused to en-sure that there were no hid-den qi pres-ences near-by pow-er-ful enough to threat-en him, then ges-tured to his war-riors to fol-low. His thoughts drift-ed back to Suno''s body-guard--a man who had pre-vi-ous-ly been com-plete-ly loy-al to the fam-i-ly, and whose re-port on the case of Suno''s shat-tered dant-ian had held up re-mark-ably well un-der tor-ture. Even when the fam-i-ly el-der had brought him to the very edge of death, hold-ing him back from dy-ing by the small-est thread, he had sworn that his words were true.


    It was enough to put some doubt in Mofu Gin''s fa?ade. He was ar-ro-gant, and of-ten lost con-trol, but not stu-pid. Prodi-gies ex-ist-ed, and when they were hos-tile, it was best to stamp them out be-fore they could be-come a great blaze. This stu-pid for-eign woman might not--just might not--die to one of his Ti-ta-ni-um war-riors, and if she was a real, true prodi-gy, she might even be able to stop all four of them. But Mofu Gin could tell that no one with-in a hun-dred kilo-me-ters ri-valed his Mithril qi, or even close.


    He only sensed one anom-aly, and as far as he could tell, Shi-da Ken was lead-ing them straight to-wards it. An-oth-er No-ble Met-al Qi source, but low. Ti-ta-ni-um. Had the witch had a backer, who had in-ter-ced-ed on her be-half? But Ti-ta-ni-um Qi was still be-low Suno''s body-guard. The man should have been able to sense such a pres-ence.


    If Mofu Gin hadn''t locked on to that sense of the oth-er qi user, he might have been in-sult-ed when Shi-da Ken took him to-wards one of the less-er quar-ters of the city. It in-censed him, to think that the one who had harmed his son had tru-ly been of less-er sta-tion, but when they turned the last quar-ter and found a small, pa-thet-ic walled town-house as their des-ti-na-tion, there was no more deny-ing it.


    His new left hand itched to be used, but Mofu wasn''t ea-ger to dam-age his new core tis-sues by let-ting his rage-con-trolled qi fil-ter through them. No, he used his good, right hand to pro-duce a tight-ly con-densed ball of qi, filled with ha-tred and the in-tent to de-stroy. Shi-da Ken and his four war-riors all stepped aside as he fin-ished the tech-nique, let-ting it rest com-fort-ably be-tween his fin-gers, then stepped forwards again, let-ting his steps echo across the en-tire Emer-ald Val-ley as he ap-proached the gate.


    In-ter-est-ing bar-ri-er. He ad-mired it as he ap-proached, re-call-ing that Suno''s body-guard had also praised the bar-ri-er around the inn where the witch had been. But stop-ping a brat at Gold Qi was en-tire-ly dif-fer-ent from stop-ping an ac-tu-al tech-nique of the House of Mofu, one en-forced with Mithril Qi at its peak--Mithril Qi on the verge of be-com-ing Gem Qi, chan-neled through Core Tis-sues.


    [ Gold-en Sun Shot ]


    Mofu Gin was in com-plete con-trol of the mar-ble as it left his fin-gers, though he let his con-trol lapse once it was a few feet from him. It was a mas-sive amount of So-lar Qi con-tained with-in a thin shell, de-signed to pierce any foe and ex-plode af-ter a cer-tain dis-tance. Since Mofu Gin could tell that the witch was not in the main build-ing of the house, he had sim-ply set the shot to go all the way into that house be-fore ex-plod-ing, shred-ding the en-tire domi-cile to pieces.


    Mofu Gin was a bit of an ar-ro-gant man, but he en-joyed watch-ing qi at work, learn-ing it, and pre-dict-ing it; it was that ob-ses-sion which had got-ten him as far as he was now. So his eyes were on the mar-ble as it touched the bar-ri-er, ex-pect-ing it to con-tin-ue.


    It made not even the slight-est sense to him when the Gold-en Sun Shot hit the bar-ri-er and bounced back.


    He had good re-flex-es, of course. His qi ex-tend-ed back out, try-ing to re-gain con-trol of the shot, but the shock of be-ing mis-tak-en dis-ori-ent-ed him, and the im-pact of the shot against the bar-ri-er had weak-ened its shell. His qi only met up with the mar-ble in time to de-cide that he couldn''t re-in-force the shell in time to reuse it, and so he shift-ed his qi to de-fense in-stead.


    The Gold-en Sun Shot erupt-ed, blast-ing away the build-ings that they stood be-tween, and slight-ly burn-ing the four war-riors be-hind him. The de-fens-es of all four held, and even that rat Shi-da Ken sur-vived, but all of them were pres-sured just from surviving against the blast, their spirits beginning to fray around the edges.


    It was pe-cu-liar, then, that the tar-get stood in-tact. No, pe-cu-liar was the wrong word, but Mofu Gin was be-yond the reach of words at that point. The walls and gate were far from pris-tine, but they were all in-tact, the house still pro-ject-ing an even, un-yield-ing qi sig-na-ture.


    Mofu Gin, no longer con-scious of his new core tis-sues, gath-ered pow-er into both hands, grit-ting his teeth in range, and all but tele-port-ed for-wards to the gate, slam-ming both hands into it.


    [ Gold-en Sun Dou-ble Palm Strike ]


    In that mo-ment of con-tact with the bar-ri-er, he could sense its pu-ri-ty, and might have been im-pressed. From what he could tell, the strain of the bar-ri-er was be-ing dis-trib-uted through-out the en-tire wall, and the wall was... was some odd ma-te-r-i-al, which could take the strain. Still, the blow seemed to dam-age some-thing, and the bar-ri-er, though it didn''t shat-ter, col-lapsed from with-in. That left only the gate it-self, which Mofu Gin back-hand-ed with his left hand, send-ing it spi-ral-ing into the com-pound.


    With-in, a woman with grey hair tinged with red was lev-i-tat-ing a crys-tal tube above her palm, and Mofu Gin rec-og-nized the qi pat-terns around it as the woman be-ing in the process of in-scrib-ing it, though he couldn''t rec-og-nize the char-ac-ters or in-tent. This woman gave off the un-mis-tak-able qi of a hard-ened war-rior, and she ges-tured with her oth-er hand, build-ing a strange qi pat-tern in midair, which rapid-ly grew in com-plex-i-ty from one sim-ple, per-fect cir-cle to at least two dozen linked pat-terns.


    He moved to crush her, but stopped him-self. It was al-ready em-bar-rass-ing that a Lord like him-self was forced to deal with the bar-ri-er. In-stead, he ges-tured with his right hand, feel-ing an un-fa-mil-iar twinge in his left. "Kill her."


    The four Ti-ta-ni-um War-riors, af-ter a too-long mo-ment of con-fu-sion, all leaped through the ru-ined gate and into what def-i-nite-ly should not have been a pris-tine, if ab-solute-ly hideous and beg-gar-ly court-yard. The four rushed to-wards the woman, but the pat-tern she had been build-ing un-fold-ed into more bar-ri-ers around her.


    Then, she with-drew from some-where a half-dozen crys-tal rods, all of them floating around her with just a touch of qi, all of them buzzing slightly as qi gathered around each seemingly of its own accord. The sight of them shocked Mofu Gin; al-though he knew that crys-tals didn''t in-di-cate the use of Gem Qi, it was un-nerv-ing to see an op-po-nent re-veal them. And these, if he didn''t miss his guess, were quartz--pure and clear, like the low-est of the Transcendent Gem Qi tier, just be-low Di-a-mond it-self. He knew--knew--that she was not any form of Gem Qi user, and yet every-thing she had done de-fied sense.


    All four of his war-riors at-tacked the woman''s bar-ri-ers. She just stared at them with cold eyes, and then, with a flash, poured en-er-gy into those six rods. It wasn''t nec-es-sar-i-ly more en-er-gy than any of the four of them should have been able to han-dle, but it was ridicu-lous-ly pure and heavy, so dense that even a mortal would have felt something watching it flicker through the air.


    In less time than Mofu Gin would have tak-en to kill his own sub-or-di-nates, the six rods fired three times each, and two of his war-riors fell, their flesh melt-ing off of their bones and their charred remains scat-ter-ing across the court-yard.  Fires sprungg up from the holes in the ground left where the beams had com-plete-ly passed through the war-riors, in spite of their shield-ing, and around the edges of those holes, the earth itself sagged, molten.


    But that seemed to have spent her crys-tal rods, be-cause she dis-card-ed them, and Mofu Gin could hear them crack even before they hit the ground.


    "Ki''el," she sim-ply said in-stead, and drew a mas-sive blade out from her space ring, one that looked out of place in her hands; not only was the blade itself too large, but the grip didn''t fit her hands, and she held it as though unfamiliar with its weight. "De-lay one of them." She fo-cused, then dropped the bar-ri-ers that had been pro-tect-ing her.


    From one of the prop-er-ty''s sheds, a thin waif of an Il-lan girl ap-peared, a more el-e-gant blade in her hand, if one that seemed blunt, per-haps for train-ing. But Mofu Gin was drawn in-stead to the war-rior''s blade, which sud-den-ly be-gan emit-ting qi from its blade, qi that felt like death--no, de-struc-tion it-self. His two re-main-ing Ti-ta-ni-um War-riors split them-selves be-tween their op-po-nents, and Mofu Gin knew that this woman was more than a match for at least one of them with this new script-ed weapon.


    He didn''t ex-pect the man to be tak-en out be-fore he could even in-ter-fere, but the man was in shock. It would not have been a rea-son to for-give him, but for-give-ness was no longer rel-e-vant. The woman''s sword had flick-ered back and forth with ab-solute mal-ice, and when even the small-est flaw ap-peared in the man''s shields, she had forced the en-tire blade through the crack, and through the man''s tor-so, all in a sin-gle thrust.


    "You are in-deed a mon-ster," was all Mofu Gin had to say, en-tire-ly writ-ing off his last sub-or-di-nate, who was strug-gling to bat-tle with a child with Gold Qi. "But even if you had your weapon rods, you could not hope to de-feat me."


    "If I''d had more time, it would be triv-ial," the woman said, her voice not filled with con-fi-dence so much as a war-rior''s de-ter-mi-na-tion--the kind that said she would win, whether the fight to come would be easy, hard, or im-pos-si-ble. "But those weapons were not de-signed for some-one like you."


    Mofu Gin re-al-ized what she meant even as the large, hol-low quartz cylin-der sud-den-ly piv-ot-ed to face him. And then, for the first time in his life, Mofu Gin ex-pe-ri-enced some-thing tru-ly ter-ri-fy-ing.


    The woman drew so much pow-er into that cylin-der that none re-mained. The air be-came still, de-void of qi. Nev-er in his life had Mofu Gin been in a qi desert, un-able to sense any-thing, and as far as he knew, it was im-pos-si-ble to draw that much in all at once. All life in in the world, and all stones, and all of the skies, were full of qi.


    As all of that pow-er gath-ered into the hol-low of the crys-tal tube, Mofu Gin could swear that for a mo-ment, he could see through the lack of qi into an-oth-er world, a world that op-er-at-ed in dif-fer-ent ways. When all of the laws of qi were stripped, some-thing re-mained. In that mo-ment when he stood trans-fixed, though, sud-den-ly the woman and her can-non shot for-ward, the can-non mov-ing low to the ground. Mofu Gin, no stranger to pow-er, rec-og-nized idly that she was choos-ing what would be be-hind the man when she al-lowed the weapon to fire.


    But he also rec-og-nized that qi of that quan-ti-ty had weight, and she had moved it pre-cise-ly, ef-fort-less-ly. This woman, this war-rior, had known ex-act-ly how heavy that pow-er would be, and she nei-ther over-shot nor un-der-shot, but moved it ex-act-ly where she want-ed it.


    Even as his own qi formed into a bar-ri-er, and shift-ed into po-si-tion to try to block the strike, he could cal-cu-late that it wasn''t enough, could tell af-ter hav-ing met the woman''s qi bar-ri-ers that this tool of hers was tru-ly di-vine. And it came to mind--not burn-ing, not con-fus-ing, just... there, that her bar-ri-ers and beams had been name-less. She knew that this at-tack, too, the one that end-ed his life and would for-ev-er shat-ter the no-ble House of Mofu, would be name-less.


    [ Di-vine Sun Shield ]


    Mofu Gin died, his re-main-ing en-trails and extremities scat-tered for many kilo-me-ters around, hav-ing nev-er ex-changed names with the war-rior who had com-plete-ly out-classed him. And some-where, the most pow-er-ful be-ing in all of Djang and all of the world, smirked.

 (Not an Update)

    Hey there, it''s Sayu.  Unfortunately I had a day yesterday, so I don''t have the next chapter ready, and I''m not in the headspace to get it finished in reasonable time this morning.  While I could probably force it, it would be both late and lower quality.  My muse, such as it is, is well suited to just sit down and churn things out... but only when I''m in the right mindset.  Right now, I''m tired and have a headache, so I don''t think it''d go well.


    To fill space and as an apology, here are my notes on the Ri''lef species:


    <hr>


    The Ri''lef are a semi-humanoid species with which the Crestan Empire shares no natural borders.  A Founder''s child race, the Ri''lef descend from aquatic mammals.  Like many Founder''s child races, they show unnatural leaps in evolution; their skin has more in common with the skins of fully aquatic mammals than with reptiles or other amphibious species, requiring constant moisture and responding poorly to heat.  Their long torsos and weak spines cause them trouble standing upright for long periods.  Nevertheless, according to their own history, the Ri''lef thrived on their own planet prior to time when the Founders intervened to grant aether access to their society, despite the needs of technological progress.


    The Ri''lef are an old race, and have ascended beyond participating in the Founders'' wargames and established themselves as an independent interstellar society, although they are not able to fully extricate themselves from Founders politics.  They are known to be watchers over several dozen star systems harboring nascent Founders child races, and their military power is audited by the Founders.  They have a native water aether ability, focusing on manipulation with minimal creation, at a Founders'' Scale power rating of .3, a finesse rating of .5, and a domain rating of .85; their domain rating puts them high in the heirarchy of Founders'' Children and is singularly responsible for their ascendance.  Ri''lef military starships use personal aether domain-centric defense systems but technological weapons, and are generally considered formidable in individual battles against ships of similar tonnage, but poor in formation warfare.  They have chosen not to share the Founders'' ratings of their capital-class ships, but the Ri''lef ''Serrated'' class frigate was publicly acknowledged to be rated .7 during a demonstration, among the highest known ratings in that tonnage range.  Serrated-class frigates are known to have a small crew and few creature comforts, with the vast majority of the ship''s tonnage dedicated to weapons and engines.  It is intended for targeted missions and has little capacity to stay on station for long periods of time.


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    The Ri''lef are known to be used directly by the Founders for several functions, especially the deployment and maintenance of Founder aether technology.  The most common vessel used for these functions is the Ri''lef ''Tidal'' class medium Cruiser, or sometimes an adapted civilian version of the same.  Although little is known about this class of cruiser outside of the Ri''lef military, it is known that these cruisers use a main drive technology adapted from Founder technology, and can travel through certain regions generally restricted to Founders ships.  It is assumed by some that this relates to interstellar aether disruptions, the details of which the Founders do not share; the public Founders navigational databases do not differentiate between military-restricted areas and navigational hazards.

 41. Two Sides

    "Lord Shi-da."


    Shi-da Ken had felt for-tu-nate enough to have sur-vived his en-counter with Lord Mofu Gin, and luck-i-er still to have been most-ly be-hind one of his sol-diers when the Gold-en Sun Shot ex-plod-ed, far too close for him to have es-caped with-out in-jury. The man''s aura had soaked most of the dam-age, al-though the in-tense pres-sure wave dam-aged his ears and lungs, leav-ing him with no hear-ing and hard-ly any abil-i-ty to stand up-right. Lord Shi-da was not en-tire-ly fa-mil-iar with the hows or the whys of any of that--but he knew that he was alive, and for-tu-nate.


    What he''d seen and felt from the ground, even just through the gates to Lady Alas-si''s home, was breath-tak-ing. Lady Alas-si''s script-ed weapons were ruth-less, their over-bear-ing den-si-ty and in-ten-si-ty be-yond any-thing he could have con-ceived of or used. Even just bear-ing wit-ness, he could feel him-self flinch at the ab-solute will of de-struc-tion em-bod-ied in the beams of qi that flashed into and through the Ti-ta-ni-um Qi war-riors. Yet Lady Alas-si her-self re-mained poised, cal-cu-lat-ing.


    He had rec-og-nized the blade that she pulled next, of course, as one that had be-longed to her com-pan-ion. But where the oth-er man had wield-ed the sword as a piece of met-al, Lady Alas-si had trans-formed it into a script-ed weapon, one that con-tained that same im-pos-si-ble will of de-struc-tion, but bound to the cut-ting edge of the blade. And when she wield-ed the sword, al-though it was clear-ly not meant for her, an-oth-er war-rior above her sta-tion fell all too quick-ly.


    "Lord Shi-da."


    Even now, though, he was still bare-ly able to see or feel any-thing, af-ter her fi-nal at-tack, one which had tak-en out an El-der of a no-ble house--for by now, Mofu Gin should have been ex-act-ly that--with a sin-gle shot. Shi-da Ken would have nev-er be-lieved it even pos-si-ble--not un-til he felt just how much qi Lady Alas-si was gath-er-ing, or how dense-ly, or how she had so flaw-less-ly trans-formed it into qi of ab-solute de-struc-tion.


    His eyes, his ears, even his arms and legs, still tin-gled with the feel-ing of ab-solute de-struc-tion--and not be-cause the qi it-self still lin-gered. It had passed, but the ex-pe-ri-ence of it lin-gered. Where be-fore, Lady Alas-si had formed qi into un-par-al-leled bar-ri-ers, enough to both de-fend against and cut the flesh of Mofu Suno, who was at mid-Gold Qi, now she was han-dling a man an en-tire phase of qi high-er.


    No one else in the city of Emer-ald Val-ley could have stood against Mofu Gin. If Alas-si had failed, he was pre-pared to be-lieve that the man would have left none alive. It had been his hope that the re-port he had sent to the Em-pire would reach in-ter-est-ed ears be-fore the Mofu fam-i-ly could in-ter-cept it--but it must not have. No one in the Em-pire at Mofu Gin''s lev-el would have moved with-out some as-sur-ance that the High Court of the Djang would turn a blind eye. That was an easy enough as-sur-ance to get--as long as one is not al-ready em-broiled in a scan-dal.


    House Mofu was al-ready out of fa-vor, but they could still move to pro-tect their fam-i-ly hon-or--as long as they had the pow-er to back it up.


    "I know you can hear me, Lord Shi-da." Shi-da Ken felt him-self be-ing lift-ed off the ground. In truth... he had, in-deed, heard and felt Alas-si''s words in his mind, al-though the touch was un-fa-mil-iar. Alas-si''s qi had no skin to be cal-loused or rough, but still, Ken felt that the qi struc-ture that plucked him up from the ground had... how could he say it? It had the same sense as a hand long fa-mil-iar with the sword. It had once been sen-si-tive; it had once flinched. It did not flinch any-more.


    So Ken shook him-self slight-ly, his ears protest-ing at the mo-tion, and some-how, Alas-si flick-ered a bit of qi over him, and his ears healed, and his breath-ing eased. He put off his dis-be-lief that one woman could be so many things, and clasped his hands be-fore him, bow-ing. "I... apol-o-gize, Lady Alas-si. That last blast..."


    "I know. I''ve felt the same, be-fore. The trau-ma pass-es." Lady Alas-si''s face was stern, as she con-sid-ered him. "You have much to deal with, I''m sure, but I am cer-tain that if I don''t ex-plain some things now, you may... mis-un-der-stand."


    Ex-plain? The city lord wasn''t even sure what the Lady thought did or didn''t need to be said, now, so he held his tongue and re-mained bowed.


    "I have spoke of my pa-tron be-fore. I have a mis-sion, and as such, I can-not stay here for-ev-er to keep this city safe."


    The words threat-ened to squeeze Ken''s heart un-til it stopped beat-ing.


    But she con-tin-ued. "But I must keep my peo-ple, the fol-low-ers of Sobon, safe. I would have you ex-plain what I need to do to end this quick-ly. I trust that you un-der-stand."


    Ah. The qi gath-ered around Shi-da Ken''s heart near-ly froze, and it was all he could do to keep it cir-cu-lat-ing, just a bit, so that his chest didn''t ex-plode, and he could con-tin-ue breath-ing. It was dif-fi-cult, and not be-cause of the blast in-jury. "Ah... you mean, the House Mofu."


    "You will need to tell me what my op-tions are."


    How do I give bad news to such a pow-er-ful woman? He fum-bled with his words for a long mo-ment. "Lady... the House of Mofu will not stand for this. Lord Mofu Gin was the heir ap-par-ent to the clan Pa-tri-arch, and al-though there were none in the House of Mofu that were stronger than him, there were three of pow-er sim-i-lar to his, and oth-ers bought or bound to serve the fam-i-ly. The Pa-tri-arch should also be in the Mithril Qi stage, though he was crip-pled and can-not ad-vance fur-ther. Gin''s broth-er and wife should both be at the peak of Dam-as-cus Qi, un-less ei-ther of them has bro-ken through. There are few in his clan high-er than Ti-ta-ni-um, al-though you met Mofu Suno''s body-guard."


    "But Lady Alas-si..." He hes-i-tat-ed. "You spoke to me when we first met of wish-ing to keep se-crets. But the Djang Court will in-ves-ti-gate the de-struc-tion of a no-ble clan. There is no love for the House of Mofu, but they will wish for a re-place-ment, both to rep-re-sent the Djang Court and to sat-is-fy the Court''s need for war-riors. They will... they will doubt-less find you. And you... are not Djang."


    There was an icy si-lence, or else Shi-da Ken, ever in-ter-est-ed in sub-tleties was still too shocked to no-tice some nu-ance--but no, he was sure that Lady Alas-si was ex-act-ly as up-set as he had feared.


    "My Lady--"


    "No." Some-how, her voice was strange, not match-ing the tone that Ken ex-pect-ed, and he risked look-ing up at her. She was cold, yes, but thought-ful, dis-tant. "There are many flaws in my plans, Lord Shi-da, and they are not your fault. But you shouldn''t wor-ry that the Djang Courts will at-tack me or force me to serve. In-stead, you need to wor-ry about the oath you swore--to pro-tect my peo-ple, the fol-low-ers of Sobon. I can walk away from all of this, but they can-not."


    Shi-da Ken''s eyes were torn away from Lady Alas-si, and to the fig-ures in the court-yard be-hind her--where a young, for-eign girl was hold-ing a blade of shin-ing qi to the neck of the last re-main-ing war-rior of Mofu Gin''s ret-inue. Both she and the man seemed to also be shak-ing off the... the trau-ma, of Alas-si''s weapon. Ken had nev-er seen her, al-though the girl had been men-tioned.


    "Yes, Lady." He looked down, ashamed. That much he could do, for now. "And the Djang Courts--"


    "We will have time. But Lord Shi-da, I said that I must ex-plain things." Alas-si seemed to fo-cus, and then some-how, al-though it made no sense to Shi-da Ken at all, he felt...


    He felt his as-ton-ish-ment at her works fade, just a touch.


    "There are forces of fate at play, Lord Shi-da. Forces that would en-tan-gle us, if we let them. Forces greater than the Djang Court, and in-deed, greater than the Djang Em-pire it-self. Forces that have us--have me take too long to get to my mis-sion. I am one placed on this world to defy fate, and as such, I do not need or want you to be noth-ing more than a side char-ac-ter in my sto-ry."


    A side char-ac-ter? Shi-da Ken looked again at Alas-si, and where be-fore, his every analy-sis of the woman was some-thing near-ly su-per-nat-ur-al, some-thing... born of myth, now when he looked at her, he be-gan to see some-thing more real. Some-thing that was still dan-ger-ous, more dan-ger-ous than he would ever be, most like-ly. But hu-man.


    "You can-not help me, and you can-not go where I am go-ing. And I do still need you to ful-fill your oath. How-ev-er, Lord Shi-da, be-ing blind-ed by fate is not good. You have cow-ered here in fear, be-liev-ing in a sys-tem that would stand by and watch you be de-stroyed. There is enough dis-tance be-tween where you are and the great heights in the world; you do not need to add more dis-tance your-self."


    Shi-da Ken stared, un-sure of what he was feel-ing, or why. "How did you--?"


    "One does not defy fate by be-ing ig-no-rant of it, Lord Shi-da." Lady Alas-si shook her head. "You must go and take care of your city. There are greater chal-lenges fac-ing you and your peo-ple than I can pos-si-bly save you from. I must at-tend to my own peo-ple and my own tasks, but--Lord Shi-da--we will speak again. Tonight, or to-mor-row, and many more times un-til I must leave."


    Shi-da Ken had lived for a long time in the world of pol-i-tics--Djang and Ijian, most-ly--be-liev-ing that he had un-der-stood the rules, and that he un-der-stood his place be-neath the great mas-ters of the world. And even now, he sup-posed, he still knew that he would for-ev-er be be-neath the great pow-ers of the world. But some-thing had changed, and if he were to put words to it, he would say that some-thing broke. A hold that some-one, or some-thing, had over him.


    He straight-ened, con-fused, but the peo-ple gath-er-ing be-hind him even now--his ad-vi-sors and guards, he found when he looked--were able to force their way to the fore-front of his at-ten-tion. Al-though the mo-ment of mag-ic that the Blood Witch had cast over him nev-er left, he found he was able to slip into the old pat-terns well enough.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    It was strange, be-ing un-sure of his fate. But no mat-ter what he did, he could not make that cer-tain-ty he had once felt, the cer-tain-ty that told him what his place in the uni-verse was, come back.


    <hr>


    Sobon was an-gry about a lot of things. The fact that the id-iot fa-ther of the man who''d at-tacked them at the inn... well, his in-volve-ment was per-haps in-evitable. Sobon had no il-lu-sions about that.


    The first flash-es of his qi from out-side the city were a wake-up call, be-cause Sobon had no ex-ist-ing weapons to han-dle some-one with that much per-son-al aether. The abil-i-ty to cre-ate those weapons, yes; that took time, and re-sources. She''d or-dered the oth-er two into the base-ment, and man-aged to forge a one-shot aether can-non, and six more ri-fle rods, out of scrap with hard-ly a mo-ment to spare. As ex-pect-ed, even ex-perts had trou-ble deal-ing with true weaponized aether, es-pe-cial-ly at high enough den-si-ties. Math was a dif-fi-cult op-po-nent to beat.


    And then, of all things, the Ri''lef had barged in the mo-ment she had man-aged to se-cure even a mo-ment of safe-ty.


    [ We are mon-i-tor-ing sub-stan-tial mytho-log-i-cal (shear) at your lo-ca-tion. At least one sub-ject near you is near-ing a mytho-log-i-cal fault. ]


    [ A sub-ject near me? You said it be-fore like it hap-pened to me. ] Sobon, still half-blind-ed by the in-ten-si-ty of the can-non shot, let her men-tal pack-ets get slop-py, im-pa-tient. The Ri''lef didn''t seem to care.


    [ Mytho-log-i-cal faults are con-ta-gious. Sub-jects sep-a-rate from con-sen-sus, and can be stuck (above) and (be-low) norms. We don''t have a lot of data on the ini-tial con-di-tions, but we be-lieve that the ini-tial con-di-tion re-quires two faults, one (sink-ing) and one (ris-ing). If the sub-ject (sinks), both you and they will spread the mytho-log-i-cal fault. ]


    [ Give me a ba-sic de-tec-tion schema. It doesn''t have to give me more than a di-rec-tion-al point-er. ]


    There was a pause, and then a re-turn burst trans-mis-sion, which Sobon was able to at-tach to a mote of qi. But even just re-view-ing the pack-et, in which Sobon got a first im-pres-sion of the aether spins in-volved--most heavily involving Superior, or Sacred, aether, of course--she was able to get a gen-er-al bear-ing on the only thing in the neigh-bor-hood that seemed to be re-spond-ing the way the Ri''lef talked about.


    Not the re-main-ing en-e-my. Not Ki''el or Mian. No, it was the City Lord, who was shell-shocked in the shat-tered re-mains of an al-ley-way be-tween two ru-ined build-ings.


    "Lord Shi-da." Sobon start-ed to-wards the man, then stopped. Al-though the in-side of her de-fens-es seemed un-touched, the ground and city near the ex-plo-sion was ru-ined, in-clud-ing a near-by town-house''s own de-fens-es falling, de-spite be-ing much fur-ther away. She looked past the city lord, see-ing ter-ri-fied faces peek-ing in at the dev-as-ta-tion, and then flee-ing as soon as they caught sight of her stand-ing tall in the rub-ble.


    Steel-ing her-self, Sobon stepped out into the rub-ble, us-ing lev-i-ta-tion to pass over the shat-tered ground, which was still hot in places. The ex-plo-sion wasn''t re-al-ly high heat, al-though there were foot-prints lead-ing up to her gate that were sunk into the ground, which were still molten around the edges. Clear-ly, the qi that the man chan-neled had in-tense fire as-pects to it, al-though Sobon couldn''t re-al-ly bring her-self to care, not any more.


    "Lord Shi-da." Sobon stepped to-wards him, but let her-self be dis-tract-ed once more as she felt some-one in a near-by shat-tered build-ing pass away. If Sobon had been able to de-tect them in time... it would still have been a strug-gle even to get to the body, much less heal it. She pulsed her aether, but the few peo-ple in-jured but not dead with-in her range were sta-ble. Even Lord Shi-da him-self, al-though he had rup-tured eardrums and a half-burst lung. At Gold Qi, and with the ad-van-tage of some cov-er, he had sur-vived.


    Be-hind her, she heard swords clash, and turned to find Ki''el sav-age-ly at-tack-ing the last of the at-tack-ers, who was far less re-cov-ered from the blast. Ki''el''s dy-namos were hum-ming, and Sobon knew her aether was al-ready purged from the flash. It had been a risk, us-ing the can-non that close to un-shield-ed peo-ple; she sus-pect-ed Mian had been watch-ing, and was much more shocked by it than Ki''el was, since he had no way to pu-ri-fy his aether. Or, no good way. Per-haps his heart-cen-tered in-ter-nal qi would clear it on its own.


    Sobon had no doubt the girl could pin down the last man, and turned back once more to the City Lord, who had yet to move. Of course, with burst eardrums, that was no great sur-prise. Even a war-rior that knew that their prob-lem was due to that spe-cif-ic in-jury would take some ef-fort to neu-tral-ize the dam-age. So Sobon spun up heal-ing pat-terns as well as telekine-sis, and picked the man up as she tend-ed to his ears and lungs.


    "I know you can hear me, Lord Shi-da." As she healed him, she could sense that twist in the qi that the Ri''lef were talk-ing about grow-ing. Al-though she lacked any un-der-stand-ing of the aether dy-nam-ics in-volved... she stud-ied the man as he forced him-self to stay on his feet. He looked... bro-ken.


    "I... apol-o-gize, Lady Alas-si. That last blast..."


    "I know. I''ve felt the same, be-fore. The trau-ma pass-es." What did she even say to try to deal with the man''s shat-tered... what, emo-tion-al state? Mytho-log-i-cal aether-body? [ If you have any kind of pat-tern for ap-ply-ing first aid to pre-vent this... fault state, now would be the time, ] she sent back to the Ri''lef. Then, out loud, "You have much to deal with, I''m sure, but I am cer-tain that if I don''t ex-plain some things now, you may... mis-un-der-stand. I have spoke of my pa-tron be-fore. I have a mis-sion, and as such, I can-not stay here for-ev-er to keep this city safe."


    That was the wrong way to ap-proach the top-ic, and she got a re-ply ping from the en-gi-neer--a sum-ma-ry of a sum-ma-ry, stat-ing that the mytho-log-i-cal shear was some-thing like a pres-sure dif-fer-en-tial. You had to equal-ize that pres-sure, in or-der to pre-vent a break, but pro-vid-ing no tech-ni-cal de-tails.


    Sobon found her-self bal-anc-ing act-ing on that in-ter-pre-ta-tion, while also try-ing to men-tal-ly re-view the myth-shear de-tec-tion script to fig-ure out how she could pos-si-bly act on the aether it-self. Equalize the myth, by giving him something to do. Fortunately, she already had need of him. "But I must keep my peo-ple, the fol-low-ers of Sobon, safe. I would have you ex-plain what I need to do to end this quick-ly. I trust that you un-der-stand."


    Lord Shi-da''s sens-es came back to him, just a lit-tle, when Sobon gave him some-thing to fo-cus on, al-though it didn''t seem enough. "Ah... you mean, the House Mofu."


    "You will need to tell me what my op-tions are." Stay fo-cused on a task. Sobon al-most put that thought into an aether wave to com-pel the man, but kept her fin-ger off that par-tic-u-lar trig-ger. With the man in such a mess, that might only make things worse.


    The man bab-bled for a mo-ment about use-less de-tails--how strong the oth-ers in House Mofu were--be-fore hes-i-tat-ing to say more. Af-ter only a mo-ment''s in-de-ci-sion, though, he spoke. "But Lady Alas-si... You spoke to me when we first met of wish-ing to keep se-crets. But the Djang Court will in-ves-ti-gate the de-struc-tion of a no-ble clan. There is no love for the House of Mofu, but they will wish for a re-place-ment, both to rep-re-sent the Djang Court and to sat-is-fy the Court''s need for war-riors. They will... they will doubt-less find you. And you... are not Djang."


    Damnit. Sobon paused her ef-forts to men-tal-ly white-board a... myth-pres-sure-equal-ize-thing. It was ugly, un-cer-tain script, and she wasn''t hap-py with it, but she was far less hap-py to hear that all of her plans to pro-tect her found fam-i-ly were go-ing to be shat-tered. Be-ing forced to re-veal her-self was one thing--she had some hopes that the oth-ers could slip un-der the radar as long as it was just about a con-flict be-tween pow-ers.


    But this was fast be-com-ing a mat-ter of Im-pe-r-i-al Pol-i-tics, and there were no clean an-swers in that.


    As though fear-ing that this was his fault, or that she was up-set at him, Lord Shi-da be-gan to stam-mer out an apol-o-gy, or an ex-cuse, or some-thing.


    "No." She met his eyes, sur-prised that the man was able to meet hers in spite of his shock. In truth, she was fast com-ing to the re-al-iza-tion that this... this life-time, this ex-er-cise, might be com-ing to a close, and with her nowhere near close to a so-lu-tion to her prob-lems, or even prop-er in-tel-li-gence on what was go-ing on. The last thing she need-ed, now, was any of-fi-cial in-ves-ti-ga-tion into her, or any-one try-ing to tie her down or bind her to ser-vice, which meant dis-ap-pear-ing and hope-ful-ly switch-ing bod-ies, whether that meant sav-ing Alas-si''s life or sac-ri-fic-ing it. "There are many flaws in my plans, Lord Shi-da, and they are not your fault. But you shouldn''t wor-ry that the Djang Courts will at-tack me or force me to serve. In-stead, you need to wor-ry about the oath you swore--to pro-tect my peo-ple, the fol-low-ers of Sobon. I can walk away from all of this, but they can-not."


    Shi-da, as Sobon had come to ex-pect from the spine-less man, im-me-di-ate-ly ca-pit-u-lat-ed, and Sobon thought he was slip-ping back clos-er to the... fault state, or wh-taev-er. "Yes, Lady. And the Djang Courts--"


    If I can''t get him on my side, the oth-ers will have no sanc-tu-ary. This is an ugly, ter-ri-ble gam-ble.


    "We will have time. But Lord Shi-da, I said that I must ex-plain things." Alas-si dou-ble checked her aether white-board, then arranged an aether pat-tern to re-duce the pres-sure of the myth qi on the man. It... it worked a bit too well, or else she tru-ly didn''t un-der-stand the dy-nam-ics. Some-thing trans-ferred from her to him, what should have been just an in-signif-i-cant speck of fate-as-pect aether, but it bal-looned in-side the man''s spir-it, com-plete-ly al-ter-ing all of his pat-terns. Sobon could sense, with hard-ly any ef-fort, that every-thing in-side of him was thrown into con-fu-sion.


    She blinked, but oth-er-wise suc-cess-ful-ly held a mask over her face. Al-though she wasn''t sure what had hap-pened, she had to at least pre-tend at be-ing in con-trol, so she threw to-geth-er what she con-sid-ered a lame ex-cuse. "There are forces of fate at play, Lord Shi-da. Forces that would en-tan-gle us, if we let them. Forces greater than the Djang Court, and in-deed, greater than the Djang Em-pire it-self. Forces that have us--have me take too long to get to my mis-sion. I am one placed on this world to defy fate, and as such, I do not need or want you to be noth-ing more than a side char-ac-ter in my sto-ry."


    The look on his face said he didn''t un-der-stand what she was say-ing, or worse, he mis-un-der-stood. Sobon with-held a sigh, re-mind-ing her-self that she was a ma-rine, not a spy or politi-cian, and con-tin-ued try-ing lame-ly to ex-plain. "You can-not help me, and you can-not go where I am go-ing. And I do still need you to ful-fill your oath. How-ev-er, Lord Shi-da, be-ing... blind-ed by fate is not good. You have cow-ered here in fear, be-liev-ing in a sys-tem that would stand by and watch you be de-stroyed. There is enough dis-tance be-tween where you are and the great heights in the world; you do not need to add more dis-tance your-self." By the end of her speech, she was get-ting an-gry again. At him, and the world that cre-at-ed him. Why and how had he just al-lowed this to hap-pen? Why had the em-pire? Sure-ly, the sys-tem had to be func-tion-al for some-one, but she was miss-ing an-swers that made it make sense.


    Sobon was dis-tract-ed as sev-er-al peo-ple burst into the oth-er end of the al-ley-way, show-ing clear re-lief when they saw the City Lord. But Shi-da Ken, still in shock, just stared at her. "How did you--?"


    Of course I can''t an-swer the ''how'' ques-tion, you id-iot. Just stay fo-cused on your own prob-lems. Sobon just shook her head. "One does not defy fate by be-ing ig-no-rant of it, Lord Shi-da." She paused, then nod-ded to the Lord''s peo-ple, who took it as per-mis-sion to ap-proach. "You must go and take care of your city. There are greater chal-lenges fac-ing you and your peo-ple than I can pos-si-bly save you from. I must at-tend to my own peo-ple and my own tasks, but--Lord Shi-da--we will speak again. Tonight, or to-mor-row, and many more times un-til I must leave."


    She turned away, curs-ing her-self. What a mess. Then, to the Ri''lef, she sent the aether rou-tine she had used, and a brusque sum-ma-ry of its ef-fects.


    [ You have some flaws in your un-der-stand-ing, but it isn''t a bad first ef-fort. Fate aethers are too tied to-geth-er, so the amount you tried to use is de-cep-tive. Most like-ly, fate will try to make him an-oth-er ma-jor ac-tor, but even fate as-pect aether can only do so much. We will mon-i-tor it for now. ]


    What a mess.

 42. Alassi - Rejoinder, Part 1

    "And then there''s you." Sobon turned back to face the last re-main-ing at-tack-er. Ki''el had a wild look in her eyes, al-though she stayed cool; Sobon could ad-mit that af-ter all of this, she was also sick of House Mofu and all of its ilk. It wouldn''t take much--re-al-ly, any-thing--to kill the man, not with Ki''el there to re-strain him un-til Sobon could form an-oth-er ri-fle rod or a sim-i-lar com-bat pat-tern.


    Old in-stincts, though, re-strained him. It wasn''t be-cause Sobon had been a cy-borg; it was be-cause he had spent years try-ing to reach the spir-i-tu-al de-tach-ment nec-es-sary. He had fought, and lost friends, and hat-ed, but if that ha-tred had soaked into his bones and into his heart, he would nev-er have been able to sep-a-rate those heart and bones. His old teacher came to mind, the seem-ing-ly age-less woman as-sess-ing him with cold eyes.


    Are you a war-rior, or a jilt-ed lover? A spurned friend? You think this is un-fair? Get over your-self.


    So Sobon just took a breath, not even a deep one, and let it the in-tense, bind-ing parts of the ha-tred blow away, leav-ing just the ugly warmth of anger, which she held dis-tant, where she could re-move it lat-er. Al-though she tried to dis-tract her mind with thoughts of aether spins and fates, and was even most-ly suc-cess-ful, it was dif-fi-cult to look at the en-e-my be-fore her and not just want to kill him.


    Be-cause it was un-fair, every-thing that had hap-pened--de-lib-er-ate-ly un-fair, with the in-tent of break-ing the wills of healthy peo-ple, and killing Sobon and his... her peo-ple to prove that their house meant busi-ness. Even so, Sobon couldn''t af-ford to war with the en-tire coun-try. She had to pick her bat-tles, and while killing him would be ex-pe-di-ent, it would be a waste of a tool, even if she wasn''t quite sure what she would use him for, ex-cept per-haps bait.


    So Sobon strode up to the man, who re-turned her look of ha-tred. A part of Sobon tried to an-a-lyze that face ob-jec-tive-ly, de-cid-ing that hate made the man look dull-eyed and stu-pid. Was he ex-pect-ing Sobon to hate him back? Be over-come with rage? Be just like him? That was tempt-ing, but it was how peo-ple fell, and she knew that.


    "Tell me," she said, as she stared into the war-rior''s eyes. "What are you to House Mofu?"


    The man sneered with de-fi-ance, al-though some-thing about his face shift-ed at Sobon''s voice, or ques-tion. "I am third son of the Mofu Kai Branch fam-i-ly, Mofu Kai Shin, and I will watch you from hell with plea-sure when the Clan Pa-tri-arch comes to shat-ter your soul and grind your bones into soil. Va-pid, for-eign witch, you and your whore chil-dren--"


    Sobon would like to say that she felt noth-ing, or that it was pure-ly from Alas-si''s body, but when she fo-cused her aether into a nee-dle and stabbed the man in a bit of at-tuned flesh near his heart, caus-ing him to stop speak-ing and scream, she had to ad-mit it felt good. It was the wrong kind of good feel-ing--prob-a-bly In-verse Aether, which the Ri''lef called Cor-rupt. The word cer-tain-ly fit; it liked to dri-ve it-self deep into peo-ple and twist. So Sobon took an-oth-er breath, ad-just-ing her body spir-it to com-pen-sate, push-ing back the pres-sure.


    That kind of ha-tred was just an-oth-er en-e-my weapon, and she knew how to re-sist it.


    "I know you think I''m no bet-ter," she said. "That I''ll be bro-ken by ha-tred as long as you twist the knife enough. And you def-i-nite-ly de-serve death for what your... clan el-der, or what-ev-er, did. Mofu Gin, was it?"


    The man, in-censed, pulled free from Ki''el''s blade, al-though she sliced his neck in the process. But Sobon had her dy-namos spun up, and a set of three dif-fer-ent telekine-sis pat-terns sprung into ex-is-tence in time to pick the man up by his head and slam him back-wards into the ground. He thrashed around on the ground, but Sobon held him, pinned, let-ting him strain him-self try-ing to break out of it with force.


    Af-ter three in-creas-ing-ly weary at-tempts to force his way out of Sobon''s tight, un-yield-ing grip, the man''s strug-gles stopped.


    "Are you re-al-ly try-ing to im-press the per-son who killed your boss in a sin-gle shot, with that kind of dis-play?" Sobon let hu-mor fla-vor her voice, in-ward-ly keep-ing a bal-ance be-tween be-ing vig-i-lant to the en-e-my''s move-ments, and loose and calm enough to avoid the in-tense anger that threat-ened to boil up again. She just shook her head. "Per-haps if you tell me what you know about House Mofu, I would be will-ing to keep you alive as bait."


    The man, al-though his face was dis-tort-ed by Sobon''s tele-ki-net-ic grip, sneered. "All you need to know is that you stand no chance. Who-ev-er you bought your toys from, how-ev-er much they cost you, they are all bro-ken now, and your pa-thet-ic hov-el''s de-fens-es are shat-tered. The Pa-tri-arch, when he comes, will lev-el this en-tire city in his fury. Per-haps if you piss your-self, crawl on the ground, and beg, he will--"


    Sobon shift-ed the tele-ki-net-ic pat-tern to lodge a spiky ball in-side the man''s mouth, forc-ing her-self not to do any worse. When she fi-nal-ly looked away, she no-ticed that Mian was fi-nal-ly up and about, if still look-ing like had stared di-rect-ly into the sun un-til he went half-blind.


    So she an-chored the pat-tern and moved over to him. "Mian. I''m sor-ry about the flash."


    He turned to look at her, blink-ing mul-ti-ple times like that would do any-thing to clear his sens-es. "I''ve... nev-er felt any-thing like that. Not even close. I didn''t think I was even sen-si-tive to those kinds of qi im-pres-sions."


    "It hap-pens when the pow-er is in-tense enough. The trau-ma should fade in time, as long as you cy-cle in fresh qi. Pu-ri-fied aether would be bet-ter, but any clear, fresh qi is good for you." She glanced at the gate. "Maybe go see if you can find Lui."


    "Yeah. I imag-ine she and Lady Fau are near-by, now." He shook him-self, and start-ed to move for-ward, but Sobon held out a hand to stop him.


    "Here." She re-turned the man''s large blade to him, now re-paired. "This cir-cle on the back of the hilt--if you vent your qi while press-ing on it, it should force your qi into the blade. Not very strong-ly, be-cause the qi you vent is too dif-fuse. But, it will help."


    Mian had to fo-cus to test it, and Sobon saw his face fall as he saw the stark dif-fer-ence be-tween the blade in his hands and how it had looked and be-haved in Alas-si''s. But he cov-ered it im-me-di-ate-ly, and nod-ded at her. "Thank you. I''ll prac-tice, but... maybe not now."


    "Go." She turned to look at the... at Mofu Kaishin or what-ev-er. Af-ter a mo-ment of con-sid-er-a-tion, she be-gan to form an-oth-er aether pat-tern, this one to turn more sand into quartz. "Just watch him for an-oth-er few min-utes, Ki''el. I''ll put to-geth-er an im-pris-on-ing script set."


    So Ki''el placed her blade back on his neck, and Sobon man-u-fac-tured a set of three--no, six sim-ple quartz cal-trops, then be-gan script-ing them to cre-ate a cylin-der of force be-tween them, one that would stop al-most every-thing but sound, light, and air. A sim-pler ver-sion of the script would have tak-en only mo-ments, but Sobon dragged through her mem-o-ries to cre-ate some-thing much more like stan-dard Crestan re-straint fields, which were ide-al for keep-ing dan-ger-ous peo-ple in-ca-pac-i-tat-ed with min-i-mal en-er-gy use.


    By the time she was done with all six, all it took to com-mand the six points to sur-round and bind the man was a flick-er of her will. The cal-trops hummed qui-et-ly--a re-minder to those out-side the field that they were pro-duc-ing flux waves in-side the con-tain-er, enough to make it al-most im-pos-si-ble to fo-cus. They caused the part of Ki''el''s blade that was still near the man to fuzz out of ex-is-tence.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    Ki''el with-drew the blade with a look of alarm, but the ef-fect van-ished once she got it away from the field.


    "That''s enough. You can rest." Sobon looked at the girl, see-ing signs that she was near-ing the end of her adren-a-line high. "Thank you, Ki''el. I asked a lot of you, even to hold him off."


    The girl nod-ded at that, but when her blade van-ished back into its hilt, she let her-self smirk where the cap-tured man could see it. "Even be-fore he was blind-ed by your at-tack, he wasn''t much. He had strength, but no idea how to use it."


    Sobon tsked at the girl, shak-ing her head. "Don''t gloat. He was also hit by the ex-plo-sion be-fore he got in-side. But... I wouldn''t have asked you to han-dle it if I didn''t be-lieve you could." She ap-praised the girl again. "In time... I think you can be-come tru-ly strong, if that''s what you want."


    Ki''el surged with pride, but also de-flat-ed as her adren-a-line wore out. "Thank you, ...Alas-si." Sobon could tell that she al-most used the wrong name, and caught her-self. "I will keep an eye on the pris-on-er, if you want to go look for Lui."


    "In a mo-ment." Sobon used a tele-ki-net-ic pat-tern to pick up the re-mains of the gate, bend them back more or less into shape, and then place them near the en-trance. Then, she moved over to the aether bar-ri-er sur-round-ing Mofu Kai Shin. The man, one hand on his bleed-ing neck, glared back at her. "One thing, war-rior of House Mofu. You said that Mofu Gin shat-tered the de-fens-es around my house, but you ought to know bet-ter."


    "When my de-struc-tion beams tore through your fel-lows and oblit-er-at-ed Mofu Gin, their shields ex-plod-ed into pieces, be-cause they were over-whelmed. When Mofu Gin over-pow-ered my bar-ri-er, it dis-abled it-self to pre-vent harm. This is only pos-si-ble if the one who cre-at-ed the ar-ray knows ex-act-ly how much it can safe-ly take. Now that the ar-ray has cooled and recharged," Sobon snapped her fin-gers the-atri-cal-ly, as she sent the de-fense ar-ray an aether pulse to re-ac-ti-vate it, caus-ing the fields to re-turn and the gate to snap into the air and cov-er the en-trance, "My home is in no more dan-ger now than it was be-fore."


    That, nat-u-ral-ly, was a bluff, but it served to cut through the man''s in-sane faith that he and his fel-lows would be avenged. Sobon watched him grind his teeth to-geth-er, his jaw mus-cles clench-ing, and the man even tried to slam his fist into the bar-ri-er--then re-coiled strong-ly when the bar-ri-er re-spond-ed to the force with a small aether dis-charge.


    Dis-ci-plined, he is not, Sobon as-sessed bland-ly, then gave Ki''el a smile and nod, and turned to leave the com-pound.


    Out-side, things were nat-u-ral-ly still a mess, with city guard and a few oth-ers try-ing to break or lift pieces of rub-ble. Sobon could eas-i-ly spot Mian, Lui, and the woman who must be Lady Fau Mide, the al-chemist, as Mian was keep-ing sev-er-al in-jured peo-ple or-ga-nized as the Lady tend-ed to them, and Lui as-sist-ed. Also near-by was Lord Shi-da--sur-round-ed, seem-ing-ly against his will, by sev-er-al no-ble-look-ing types, among them Kibar, and the man he''d seen at the City Lord''s man-sion and pre-sumed was from House Xoi. Per-haps be-cause of the com-pa-ny, none of the poor-er folks at the scene were will-ing to get close to the City Lord. Or was Sobon wrong, and the man him-self dis-dained the poor-er folk? He had cer-tain-ly not tak-en him for the type.


    "Ah, our mys-te-ri-ous de-fend-er at last shows her-self." A man, who had only a mo-ment be-fore been glar-ing dag-gers at Lord Shi-da, stepped to-wards her. "I am Xoi Mon, pa-tri-arch of the Emer-ald Val-ley Xoi fam-i-ly. You, I be-live, are the Lady Shi-va Alas-si?"


    Sobon gave Lord Shi-da a dis-pleased glance, but only in pass-ing. "I am."


    Xoi Mon and his ridicu-lous-ly wide, thin mous-tache spread into a seem-ing-ly gen-uine smile that seemed en-tire-ly out of place in such a dis-as-ter. "Oh, don''t blame poor Lord Shi-da. Many peo-ple were in-ter-est-ed in you from the very start. Lady Alas-si--if I may call you such? You are with-out a doubt an anom-aly, but per-haps a wel-come one. I for one would have been quite dis-pleased if our dear City Lord was re-placed by some stooge of House Mofu, to say noth-ing of the dam-ages that might have been done to our own busi-ness-es."


    Your busi-ness-es and in-ter-ests, and not a word about in-no-cents. Sobon gave the man a flat look that she doubt-ed con-veyed any-thing to him, then stepped past. "Lord Shi-da. What are the dam-ages?"


    "I doubt we''ve found all the dead yet," he said, tired-ly. "though we''ve found a dozen al-ready. The best of my guard are all ei-ther dead, or en-tire-ly qi de-prived--how-ev-er, your swords did work as ad-ver-tised. I don''t be-lieve any of the blades was so much as nicked, de-spite be-ing wield-ed by those of Sil-ver Qi against those of Ti-ta-ni-um."


    "What?" A voice from a ways away turned out to be... ac-tu-al-ly, Sobon didn''t know his name. The in-scrip-tion-ist whose shop she''d vis-it-ed be-fore, who''d been a bit bog-gled with the idea of just mak-ing swords with qi chan-nels and vents. "This... woman dares make and sell swords in my city? And af-ter hav-ing the gall to come in and study my de-signs?"


    Is he... sug-gest-ing that I stole his de-signs? Sobon blinked at the man, find-ing the con-cept al-most ab-surd enough to laugh at.


    "Her weapons are... not com-pa-ra-ble to your own, Lord Pan," Lord Shi-da said, try-ing to fill his words with a pa-tron-iz-ing calm.


    "Of course not," the man said, straight-en-ing like he''d just been paid a com-pli-ment. "Any of my de-signs would out-class some-thing a woman could do. I''d stake my name on it."


    A cold set-tled over those peo-ple near-by who, un-like this man, had ac-tu-al-ly been pay-ing at-ten-tion. Sobon could feel eyes flick-ing be-tween her and Lord Pan, won-der-ing just how she was go-ing to re-solve this.


    "You stand be-hind your weapon de-signs, then? You''d con-sent to, say, a friend-ly duel, each of us with a weapon of our own de-sign?" Sobon had no heat in her voice, though she heard in it a very dry amuse-ment.


    "Of... of course!" The man nod-ded, try-ing to keep a sales-man''s look on his face, still ob-vi-ous-ly un-aware who he was speak-ing to.


    "You with your best sword, and me with, say, the weapon that I de-signed just this morn-ing." She paused, then just as the man would have replied, added, "The one that killed Lord Mofu Gin, at the peak of Mithril Qi, in a sin-gle blow."


    The rip-ple of amuse-ment--mixed with shock and as-ton-ish-ment--that spread through every-one else in the crowd was mild-ly cathar-tic, eas-ing Sobon''s stress, but she let that, too, pass her by. There are nice emo-tions that come with flesh, some-times, she re-flect-ed. But they''re too bind-ing, re-stric-tive. I''d rather be work-ing right now. Fix-ing some-thing, de-sign-ing some-thing, build-ing some-thing.


    [ Just en-joy this, you''ve earned it, ] Alas-si tried to urge, but Sobon ig-nored her.


    "Any-time you''d like to test your weapons against that, by all means let me know. Un-til then, I have oth-er busi-ness." She let her eyes pass to Lord Shi-da, then Kibar, then Lord Xoi. "Lord Shi-da. We will still need to talk some-time when you are free, but per-haps not now. I will need to pre-pare to face what re-mains of House Mofu, if there is ever to be peace for every-one else."


    Sobon was just start-ing to turn away when Lord Xoi spoke up. "You''re that con-fi-dent? You say you took out Lord Mofu Gin with a sin-gle blow, but he was also weak-ened, was he not?"


    "Lord Xoi." Sobon half-turned and gave the man a glare. "I will ask you to re-call that I said I de-signed that weapon this morn-ing. De-signed. If a week ago, Lord Mofu Gin had all of his arms and legs ripped off, but to-day he was here to kill you, could you de-sign, con-struct, fuel, and wield a weapon ca-pa-ble of killing him in the space of even one full day?"


    Al-though Sobon couldn''t have said why, her words seemed to ac-tu-al-ly tear at the aether. She paused, run-ning the Ri''lef pat-tern to de-tect myth shear--but no, what-ev-er vi-o-lence she had done to the peo-ple lis-ten-ing, it wasn''t that spe-cif-ic sort of ef-fect.


    When fi-nal-ly he spoke, Lord Xoi''s voice was de-feat-ed, with no sign of the crisp amuse-ment he''d had be-fore. "Ah... no, Lady Alas-si."


    "Then trust me when I say that if giv-en more than a morn-ing to pre-pare, I am a match for sev-er-al peo-ple of Lord Mofu Gin''s stature."


    "Yes, Lady Alas-si."


    Be-fore Sobon could turn away again, this time Kibar spoke up. "Lady Alas-si...?"


    She sighed, and turned back to him. "What, Lord Kibar?"


    Her choice of phrase there seemed to con-fuse or up-set oth-ers. Con-sid-er-ing that she knew Kibar lived in a slum, she could un-der-stand that--but giv-en how the oth-er Lords were be-hav-ing, she saw no rea-son not to raise him up to at least their lev-el.


    "What should a man do, if he want-ed ...just per-haps, to be put to use, and not be sim-ply an-oth-er piece of crys-tal buried in this... small jew-el of a city?" The man seemed to be pick-ing his words, if not quite ex-pert-ly.


    She gave him a side-eye, con-sid-er-ing, but in the end, just shook her head. "Right now, I have much to do, Lord Kibar. If I find an an-swer to your ques-tion, I''ll be sure to bring it to you."


    She glanced away, catch-ing Lui and Mian look-ing at her, and even Lady Fau, whose mouth was turned into a smirk, even as the rest of her face had the grim set of a doc-tor in a war-zone. Sobon nod-ded to them, but turned away.


    Much to do, and less time than she had been hop-ing to do it.

 43. Alassi - Rejoinder, Part 2

    For Sobon, the real upcoming problem was her lack of time. As such, although it would overstress her body, Sobon decided to move on to attuning her body to Outward Spin aether. The first step in that was creating a number of matched Outward-spin dynamos, by creating a number of matched Left and Right dynamos. Once the attunement process began, Sobon could multitask--but creating precisely matched dynamos required her entire concentration. In general, the process of creating a dynamo, even the simplest, was one that should take her entire concentration, because she had to monitor to prevent any stray intent from being copied into the core--but doing that, while creating threads of perfectly matching length and width, and rings of perfectly matching size and spin, took effort.


    More hours than Sobon was happy with flew by, with Sobon secluded in her room. Sobon found herself frustratingly unable to distance herself from anger and hate for the first couple, and found herself resenting flesh again and again, to the point where Alassi''s soul began to tune her out. Sobon knew that the anger was real, and legitimate--but it was also tainted. For complex reasons, hate tied one person to another with aether, and Sobon dared not let that seep into the aether she would use to attune herself.


    But Sobon knew aether well enough, and was able with time to create a pocket free from all intent and connection, and forged that into threads, and that into dynamos. Although day became night and morning again, Sobon ended up with three perfectly matched, and perfectly pure, dynamos to show for it. It was very tempting to press for a fourth--matching an existing dyanmo was harder once you stepped away from creating it in the first place--but Sobon could sense that others were waiting for her.


    When she finally came out into the courtyard, she found Lord Shida sitting on a chair that he had clearly brought with him, taking tea with an embarrassed looking Lui, as Ki''el and Mian practiced fighting in the space beyond. Two of the City Lord''s guards were posted by the gate, and another two outside, from what she could sense.


    "Lady Alassi." The Lord set down his teacup quickly and turned to bow. "You had said you wished to speak with me. Ah..." He glanced over towards where Sobon had left Mofu Kai Shin''s prison. "I hope you don''t mind I had ...the invader, moved. Young lady Ki''el was able to understand how to use your scripts to move him, and so he will remain under our guard. You may access him at any time, of course."


    "That''s just as well." Sobon strained her qi, making sure that she sensed no one and no aether effects which could hear anything within range, but there was nothing. She glanced at Lord Shida. "I trust you can stay for... more than just a few minutes?"


    "I am at your disposal for at least the rest of the morning, if necessary," he said, offering a polite half-bow.


    So, Sobon threw together another few motes of Oathbinding Qi, and pressed one against him, and two more to the guards by the gate. She forced her voice to carry to those two, as she spoke. "Lord Shida. What I wish to tell you must be kept secret by you, and your guards, on pain of death, from everyone including agents of the Empire. Do you consent?"


    Lord Shida had a few moments of apparently mixed loyalty, and she thought perhaps he was weighting the oath against whatever the myth-breaking pattern she had used on him, but in the end, he willingly sealed that oath. "I do."


    One of the guards immediately joined as soon as he did, but the other resisted. Sobon turned and glared, but that only made the man squirm against his aether and fate bindings more. "That one does not consent."


    "Cang! Swap with Rin." He frowned, then said, lower. "If he didn''t consent, given what you''ve said..."


    "Do whatever you think is right." Sobon waited until another guard had come in, and pressed him with Oathbinding Qi as well. This one did consent, once told that the City Lord had.


    In brief, Sobon outlined her circumstances. This time, she was fairly explicit--knowing that not only Lord Shida, but Lui, Ki''el, and Mian needed to hear it--what she expected to happen next.


    "I don''t know how much time I have, and I can''t afford to spend decades or centuries climbing the political ladder of the Djang Empire, if I even could as a non-Djang. Now that my existence will be revealed to the kind of people who would insist on exactly that..." She took a deep breath. "Most likely, I''ll need to leave this life behind and be reborn. But, it would be a waste to get no information at all out of it. Therefore... I will defeat the Mofu family, then disappear into the wilderness. From there, I will... execute my mission."


    "How do you plan to get from the wilderness to--no." Shida Ken''s voice was unreasonably excited, until he forced himself to stop. "I suppose I shouldn''t let myself even ask. But truly--you think you could match the Diamond Lord, in time?"


    "In personal power? Perhaps never. But trust this much, Lord Shida. Qi weapons can be designed that are too powerful for any living being to defend against. Enough power that that channeling sufficient defenses to stop it would destroy any known material, let alone a person. With enough time and resources, I could create such--but I have no desire to do so, and it would not be simple. I would only consider it if the Diamond Lord refuses all other options."


    "I see." The man trembled, and Sobon glanced at the guards at the gate, who clearly were focusing as hard as they could to hear what was being said. She didn''t really worry or care just how much they heard, not when they were bound not to speak of it. "But... while you don''t have that immense power yourself, you are still advancing so quickly, Lady Alassi. This is insight from beyond this world?"


    Of course, Sobon had spoken essentially nothing of the Ri''lef, and chose to keep that part of it secret still. "There are specifics to the qi of this world, and how it differs from how I was taught, but the methods I know are fundamental. Before I leave, I intend to grow stronger still, and the growth of my qi core will seem impossible. My methods, however, will not work for just anyone." Sobon gestured to Ki''el, though she knew drawing everyone''s attention to her was uncomfortable. "Ki''el is the closest I have to an apprentice for now, and although she is briliant, I cannot teach her much. My own learning took decades, and I cannot afford the time."


    A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.


    As though to prove it, Ki''el withdrew her dynamos from her core and manifested their thorns in her hands, letting them radiate Left Hand and Right Hand Aether where both the City Lord and his guards could see and feel it. All three seemed suitably impressed.


    "All of that said," Sobon said, "in theory, I could say a great deal about how aether advancement works in general. I don''t know whether it perfectly matches what people understand in this world, or not, and I was asked not to interfere too much. But core to all of it, core to everything, is being able to create qi that is purified of all other concerns and all other intent. That pure qi is used to prepare the body for more qi, and to tie body, spirit, and soul together. The process can be simplified to just those few words, if one is willing to say nothing at all."


    Sobon sensed, offhand, one of the guards'' qi cores adjusting by at least one star as he listened. She glanced his way, and the man swallowed nervously, but she ignored him. Lord Shida, for his part, had his eyes closed, focusing on the words, and he trembled, as though on the edge of something, though Sobon didn''t imagine that anything she''d just said would push him over an edge.


    "All of this brings me to why I need you. Because I will be challenging, and perhaps offending, the empire. And I have people whom I wish to see protected." Sobon''s words brought Lord Shida back to the ground, and he looked at her, intense concern in his eyes. "I hope that what I do will not come back to this place, and will not be tied to Shiva Alassi. At the very least, however, I hope that you will be prepared to help them flee should you get any sense at all that danger is coming here. Get them away from the Empire, no matter what it costs."


    "If you think you will offend the Empire...?" Lord Shida''s voice was full of naked doubt.


    "That thing where your qi screams your name at people can be removed," Sobon said, tiredly. "My appearance can be changed. And I do not intend to pass through the empire. Once I am in the wilderness... I can reach my destination from anywhere." That was... not quite correct, but it was all she needed to explain for her purposes.


    "I see. So you are hoping that Lady Shiva Alassi, hero of Emerald Valley, vanishes into the wilderness, perhaps... looking for a Starbeast Core, and is presumed dead. And someone unrelated offends the Empire, and there is nothing to tie these together except..."


    "Except for a few people who have given me their word that they will speak nothing."


    Lord Shida glanced at the guards, and Sobon studied his face, trying to ignore how her body reacted to staring hard at a handsome man''s face. She could keep her own thoughts from dwelling on his looks, but some things--some unconscious and half-conscious things--were not easy to interrupt. She couldn''t stop those thoughts from existing, only stop them from running off in any direction she didn''t want them going.


    Whatever Shida Ken saw in his guards, he appeared satisfied. "I will ensure nothing is spoken of. We can even spread the lie that we believe--earnestly believe--you will be out hunting for Starbeast cores, alone. And, if anyone wishes to follow you, I imagine you can leave tracks that lead them in just such a direction."


    "Easily," Sobon agreed. "In fact, that is where I will be going, when I leave."


    "Then it won''t even need to be a lie. Those that wish to search for you will follow, and see nothing. Perhaps even--" Lord Shida''s voice caught, and Sobon noted a thoughtful look freeze on his face, before the man cleared it. "Perhaps even up to the rifts that the Starbeasts spawn from."


    "Perhaps," Sobon let her voice remain neutral.


    "It leads me to wonder, Lady Alassi--you are confident in your ability to kill Starbeasts?"


    Sobon chose her words very carefully, not because she needed to lie further about the Ri''lef, but because speaking of them would only complicate things at this stage. "I have access to information that makes it much easier to attack their weak points, and avoid their greatest attacks. So yes, I am confident."


    Lord Shida met her eyes, for long enough that Sobon was sure the man understood that she was keeping a secret, before closing his eyes in acceptance. "As you say, Lady."


    So Sobon just moved on. "If everything goes to plan, I very much doubt you will ever see Shiva Alassi again. But expect at some time in the future for someone to reappear here with the Mark of Sobon. That person will be me, in another body. It is also possible that you will be contacted... by a strange qi entity." Sobon paused, then pulsed a message to the Corona. "This entity."


    As expected, the Corona''s AI relayed her pulse message back to Lord Shida after only a moment. She watched the man''s eyes widen. "This is..."


    "One of a great many secrets that I will hold on to for a while yet." Sobon stood. "For now, Lord Shida, I will need another place to hide my things and my people. As you will see, it will not need to be much. This way."


    Sobon led the City Lord to her shed, where she showed the spatially expanded basement--then proved, by prying away a bit of floor, that it was not actually dug into the ground beneath the opening.


    "Moving the basement will be a little tricky," she admitted as Shida Ken was desperately trying not to gape like a dying fish at the small quartz frame, "But it can be moved, if one is careful, or even placed in a spatial ring. I am working on a bracelet version that should suffice to carry it, and will get to that when I have time. Wherever it ends up, it needs to be well-secured, and on level ground."


    "I will..." he paused, and considered for several moments. "I have a few options, I suppose. But perhaps it would be wisest, if you believe that she can be trusted, to leave it with Lai Shi Po? I believe that there must be some knowledge you could trade her, for which she would gladly hold on to such a thing. And if anyone could keep one specific spatial ring safe, it would be her."


    "Perhaps," Sobon agreed. "If she gets here in time to have that discussion."


    "You cannot..." he gestured. "Contact her?"


    "I had not considered it. Unfortunately, that method requires one to memorize a person''s... [qi signature]," she said, and sent, not entirely confident that the words alone conveyed what she meant. "I didn''t memorize hers when we met."


    Shida Ken closed his eyes and considered her words, before nodding. "You must specify her, and her exactly, with your intent alone."


    "Yes. Because the... entity knows me, you could ask it to relay a message to Sobon, and it would. But for just any person in the world, even powerful ones..." Sobon shook her head. "Also, please don''t use it for just anything, and don''t reveal its existence."


    "Of course, Lady Alassi. I wouldn''t dare." Lord Shida started to give another subservient half-bow, but to his credit, he was starting to feel embarrassed by all of that. Sobon considered that progress.


    "In exchange for all of this, I will do what I can in the time that I have to help you advance. At the very least, I will try to explain things. I believe I can also help with the creation of purified qi, though I will need to carefully design a tool to do it." Sobon took a breath. "I... cannot handle a large circle of trusted people. By necessity, Lord Shida, I will include your guards, since they will keep my secrets. But I have only ever intended to directly protect a few people--those people who I have found to be good and worthy in my own life, without trusting the word of others."


    The City Lord looked surprised at first, but then his face fell into an understanding and patient mask. "Yes... those of us who must decide between protecting the many, or the few, end up very conflicted. Given your mission, I understand that you cannot spare the time or resources to care for too many at once."


    Sobon nodded at him. "That will be enough for now. Perhaps tomorrow, or in another few days, we can speak again. I have much to do."


    "Of course, Lady Alassi." Shida Ken bowed, and departed the house without any further word.

 44. Alassi - Rejoinder, Part 3

    Sobon started the process of attuning and acclimating herself to Outward Spin aether as soon as Lord Shida left. With only three dynamos, it wouldn''t exactly be a fast process--as aether spins increased in complexity, it took more work to compress the aether back down into normal space, which was necessary for attunement. They were, at least, good sized dynamos--though if she''d had more time, they would have been better. With more lower-spin dynamos supporting them, and thicker threads.


    No, these would do. She lacked the time to do better, and there was no wishing that away.


    Sobon finished up her detection array next, making relatively quick work of it. The differential signal matrix logic wasn''t exactly in the forefront of her mind, but it was, at least, just math. It would take more effort if she wanted to make the output intelligible to others, but when she finally managed to link the two antennas with the proper logic, the picture that formed in her head--metaphorically, alas--was clear enough.


    When she climbed out of the basement and waved the array around, she spared a moment to think about how she would look to Mian and Ki''el, although the pair were busy sitting and discussing something, with Ki''el having brought out one of her dynamos. The spiritual detection array was a complex array of diamond prongs, like mutant coral or antlers, pointing in two broad directions away from a central section where the scripts were. Although it wasn''t obvious, the arrangement existed to create a phantom third antenna in higher-dimensional space, one that might extend into different planes depending on exactly what aether passed through it. But as far as she must look on the surface, she was simply waving a glittering, spiky diamond bush around.


    Instead of worrying about it, she pointed the sensor in a number of different directions, each time based on what she already thought she sensed in various directions. She could focus and unfocus the antenna by adjusting the aether in the base; the scripts were crude, just barely enough that she could focus on a set distance, but she was able to quickly locate Lord Shida and tighten the array to him and the area around him, studying the result in order to verify the array worked. There were no surprises; a couple inefficiencies, but nothing untoward.


    Although sweeping the array the area in a broad scan detected a couple possibly interesting signals, some of which Sobon took careful note of, the one that she focused on next was Kibar, who she''d thought seemed unusually deep, spiritually. The sensor showed that he was connected to a great many people through aether bonds, bonds that she might have spent a great deal of time delving into if she was really keen on prying. Given his attachment to a spiritual god, though, she could imagine that she knew the basics--that he had interacted with a great number of people on behalf of the spirits, helping many and upsetting others. But there were also a number of thicker aether bonds, ones that had to mean much more than mere fate. Family, or loved ones, or comrades in some other sense. In a way, she was surprised--the man had much deeper bonds than Sobon would ever have felt comfortable with. She knew... or thought she knew, that for those people who weren''t lifetime cyborg soldiers, his attitude was probably more normal than hers. But still, those kind of bonds didn''t go away easily, no matter how much you may wish they did.


    Kibar, to his credit, did seem to notice Sobon when she studied him a bit too long, but unfocusing the array was enough to scatter what little qi pressure she should have been giving off.


    Sobon, with some reservations, took the time to find the nearest qi signature that she thought might have been in the general power level of Mofu Gin. This far from the Empire, or perhaps, this far from Starbeast-spawning rifts, there were not a large number of powerful people; it took her a good hour to pin down a collection of figured, generally east-southeast, which she thought might have been the rest of the Mofu family. It matched, broadly, what Lord Shida had said they should have left, along with an upsetting number of additional forces that were still, technically, above Sobon''s current level.


    The mental effort had exhausted her, at that point, but she took careful note of the range and direction before letting the sensor array deactivate with a groan, setting the antenna down carefully. As she refocused on the world around her, she noticed Mian had shifted to some form of meditation, while Ki''el watched her from nearby, where she leaned against a wall.


    "You have been focusing intently," the girl said, a little humor in her voice. "I do not know that I have ever seen you look as vulnerable as you did while you were holding that... thing. What does it do?"


    "It senses," she said, sitting down and rubbing her temples. After a moment, she shook her head, realizing she''d said nothing. "It''s highly sensitive to aether in one direction, and it can be tuned so that it mostly ''sees'' at certain distances. It only gives me a picture of the aether itself--not the physical world as we normally see it--but it is useful. I believe I found the rest of the Mofu family, and they are fairly far away."


    "I see." She looked down at the instrument where it lay on the floor. "I trust it was worth the effort. I have seen you working hard on it."


    "It would be better if I had the right tools to go with it," she said. "But they are too advanced, or would require help from... from the Corona." She hesitated to say it, but she had introduced Ki''el to the name of the ship when they were flying back from the coast, and the name itself would meant nothing to anyone else. "But as it is, it is like a telescope for my aether senses, and that is enough."


    Ki''el tipped her head to the side. "What is a telescope?"


    "We--" Sobon paused. "Sorry. I discussed with Lui and Mian about lenses some time ago, but not with you. Light, which helps us see, follows certain rules..." she spent a short while paraphrasing the idea, and making a pair of quick lenses with aether to show the general concept. At the end, she summed it up with, "It is just another math, another thing that is useful to know once you are completely sure that it is true, and it is. In addition to images, lenses can focus light, and..." she shook her head. "...none of this is immediately useful to you."


    "No. But I am glad that you enjoy speaking of it." Kiel pushed away from the wall and sat down next to Sobon. "Sobon... you spoke of this quest of yours as likely to take your life, again. I am..." she hesitated.


    "Scared." Sobon let the word sound flat in her mouth, well aware of how the word itself meant nothing. It was the feeling, the overwhelming pressure of the feeling, that carried all the weight, and not the word. "Ki''el, I want you to understand something very clearly."


    The girl tilted her head, so that she could see Sobon, but was not staring at her.


    "I..." Sobon paused to feel the ugly, fluid feelings running through her body, the many broadcasting bits of flesh connecting to a nerve network that should have been clear, should have been professional and pristine. Because even if it had been, she knew something in her mind that she frankly hated to admit. Even without flesh, she had wanted to, or been able to, shake her humanity. "I am scared."


    Ki''el turned a little more to look at her, but Sobon didn''t read what was in her eyes. She probably could have.


    "I was once a warrior so much more powerful than this frail little body that there is no comparison," she continued, aware as she spoke that Mian had also dropped out of his meditation to listen. "I focus on the advancement, on the path forward. I cleanse my aether, and I attune myself, and I build. But even if I were at my prime it is possible I would fail the mission that has been placed on my shoulders, because it was likely always impossible. It is likely they have asked me to do something that no one could possibly do. And the consequences if I fail are the deaths of everyone in this world."


    "I knew from the start, deep in my bones, that everything they were talking about was beyond what a single soldier could accomplish. I let myself ignore the impossibility, because sometimes, charging headlong into danger lets you find or create opportunities. I thought perhaps I would stumble on to some secret, some path, some aspect of fate that would make everything make sense, make the mission line up and become possible. But if there were a time for that, it would be coming up very soon. Because the only way I can possibly take years and decades to accomplish this mission is if the people who gave me the mission were wrong. If I stay standing still while a crisis unfolds somewhere else, then I am an unworthy soldier, a layabout and a coward. A soldier--a professional warrior--is one who will charge into death if it doing so is the right thing to do."


    Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    "If they are wrong, my death will be meaningless. And it is possible, when I come up against truly powerful enemies, that even the power that reincarnates me will fail, or they will not allow me to die, holding me prisoner so that I cannot escape. I''m not stupid, Ki''el." She turned to look at the girl, whose face had gone somewhat pale. "The thing where my squirrel body exploded was a mistake, but I was also..." No, Sobon decided, she wouldn''t speak of that, not to the girl. Not knowing what she went through. She changed her wording, hoping it wasn''t too obvious. "...reckless. Foolish. Lost, perhaps. I wasn''t sure then, and I''m not sure now, that I will get another chance. But, Ki''el--an intelligent power that I cannot deny told me that things might become unsalvageable any minute, and it said that weeks ago. It is possible that things are stable, and will be for years and decades, but there is no room for me to assume that."


    "You talk as though we do not need you here," Ki''el said, but her voice was strangely hollow, full of emotion that Sobon didn''t take the time to understand.


    "If they are right, Ki''el, your life is forfeit if I fail, along with everyone else." Sobon shook her head, trying to figure out how to put her thoughts to words, all the while cursing the emotional soup that was her human body, as it twisted and danced within her. "Ki''el... I think of you like a daughter. I don''t wish to leave. I wish that I could stay and watch you and Lui grow up, and together with myself, and Mian, and perhaps more as the years go on... I want to watch us all grow stronger, safely."


    "Then don''t leave," Ki''el said, a strange intensity in her voice. "You say that you may not be able to win, that the... the mission was impossible. But you want to believe that after all of that, it will be your fault if you fail. Is it not someone else''s fault? The masters'', or the Diamond Lord''s, or the Starbeasts'', or someone? Can you truly not admit that the failure is all on the shoulders of other people, even here? Even to yourself?"


    Sobon closed her eyes, listening to her heart, and also feeling the heart of Ki''el, as it burned at her, so close. She also couldn''t ignore the words that the spirit had said, when it had last visited. [ Your mission on this world will shift before you accomplish it. ] But was that a prophecy, a knowing nod to truths unspoken, or an attempt to distract her? Corrupt her? "Everyone else is doing what they can," she finally said. "Can I really do less?"


    "Is it not possible that they say they are doing all they can, but they lie?" Ki''el''s voice was intense, and trembling. "Even I know what you are, Sobon. You are a--a man, a woman, a squirrel, whatever form you take, but you are a naked blade, eager to be wielded. But you are being asked to hold the weight of the entire world. That is not the weight that a single blade must bear. A single blade is meant to fight a single enemy, not an army. Not an entire nation."


    But Sobon just shook her head. "Even if I stay, Ki''el, what comes next would never allow us peace. The politics of empires and powerful warriors would never allow me to grow strong enough to do what I need. They will jealously crush anyone who could become strong enough to challenge their empire. When I could no longer hide from them, this face and body became useless."


    "You said you could change your appearance, hide your name," she insisted.


    "But they know that Shiva Alassi exists, and will search for her."


    "You already said you would disappear. Disappear to the others, but not to us."


    Sobon hesitated. She knew the girl wasn''t entirely wrong, but she also had no plan--and who could possibly formulate a plan to hide from an empire like the Djang? Even if it were safe? Not to mention, if she didn''t remain on the mission that the Ri''lef had put her on, even if the situation didn''t degrade, they would likely remove their protection. And while Sobon didn''t hate Alassi, this body--and likely any human body she would ever inhabit, or possibly any animal--did not match her soul at all. If she were forced to remain in it, she would spend the next century replacing it piece by piece until she felt herself again.


    As she sat there, just trying to survive the storm of feelings that she couldn''t help feeling didn''t belong within her, a cynical part of her mind replayed things Ki''el had said before. I cannot take your words as anything but the words of a coward, That was what the girl had said to Rai Su Anin. If Sobon were cruel, she could have repeated the words back at her, now. But... she had no doubt that the girl knew she was being a coward, fleeing from certain agony as she faced living once more without Sobon. Although perhaps now she might have another family, to lose someone again so quickly, to be stuck here with people she had just met, far from her home or anyone she''d ever known...


    And that''s what I''m asking her to do anyway, Sobon felt the spike of guilt in her chest, resisting its attempt to chain down her spirit. All because the Ri''lef demand what may be impossible. But without their help, I would never never have come to this world in the first place, never have met Ki''el on that island, and I would not have survived to save her again. Without the Ri''lef, Ki''el would either still be alone in the ruins of her home, or she would be a slave... or worse.


    "I will do what I can to survive," she said after a long few minutes of thinking. In truth, her thoughts and feelings were far from clear. "I never intended to do otherwise. If given any chance--any at all--of getting through this safely, I will. But, Ki''el--I can''t simply leave things as they are, and there remain so many, many ways this mission could kill me."


    Sobon opened her eyes and looked at Ki''el, to find the girl watching her with a deeply pained expression. "I have seen so many good people die, Ki''el," she said, finding her voice to be very tired. "Soldiers, and those who were not. Death happens, whether we are prepared for it or not. I have seen whole cities destroyed by war, Ki''el, cities wider and grander than anything you can imagine. Not even military targets--simply millions of lives ended because they were ''the other side.'' Pretending the world is safe doesn''t make it so."


    Ki''el struggled for a long moment to say more. Sobon was sure she was struggling to find another way, or another reason, to say that Sobon should stay. She let the girl search for a minute, before speaking again.


    "It''s exactly why I became a soldier. Because the world wasn''t safe. I grew up in a city; I loved the city life, the people, the energy. But it wasn''t safe, and I knew that trusting that things would be okay would be a mistake." She stopped, considering. "The city I grew up in was one of those that was destroyed by our enemy, later in my life. So I was not wrong, but neither was I enough."


    "I am sorry," said Ki''el.


    Sobon shook her head. "I miss that city," she said, "and I knew many good people who died when it fell. But my personal feelings mean nothing. All of our feelings mean nothing in the face of enemy action. Strength is not everything, but sufficient strength to defend yourself is a must. Defending what you love and believe in is a must. There is no other option; you either defend what you love, or you leave everything to chance, and chance is cruel."


    "Chance is cruel," the voice of Mian echoed, and Sobon looked over at him. "But it is can also be generous. Chance brought you to us. Chance could have brought someone else--someone who didn''t care, who let us die. Chance could have taken you somewhere else and left us alone. Somewhere out there are others who might have been saved by you instead, and they don''t know to mourn what they might have had. We, though, we know what good fortune has brought us."


    Sobon sighed, not meanly. "People have argued about optimism and pessimism since the dawn of time," she said. "Both are right, and both are wrong. I don''t plan to give up, but I also can''t help the feeling that I should, that everything is a disaster, that there is no hope. If that meant that I stopped trying, I would have died decades ago. But..." she shrugged, putting an embarrassed smile on her face. "I know it can make me a pain to talk to."


    Mian, for his part, actually laughed at that, though he quickly put a hand to his mouth. "Sorry," he said. "It''s just... until you started talking, I could easily believe that you were just a... just a blade, as Ki''el said. Unfeeling, cutting through to the heart of all matters. But there is a personality in there after all."


    "I have lived my life as little more than a blade for a long time," Sobon said, standing up just to stretch herself, restoring a little feeling after sitting uncomfortably on the steps leading to the basement shed. "But even swords have personality. Study any given pair of them and you''ll find differences. For people, with all of their history, all of their thoughts and feelings, no matter how much you tried to make an identical pair, you''d never come close."


    "I suppose." Mian gave Sobon a wide grin. "Lui will be sad she wasn''t here to hear you talk about your feelings and your past. You had better make sure that you open up some when you next talk to her."


    Sobon was ready to say that the girl wouldn''t care--but that was an off-the-cuff response. She would have said that about anyone, and Lui was no longer just anyone. Instead, she blew out a dissatisfied huff. "It''s tiring to speak of, and it doesn''t make much difference."


    "People must speak in order to understand one another," Ki''el said, and Sobon thought the girl was trying to sound sage.


    "I don''t know how much I can teach her, or any of you, about people''s feelings and hearts. Not my own, and not most people''s. Because whatever else I am, I am not like most people."


    "You are not most people. You are our people, our Sobon." Ki''el said. "And you will be, as long as you live. And... perhaps again after that."


    "Perhaps," Sobon agreed. "For now... Mian, what were you meditating on? I saw you and Ki''el talking about the cycle and thorn, before..."


    While the other two let Sobon deflect to another topic, and while her mind and heart felt some comfort for confiding in them, Sobon couldn''t help worrying about what was to come. Whatever would happen in the coming months was going to be hard--but if she was lucky, that was all it would be. If not... Sobon tried not to think about how she might let her new family down.

 45. Alassi - Rejoinder, Part 4

    The next day turned out to be busy in sev-er-al ways. The eas-i-est one, for Sobon her-self, was at-tune-ment--overnight, she had fo-cused on her shoul-der blades as the first ar-eas she ful-ly at-tuned to Out-ward--that is to say, Gen-e-sis aether. She had cho-sen the shoul-der blades for half-prac-ti-cal, half-nos-tal-gic rea-sons; the Fairy Marines, as a mat-ter of pol-i-cy, gen-er-al-ly af-fixed Out-ward-spin ad-vanced telekine-sis pat-terns at the shoul-der blades, un-less they had a spe-cif-ic rea-son not to choose that spot on their bod-ies. Cy-borg Marines, as a prac-ti-cal mat-ter, of-ten linked sim-i-lar or iden-ti-cal pat-terns in the same place, so that an en-tire Mixed Ma-rine unit could train to-geth-er and work un-der the same con-di-tions.


    Alas-si''s cur-rent bones wouldn''t take near-ly the strain that Sobon was used to, but she was still hap-py to fi-nal-ly be able to store those pat-terns in their right-ful place. As soon as Sobon woke, well be-fore dawn, she shift-ed the aether adap-ta-tion pro-gram to her right humerus--the up-per arm bone--and set in to store the two linked pat-terns across her back. It was a te-dious, and some-times painful process... but Sobon knew this pat-tern back-wards and fore-wards.


    It was bare-ly mid-morn-ing when she fin-ished, feel-ing quite pleased. She flexed, feel-ing her aether wings link-ing to-geth-er, and picked her-self up off the floor from her med-i-tat-ing po-si-tion, land-ing so eas-i-ly and light-ly on her feet that she felt a fa-mil-iar thrill. It still felt aw-ful to be trapped in-side flesh... but now, fi-nal-ly, she could stop feel-ing lim-it-ed by her flesh.


    [ I... don''t un-der-stand, ] Some-where with-in her, Alas-si''s spir-it was mar-veling, ei-ther at the new lev-el of at-tune-ment, or the pat-terns Sobon had placed in them, or per-haps at the part of Sobon''s own soul that had im-me-di-ate-ly and deeply linked with the pat-terns. [ This is all... this feels so... ]


    [ This is a frac-tion of what I was be-fore, ] Sobon replied, let-ting her tele-ki-net-ic sens-es slip not only through the world around her, but through her body it-self, mas-sag-ing mus-cles, nudg-ing joints, re-duc-ing pres-sure on nerves. She had no in-ter-est in us-ing the pat-tern for those sorts of things con-stant-ly, but it was nice to scratch the many metaphor-i-cal itch-es that her flesh prison had, and she felt her spir-it ease as lit-tle nui-sances were ad-dressed. [ Once you have be-come more than flesh, it''s so very hard to go back. ]


    When she fin-ished stretch-ing, Sobon no-ticed that Lui had al-ready left. They''d had a nice con-ver-sa-tion the pre-vi-ous evening, but Sobon had meant to speak with her more. As it turned out, Sobon could tell that some-one else was com-ing to the house any-way--un-less she missed her guess, Lord Shi-da with a "gift" she had sensed be-ing col-lect-ed yes-ter-day.


    So, af-ter greet-ing Mian and Ki''el, both of whom were med-i-tat-ing, she opened the gates with an aether pulse just as the guests ar-rived.


    For whichev-er rea-son, Lord Shi-da led a pro-ces-sion which looked as for-mal as if he were greet-ing an em-press. Al-though the man seemed a lit-tle more com-fort-able around Sobon than he had ever been, he still went through all of the mo-tions of com-plete sub-servience, stop-ping at what Sobon thought and Alas-si con-firmed was a dis-tance de-fined by Djang high so-ci-ety''s cus-toms, and then bow-ing deeply, as the two at-ten-dents and two guards did the same.


    "Lady Alas-si," he said, "I would like to pre-sent to you those scraps of Core Tis-sues that we were able to re-cov-er from the re-mains of Lord Mofu Gin. I be-lieve these should be of val-ue to you."


    Sobon just nod-ded, as the two at-ten-dants hur-ried for-ward, each with rather large box-es, both look-ing very hum-ble and com-plete-ly ter-ri-fied. Sobon was nev-er one for tra-di-tion, but for the sake of those ter-ri-fied at-ten-dants, wait-ed un-til they had set their car-go down be-fore flex-ing her new tele-ki-net-ic pat-terns to open both chests at once, study-ing what the box-es con-tained.


    The con-tents were gris-ly, show-ing lit-tle at-tach-ment to the body that they had once been a part of. Al-though Sobon had sensed that the man''s hands were spe-cial, and eas-i-ly guessed that they had in-te-grat-ed the ma-te-r-i-al from Star-beast cores, she had writ-ten them off--Mofu Gin''s aether had det-o-nat-ed when her can-non broke through his de-fens-es, her own de-struc-tive aether chan-nel-ing back-wards through his merid-i-ans with more force than his body could sus-tain. And since his aether chan-nels were strongest near his hands, those had tak-en no small por-tion of the ex-plo-sion, scat-ter-ing most-ly out be-yond her own com-pound and into the city.


    What re-mained were al-most like light-ly glow-ing threads of translu-cent grey, which in some places were still at-tached to mus-cle, bone, sinew, nerve, or skin, but which most-ly had been cleansed of any-thing fleshy that re-mained. Sobon tried not to re-act at the sight, or at the aether stench that the threads gave off, in-stead keep-ing an im-pressed look on her face. In truth, she knew that it must have tak-en a lot of work to col-lect them.


    "I ap-pre-ci-ate the gift deeply, Lord Shi-da." She glanced at the at-ten-dants, who had paused in fright when the box-es opened by them-selves, then bowed and rushed out of the court-yard, stop-ping at the gate only long enough to turn and bow again. She felt the itch, again, of ir-ri-ta-tion at all the sub-servience, the pow-er wor-ship, but did her best to ig-nore it. When the only ones that re-mained with-in the cout-yard were Shi-da and his two, oath-bound guards, she closed the gates again and sighed. "Re-gret-tably, it''s not as use-ful as you might think."


    "Is it not?" Shi-da Ken let him-self re-lax as well, though she thought the City Lord was also ap-prais-ing her; he must have no-ticed the dif-fer-ence in how she had cre-at-ed her tele-ki-net-ic pat-tern. "I would think that Star-beast Cores, even once they have been processed, must be very rare in-deed..."


    "With time and with ef-fort, you can cleanse the ma-te-r-i-al ful-ly, re-mov-ing all taint of what it used to be," Sobon ex-plained. "I was telling my peo-ple this a cou-ple days ago. Stor-ing aether pat-terns, or even at-tune-ment, with-in a ma-te-r-i-al leaves deep scars with-in it, and few things that get as deeply ''scarred'' as parts of a per-son''s body. This," she ges-tured to one of the box-es, "must have been rel-a-tive-ly new, be-cause the aether hasn''t ful-ly soaked in. I could cer-tain-ly use it for a script-ed weapon, but not in-te-grate it my-self. But this," she ges-tured at the oth-er one, "this is dif-fer-ent, com-plete-ly in-te-grat-ed with the spir-it of a dead man. Even with an ide-al process, would take a few months to cleanse."


    "So it is dif-fer-ent than a core straight from a Star-beast? I am led to be-lieve that those can be in-te-grat-ed al-most im-me-di-ate-ly." Lord Shi-da stepped for-ward so that he could see the con-tents of the two box-es, let-ting him-self put aside every-thing else and study them as in-tent-ly as he could.


    "It''s far from my spe-cial-ty," Sobon said hav-ing stud-ied the Ri''lef notes on the sub-ject but un-will-ing to dive too deeply into that knowl-edge, "but from what I un-der-stand, they use them dif-fer-ent-ly. Beasts, even in-tel-li-gent ones, have no con-cept of pu-ri-ty, and if they in-te-grat-ed their cores the way--that way," she ges-tured at the ru-ined frag-ments of core tis-sues, "their cores would am-pli-fy their strength in ways that would not be safe, and they would tear them-selves apart. In-stead, I imag-ine they use their cores to am-pli-fy a small-er pat-tern, but with-out bond-ing so deeply."


    More cor-rect-ly, Sobon ex-pect-ed that the idea of beast cores--both less-er aether beasts and the Ri''lef Star-beasts--had been en-gi-neered by the Founders, specif-i-cal-ly so that they could be-come a re-source, but there was no point in say-ing that.


    "Fas-ci-nat-ing," Shi-da Ken said, as he looked down at the box-es again, then forced him-self to look away. "But you be-lieve at least one of these will be use-ful?"


    "I will start them both pu-ri-fy-ing," Sobon said, "I hope that by the time I... ex-pect to leave, I will be able to use one of them. As a shield core, most like-ly."


    "Not a weapon?" Shi-da Ken half turned and very ob-vi-ous-ly eyed the holes in the ground, now in-ex-pert-ly filled in with dirt from Sobon''s stor-age ring.


    "A war-rior''s first duty is al-ways not to die," Sobon said, para-phras-ing a string of lec-tures she''d heard in Ma-rine train-ing camps. Those lec-tures had seemed to be with-out end... right up un-til they de-cid-ed that Sobon had grad-u-at-ed. "not un-less dy-ing can com-plete their mis-sion, and even then it is dis-cour-aged. Even a blade must first not break, if it is to cut down its foe. I have over-whelmed my en-e-mies up to this point, but there is every rea-son to be-lieve that in time, I will at-tract the at-ten-tion of some-one I could not oth-er-wise sur-vive, or per-haps, a per-son I am not al-lowed to kill, for oth-er rea-sons, like pol-i-tics. A per-fect shield means much more in those cir-cum-stances than a per-fect sword."


    Shi-da Ken''s eyes re-mained glued to the holes burned into the ground as he ab-sorbed that wis-dom. Af-ter a mo-ment, Sobon flexed her new pat-terns, rak-ing through the dirt un-til there was much less sign of the holes.


    "Your tech-nique is new, or more deeply in-te-grat-ed," Shi-da Ken said, as he turned. "And you have be-come stronger overnight. It is fair-ly ob-vi-ous."


    Sobon men-tal-ly checked her core, al-though she was grow-ing to feel com-plete dis-dain for its "stars" and col-orations. It now said that she was at three Ti-ta-ni-um stars, and it flick-ered at the edge of a fourth. That was only bare-ly stronger than Mofu Suno had been when she''d shat-tered his core, there at the inn.


    She could have been coy about it, but with every-one here sworn to se-cre-cy, she just smiled. "This pat-tern to ma-nip-u-late things is an old one, just fi-nal-ly back where it be-longs," she said, un-able to keep a fair bit of pride from her voice. "Be-fore I came here the first time, I had decades of ex-pe-ri-ence with it."


    Sobon pressed hard-er on the pat-tern, let-ting the full struc-ture of her Cy-borg Wings spread out be-hind her. De-spite the name, they were more than just wings, al-though those were there, and that was an easy way to vi-su-al-ize them for nor-mal tasks. Sobon''s wings had three main re-gions--the wings prop-er, which stretched out like bird wings made of swords, then a pair of low-er arms with pre-ci-sion ma-nip-u-la-tors in their tips, and third, a flex-i-ble thruster that wrapped around her tor-so, let-ting her launch quick-ly in var-i-ous di-rec-tions if need-ed.


    For longer flights, she would still pre-fer to use some-thing more like her flight pack--which had tak-en es-sen-tial-ly no con-cen-tra-tion on her part to main-tain or di-rect. The pat-tern un-der-lay-ing the Wings was re-al-ly just telekine-sis, and it strained her mind to use con-stant-ly. In time, if she sur-vived--or (op-ti-misti-cal-ly) next time, if she didn''t--she would in-te-grate oth-er pat-terns near-by that build on top of these to lessen the strain con-sid-er-ably, but for now, she was just hap-py to be her-self again.


    Him-self, a now-half-buried part of Sobon''s soul want-ed to grump, but she ig-nored it. She was what-ev-er her cur-rent cir-cum-stances re-quired.


    Shi-da Ken kept his mouth shut for sev-er-al sec-onds, work-ing his fa-cial mus-cles in what Sobon was fair-ly sure was an at-tempt to mask his awe. "It is im-pres-sive," he said, a lit-tle stiffly. "Though per-haps... in-dis-creet."


    Sobon just laughed. "I don''t usu-al-ly let it man-i-fest vis-i-bly. But it''s im-por-tant to be able to, for a num-ber of rea-sons. But we should speak of more im-por-tant things." Sobon picked up the two box-es and dumped them out, then be-gan etch-ing onto the in-sides of the box, as she be-gan to lec-ture on the ba-sics of aether tiers and the com-plex struc-ture of qi. Ki''el and Mian had heard all this be-fore, but it was worth re-peat-ing it for their sake, as well.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    She con-tin-ued un-til the af-ter-noon, when she had a most-ly-un-ex-pect-ed vis-i-tor.


    <hr>


    Lui was busy every day, now, as she worked for Lady Fau. Al-though she found it fas-ci-nat-ing and ex-cit-ing when-ev-er Grand-ma Sobon spoke of aether and its in-tri-c-as-ies, she had no per-son-al in-ter-est in pow-er. She... would like-ly have spent her time here doubt-ing this path through life, but Lady Fau kept her con-stant-ly busy. It wasn''t idle work; she had been giv-en books to mem-o-rize, full of con-se-quen-tial things about plants that Lady Fau owned or had just pur-chased, and Lady Fau seemed to nat-u-ral-ly and calm-ly trust Lui to un-der-stand which plants were what, and in what con-di-tion.


    Lui had of-ten been full of doubts, but the tasks she was giv-en were of-ten very straight-for-ward, re-quir-ing her to sim-ply see, or smell, or sense. If she hadn''t been told by Granny Sobon, and Mian, and Lady Fau, just how rare her sen-si-tiv-i-ty was, she might have com-plete-ly dis-re-gard-ed the val-ue of it. That same sen-si-tiv-i-ty had cer-tain-ly been a prob-lem in the past, when her fa-ther need-ed her to ac-com-plish a task that was... un-pleas-ant. In-cor-rect, some-how. Clean-ing up af-ter cer-tain guests, or serv-ing cer-tain peo-ple, who looked at her wrong, or want-ed to touch her.


    It felt very strange in-deed to ad-mit that the tasks be-fore here were only sim-ple be-cause of that same trait, but she was get-ting used to it, a lit-tle bit each day.


    Lady Fau paced into the back room where she worked, the woman choos-ing to stoop as though she was el-der-ly, al-though she looked no more than mid-dle-age. She would, at times, adopt a stern ex-pres-sion, es-pe-cial-ly around cus-tomers, but Lui was cer-tain that she was hap-py as long as she was sur-round-ed by grow-ing things, and there were a great many herbs and plants hang-ing or hid-ing around the shop. As she stud-ied more of Lady Fau''s books, she had be-come quite con-cerned by all those plants--a great many of them were placed where they would nev-er see nat-ur-al sun-light, and al-though there were wards and stones that ra-di-at-ed light gen-tly on them, she couldn''t help but think of the many words she''d read here and there in the books about how this or that plant was sen-si-tive to wards and spell ef-fects.


    In any case, Lady Fau cared a great deal for the many plants in her store, and in the gar-den hid-den in the back, and she was in a good mood as long as that was all that was on her mind.


    For now, Lady Fau held up a bit of cut-off leaf stem, as though ask-ing Lui to look at or take it. Lui, trust-ing what she knew of the woman, looked close-ly first, then took it from her fin-gers and turned it around, not-ing the touch-es of Con-sump-tion Qi that lin-gered in a few black spots across the plant.


    "What do you think is wrong with this?" Lady Fau asked, her tone mea-sured. An-oth-er les-son, then.


    "Some-thing is eat-ing at it," Lui an-swered im-me-di-ate-ly, squint-ing hard at the spots to try and see if she could tell what it was.


    "Why do you say that?"


    Lui blinked and looked at the old-er woman, re-call-ing that the things that Granny had told her were... se-cret, or close enough. She couldn''t ex-act-ly ex-plain what she knew, ex-cept in gen-er-al terms. "Ah. It''s... how do I..." she looked away. "The feel of the qi at those points. The na-ture of that qi pulls in-wards, and it is not nat-ur-al to the plant, so some-thing must be con-sum-ing it."


    Lady Fau had an ex-cel-lent mask, Lui knew, and she knew that the woman was judg-ing her silent-ly for hav-ing knowl-edge she couldn''t share, but she just nod-ded. "You are cor-rect. It is a form of dis-ease born of fun-gus. Not all of our herbs are vul-ner-a-ble to it, but those that are--" she paused, and turned her head slight-ly.


    Lui heard it too. Ar-gu-ing, from out-side.


    Lady Fau of-ten in-ter-rupt-ed when peo-ple ar-gued too close to her shop, of-ten say-ing some-thing about their voic-es and qi be-ing dirty and bad for grow-ing things. But this time, she had a cer-tain air about her when she turned out of the back room and to-wards the door. It was enough for Lui to set down the bit of plant sam-ple and close her book, to fol-low the woman.


    She was sur-prised to see one of the neigh-bor-ing shopown-ers kick-ing a street urchin around. The brat was tru-ly di-sheveled--her hair a mess, her clothes noth-ing but rags, and she scram-bled out of the way of the man as he tried sev-er-al times to land blows, of-ten just miss-ing by a hair. As she saw the urchin''s hair flop around, though, Lui could al-most imag-ine that the girl''s face was spread into a mad grin.


    Lui start-ed to rush to-wards the door, only re-al-iz-ing af-ter a few steps that al-though Lady Fau would al-most al-ways in-ter-fere in some-thing like this, she had stopped at the win-dow and just watched. "You don''t want to help?" Lui asked, feel-ing scan-dal-ized.


    "You may, if you wish," Lady Fau said, her voice even. It was... a very odd thing for the woman to say. She knew that Lui wasn''t a fight-er, or any-thing like one. And she nor-mal-ly would charge out just to stop a man like that from mak-ing a scene in front of her shop.


    But she heard words com-ing from the man that she couldn''t stand, the kind of words that she was sure she would have buried, be-fore that old spell over her had bro-ken. "Gut-ter whore," the man said, "when I get my hands on you I''ll break your arms and--"


    Lui found her-self al-ready rush-ing out, feel-ing her pound-ing pulse in the palms of her hands. Those hands, which were al-ways so sen-si-tive, felt swollen and bloat-ed sud-den-ly, as she dashed for-ward. The man--Lui couldn''t name him, but she knew he was a men-ace--had per-haps a touch more qi than Lui her-self, but was also no war-rior, just strong due to his size and work. But... even so, he raised a foot as though to stomp on the girl, his face a mask of fury and in-dig-na-tion.


    Al-though Lui should not have been able to reach the man in time, she raised her hand as she rushed for-ward, and some-how, the man''s stomp--was it a thrust-ing kick of some kind?--was pushed aside, and he stum-bled. Lui used those mo-ments to throw her-self in be-tween, over--con-scious of her hands, and the pulse pound-ing with-in them.


    "You..." the man threw one kick at Lui in the im-me-di-ate mo-ment af-ter she stepped in, per-haps not rec-og-niz-ing her. Lui raised her hands to block the blow; she cer-tain-ly felt it sting-ing at her palms, and she stum-bled back-wards and fell, but some-how the kick failed to im-press her, not the way she had ex-pect-ed it to.


    "Kan Fen." Lady Fau''s voice was ice, and it echoed. Lui felt the pulse of a qi wave be-hind the name, and she turned to look at the big man, who stum-bled back-wards phys-i-cal-ly from the al-chemist. "Do you know ex-act-ly who you just struck?"


    "I--she--" Kan Fen scowled cross-ly. "Bah! Don''t pre-tend--bah!" The man wiped sweat from his fore-head and backed away, even though Lady Fau was sim-ply stand-ing there, star-ing dag-gers at him. "Fau Mide, don''t... you...!"


    "Do you know who she is?" Lui could sense that a great many peo-ple heard Lady Fau''s words, even those who were not able to see what was hap-pen-ing. Per-haps, if Lui''s fevered imag-i-na-tion were true, things were lis-ten-ing that were not even peo-ple.


    Kan Fen glanced away. "Your ap-pren-tice."


    "Next time you want to com-mit sui-cide, don''t get my shop in-volved in it. Lui, Popo, step in-side."


    Lui scram-bled to her feet and checked on the urchin, but the girl was look-ing out from be-hind shag-gy bangs, an in-tense look on her face, her teeth bared in a snarl. She... Lui paused. Al-though Lui wasn''t ex-act-ly great at de-tect-ing wounds, or most oth-er things, what she felt from the street urchin was more than sim-ply an un-harmed girl. She had care-ful-ly masked depths of qi, such that Lui couldn''t be-gin to guess what her strength was.


    Still, she smiled at the girl. "Come on," she said, and Popo glanced at her, still scowl-ing, but turned and, some-what rude-ly, scam-pered into the al-chemist''s shop.


    Lui glanced at Lady Fau and Kan Fen, but they re-mained stand-ing and fac-ing one an-oth-er, so she fol-lowed the oth-er girl. She stopped, though, as soon as she walked in the door--be-cause the girl had dived onto the counter, her head dis-ap-pear-ing down be-hind it, her torn and loose short pants fac-ing the door and af-ford-ing the poor girl no dig-ni-ty at all. Lui let out a shocked gasp, but rushed for-ward, grab-bing the girl''s legs. "What are you do-ing?"


    For her trou-ble, Lui got kicked in the face. The blow stunned her and knocked her back; she fell to the ground, un-sure of ex-act-ly what had just hap-pened for a mo-ment, but she turned to find the girl was hang-ing from both hands and both legs from one of the ceil-ing planters, star-ing around at oth-er plants around the alche-my shop like a starv-ing, fer-al beast.


    "Get down from there!" Lui leaped at the child, but Popo just twist-ed around, press-ing her dirty feet against the walls to swing and jump to an-oth-er planter. Lui squeaked--she was sure that the planters shouldn''t be able to hold an en-tire per-son''s weight, not since they had no qi re-in-forc-ing them. She chased af-ter the ur-chi-n again, but the girl just leaped back onto the counter, and scam-pered into the back, past Lui''s work space and into the stor-age room.


    Lui fol-lowed, too shocked and con-fused to even guess what she would find, but the girl was climb-ing on the many shelves like a grem-lin, her face stuck in be-tween two cab-i-nets, an odd growl com-ing from her throat. "Stop it!" Lui pant-ed even as she shout-ed at the girl. "Get down from there! You''re go-ing to break some-thing!"


    Popo turned to look at her, her face peer-ing out from her bangs, her mouth frozen in an open-mouthed gri-mace of some kind. But in-stead of speak-ing, she just glanced to each side, then jumped and clutched at the door frame above Lui, catch-ing it and swing-ing, her tor-so smash-ing straight into Lui''s as-ton-ished face.


    Lui stum-bled and half-fell into the wall be-hind her, slid-ing down the wall in shock as the girl scram-bled and clung to the door frame for an-oth-er mo-ment be-fore drop-ping.


    Lui heard the front door, and Lady Fau''s voice. "Popo?"


    "She''s here!" Lui shout-ed, un-sure of ex-act-ly what was hap-pen-ing, but feel-ing quite pow-er-less to do any-thing about it.


    "Of course she is," Lady Fau''s voice sound-ed a lit-tle tired, and maybe a touch amused. "Are you hav-ing fun scar-ing my ap-pren-tice, Popo?"


    "She''s fun," the grem-lin in front of Lui agreed with a smirk. "And she smells a bit like my new friend. I bet you know her, too?"


    "New friend?" From the front of the shop, Lady Fau fi-nal-ly ap-peared, and Lui was some-what sur-prised that the woman was com-plete-ly un-per-turbed. "Did you meet some-one on your way here?"


    "Heh." The grem-lin stood up straight, but raked her hands through her hair and shook them, just mess-ing her un-ruly mop of hair even more. "No, not around here, but she says she lives here. I''m glad you''re keep-ing the wards main-tained this time, Mimi. I thought for sure you''d for-get the ver-min seals."


    Fau Mide just sniffed, seem-ing in-dig-nant. "Not af-ter the last time. I lost a lot of good herbs to those foul in-sects."


    Lui just looked back and forth be-tween the two of them. "L... Lady Fau, who is this?"


    "Lady," chuck-led Popo, look-ing down at Lui with a grin. "Girl, I could tell you such sto-ries about your ''Lady!'' Did you know that she slept with every mem-ber of the No-ble House of Gaum--"


    "Don''t say it like that," Lady Fau said, her voice full of ex-as-per-a-tion.


    "--that was of age, and above the lev-el of Ti-ta-ni-um Qi. In-clud-ing three El-ders, and the House Pa-tri-arch! And I don''t think a one of them knew about the rest un-til the end of the Tour-na-ment. Tsk, tsk, Lady," she purred.


    Lui couldn''t help the ex-pres-sion on her face, but Lady Fau, far from be-ing in-sult-ed or ashamed, sim-ply walked up and punched the girl''s shoul-der, with more than enough qi in the blow that it would have se-ri-ous-ly hurt Lui. Popo, though, just shrugged it off with a grin, let-ting the blow knock her off-bal-ance just so that she could hop on one leg play-ful-ly be-fore set-tling down.


    "This brat," Lady Fau ges-tured at her, "is an old friend of mine, who helped me get es-tab-lished out this way. A gen-uine nui-sance, but her tal-ent with wards and qiscripts is real enough to get adopt-ed into a no-ble house. Now I just let her do what-ev-er and qui-et-ly keep a black-mail log just in case I ever need mon-ey. Popo, who was it you said you were look-ing for?"


    "An odd one. Said her name was Shi-va Alas-si, but that''s clear-ly half true at best. She said to ask for Sobon." Popo shrugged as though the words meant lit-tle to her.


    Lui felt her face flush, and she saw Lady Fau turn-ing to look at her with raised eye-brows. The urchin caught the mo-tion, and end-ed up cross-ing her arms over her chest and look-ing down at Lui.


    "Uh..." Lui couldn''t keep the blush off of her en-tire face, and felt her ears burn-ing, and her pulse pound-ing in-side of her skull. "She... she''s my grand-moth-er."


    "Mmm." Popo squat-ted down in front of her with a grin. "I knew you smelled like her. Good. That means you''ll grow up to be an odd one, too. I''ll look for-ward to it." She ex-tend-ed a hand. "I''m Lai Shi Po."


    Lui ner-vous-ly took the hand, but when the girl--no, Lai Shi Po was def-i-nite-ly a woman, just short and crude--sud-den-ly pulled her to her feet, Lui be-gan to un-der-stand that she nev-er had a chance of mak-ing her do, or not do, any-thing. And the man who had been try-ing to fight her... Lui un-der-stood ex-act-ly why Lady Fau had let him try.


    Lui wasn''t the type to watch some-one get beat-en, even for a good rea-son, but as Lai Shi Po slipped away and start-ed ram-bling about some-thing to Lady Fau, Lui re-al-ized that she might have felt... hap-pi-er, if she had seen the man ac-tu-al-ly put in his place.


    She shook her head to clear it, and fol-lowed Lady Fau and her guest into the main room, start-ing to lis-ten as two kept talk-ing.

 46. Alassi - Rejoinder, Part 5: Lai Shi Po

    "She''s too polite to say that I usually mooch food and rooms off of her," Lai Shi Po was saying, her bare feet and raggedy-ass clothing worse off than where Sobon had last seen her. "I''m not much trouble, but the escorts from the family..." she tsked her tongue, even as her eyes were scanning around the courtyard of Sobon''s home. "They''ll find me. They always do. But I have a little while longer to myself."


    Sobon had thought, when she was sweeping her scanner around, that she had sensed the woman''s aura somewhere close, but she hadn'' t expected the woman to apparently walk clear across the empire to meet with her, without a whole lot of provocation and apparently with no protection. Sobon had also harbored some hope--clearly mistaken--that the woman would have shown some more care in her dress or actions than she had in her own shop.


    Not that Sobon was any judge of women''s behavior in any society, but it felt distinctly dangerous, like she was inviting trouble of her own accord, and Alassi agreed without hesitation.


    "It''s dangerous to go out without your guardians," Lady Fau Mide, who I had yet to officially meet, chided the shorter woman. "Even with your strength and talismans, I can''t help imagining you falling asleep somewhere, and waking up in chains." The woman shook her head. "Your connections will only help if they can find you, Popo."


    But Lai Shi Po had, of her own accord, sensed Sobon''s basement and bounced over, ripping the false floor covering off and sticking her head down into the space. Lui startled at the motion like she wanted to run after the woman, and Sobon sighed, knowing that while the structure of the basement itself was too covered to be readable, she had left several projects there, set up on impromptu workbenches, many of which were simply aether frames projected upwards from small quartz discs.


    She was not entirely surprised, when she moved up to the entrance, to see Lai Shi Po gripping her sensor matrix by the handle, studying it intently, and not only with her eyes.


    "It''s tuneable," Sobon said, with a sigh, dropping down into the space. "The channels on the left and right set the focus range, and there is a phantom channel in the middle that--"


    "That selects a certain portion of the qi spectrum to analyze," Lai Shi Po interrupted. "For such a delicate instrument, I was expecting there to be some danger of flooding the channels, but you built it sturdy." She was slipping the array to one side and the other, then focused it on one corner of the basement. Sobon thought the woman''s hair might start to float on currents of aether, given how hard she was focusing on what she sensed there.


    "There''s plenty we could talk about," Sobon said, feeling more than a little amused that the woman--clearly an expect in qi scripts--was bouncing from one mystery to the next like a teenager. Predictably, when she couldn''t quite peer through the layers Sobon had added to disguise the geometry rods, she set the array aside and instead examined the disc producing the workbench. "But I''m not keen on letting my secrets slip to the Empire, even by proxy."


    "You''d be a fool if you did," Lai Shi Po said, her face nearly flat against the ground as she peered at the thin aether channels in the crystal. "How do you form the quartz so perfectly?"


    "By knowing what quartz is. And what other substances are." Sobon raised a mote of oathbinding qi, but had to stop. Even far from the woman, Sobon''s qi was able to tell the woman would never let a binding stay on her. She, or someone else, would find a way to break it, if only to study it.


    In the moment it took to realize that, Lai Shi Po scampered up off the floor and grabbed Sobon''s arm, pulling it down and herself up to get a better sense of the qi. Sobon, alarmed but coming to understand just what she''d gotten herself into, let the woman study the qi for several long moments, as Lai Shi Po braced one foot on Sobon''s leg in order to hold herself in place, staring intently at it.


    "I''m beginning to think you''re that one," Lai Shi Po said, apropos of nothing, and hopped down. "I was never one for prophecy, but then, I have always supposed it was something else: a promise."


    "What prophecy?" Sobon wasn''t the one who asked, since she tended to ignore the concept, even knowing that time-tampering aether was a thing. Sobon looked up to see Lady Fau sitting on the edge of the basement, looking in, with Lui looking embarrassed beside her, and the others behind her, including Lord Shida.


    The same Lord Shida who had instantly recognized Lai Shi Po, and been instantly scandalized, though Sobon imagined it wasn''t for the first time, not given how he recovered. Still, he hadn''t had much to say.


    "Promise," corrected the woman. "In the early days of the Empire, the Diamond Lord received wisdom from a force so mysterious, he has refused to even hint about more than its mere existence. A profound force, which taught him what he needed in order to raise up the Djang. But apparently, it also spoke of the doom of the Empire. The language used was odd, but the translations I''ve heard can be read two ways. Either it is a nameless menace, or a menace of many names."


    Sobon remained unimpressed. "That could be used to describe any revolution. Even one led by an obvious leader likely has others..."


    But Lai Shi Po shook her head. "You''re thinking with words. The intent of the words was an enemy, singular, whose identity cannot be tied to a name. Many have read it as a wise man prophesying doom, but I have always read it differently."


    Always? Sobon looked at the woman. "How old are you, exactly?"


    "Old enough to know the way I behave is childish," Lai Shi Po shot back, looking... upset? "And more than old enough to be angry at how little I know of the world, even after all these years. Old enough to be mad at old curses and old grudges. But I know what you''re asking, and I''m not ancient, no shadow of an age long past accumulating wisdom over the centuries. I have... simply managed to slip through, with the help of the gods. Or rather, one in particular."


    At that, Sobon could sense that something masking the pressure from Lai Shi Po''s core shifted, small and wide arms--no, tails--rearranging themselves for only a moment, revealing something very different beneath. Sobon, though, ignored the other woman''s core--advanced though it was--to study the spiritual god that lay concealed there.


    It''s actually present, Sobon noted. A spiritual god walking the world with its host, not an effect from afar. She gave a polite nod to it, or where it thought the spirit''s center was, and it uncurled further, revealing intense eyes, which thrugh Sobon''s spiritual senses, registered somehow as red.


    "My reading of the words was a promise," Lai Shi Po continued, as its spiritual guardian calmed and re-covered itself. "From a person who expected to be betrayed, warning that others would come. And the Diamond Lord claims, though many doubt his words, that he defeated that wise creature, and claimed sole dominion over our world. It was this he used as the cornerstone of his mythical right to rule."


    Sobon felt herself frown at Lai Shi Po''s choice of words, and the other woman didn''t miss the expression. Sobon could have forced her expression back to neutral, but chose to ask, instead. "His mythical right to rule?"


    "The strongest man, defender of the world, who shattered the hold the heavens had over this planet and took over as its sole owner, its father. The entire world''s Diamond Lord, shining in the light of the heavens. The absolute pinnacle of all humankind, the shield that holds back the doom that would otherwise follow." Lai Shi Po''s voice held no reverence at all, despite her words. "What has become of him lately, though, I wonder. Caught up in something strange, and his qi is unclear. The few whispered rumors I''ve heard of him are full of confusion and disappointment. Something should have been different."


    Sobon forced herself to stay as neutral as she could, knowing that someone like Lai Shi Po had already seen through her mask, and knowing that Lui, and the others, would recognize how the story Lai Shi Po had just told was a little too much like the story she herself had told. But the differences, especially in intent, were too wide.


    "I am a lot of things," Sobon said after a minute, "but I don''t believe I am what you are accusing me of being."


    "You need to learn to lie better," Lai Shi Po clucked her tongue at Sobon. "It would have been fine if you denied everything. But perhaps you''ve already said too much? Afraid that you''ll be judged for lying to an unstable outside element?"


    "I''m a warrior, not a..." Sobon, even with the help of Alassi, wasn''t sure what local words would fit without also sounding strange, not that her secrets weren''t already leaking out. "...I''m not here to keep secrets. I can acknowledge some things are not meant to be spoken of at all, but on the other hand, some things truly seem like they would only help my mission if they were known to the right people."


    "Oh." Lai Shi Po put a heady dose of intrigue behind that one word, although her posture and manner remained neutral, as much as any dirty street urchin could look neutral. "A warrior with a mission. One you have to keep secret from the Djang, but you are not here to end or ruin the Empire."


    "I am not," confirmed Sobon, wanting to say more, but choosing hesitating. "As for saying more..."


    "Your qi with the element of binding fates was interesting, but not robust," Lai Shi Po said, sounding almost annoyed. "I suppose it was a rush job?"


    "And not my specialty," Sobon admitted. "I build and use weapons and defenses."


    "Build?" Lai Shi Po stepped closer, and Sobon noticed between one moment and the next that a powerful light seemed to appear behind her eyes. "As a warrior?"


    Stolen story; please report.


    "Of course," Sobon said, choosing to sound offended. "Look around you. What do you see?"


    "Walls of solid qi, built out from projectors cleverly hidden behind. All within the bounds of a false space..." she paused, hesitating.


    Sobon just shook her head. "Mian, Ki''el, come in here, please. With your weapons."


    Lui and Lady Fau hurriedly stood and moved aside; Ki''el let Mian go first, the man hopping down into the basement with his sword balanced on his shoulder. Without waiting to be asked, he began to cycle his qi, pushing only a slight amount of aether into the collector on the back of the weapon.


    Sobon was more than a bit worried that Lai Shi Po would grab the blade, dismissive of the effect on the cutting blade, but when she stepped forward, she kept her head well clear of the entire shaft of the blade, instead staring intently at Mian''s hands where they wrapped the hilt. "Clever engravings," she said after a moment, and offered her hand to Mian.


    The man looked at Sobon, who only nodded.


    When the blade passed into Lai Shi Po''s hands, the woman--no surprise--immediately seemed to grasp full control over the weapon, releasing a devastating cutting aura that Sobon guessed was just shy of the script''s capacity. She flickered through the controls, adjusting how the cutting aura and blade reinforcements activated throughout the blade, and ran her hand along the back of it, sensing the flow of qi through the weapon.


    It was easy to forget that the short woman was barefoot, disheveled, and dressed in rags, if you took your eyes off of her for even a moment.


    "Profound," she pronounced after a moment, but deactivated the blade and held the hilt out to Mian, who took it back. "To see such profound understanding of script and qi feels like a master painter took it upon herself to decorate a dog''s house. Impressive work, but entirely wasted."


    Sobon glanced at Ki''el, who still stood above, and the girl dropped down, throwing her deactivated blade hilt at Lai Shi Po with what Sobon thought was some kind of resentment, although she wasn''t sure how or why.


    Lai Shi Po caught it, spun it in her hand, and activated the script, producing the flawless aether blade and flicking through its forms. Sobon watched as the woman studied the blade itself, letting her fingers drift in the air near the surface, but not touching it. "As profound as a great artist painting a wall a single color," she decided after a moment. "No one would ever know that it is the work of a master, and yet no matter how you look, you see no flaws, not even in the smallest detail."


    "It is something pure," Ki''el said, with what Sobon thought was some kind of cagey defensiveness.


    Lai Shi Po turned to look at the girl, then back at the blade for a long moment. "Ah," she said. "It is exactly the tool that you wished for. That makes it all the more profound, then, if still disappointing." Lai Shi Po deactivated the blade and threw it back to Ki''el, who snatched it out of the air... perhaps a bit aggressively.


    "But none of this answers what you spoke of--of how a warrior builds weapons rather than using them. It''s not that I cannot understand, Shiva Alassi. I want to see it."


    Sobon, although she wasn''t much of a negotiator, felt like she had the famous inscriptionist exactly where she wanted her. "Of course you do," Sobon said. "And you can already imagine bits and pieces of what you expect to see, but none of the specifics. If you weren''t at least that clever, you wouldn''t be here."


    Lai Shi Po scoffed, as though insulted, but Sobon sat back, content to let the woman consider the implied offer. After a long moment, Sobon added into the contemplative silence, "I am not asking you to do anything. Only keep certain secrets and do what you can to ensure nothing I say is used against me."


    "That should certainly depend on what you say," Lai Shi Po responded, demurely. "Even to gain access to great secrets, one such as I cannot be expected to just sit back and do nothing if you turn out to be an embodiment of ruin, or a poison that tears down this world."


    "No." Sobon shook her head. "I am only here to prevent harm, not to be anyone''s tool for conquest or annihilation."


    "A great many have claimed as much."


    "Such as the Diamond Lord himself?" Sobon''s voice was sharp. "I enjoy the idea of sharing my knowledge with people who are worthy. I would enjoy having someone I could actually talk to about inscription, and math, and chemistry, and physics. And I dislike the idea that I may not have anyone I could call a peer in this whole world, much less nearby."


    "But all of that pales to the idea that weapons I design could end up equipping marauding armies of tyrants as they cross this world, crushing anyone who just so happens to cross their path. No friendship or good will would undo such damage. If you aren''t willing to swear an oath to keep what you learn secret, and keep these ideas out of the hands of those who do not deserve them, then I''ll live with that disappointment."


    "If you doubt my resolve on that, I would like you to be fully aware that I have died before," Sobon said, finding that her voice had come to have an incredibly sharp edge to it, but neither embracing it nor letting off on the pressure. "As a professional warrior, I have endured and will endure again much worse."


    Lai Shi Po, in her torn and ragged short pants and shirt, stood barefoot in the basement that Sobon had hollowed out with her own power, not far from the burned holes torn into the ground that had been a Mithril Qi elder... and somehow, amidst all of that, the pressure that Lai Shi Po represented, in her poise and in her soul, refused to back down. Sobon wasn''t sure what it was--the spiritual god that stood with her, perhaps--but after all of that, even Sobon worried that somehow she had missed something, and that Lai Shi Po would have something, anything, to counter all of Sobon''s posturing and threats.


    Lai Shi Po let the silence stretch on for more than a minute before she spoke, her voice quieter than Sobon or the others had expected, but with a fire buried inside. "I do not in any way stand behind the awful things that my people have done," she said. "Trust that I could sell them profound weapons and techniques, and do not, not except for the very few whose character I can personally vouch for. There are always ways to make money for people like us, even if it is only painting dogs'' houses."


    "That is not a promise," Sobon noted, coolly.


    Lai Shi Po sighed. "Everything that you''ve said and implied tells me you are exactly what I said you are, with only your protest that you are not. An agent of the end, a nameless being descended from the heavens. And I know without question that if even if I agree not to speak, you will not tell me everything. A being beyond all space and time, beyond death, but I know you would ask me to be content with breadcrumbs scattered in the dirt like a peasant."


    From beside Sobon, Ki''el replied, cattily, "Like a drug-addled thief, dressed in rags and covered in dirt? A filthy creature that thrives in alleyways and has no place in decent company?"


    The look that Lai Shi Po threw was dirty enough that Sobon felt its aether passing, but in a flash, Lai Shi Po pulled things from a storage ring somewhere within her body--no, Sobon decided from the aether waves, from a space needle that accomplished the same effect, which had been buried within her arm. There was a brief flash and fog, during which Sobon thought a cleaning pattern wiped down her body, and a number of clothing items were apparated onto her body.


    When she cleared away the clinging fog with an impatient qi pulse, Lai Shi Po looked positively respectable--now standing with her fists together behind her back, she was dressed in modest red silks with intricate flowers all down the right side, and matching red shoes, her hair washed and tied in a neat bun, a look of stern disapproval masking the intense, but borderline mad, look that had been on her face before.


    Sobon heard Ki''el suck in a breath, and though that she even heard Lady Fau mutter something, sounding astonished. But Sobon only nodded, having studied the inscriptions on the ring for quite a while before adding the intent. Wearing clothes straight from the ring must have been a design criteria for it, and pulling scripted items out to clean her and neaten her hair was a triviality.


    "Ah, that''s right," Sobon said into the sudden silence, before Lai Shi Po, or anyone else, could say something they might regret. "I suppose I should let you check my work, shouldn''t I?" She removed the space ring from her own finger and tossed it to the woman. "I suppose I might have missed some of the subtleties, but I feel confident I did well enough."


    Lai Shi Po brought one hand from behind her back to catch the ring, and studied the inscriptions, but the stern look in her face faded into one of irritation, then confusion. "This is... the same ring that I gave you?"


    "Of course." Sobon shrugged. "I spent some time considering how to replicate it, but matching the inscriptions to the material is tricky. I heard from Lord Shida that you only accept a small fraction of the ring blanks given to you, but it''s hardly a surprise. The various materials and the way they interact with qi are fussy, after all."


    "Fussy," Lai Shi Po said, as she rolled the ring between her fingers, peering closely at the inscriptions. "Yes, you can call absolute madness fussy. But I suppose you know all of these things? All the whys and hows of the ridiculous restrictions that I have had to learn by trial and error?"


    "No, I don''t know them," Sobon said, and waited a beat, knowing she exuded a sense of smugness. "I had them all written down, but unfortunately neglected to bring them with me."


    Lai Shi Po turned and flung the ring into the far corner of the basement with a sudden violence that Sobon couldn''t help but laugh at, even as she worried for the ring itself, and its contents. But she flexed her Wing, and pulled the ring back, examining it for only a moment to ensure that it was still intact, then slipped it back on her finger.


    Lai Shi Po remained turned around, her shoulders trembling slightly from frustration, or perhaps rage.


    "I do, however, know the basics. It''s all the specifics of materials that make it difficult. There were tables and tables of data..." Sobon shrugged. "Even if someone presented me with the same data, if it wasn''t organized the way I used to have it, it would be a lot harder to go through. But I know enough that I expect, in time, to be able to replicate the design... in a slightly larger size."


    Lai Shi Po took a few deep breaths, then regained her poise, and turned to look at Sobon. "You really are a demon," she said, though the heat in her voice didn''t seem to match her words. "Finding my weakness and tempting me. I don''t mind having my loyalty purchased, but never let it be said that Lai Shi Po lets herself be bought cheaply."


    "First, you must trade pointers with me. Not to the death, but not holding back from what you know, either. Second, I want to know how this space could possibly have been designed, and a sample of the script necessary to replicate it. And third..." she squinted. "The details of what I need to know to more consistently engrave on complex materials at the scale of those rings."


    "The details are a lot," Sobon said, "and I have much to do."


    "Those are my terms. If you can meet that, even if you spat in the face of the Diamond Lord himself, I would tell him and his people nothing, and I will not sell anything or give away any knowledge gained from you, without your advance consent. You''ll have your privacy and your assurances that you''ve made nothing worse."


    A shrewd businesswoman, Sobon thought. Though I''m not sure exactly what she thinks I''m getting out of this. Instead of answering, she glanced over her shoulder at Lady Fau, who was watching from above with fascination. "And you?"


    "Me?" Lady Fau laughed. "I''m an alchemist and an old friend of Lai Shi Po, but I''m no genius. I spent my youth having grand adventures, and while I would be fascinated to learn the doubtless grand nuances of fate, I have no interest in joining nor opposing anything." She let herself become stern. "If you want assurances I won''t tell, I''ll make them. But, I''d also quite happily be told nothing more, and go about my way. Whether you bring doom, glory, or nothing at all, tomorrow Lord Anji will still need his medicine, and the day after, there will be another, and another, and another." She shrugged. "If there was anyone in the world I would have gossiped to, it''s Lai Shi Po, and only because of our shared history. I try to stay out of foolish matters like these."


    Sobon forced herself to magic up a mote of Oathbinding Qi for Lady Fau, but it showed more of less what Sobon would have expected--that the Lady would never have done anything to resist it, but that at some point in the future, Lai Shi Po would break it anyway. She still set it, and took the oath from Lady Fau, then turned to the other woman, and nodded.


    "We have a deal."

 47. Alassi - Rejoinder, Part 6: Kiel

    Ki''el spent the rest of the day studying Sobon''s interaction with this Lai Shi Po very carefully. Sobon, as was her way, was subtly humiliating and humbling everyone by at once working on her qi cultivation, creating incredible works of qi inscription, and also giving a lecture, often on unrelated things all at once.


    This Lai Shi Po, who Ki''el was admittedly not fond of, was at the very least a match for Sobon''s ability to see through to the heart of things. As Sobon''s words danced in and out of Ki''el''s ability to understand, Lai Shi Po followed her master''s words like a hunting hound--perhaps not following behind at every single step, perhaps not getting close enough to pounce, but seeming to never lose track of where her prey was going.


    Lai Shi Po had disguised herself as a beggar--no, she had been content to be treated by the whole world as trash, while being a master herself. In so many ways, she was and wasn''t like Sobon. And it seemed that she wanted something from Sobon. What, Ki''el wasn''t sure, but the girl felt like she was poised to lose something.


    And so as Sobon spoke effortlessly about a variety of topics too difficult for Ki''el to understand, she at least tried to remember things that seemed like she may need to know them later. She didn''t understand when Sobon spoke of (Chemistry) and how the world was made of (Elements) with various properties that were connected to how Aether interacted with them. It went beyond things that were solid and liquid, including the wind and flames, and other things... Sobon spoke so briefly about so many things that Ki''el struggled to keep perspective.


    And yet, she consumed the knowledge as much as she could. It was difficult, but she focused intensely. She had once in her life regretted letting Sobon leave her alone, and now her master was speaking of needing to leave again.


    Sobon spoke about how (Reactive elements) and (stable elements) and (heavy elements) and (light elements) all interacted with the (exotic field) of aether, and how (space) and time could be described by special mathematics. Lai Shi Po seemed to rankle at some of those ideas, especially something that Sobon said about space behaving like a surface. Ki''el wasn''t sure what that meant, but she paid attention to it.


    Sobon created a ring that warped space in a strange way, and gave it to Lai Shi Po. While she studied it, Ki''el watched Sobon, noting that the woman was creating tools to do her tasks more quickly--tools to forge sand into quartz rods, and to engrave those rods with properties. She moved to sit next to Sobon, and her master favored her with a smile, although she continued speaking about various things to Lai Shi Po, she let Ki''el study the tools, and the resulting rods.


    Ki''el knew that the inscriptions were profound, and beyond her ability to truly understand, but she did her best to memorize them. She noted when the same symbol was inscribed with different intent in different places, and where different glyphs had similar intent. And when Sobon crafted another rod, one very different from the rest, and concealed it within her space ring immediately, Ki''el noticed, but gave no indication. She wasn''t sure if it was Sobon being sneaky, or just not speaking about every last thing she was doing.


    By mid afternoon, Sobon moved them all--except for Lui and Lady Fau, and Lord Shida and his men--to a nearby mountaintop which was apparently uninhabited, and there, Sobon began constructing something. She had created another, larger space-warping ring, and when she pinned it in place with several aether rods and activated it, the ring began to create a phantom space above their heads. More rods were used to reshape and reinforce the concealed room that was being constructed, and then finally, Sobon looked at Lai Shi Po, and then at the rest of them.


    "If you want to spar... trade pointers as you said, we could do it now, or we could wait. By tomorrow morning, I will have another Spirit Bone prepared, and more as we wait..."


    But Lai Shi Po shook her head. "The guardians from the Lai family will find me before then. And while I am more than happy to keep your secrets, Shiva Alassi, they will not. I have many times pressured them into silence over small matters, but even then, the guards always report to the Elders. The only way to keep things that they hear safe is to convince the Elders of the Lai family to keep their silence, and they will exact a heavy price."


    And so Ki''el and Mian sat and watched as Sobon and Lai Shi Po floated deep into the center of this hidden mountaintop space. Sobon deployed more gem rods, ones that Ki''el noted would create a barrier between them when they were activated by intent. These she used to keep Ki''el and Mian safe, and to keep the entrance shut--however, the barriers let the two of them watch the battle to come with no restrictions.


    Of all things, though, Ki''el was worried that Lai Shi Po would be unable to stand against her master. The woman had been arrogant, but her qi core was unreadable--or rather, Ki''el was by far not stupid enough to trust what the core displayed. Although it read as Gold 3 stars, it might as well have called her Iron or Bronze for all that it was an obvious lie.


    "A warrior who creates weapons," Lai Shi Po said, and her voice was eager. "It means a warrior who writes weapons into being by script alone. I must see it, Alassi, at any price." From some hidden space ring or artifact, Lai Shi Po withdrew her first weapon--a greatsword ten times too large for a woman like her, one a massive mountain of a man would have struggled, even with two hands, to wield. But the smaller woman barely had to touch it, and it hovered with her eagerly, a sheen around the cutting edge of the blade singing.


    "Since I am not yet back to my full strength, I hope you will forgive me if I use these two as stand-ins for my spirit bones." Sobon produced two more quartz rods. "These should be my right humerous and left radius, if I had the time."


    "Spirit bones... Attuned bone tissues? I do not care. And don''t speak of things that will distract us."


    "It''s simply inconvenient. I had hoped that by the time I needed them, I wouldn''t need tools." Sobon released them from her hands, and both rods glowed.


    Lai Shi Po swung her sword, and Ki''el understood the wave of intense qi that was released to be very close to the purity of Sobon''s techniques--and for the first time, she realized that it might be a much closer match than she had assumed. Because the wave of qi was flavored with air--but Lai Shi Po''s cutting wind qi was profound. It was not some fool''s attempt to combine two unrelated things, but a study on how they were the same, and how their differences could reinforce one another.


    Sobon''s fake right bone raised, and with a speed Ki''el had never seen, aether lines traced themselves in the air, forming a great circle of power, with several smaller circles of similar but just-smaller size behind. With her perspective, from below the battle, Ki''el could see that the attack didn''t come close to breaking Sobon''s defenses--in fact, it never came close to reaching them. A cup or net shot out from the circles, catching and funneling the wind qi away before the circles, and the cup, vanished.


    The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    Something shifted in Lai Shi Po. Ki''el thought that it was the spirit that had been guarding her, who now allowed the woman to release more of her qi pressure. Lai Shi Po shifted her oversize sword and thrust, creating an impossibly dense stab of pressurized wind qi that hesitated a moment before leaping forward.


    Again, circles appeared and vanished, and the enemy attack never got close, and again, the other woman''s spirit shifted, more qi leaking out.


    "Since you''re taking your time," Sobon said, "let me show you what kind of attacks my defenses were meant to handle."


    Ki''el wanted to flinch, to look away. She knew that just witnessing what came next would hurt. But she forced herself to watch, as Sobon''s fake left bone glowed, and more and more circles appeared in midair, and all of the qi in the entire arena seemed to flow into a spear of light that was held between them. Ki''el watched, unable to breathe--she''d felt these effects before, when Sobon had shattered a man unbelievably far beyond herself. Only this weapon, Ki''el thought, was focused, the many rings stabilizing the result, thinning it. Intensifying it.


    Lai Shi Po, from where Ki''el could see her, both threw several defenses out to limit the blow, but also made every effort to dodge it. Based on the way the rings shifted, Ki''el thought that she still only escaped because Sobon willed it.


    The aether wave released by the lance of light and qi erased all concept of Ki''el''s own existence for a time, even though it was pointed away, and even though she was prepared, and even though the barrier before her darkened for a moment just at that moment. Ki''el grasped her cycles and flooded herself with aether--but it was worse this time, she realized, because the intense, destructive aether had nowhere to escape to. Instead, it impacted a barrier that Sobon had left over the edge of the space, a barrier which held against that impossible piercing force, and the spent aether of both flickered in the space, feeling chaotic and fundamentally damaged from the interaction.


    Ki''el made a note to ask Sobon about that, later.


    But Sobon gestured, and the space seemed to suck qi from the surroundings again, and the destructive qi faded. Lai Shi Po had... apparently not been completely blinded by the immense power, although she did seem to lose control for a moment. Next to her, Mian had braced himself fully, covering his eyes with his arms, but he seemed still to be in shock.


    "That is..." Lai Shi Po''s voice sounded stressed, and with a growl, she fully unveiled her spirit, producing a vibrant red gemlike core--and allowing the spirit that had been tightly tucked in around her core to move freely. "That is... a fundamentally profound technique."


    "It is a weapon," was all Sobon said. "And it is the sort of weapon that should never be seen or understood by anyone who would misuse it."


    "And created entirely with qi constructs. I imagine this isn''t the limit of this technique? If correctly designed?"


    Sobon... was silent. For long enough that even Lai Shi Po seemed to sense the strain in the atmosphere, and she lost whatever frivolity she had in her posture.


    Finally, Sobon spoke. "A ''correctly designed weapon'' based on these principles, Lai Shi Po, could end worlds. This is not a guess or an estimation. It is not merely fact or spiritual truth. It is history.""


    "There have been worlds, Lai Shi Po, where people did not treat the existence of such weapons as the threat that they truly were. They believed that such weapons could simply be designed, but never built, or built, and never used. That believed that the threat of a weapon would suffice to rule. But once a threat existed, another threat rose to counter it. Weapons that were never meant to be designed were built. Weapons that were never meant to be built were used. And civilizations and worlds ended."


    "I could design and build a weapon to end this world. I will not merely never build that weapon, I will never design it. The threat of such a weapon is never enough. If I possess the world''s greatest spear..." Sobon dismissed the rings, which had been hanging there ominously beside her. "They will come with a million lesser spears, and I will need to chose between using that spear once, and suffering a loss. And if I use it once, I will use it twice."


    Lai Shi Po, though, waved her hand as though clearing away smoke. "Yes," she said, "I understand the point of having profound designs and never using them. I had my own, if nothing so... grand. But we are not done yet." From her space artifact, Lai Shi Po withdrew a flaming spear, one whose tip Ki''el could not even look at, because it pierced not only her eyes, but her spiritual senses, with its intensity. When the woman spoke, Ki''el felt the woman''s words were garbled. "I still need to see if this suffices to break your defenses!"


    Instead of his defensive right bone, Sobon summoned up a ball of destructive aether with his left bone, and when Lai Shi Po threw the spear, Sobon nimbly placed the destruction in front of it, the rings that had produced the ball also containing it completely. Whatever profound effect Lai Shi Po''s weapon might have had if it struck, it was like throwing a bucket of water into the ocean for all that it affected that sphere of destructive energy.


    Still the woman produced another weapon, and tried to teleport behind Sobon, but Ki''el could feel Sobon''s phantom wings suddenly flare into existence, and the blade stopped. Sobon''s right bone shined, and rings snapped into existence around Lai Shi Po, barriers suddenly separating her from her weapon, and flinging the two apart.


    "Do you consider that I''ve ''traded'' enough ''pointers'' with you yet?" Sobon''s voice sounded annoyed. "Or are you going to continue trying to sneak up on me?"


    Ki''el''s eyes shifted away from Lai Shi Po, seemingly imprisoned, but she didn''t detect the other threat until one of Sobon''s righteous rings snapped another barrier in place in midair, and the form of Lai Shi Po faded and was replaced with her spirit, while the woman herself reappeared in the new barrier.


    But Lai Shi Po growled, as though she were a beast, perhaps one much like the fox spirit that she was working with. "I came all this way," she snarled, something deep and frustrated. "Dealt with so many idiots on the road, and I''ll have to deal with the damned Lai family again, all for... what? To be told that my brilliant mind is unneeded in this world? That my weapons and my shields cannot match those of the gods?"


    Sobon studied the woman, and after a moment, Ki''el noticed her casting another aether effect, but then she shrugged. "Lai Shi Po," she said, "what does ''myth'' mean to you?"


    The smaller woman startled, confused, and didn''t answer.


    "I ask because someone asked me the same question," Sobon said, "and although I feel like my answer was good, it wasn''t really my answer. It was an answer of my people. I simply... wonder what you would say, if someone of profound power asked you the same."


    "Myth..." Lai Shi Po spoke the word, as though it felt oily and disgusting in her mouth. "Isn''t that a word used for people who cannot face the truth? For people who believe foolish lies while never being willing to accept the harshness of reality?"


    For whatever reason, Sobon sighed. Ki''el, from her vantage point, could see the intense reaction crawl over Lai Shi Po, as the woman realized that her answer was wrong, but Sobon didn''t correct her, didn''t try to teach. Instead, she just... looked away.


    Disappointed, Ki''el realized. Whatever Sobon was looking for, he did not find it in Lai Shi Po.


    And so, Ki''el found herself considering the question very seriously, although she was sure that she didn''t understand it. And although she several times found herself thinking much the way Lai Shi Po did--that a myth was something only believed by a fool--she refused that answer every time.


    She was still thinking deeply about it when Lai Shi Po and Sobon stopped talking, and they all left the expanded space. And when two very serious looking guards appeared as though from nowhere, and Lai Shi Po said some mollifying words to them about having made a profitable trade. And as the day ended, and Ki''el returned home, she rolled the question around in her mind.


    Although she was entirely uncertain what the right answer was... she decided on one thing. A myth was something made in ignorance--and everyone was ignorant of something. And she considered that, and why Sobon would speak of it with a woman who might gain the power to end worlds, and Ki''el felt like there was an answer there, but she didn''t quite understand what it was, or why.


    Although she slept restlessly, when she awoke, she felt comforted by the question, believing without a doubt that Sobon did have an answer to such a profound question, and believeing that was meaningful in and of itself.

 48. Alassi - Plateau, Part 1

    Sobon eyed the two guards from the Lai family carefully. It was the following day, now, and Sobon had been careful to keep her secrets from them carefully, and for her part, Lai Shi Po seemed to have worked hard to conceal the fox deity that guarded her behind layers of barriers. They had adjourned from the expanded space to the City Lord''s palace, where Lai Fen Wei and Lai Ton Dan had intensely questioned the Lai Shi Po and Lord Shida about anything that might have harmed the pride or standing of the Lai Family--or their ''face,'' as they put it, which Alassi inexpertly translated as something of the sort. Lord Shida had apparently been through this before, because he nimbly avoided giving them facts without lying to their faces.


    They were exceptionally serious people, with aether so rigid that Sobon would have called it brittle, if not for their intense strength. Although Sobon wasn''t sure that either was a match for Lai Shi Po when she was fully revealing her strength, they were each in the Gem phase of qi--meaning that they had successfully incorporated enough Starbeast Core tissue to begin to handle truly intense qi within their own bodies.


    Their true strength was relative and imprecise, of course, but Sobon felt that any attempt to analyze them too deeply would be met with very humorless aggression. So Sobon also said very little, and kept her inspections mostly passive.


    Overnight, Sobon had attuned her right humerus bone, and shifted the attunement pattern to her left radius. Her upper arm bone was for more than the defensive constructs she''d used the day before--it was a set of subroutines, algorithms, and pattern pieces meant to let her swiftly draw and maintain whole array circles at once in free space, a specialty of Outward Spin aether. It was not quite the right set of patterns to let Sobon immediately and freely create new aether dynamos; the patterns used were not completely free of intent, and so while Sobon could create aether generator using them, she couldn''t attune with that energy.


    Nevertheless, when Lai Shi Po and her two minders reappeared in the morning to talk, Sobon--after deactivating and concealing her dynamos and the adaptation array--met them with a serious and humorless look that mirrored Lai Shi Po''s extremely put-upon expression.


    "I would like to invite you to an auction," Lai Shi Po said immediately upon arrival. "And of course, I would encourage you to participate. Anonymously, if you prefer." Lai Shi Po studied Ki''el and Mian, who were both uneasily eyeing her guards. "I doubt that you and yours will be as... overwhelmed by the selection of good available this far from the Empire, but it is instructive to see who shows up to bid, what they are buying, and for how much."


    Sobon could read Lai Shi Po well enough to suspect the woman had hidden motivations, so of course she accepted. "What time, and what sort of things do you think would be of interest to be sold?"


    "In two days," Lai Shi Po said. "The Emerald Sun Trading House cannot get invitations to all of their patrons in less time than that. Some are reclusive or... distant. As to your other question..." Lai Shi Po gave Sobon a flat look. "I suspect that anything you are comfortable leaving in the hands of the highest bidder will nonetheless impress, especially if it can be described in a way that makes it sound exotic and novel. Weapons and defenses, and spatial rings, are of course favorites."


    "Hm." Sobon momentarily suffered from an attack of pride--wanting to create something Lai Shi Po would consider ''profound'' and steal the show--but let the thought fade, instead thinking about what could be practical without giving away secrets. It was when Lui stepped out of the door behind her--the girl had been given part of the morning off by Lady Fau, as the latter was hosting Lai Shi Po and her guards--that Sobon recalled the girl''s interest in Sobon''s purified aether. She''d suggested that a tool to purify another''s qi would be useful, and perhaps do good.


    There were a number of different ways to create or structure such a tool, Sobon reflected, but the best of them either synthesized qi--which was too powerful a tool for Sobon to give, if she could even do it on short notice--or required a sample of qi completely without intent. But the qi of the inscription itself would have intent, and the person using it would insert their own flawed qi... so the pattern would have to avoid anything bleeding over into the result, and especially, prevent anything from tampering with the sample.


    Sobon, looking up from her thoughts, just nodded at Lai Shi Po. "I believe I''ll have something. Useful, and profound. I can give you one--"


    "Don''t even think about it," Lai Shi Po said, with a dark smirk. "Put more than one up for auction. If I bid on one, any others will go for a substantial amount."


    "Then, I would like to discuss the possibility of buying certain specific elements..."


    <hr>


    Later, when Lai Shi Po had gone to handle other business and appease her guards, Sobon began architecturing two arrays--one, based entirely on the Ri''lef notes on qi, to synthesize a single mote of intent-free qi, and a crown that would purify qi that was circulated through it. A crown, in Sobon''s mind, because that would purify qi closest to the mind first, naturally removing many corruptions and effects.


    The crown was also a nod to ancient Crest; the first Emperor of Crest, back when the empire was still limited to its origin planet, had worn a simple crown, itself a potent aether defense against corrupting influences, though Sobon doubted its nature was as simple as what Sobon was crafting. Masters Cuil and Tare had been explicit in their intent; the Emperor needed a leader who was unaffected by various aether maladies which were passed on by social means. Their "political filters" were works that had been studied for ages... in theory.


    In practice, the first Crown of the Emperor was destroyed along with the first Emperor. Master Tare, who would later succeed another temporary Emperor, had much more private means to accomplish the same thing, and all those who followed kept their secrets. There were other crowns, but none that fulfilled the same role.


    Although Sobon knew it would take some careful work to design the Crown, her larger concern was for the ability to generate motes of untarnished qi. Doing so would require creating multiple, higher spin aethers, without using any tarnished qi in the process. Sobon ended up doing so by creating a set of aggressively minimalist dynamos, with short and hair-thin threads, and fewer lesser dynamos per greater one, but even so it quickly became a pain to create enough matched dynamos for her purposes.


    Sobon sent along a request to the Corona for it to verify her mental math on higher-dimensional architectures, and at the same time, sent along a couple questions to the Ri''lef engineers. To her surprise, in this instance, the Ri''lef got back to her almost sooner than the Corona--and the Corona, being an aether-based computer, took very little time to compute a few dimensional vectors.


    [ To: Ri''lef (Industrial Second) K''val, Re: Mythic aether. Two things. First, I take your general (radio silence) as indicative that there has not been another outburst of mythic (shear) problems. For practical reasons I have demonstrated some ability from someone who has not seemed to be affronted or confused. She referenced something that she indicated was prophetic, or was interpreted as prophecy, regarding the origins of the Djang Empire leader, which may be problematic. Do you have the ability to identify myths in any capacity, or determine details about one? ]


    [ Re: (Unspecified) ], came the immediate return. [ Myths can be only be identified by (aether signature intent from one viewing the myth with detachment, as a scholar). ] Sobon blinked at the packed concept, and internally retranslated it as (academic intent), storing the packed concept separately. [ For the former, we have been tracking a mythic shear candidate affected by your actions, but they are remote. Projections indicate an encounter within two weeks. ] After another moment, there was another pulsed message, containing only a qi signature, which Sobon thought she recognized, but only filed away for the moment.


    Sobon did take a moment to see if she could formulate a proper aether intent to convey the message that Lai Shi Po had summarized, but on examining the result, was positive that she could only create intent for the discussion she had with the woman. She briefly considered how to ask the woman for a qi signature of the myth, but pushed the thought away a moment later.


    [ Re: Qi, ] Sobon sent after another few moments. [ I am attempting to create a qi purification matrix, requiring a sample of (zero-intent qi). My naive interpretation of the containment algorithm is this: (attachment 1). Do you have a more complete solution? ]


    There was a surprisingly long period, nearly half an hour, before Sobon heard back from K''val on that message.


    [ We have finished designs for qi purification matrices at large scale, but the (intent) of your design indicates personal-scale purification. That''s a noble thought, and I passed the design to the appropriate team members. Their collective assessment is that even a simple design will require significant exotic materials, though (Starbeast Core) is an acceptable substitute for aether currents below (1.74 (decagems)). As you indicated, the shielding necessary is the complicating factor. It would take material weights around (the Actinide element series) to properly block all intent with clearances below (3mm), which is problematic. Additionally, these changes to your design are suggested: (attachment 1) ]


    Sobon, busy with her mini-dynamo construction, paused and rubbed her head at some of the foreign numbers, doing the conversion math in her head. The Ri''lef, for whatever reason, used a (gems) unit of qi which seemed an arbitrary amount... although, if Sobon were to guess by the intent, had something to do with the Gem phase of qi. That was a frustratingly unspecific point in development, since even the Ri''lef notes on qi gave startlingly inconsistent ranges for intensity and throughput, and Sobon sent a terse reply requesting clarification.


    Stolen novel; please report.


    The numbers that came back were less important than the framing. K''val''s mental concept of one Gem of raw aether was the amount required to create a (1mm) cubic sample of solid aether crystal. That was a small sample--but aether crystal was dense, so it worked out to a modest quantity of aether once expanded to a useful state.


    After considering that, Sobon was willing to accept seventeen gems of aether as the upper limit to how much her crown would purify at once. A master wouldn''t be able to simply push their entire spirit through it, but then, none of the materials Sobon was working with would stand up to that kind of pressure. It took specially manufactured high-aether materials to do anything of the sort.


    Sobon sent a mental thanks, and then followed up with a quick double-check of her understanding of the qi synthesis process, which K''val found two minor quibbles with, ones Sobon thought she would have found herself in time. But with the finished designs, and after forming a simply insane quantity of mini dynamos, Sobon began casting them out, forming a large number of Inward and Outward spin dynamos.


    Then, with some concern and with careful attention to the geometry sent back from the Corona, she began arranging those dynamos through higher-dimensional space to form Onward and Reverse-spin dynamos. They were dangerous energies to have in pure form, but when Sobon grasped them and spun Onwards and Reverse, she could feel herself getting a bit giddy as time energy passed into the physical plane, even bound into the strict limits of the dynamo. Of course, in order to form even higher spins, she needed several of each...


    Sobon slowly and carefully, formed Superior and Inverse cycles once she had the correct number of Onwards and Reverse dynamos, feeling the odd sense of fate energy itself passing through her hands. It could have been a heady feeling, but Sobon knew just how little effect such a small thread of fate magic could have--not enough, in most instances, to so much as deflect a sword strike, especially not in a world where qi, their replacement for aether, already included small bits of fate magic within it.


    Sobon, feeling the foreign energy passing through Alassi''s spirit for the first time, very carefully went back to forging Onwards and Reverse dynamos, then--carefully--another set of Superior and Inverse ones. She would have preferred to stop there--but qi, pure qi, required a sample of the next higher energy.


    Hyperior and Ulterior, although Sobon only needed the former. Sobon had seen the math required to make effective use of them, but not studied it. Even Superior and Inverse aethers were ridiculously complex, to the point where Sobon didn''t doubt the energy was used to manipulate the course of worlds. Crestan aether theorists summarized the energies of the next level as altering the laws of reality, but Sobon wasn''t sure what that meant, and the Crestan Navy rarely used it, except to stabilize warp and power cores.


    The equations to do that with the energy had come from the Founders themselves, and while Sobon was told that their people now understood those equations, the Empire of Crest had done little else with the energy.


    In time, though, Sobon was able to very carefully create just one tiny mini-dynamo that produced Hyperior-spin aether, and when she broke off even the smallest amount from its thorn, she felt an effect flood through her whole being, just by having the energy within her grasp. Although the effect passed, for a moment, she could sense... everything, from her blood vessels and the fine hairs on her skin, to small qi blockages and inefficiencies in how she had attuned her bones. And she could sense Alassi''s spirit, watching with some detachment, while the membrane surrounding her seemed to slowly decay.


    When she blinked away the effect, Sobon could tell that holding or using the energy hadn''t specifically done anything. And that was fine--it would have been stranger if it did, since she was doing her best to hold the energy without using it. If she failed to do even that, she couldn''t create perfectly neutral qi samples.


    Once she had satisfied her curiosity, Sobon still needed to recreate all of the lower dynamos, but each required less. Soon enough, Sobon had the ability to create small samples of each of the aether types, and with the qi synthesis process as laid out by K''val, Sobon was able to create a first sample of pure, untouched qi.


    As expected, it was... underwhelming.


    Although Sobon held the theoretically perfect qi in stasis, she could find very little to differentiate it from any other qi she sensed, except that it felt... clean. That was all the point, after all; qi was definitely a profoundly complex form of aether, and a suitable gift from the Founders to a growing world, but seeing the extremely difficult creation process didn''t change what it was. And yet... when Sobon finally gave in and absorbed the first mote of perfect qi, she felt like impurities from around her body shifted, as though that one drop of clear water had diluted a muddy puddle. That made little sense, since Sobon knew her own qi was much cleaner than most... but she shook off the feeling.


    It was easy to forget just how fundamentally different it was for Sobon to use pure aether. When pulling aether from her dynamos, she didn''t need to worry about controlling every last stray impulse, didn''t need to fix every last nervous tic. Those whose aether was always tied to their bodies had to fight every last impurity in order to reach profound heights; Sobon only needed a sample. She considered that, as she synthesized another few drops of purified qi, mentally studying the effect as she absorbed them into her spirit.


    In the end, Sobon decided, it was probably--no, definitely a bad idea to give people truly purified qi like that. She could, in theory, create a prototype for herself, or Ki''el, or others that she found worthy, but Sobon understood something after reading the Ri''lef notes on qi, and comparing them to her own advancement: she understood that she was cheating, and it was only acceptable because it was her, and not someone who would abuse the ability.


    If the aether she used was from her dynamos, she could pass more energy through her body without risk of mutation, because the impurities in aether multiplied the chances of mutation by large factors. If she was using aether from her dynamos, she could attune extremely quickly, because the dense aether she pressed into it would have the desired effect without consequences.


    Someone with absolutely pure qi could advance nearly as fast as Sobon had, and Sobon wanted to make a tool that they could simply wear and cycle their qi.


    While Sobon considered that, she retrieved her samples of Starbeast core and synthesized more purified qi to wash them with. As when she put the motes of qi in her own body, the purified qi seemed to draw the impurities out of the substance. Again, Sobon mentally acknowledged--if people could reuse core tissues so quickly and easily, they would kill each other and just take them.


    Still, the qi washing process wasn''t perfect. Although the less-tainted sample was probably clean enough to use right away--and that was enough to perhaps create three crowns, if she limited her core use to necessary regions--no amount of purified qi could completely remove the deeper attunement on the other sample.


    With some regret, she summarized her thoughts and sent them back to K''val, suggesting she wanted a maximum clarity, or perhaps, to redesign the purifier to work in stages, so that it would take a long time for a local to reach a problematic purity level--but with an override for Sobon, or anyone he taught the trick. As before, the engineer didn''t immediately respond, and Sobon imagined that the Ri''lef were taking the time to actively speak on the subject.


    It took another half day before K''val responded with a finalized design, one that, to Sobon''s mild surprise, was complex enough that even she couldn''t read it completely. In searching through the design, though, Sobon came to understand exactly why--the design took more time and space to design a proper security system than Sobon was expecting, because the overall layout of the purifier had the purifying qi very obviously moving in different loops for different stages. It would be easy for someone to identify what should happen next, and somewhat difficult to prevent them from actually succeeding, especially once they had powerful enough qi to break the intent on the inscriptions.


    The careful inscriptions also used up more core material, leaving Sobon producing at most two with what he had left. Sobon didn''t hesitate to use it all, as well as other materials he had gotten from Lai Shi Po, and didn''t skimp, in designing the crown, on making it attractive. She added gold, chromium, diamond, and thin layers of bismuth, all to give it an appearance that was undeniably shiny, and when she identified a region of the crown far enough from the main inscriptions to be usable, she made sure to add a simple qi routine to protect the materials.


    But as she was inscribing, Sobon began to feel odd. And as she considered all she knew of aether and qi, she came to decide that the feeling she was getting was specifically from the Hyperior Qi that she had used. It was odd, to be sure, but Sobon understood that the crowns she was constructing would last through time--and therefore, any time or fate component to their qi echoed back down to the moment of its creation. While most qi would be muddied and unusable after a few years... Sobon was still creating a mote of pure qi which would remain pure qi as long as the crown was usable, and that qi''s echo would not end.


    For the moment, however, it was in flux, because what Sobon did now could change its future, and those many and myriad futures were all rolling in like ripples on a pond, one after another, each sounding much like those that come before and after yet never quite the same. From Sobon''s limited understanding, she only had a certain window before that flux would damage the qi, and so she tried to close her eyes and "listen" to the echoes of the future.


    It could have been maddening, if Sobon were too invested. There was a lot of information there--an unending parade of faces and places, glimpses of futures that would never be, of people that might not even be born, and at the end of it all, a shadow, watching the flux from a different perspective. A shadow that, Sobon knew immediately, was someone he could not contend with.


    Not the Diamond Lord. The only threat that could be worse.


    So Sobon considered her options, and the mote of Hyperior Aether burned within her, trying to suggest not only that she could change the future, but how. And she listened to the echoes with a slightly different intent, filtering them based on what aether impression she left on the crown, and she was left ultimately with the impression that it was to be based on Inverse Qi.


    Inverse Qi, which the Ri''lef called Corrupt, was specifically the qi for avoiding certain fates rather than bringing others to fruition. And as Sobon studied the future with that insight, she saw patterns, not just specific instances, that she wanted to avoid. And so, with very careful and specific intent, and using her purified Inverse dynamo, she left that impression at a specific place within the crown, empty of other intent but close enough to the massively complex pattern that others wouldn''t dare interfere with it.


    Almost immediately, the future of the crown clarified, no longer flickering through uncountable futures, and now selecting among only a few. And to Sobon''s relief, the same few faces kept appearing in the many futures that the crown would see.


    With care but also more speed, Sobon forged a second crown, beginning to understand in the future she saw echoed that certain things were missing--not occasionally, but always. There was a sense that the missing thing still existed, but it was far away--touching the future, but not acting.


    Sobon could have studied and contemplated the futures she''d seen for another week or month, but the time she''d spent creating the crowns added up, and she had only hours before Lai Shi Po would come to bring her to the auction. So she cleaned herself, now too distracted to be grouchy, and forged two steel boxes with gold trim, before reconsidering.


    Gold was a low metal to these people, shiny but otherwise unimpressive. So Sobon went all the way in that direction, forging a box of Bronze to hold them, and on the cover, she put the same decoration she had put on the crown.


    The symbol of the Empire of Crest.

 49. Alassi - Plateau, Part 2

    When Lai Shi Po showed up with Lady Fau and her two bodyguards to escort Sobon, Mian, Ki''el, and Lui to the auction, Sobon noted that she could not sense any immediate stirring of the aether in the vicinity that she would associate with a gathering crowd. She didn''t bother to ask, though, especially when Lai Shi Po''s group showed up in a flying sled, one that Sobon glanced over without comment. Although it seemed a bit crass to Sobon, comparing the rich elegance of the sled to the poor and in-progress repairs to the city around Sobon''s own house... at the same time, Sobon''s own fortifications and her own stoic detachment from it all would have made any argument she made hypocritical.


    Sobon studied the sled, deciding after a while that it was not Lai Shi Po''s design, or at least, not her construction. The foundation was a firm but shallow box, without wheels or runners, and a simple but firmly constructed shed was placed on it, with complex qi seals on the front and back to handle the wind blast and thrust, with another complex seal on the bottom for lift. Sobon could feel a flavor of qi running through the structure itself that she assumed was "wood" qi, reinforcing it without too much stiffness, but the power that flowed through the seals was too complex to pick apart.


    Lai Shi Po was seated, and did not rise, when Sobon and the others boarded. The guards, Lady Fau, and one other who was piloting the sled itself, all crammed in on a single bench on one side, and Sobon and his group took the opposite bench, Sobon lining up directly with Lai Shi Po.


    The inscriptionist took no time to engage Sobon in a private communication, although Sobon noted the guards glancing her way when the qi pulses began.


    [ Everything you do, you impress, ] Lai Shi Po said. [ I cannot grasp what has shifted in your qi, but the fact that it has shifted is unmistakable. And you have another bone set as well? Two? ]


    Instead of immediately replying, Sobon conceptualized a simple public-private key exchange algorithm and pulsed it at Lai Shi Po, who frowned, but then put on a serious face, clearly focusing. After a moment, she was able to pulse back an encrypted packet with her own primitive key, and Sobon simplified her own to match it, taking some of the stress off the woman''s face.


    [ I have finished two bones, yes, only late remembering to finish and script the second. Regrettably I set my sights rather high with my project, and it consumed all of the time I had remaining. There are only two units to be sold, but... I expect they will not disappoint. ]


    It took Lai Shi Po several moments to decode Sobon''s pulse, form and encode her own, but when she finally sent it, Sobon noted that she still performed the encryption perfectly, with no flaws. She was also reasonably happy that the other woman''s mental voice seemed to relax a bit, knowing that her minders couldn''t hear. [ I''m sure if you got serious, you''d blow the socks off of even the Diamond Lord. Don''t tell me what you made; I want to be surprised when it comes up. They''ll ask you to explain the item with intent, and I assure you, they''ll find a way to inflate their description so much even you will want to buy it, all without telling a lie. ]


    Sobon considered the message, and considered how she would convey the item''s purpose with intent, but sent another message back since she had a private channel. [ When you spoke of that prophecy, or promise, you said you had heard the intent of the prophecy itself. Can you recreate the (academic intent), the (qi signature) of the prophecy itself? ]


    Lai Shi Po winced at the packed meaning once she decrypted it, but sent back a reply fairly quickly. [ I have only heard translations of the intent. But I believe there is a scholar at (the city we are going to) Asteria City who might be able to provide that intent. I will set up a meeting once we arrive. ]


    Sobon raised an eyebrow. [ Where are we going, exactly? Not far into the Empire, I trust? ]


    Instead of replying in that way, Lai Shi Po spoke out loud. "We are travelling to the city of Asteria, a city in the deep mountains so important to the Empire that they cut a direct road through the center of a mountain to reach it. In this place, they mine many consequential gems and metals from deep within the earth, at the place where an ancient star fell to the ground. In the time before the Starbeasts appeared, these materials were prized as the most profound materials for inscription, and there were... other anomalies also to be discovered there." She glanced at Sobon, finishing her words with encrypted intent alone. [ Created objects. The star that fell was a vessel for beings from beyond the sky. ]


    Sobon frowned, but replied. [ Does this have to do with the prophecy? ]


    [ No. The starfall crater is thousands of years old, perhaps more. The prophecy was from the rising of the Diamond Lord, much more recent. ] Lai Shi Po turned to Mian, answering a question that Sobon had paid no attention to. "The Empire threatened to invade many times, but the elders threatened to destroy certain things that must be left intact. When assassins struck, they proved that it their resolve was deep and their words were not empty. The Empire has not tried again."


    "Then it is a neutral city?" Sobon let her voice sound detached, even bored, and she noted a slight jostle as the sled passed through a spot of disturbed air. Some, like Lui, seemed to tense at the shaking, but the people who had traveled like this before showed no signs of being upset.


    "It preserves its place by not growing too close to any other neighbors, and so it can only be neutral. It remains difficult to reach by land, but anyone with money can buy simple flight artifacts."


    "It''s not on any major roads?" Sobon raised an eyebrow.


    "Not except the one to the Empire. But the city maintains contacts with many of the smaller cities, so that the smaller nobles families can gain the resources they need to oppose the Empire. Rarely, if ever, are the Empire families invited to any of their events, although a few show up out of spite."


    Sobon nodded, and before long, the flying shed slowed and stopped. The pilot opened the door to reveal they were on a high balcony of a palace, overlooking a massive city. Sobon, following two others, stepped out and looked, finding that whole city occupied a wide valley between seven mountain peaks, each of which had a massive, glowing tower on top. The area within that boundary was packed full of houses and businesses, with many large towers and ziggurats, both on the valley floor and up the sides of the mountains in every direction.


    From the palace that they had landed on--and Sobon could tell it was exactly that--several people were already standing and waiting, two with silver trays ready. Their dress was very different from the Djang style that Sobon had seen so far, despite similar features--they dressed in ways that were severe, and with dress that might have been uncomplicated if not for the gold trim and house emblems on their chests. They also all wore hats, and all but the leading man had their heads tilted to hide their eyes behind them.


    "Lai Shi Po! An honor, as always." The leading man bounded forward several steps, and Sobon noticed him completely disregard the bristling bodyguards. "When I heard that you had sent a message, I knew right away that something auspicious was in motion. You said you brought a guest?"


    "Hello, Bin Suei. I did, but you will forgive us if our guest remains anonymous for tonight." Lai Shi Po didn''t need to gesture, but she did, a very informal flick that Sobon took as her opportunity to step forward. She noted that one of the servants with silver trays stepped towards her, but hesitated out of reach. "She also has not prepared a description plaque for her items. If you would bring her to the Appraiser, I believe he will be... impressed."


    "Always what I like to hear," Bin Suei laughed and clapped his hands. Sobon nodded at the nearer servant, and when the tray was presented, she appeared the two bronze-trimmed boxes onto the tray, close enough to center that they would not have caused it to tip--though Sobon expected that the slight woman, since that''s what this server was, would have been able to adjust even if Sobon had dropped the boxes right on the edge.


    Sobon thought she felt the slightest pulse of aether as the two crowns appeared, and wondered if they were the Inverse Aether gently sorting through the many fates that were being brought here. But when Bin Suei gestured for Sobon to follow the servant into a side room, she did without comment, simply wondering exactly what sort of man the Appraiser would be.


    Sobon was... not immediately impressed, to find that the Appraiser was an obese man with spectacles and qi firmly stuck at two Gold stars. Not like Man Gai, who was only mildly chubby; this man looked like he didn''t commonly like to stand or move around, and lounged in an excessively ornate chair with only a single wooden table to his side, where a plate of food, a bowl, and a large carafe of wine all laid out beside him. His fingers were festooned with rings, and his hair hair hung long and straight behind him.


    And yet, once the crowns crossed within perhaps ten paces of him, the man leaped to his feet nimbly and rushed forward in a graceful bound. The servant, though Sobon saw her jolt, patiently stopped and held the tray for his inspection.


    "I do believe I smell the undeniable smell of fortune on this one," the obese Appraiser practically giggled as he bounded from one foot to the other, shifting feet to one side or another as he examined the two boxes from several angles, never coming close to touching them. "What is it, what is it? Hmm?" He stopped bounding when the server was between him and Sobon, and peered past the smaller woman to see Sobon''s face. "You do intend to tell me, don''t you? With intent, if you would. Be as nuanced as you like; my hearing is very good."


    Ah, sensory-centered, of course. That might also explain his appetite. Sobon eyed the man, whose face was somewhere between an overeager child''s, and a very patient but very serious father''s; with the fat in the way, it was difficult to tell the subtleties, and whether the look was interest or mischief. But Sobon closed her eyes and forgot about it, taking a deep breath, and spoke clearly.


    The man absorbed her words and intent, and in only a moment was back in his chair, writing on a piece of paper that he had produced from a spatial ring. After a long moment of silence, he glanced up. "I''ve heard your words," he said, and with one hand shooed Sobon and the attendant both away. "Trust that I know what I am doing. Your work will be very well represented."


    Sobon glared back at the man. "I would never cast aspersions, sir Appraiser, but..."


    "But you want to test me?" The man fully looked up, an upset look crossing his face. "I suppose after that little display of mine, a little confusion is warranted. Fine, but I want to save my... reinterpretation. Let it be a surprise. Instead..." He disappeared his writing tools and bounded forward, and with a careful move that Sobon almost couldn''t catch, made the attendant swirl around to face her, clearly against the woman''s will.


    "[This box,]" intoned the Appraiser, his words ringing with carefully metered intent, each word impressing on the listener not only the Appraiser''s certainty of its value, but the raw truth of his words, "[Is the work of an absolute master. Although the materials appear inauspicious, they were chosen specifically to conceal the treasure within. Forged of flawless steel and bronze with secret methods, not a hint of Forging Qi remains. The masterwork is so flawless that the box itself may have been pulled into being purely from the imagination of its creator, without tool or forge. The hinge and latch are so perfectly fitted that there isn''t even the smallest flaw in its movements, and the two complex emblems on the cover are perfect matches to the smallest detail.] Does that suffice to convince you that I am competent to continue to do my job, honored customer?"


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    Sobon had nearly paled and stepped back, conflicted at the near-worship that she could sense behind the man''s words--but also, the sharp contradiction between that and the steady, bored, nearly insulted look on the man''s face. So Sobon looked away, apologized, and left, conscious of the attendant behind her. As soon as they left the room, though, they split--another attendant taking Sobon to the private balcony prepared for Lai Shi Po, while her items were taken away by another route.


    Sobon was surprised to see that the Lai family guards stood outside the door, not inside, but when they let her in without argument she chose to simply be relieved. Within, everyone but Lady Fau stood at the balcony looking down over those gathered. Lai Shi Po''s head turned just a bit, as though she were listening to Sobon''s entrance, but she didn''t turn fully around.


    "I imagine we are free to talk here?" Sobon spoke calmly as she walked to the railing, and Lui and Ki''el turned suddenly as though they hadn''t heard her enter.


    "Not a word leaves except if we carry it out ourselves," Lai Shi Po said. "The Jade Phoenix auction house prizes nobility too much to allow anyone to even feign the ability to pierce their veil. You, too, should not even attempt to pry through the defenses, or you may be asked to leave."


    "I would not have tried," Sobon acknowledged, moving up to the railing. "I know all too well that such attempts are easy to track down."


    "Alassi," Mian said, breathless. "Do you have any idea the kinds of things they''re selling here?"


    "None," confirmed Sobon, as she glanced around Lai Shi Po at the man. Mian had always been quiet, and Sobon still wasn''t sure she had a great bead on the man''s character. "Do you--"


    "I don''t want--I mean, I can''t ask you to buy anything," he said. "But did you know, they are rumored to be selling the Invincible Sword tonight? The blade that could not be shattered, even by a Starbeast in the Flame phase of qi?"


    Sobon found herself making a face, but cleared it immediately and let the man talk. Apparently, it belonged to a war hero, one who had stopped a rampaging monster in a city near his home. She wanted to speak with Lai Shi Po... but the inscriptionist was also staring firmly out at the world beyond their balcony, as though burning a hole in an opposing wall. Sobon followed her eyes to see another balcony across the way, one whose occupants were in shadow--actually, she noted, all opposing balconies showed only blank shadows of people.


    Although Mian was still talking, Sobon moved up next to Lai Shi Po and spoke quietly. "Friends of yours?"


    "Unless they have given away his private box, and they would not... my husband," Lai Shi Po said, and her voice was not clear on what exactly her feelings were. Though... Sobon could not read the fact that they were in a different booth in more than one way.


    "Complicated?"


    "He wishes." Lai Shi Po made a face, almost half a sneer. "I may end up not bidding on your item, because he will buy the other, no matter the price."


    Sobon looked over at the other balcony. Although she could not see or sense the people in that booth, or in any of the others, she felt certain that she could say one thing. "He will not," she said, simply. "He will be outbid."


    "There are very few people who can out-bid a Lai Family Leader. They are the third-greatest trading family in all of Djang."


    Sobon turned and gave Lai Shi Po a sympathetic look. "Your life sounds like an interesting one, Lai Shi Po."


    "Don''t think too highly of me," she said, not looking away. "He has many wives, and I am far from his favorite. I was simply..." she glanced over at Sobon, and her eyes were muted, the contents unclear. "...an investment."


    Sobon could sense the years of things unspoken in those eyes, and looked away, sympathetically.


    Finally, though, she spoke. "Do you know if House Mofu will be here?"


    "They are a Djang minor noble house. They wouldn''t be invited, and wouldn''t have spies to tell them that an auction was being formed. You are hoping to resolve your battle quickly?" Lai Shi Po glanced at her. "I don''t care about these things, but I''m not stupid, Shiva Alassi. Fau Mide said you killed one of their elders, which is more than enough for them to announce a blood feud. They will come with all the strength of their house, and most likely, an observer from the Djang Imperial House. You are strong enough to beat them, but you will need to reveal yourself to all the world, and the Empire does not like strong warriors who are not Djang. Your position is extremely dangerous. Do you have a plan?"


    Sobon looked out and away, aware that the others in the booth had clenched in fear at the other woman''s words. She considered everything for a long moment. "I only want them to be safe," Sobon said after a time. "I can die without it being the end of me. But Ki''el, Lui, and Mian need protection."


    "Wait just a damn minute--" Mian started to react angrily, and made the foolish choice to try to push Lai Shi Po aside. But the woman turned to look at him with fury in her face, and backhanded Mian until he crashed against the far side of the booth.


    Despite the noise, even the guards outside didn''t respond.


    Lui and Ki''el sucked in a breath, and Ki''el turned and glared at Sobon, clearly feeling betrayed that their earlier conversation hadn''t changed Sobon''s mind, not that there was anything Sobon could say right now. Instead, she sighed, and moved away from the railing to take a seat. "I am immortal, Lai Shi Po. It is not unbeatable--nothing is. But if I choose to lose that battle, or make the Empire of Djang an enemy, I will simply reappear later in another body, and they will likely never know. When the Mofu elder came, they were ruthless and stupid, attacking innocents and putting the people I care about in danger. I fear that even if I try to simply hide from them, it will not be enough."


    "So then you admit what you are?" Lai Shi Po turned, her features severe.


    Although Sobon could, and probably should, have remained coy, she felt compelled to speak, and trusted that feeling. "I am not sent here to destroy the Empire. I am here to retake something that the Empire has stolen." Sobon met the woman''s eyes. "I know I am not strong enough yet. Even with all my profound methods, this lifetime may not be enough. But there is an urgency, a need. This can only end with me going to the Great Mountain and ensuring that one specific treasure there does not end up in the Diamond Lord''s hands."


    Sobon almost expected the aether of the entire room to freeze at her words, conscious as she was just how close other people were, but the Jade Phoenix auction house''s wards were truly great. The only one to stir was the fox spirit guarding Lai Shi Po, who uncurled enough to shine one red eye on Sobon, as though even it fully understood the words that had come out of Sobon''s mouth.


    Lai Shi Po didn''t shift, as though she had been expecting Sobon to admit to exactly that, but neither did she reply.


    "For that reason, it''s also urgent that I know what that perhaps-prophecy was. There are ways to examine the workings of fate. If it was a prophecy, a working of fate, then I need to know what it said. It may mean the difference between..." Sobon paused. "Between all things continuing in safety, or the end of more than the Empire. An end to this world."


    "A profound weapon lays in the Diamond Lord''s hands?" Lai Shi Po seemed to be thinking hard about it, although Sobon wasn''t sure how to read the look in the woman''s eyes.


    "A tool that will be retaken," Sobon said. "By me, or by an army, every member of whom is unimaginably stronger than me."


    Lai Shi Po looked back at her. "Then the Diamond Lord was truly shielding us from a terrible fate?"


    "I don''t know," Sobon answered. "But I don''t think so. I believe that if there is any terrible fate occuring here, it is entirely because of the Diamond Lord, or one someone of his power."


    "I see." Lai Shi Po finally broke away and looked down, moving to a seat near the balcony and finally sitting. "What--no, I know you won''t say. Even with my oath, there are important things that must be kept secret. But it is fine for this weapon to be out of our control? In the hands of others from the heavens?"


    Sobon gave the woman an unimpressed look. "Lai Shi Po," she said. "This tool is special to your people because you only have access to one. It is not special to them."


    Suddenly, from the Corona, Sobon received a ping. [ High myth shear near you, ] K''val commented, without any need for details.


    "Lai--"


    "Would you stop calling me that?" Suddenly, Lai Shi Po stood up, grabbed the chair, and with the full force of her qi, smashed it against the nearest wall. The chair, a large ornate wooden seat, shattered into pieces, leaving no marks on the wall. "Lai, Lai, Lai, Lai. The Lai family forced me forced me into bondage because I dared to have talent while being attractive. While being a woman!" She looked at Sobon, and her eyes were mad, and tears were flowing. "If I were born a man, someone with my talent would have been adopted as a son and allowed to pick a wife, at the very least not bound to such an... an incompatible oaf. Instead, as a woman, a pudgy, boorish man in ill-fitting silks randomly walks into my life to rape me, and not even because he wants to. Because old men keep insisting he try to have sons with every pretty thing they have set before him. They threaten him because I refuse to bear a child, while they sit back and play chess and drink wine!"


    "It''s only because he accepts how absurdly cruel it all is that he has done anything to let me have my own life, my own future, and still the Elders betray him, stabbing me in the back at every turn! And you speak of walking away and wanting your own people protected?" Lai Shi Po''s fists clenched, and her breath was heaving. "And you, absurd walking calamity that you are, you talk about making sure foreign overlords get their toy back instead of caring about the lives that are right in front of you?"


    Sobon sighed, but straightened. Technically, her new stores of Superior and Inverse aether--Sacred and Corrupt--gave her insight into the workings of fate around her, and technically she could sense the odd flowing of aether around her, and had been wondering if what she sensed was this Mythic Shear crap as it was happening. But in truth, she understood almost nothing of what she was seeing; and despite having an instinct to meddle with what she saw, Sobon was a Marine, and Marines didn''t fuck around with powers they didn''t understand. She''d both been told and seen for herself that most great and powerful things could be turned into a bomb--if you were willing to be blown up in the process, potentially with a lot of other innocent people. Very few powerful things could simply be picked up and used as a weapon in any other way, in any way that was safe for the wielder, and those around them.


    Fate magic was a powerful tool indeed, but Hyperior aether was a tool a whole tier higher. And when Sobon pulled a bit from its thorn and placed it in her hand, the aether radiation showed her a great many things for just a flash of an instant. Like before, that insight only lasted a moment, but this time, Sobon thought she understood why, even if she couldn''t put into words exactly what that reason was. Like a bomb, a tiny shockwave tore out, and it wasn''t clear exactly why, or what it meant.


    Still, Sobon took the hand with that small bit of Hyperior Aether, that small bit of Truth, and pressed it to Lai Shi Po''s hand, keeping her intent steady.


    "I care," Sobon said, and the words were true, "and I want to help, and perhaps I can help. But... Shi Po. You can''t me bad at me for not solving everything when you''ve only just told me the problem exists."


    "I''m not--" Lai Shi Po snarled and turned away, though her guardian deity kept its eye on Sobon. "The grand workings of the heaven have arrived at my very doorstep, Alassi. And they are not here to save me."


    "No," Sobon said, calmly. "I am not here to save you. I am also not here to breathe, drink water, or eat food, and yet I do."


    "So save me," Lai Shi Po hissed at her, half turning.


    Sobon raised an eyebrow, then turned to look over the balcony. "For a start, why don''t you wait and see what I''ve put up for auction?"


    That change in subject might have infuriated a great many people. But a great many people were not Lai Shi Po, a woman who was forced to marry into the Lai family because she was a prodigy at inscriptions. They were not Shi Po, a hated and beaten beggar who had no family name until she saved a spiritual deity''s shrine from destruction. They were not Po, the once nameless girl who had stared at the inscription on a lamp post when she was just an orphaned child, and scratched a copy into a clay pot, setting it on fire and distracting the guards so that she could steal food, food she would share with castoffs and broken people that gave her her first name.


    Lai Shi Po could understand a great deal more than she let most people know, and even miserable and confused, she understood exactly what Sobon was suggesting. And she took a deep breath, and the rising feeling in her chest, a feeling that was nameless except to Sobon, subsided, and a crazy smile spread across her face, one that many people would have mistrusted.


    Perhaps in the end, Sobon should have mistrusted it, but she did not.

 50. Alassi - Plateau, Part 3: Auction I

    Sobon felt ex-cep-tion-al-ly lucky that the auc-tion start-ed al-most im-me-di-ate-ly, be-fore Lai Shi Po had time to make any counter ar-gu-ment or find some-thing else to ar-gue about. In truth, Lai Shi Po was al-low-ing her-self to avoid think-ing about things, and would have been con-tent for a while longer--but there was no need.


    "Hon-ored cus-tomers!" The man who en-tered the stage was thin and an-gu-lar, ex-tra-or-di-nar-i-ly well dressed, and ex-ud-ed a sense of joy that was in-fec-tious. "We have a love-ly col-lec-tion of only the finest ar-ti-facts in store for you to-day, in-clud-ing a new col-lec-tion from our fa-vorite pa-tron, the Hon-ored Lai Shi Po, as well as a mys-te-ri-ous sub-mis-sion by a per-son she has per-son-al-ly vouched for. But our first items up for bid are per-haps the rarest raw materials we have seen--Star-beast Cores at the [Yel-low Flame] lev-el!"


    Even be-fore the item was re-vealed, as a sealed con-tain-er was be-ing brought onto stage, Sobon could feel the warp-ing of the aether, and she knew she was far from the only one who could. Be-fore Sobon could even think of ask-ing, the man on stage spoke again, his voice res-onat-ing with in-tent.


    "[Yel-low flame] is the low-est flame col-or with-in the [Im-mor-tal Flame] phase of qi, which is the sec-ond phase of [Flame Qi] af-ter [Mor-tal Flame], which it-self comes af-ter the [Tran-scen-dent Gem] phase, from which the Di-a-mond Lord him-self takes his name. This par-tic-u-lar core is known to res-onate with a con-cep-tu-al qi known as [Thrust Qi], a pow-er-ful form of move-ment qi ide-al for fast trav-el. The [Grand Saber Whale] which pos-sessed this core was known to have bro-ken through a forty li is-land with a sin-gle thrust of its [Im-pe-ri-ous Saber Tooth], which re-gret-tably is not for sale at this auc-tion. Thrust Qi con-cep-tu-al-izes mov-ing an en-tire body with-out ap-ply-ing strain to any part of it, and is an ex-cel-lent con-cep-tu-al qi for all move-ment tech-niques and ar-ti-facts. Bid-ding be-gins at 100 [Im-mor-tal Flame Coins]."


    In the mid-dle of the speech, the box was placed in the cen-ter of the stage, and then a frame-work of shields was erect-ed, the box open-ing on its own to re-veal a sligh-ly mis-shapen gold-en orb, which leaked flick-ers of yel-low qi-light like promi-nences from the sun. Sobon could ad-mit the item had high-er qi that she was nor-mal-ly com-fort-able wield-ing, es-pe-cial-ly with-out shield-ing--and it was only a ma-te-r-i-al. The idea of a per-son in-cor-po-rat-ing that into their body or an item they wield-ed seemed en-tire-ly fool-hardy.


    "Mag-nif-i-cent," breathed Lai Shi Po, and Sobon glanced over to see rap-tur-ous looks on the faces of the rest of the group. For Sobon, of course, the core was ob-vi-ous and straight-for-ward in its in-tent: a man-u-fac-tured core to re-place dam-aged star-ship thrusters. As-sum-ing the Coro-na was a light cruis-er, Sobon cal-cu-lat-ed off-hand, it might take dozens of such cores to get it back to sta-ble or-bit, if not hun-dreds. The Rapi-er would cer-tain-ly take at least fifty, as-sum-ing it didn''t leave most of its mass be-hind to fo-cus on es-cape, and it was an es-cort frigate, not a cruis-er.


    Lai Shi Po didn''t try to bid on the item, de-spite her rap-tur-ous at-ten-tion, and the core sold for for just shy of 200 Flame Coins. The seal-ing box snapped shut, still be-hind shields, and a cleans-ing ef-fect was trig-gered to re-move the stray en-er-gy be-fore the at-ten-dants came to re-trieve the box and haul it away. Even as they did, how-ev-er, an-oth-er item was be-ing brought from back-stage.


    "Our sec-ond Star-beast core, also at the [Yel-low Flame] lev-el, res-onates with a con-cep-tu-al men-tal abil-i-ty, whose spe-cif-ic na-ture has not been named. It seems to ac-cel-er-ate thought, and al-lows one to grasp much more com-pli-cat-ed con-cepts, and even per-ceive the world very dif-fer-ent-ly..."


    When the gem was re-vealed, Sobon nod-ded to her-self, rec-og-niz-ing that the auc-tion-eer would nev-er un-der-stand its orig-i-nal use. It was a spe-cif-ic com-put-er core ma-te-r-i-al, a prob-a-bilis-tic ma-trix, one used in a lot of cal-cu-la-tions. Which cal-cu-la-tions was usu-al-ly set when it was in-stalled; it could en-hance sen-sors, fab-ri-ca-tors, med-ical equip-ment, nav-i-ga-tion, or the main AI core, but in every case, its full pow-er could only be dis-played when built into a spe-cial-ized frame-work.


    Sobon glanced over at Lai Shi Po to see an in-tense look on the woman''s face, and she re-al-ized that the woman was con-sid-er-ing bid-ding, even as oth-ers were al-ready do-ing the same.


    "It would be dif-fi-cult to make use of," Sobon said qui-et-ly, and Lai Shi Po''s head snapped around, the look some-where be-tween ful-ly fo-cused and an-gry at hav-ing her thoughts in-ter-rupt-ed. "At least, prop-er use. And for this sort of ma-te-r-i-al, if you were go-ing to ex-per-i-ment, you would want a ma-te-r-i-al with low-er in-her-ent qi. Only some-one who al-ready knew how to use it could avoid wast-ing the ma-te-r-i-al."


    "All of that is true," Lai Shi Po said, turn-ing back to look at the glow-ing orb, sealed be-hind mul-ti-ple bar-ri-ers. "And yet, the abil-i-ty to en-hance my mind even more..."


    "You could not in-te-grate it," Sobon said, dis-mis-sive-ly. "Ma-te-r-i-al that pow-er-ful would be tox-ic."


    "I know that," she hissed back. "I''ve han-dled ma-te-ri-als in the Im-mor-tal Flame tier. I know I couldn''t main-tain that with-in my body. But even to en-hance my mind for a few mo-ments at a time..."


    Sobon let her say what she was think-ing out loud, and watched as the act of speak-ing sur-faced more of the doubts in Lai Shi Po''s mind. In the end, she didn''t bid on it, and the ma-te-r-i-al sold for 121 Flame Coins. Al-though there was a long mo-ment in which she could have bid, and chose not to, Lai Shi Po still eyed the trea-sure with jeal-ousy un-til it was ful-ly sealed away.


    "Now, as is our cus-tom, I will be-gin the first of our sales of gen-uine Lai Shi Po [space rings]. For those who are not aware, Lai Shi Po space rings con-tain vast-ly more [pro-found fea-tures and abil-i-ty] than those of less-er ar-ti-sans, as less-er ar-ti-sans re-quire [per-fect-ly formed in-tent] from the own-er to op-er-ate. Lai Shi Po''s pro-found space rings are be-yond the abil-i-ty of any oth-er ar-ti-san to repli-cate..."


    Al-though she was in-tent-ly lis-ten-ing, Sobon not-ed Lai Shi Po turn-ing to glare at her, and turned and gave the woman a smirk in re-turn. Still, Sobon could un-der-stand the ar-ro-gance and its place. She her-self would have been able to do every-thing she want-ed with a ''less-er'' space ring, be-cause she could spec-i-fy in-cred-i-bly com-plex things with her in-tent, but for the av-er-age war-rior, es-pe-cial-ly of this world... they would need to learn a great deal to use such a ring when un-der any stress. But Sobon, hav-ing grown up in a world where they teach class-es on user in-ter-face de-sign... didn''t need to cre-ate from whole cloth the con-cepts Lai Shi Po had ap-par-ent-ly made of her own ac-cord.


    "...[con-trol and in-sight] over the ring''s con-tents and the [meth-ods of in-ser-tion, re-moval, and spec-i-fi-ca-tion of its con-tents]. We have to-day a prodi-gious har-vest of three space rings, of which this is only the first. The sec-ond will be in the mid-dle of the auc-tion, and the third at the end, so if this is what you are here for, you may wish to save your mon-ey un-til the end--if you can stand to!"


    Al-though the bid-ding for the ring start-ed at only fif-teen flame coins, it quick-ly bal-looned to near-ly eighty. Just be-fore the auc-tion could fin-ish, though, one of the pri-vate booths sud-den-ly boost-ed the to-tal by twen-ty flame coins, and no one dared chal-lenge it.


    "That booth is re-served for mem-bers of the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly," Lai Shi Po said. "If they had spo-ken ear-li-er, few would have chal-lenged them. They have nev-er been shy about wast-ing their mon-ey to dis-play their pow-er." She smirked. "And how could I dare ob-ject? They might have pres-sured oth-ers into si-lence even by meet-ing the min-i-mum bid, but in-stead they give me an ad-di-tion-al eighty sev-en flame coins."


    Sobon raised an eye-brow. "What ex-act-ly do you do with all of that mon-ey?"


    Lai Shi Po turned and gave Sobon an odd look, but be-fore she could speak, the auc-tion host stepped for-ward again, rais-ing his voice. "Next, we have a se-ries of [pro-duc-tion-fo-cused items], be-gin-ning with this piece, also by the in-com-pa-ra-ble Lai Shi Po. This six-piece set of items res-onates strong-ly with [Forg-ing Qi], and is de-signed to aid in the cre-ation of ar-ti-facts up the lev-el of [Black Flame Qi], the low-est qi lev-el in the [Mor-tal Flame] phase of qi."


    The items that were brought for-ward were odd, to Sobon''s eye, al-though she fol-lowed the log-ic in all of them, as far as she could see it. There was a soft-en-ing foundary, for re-shap-ing items with-out nec-es-sar-i-ly us-ing heat, a pair of sealed tongs to ma-nip-u-late items safe-ly with-in the soft-en-ing field, a pair of thin gloves spe-cial-ly de-signed to re-sist the soft-en-ing-forg-ing qi once the item is re-moved from the field, so that the item can be shaped by hand, a cleans-ing foundary to re-move the soft-en-ing-forg-ing qi, a hard-en-ing fur-nace to se-lec-tive-ly ap-ply the right sort of qi to en-hance each ma-te-r-i-al in the item, and an en-grav-ing sty-lus, which from a dis-tance seemed much like the one Lai Shi Po was us-ing when Sobon first met her in her shop, end-ing with a point as thin as a hair but ex-treme-ly stiff.


    "Much ex-per-i-men-ta-tion is re-quired," Lai Shi Po said, as the items were be-ing dis-cussed, in very glow-ing terms. "Even when you know that a thing has been cre-at-ed by an-oth-er crafts-man, even if you are able to see the fi-nal re-sult, too of-ten the ex-act meth-ods of pro-duc-tion are en-tire-ly se-cret. How-ev-er you man-aged to de-duce the true in-tent of the ring that I gave you, no crafts-man I have ever met can so eas-i-ly per-ceive the means and tech-nique of oth-ers. This set," she ges-tured down at the auc-tion-eer, who seemed gen-uine-ly ex-cit-ed to be talk-ing about the six items, "is still ex-per-i-men-tal, and I have had to pay for a lot of re-sources, both to make and re-make items, and to buy raw ma-te-ri-als to test the set on every-thing I can ob-tain, es-pe-cial-ly Star-beast Core ma-te-ri-als."


    You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    Sobon looked down, but only nod-ded. In her mind, she was cat-a-logu-ing things she would have done dif-fer-ent-ly--even set-ting aside that she would use mol-e-c-u-lar as-sem-bly pat-terns, the meth-ods to ap-ply and re-move qi seemed like-ly to leave a lot of residue, which would re-quire an-oth-er method to com-plete-ly re-move. The gloves were an ad-e-quate tool in the right hands, but the auc-tion-eer said noth-ing about con-form-ing per-fect-ly to the user''s hands--per-haps be-cause they need-ed to avoid con-t-a-m-i-nat-ing the re-sults with more qi, but if the gloves had an in-ex-pert fit, it would make them dif-fi-cult to use. And the en-grav-ing sty-lus--again, in or-der to avoid con-t-a-m-i-na-tion, most like-ly--was re-ly-ing most-ly on its phys-i-cal sharp-ness to etch into ma-te-ri-als, which was not ide-al for all cir-cum-stances.


    In short, Sobon de-cid-ed, what was miss-ing in most of these was the abil-i-ty to prop-er-ty con-tain and ma-nip-u-late qi, which would like-ly be im-pos-si-ble with-out un-der-stand-ing aether and its many forms and flows. To-tal con-trol re-quired the cre-ator to be aware of what qi would do, and there-fore, un-der-stand not only the en-tire in-tent of the qi, but its nat-ur-al prop-er-ties. Even pu-ri-fied qi con-tained essence of space, time, and fate aethers, and im-pure qi was tan-gled to-geth-er with the nat-ur-al aethers of life.


    All of this was why Sobon was en-tire-ly con-tent to work with sim-pler, pu-ri-fied fla-vors of aether, in spite of the mas-sive abun-dance of qi through-out this world.


    "You do well enough," she fi-nal-ly said, af-ter watch-ing the auc-tion for the forg-ing equip-ment be-gin and near its end. The price was steep, and only a few spe-cif-ic groups were com-pet-ing for it, none in pri-vate booths--they were all in cheap-er, low-er booths, away from oth-ers but open to the air. Those few crafts-men com-pet-ing for the items were hurl-ing in-sults at one an-oth-er in be-tween their bids, all be-smirch-ing the oth-ers'' abil-i-ty to pro-duce any-thing of val-ue, as the oth-ers looked on with some com-bi-na-tion of amuse-ment and an-noy-ance. "Even if you knew every-thing you need-ed to know, it would be dif-fi-cult to cre-ate a per-fect set of tools. And this world, like most oth-ers, was in-tend-ed to find the an-swers for them-selves, and not have them hand-ed over by some-one like me."


    Lai Shi Po huffed in ir-ri-ta-tion, but her snarl only last-ed a mo-ment. "You have al-ready giv-en me a great many hints, and I can see al-ready that I would do things much dif-fer-ent-ly. But I know from every-thing that you do that your meth-ods are tru-ly pro-found." She paused, then spoke, her words touched light-ly with in-tent, and sound-ing like a quo-ta-tion. "[Even hav-ing glimpsed the true heav-ens, I can-not be-gin to fath-om their depths.]"


    Sobon raised an eye-brow. "Who said that?"


    "The only one who has glimpsed the heav-ens. The Di-a-mond Lord."


    They were qui-et for a mo-ment, as the auc-tion con-clud-ed, net-ting Lai Shi Po more than an-oth-er hun-dred Flame coins, though it amount-ed to less than twice the start-ing price. There was a short pause as the ar-gu-ing among the crafters con-tin-ued, but then they were si-lenced, though Sobon didn''t make any ef-fort to in-ves-ti-gate how. And then the au-cion mas-ter spoke up into the si-lence again.


    "Our next item is a [Grand-mas-ter Alche-my Fur-nace] by none oth-er than the ven-er-a-ble alche-my Grand-mas-ter Mu-jin Bing." Sobon no-ticed Fau Mide, who had been hang-ing back, im-me-di-ate-ly bounce to the rail-ing and lean out, ex-cit-ed-ly. Sobon looked down, see-ing a mas-sive stone and met-al pot be-ing brought for-wards, which shim-mered to Sobon''s eyes with mul-ti-fac-eted, com-plex aethers. "This item is high-ly com-plex, and not to be used by those who are un-able to grasp [Spa-tial Qi]. It uses that Spa-tial Qi to [ex-pand and sep-a-rate its in-ter-nal vol-ume], al-low-ing [heat-ing, cool-ing, sep-a-ra-tion, dis-til-la-tion, pu-rifi-ca-tion, and re-fine-ment] process-es to act at once with-out any fear of mix-ing. Al-though care-ful con-trol is re-quired to use the item, it of-fers un-par-al-leled abil-i-ty to [per-ceive, con-trol, and reg-u-late] its in-ter-nal process-es. As an ex-am-ple, ven-er-a-ble Grand-mas-ter Mu-jin Bing has pro-vid-ed us these ten tinc-tures, which will be sold sep-a-rate-ly dur-ing this auc-tion, as items pro-duced by this Fur-nace. They have all been ap-praised as be-ing [suit-able qual-i-ty and pu-ri-ty] for [prac-ti-tion-ers in the Im-mor-tal Flame Phase of Qi]."


    The alche-my fur-nace, Sobon could eas-i-ly ad-mit, was not any-thing in her field of study, al-though she could un-der-stand its con-struc-tion even from a dis-tance. It used a vari-ant of pock-et di-men-sions that in-ter-locked through aper-a-tures, each pock-et hav-ing a con-trol-lable in-scrip-tion to pro-duce a va-ri-ety of ef-fects, and each aper-a-ture hav-ing mul-ti-ple con-trols. Sobon was too far to get into the de-tails, and she as-sumed that any-thing built by a grand-mas-ter of alche-my would in-clude a num-ber of sub-tle de-tails she couldn''t be-gin to repli-cate, but at least the rough struc-ture of it was fa-mil-iar.


    In the end, the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly si-lenced bid-ding on it be-fore it crossed 150 Flame Coins, ex-cept for a sin-gle bid of a sin-gle coin high-er--clear-ly a co-or-di-nat-ed ef-fort from the Fam-i-ly to en-sure that a spe-cif-ic crafts-man got their way.


    As the alche-my fur-nace was be-ing tak-en away, Sobon felt a fa-mil-iar qi shift, and straight-ened. "It''s time."


    Not only Lai Shi Po, but every-one in the booth tensed with ex-cite-ment. And sur-pris-ing-ly, Sobon no-ticed a fa-mil-iar form come strid-ing out of the shad-ows be-low as the auc-tion man-ag-er spoke.


    "Next, we are very pleased to pre-sent to you to-day the work of an un-named mas-ter, rec-om-mend-ed to us by Lai Shi Po. As a demon-stra-tion of our faith in this mas-ter crafts-man, the Ap-prais-er him-self has cho-sen to speak for the items be-ing pre-sent-ed."


    "[Wel-come!]" The Ap-prais-er''s voice rang out, his voice per-fect-ly mod-u-lat-ed with in-tent, every word crisp and clear. The ef-fort-less-ness of his abil-i-ty to in-fuse his words with in-tent and truth made the for-mer auc-tion man-ag-er seem al-most am-a-teur-ish in com-par-i-son. "[I had the lux-u-ry to-day to meet with a hid-den mas-ter, and was in-tro-duced to these two items, which will be put up for auc-tion sep-a-rate-ly. As a mat-ter of fact, the dis-cus-sion with that mas-ter was so pro-found that I was able, to-day, to com-plete-ly re-fine a new con-cept, one a great many of us had strug-gled with over time.]" The obese man prac-ti-cal-ly frol-icked on the stage, bound-ing around on his toes like a child fed too much sug-ar. "[That con-cept, so that you may all un-der-stand what fol-lows, I will call Pri-mor-dial Qi. It is qi that is not only pu-ri-fied, but true and pro-found, speak-ing to the ori-gin of qi it-self, so com-plete-ly un-spoiled that it re-quires care-ful pro-tec-tion to avoid con-t-a-m-i-na-tion. Pri-mor-dial Qi is a con-cept so pro-found, I was tempt-ed to cre-ate an In-tent Plate on the spot and put it up for auc-tion sep-a-rate-ly! But alas, if I did that, I could not use the con-cept to de-scribe these mas-ter-work items, and so as a pro-fes-sion-al, I put the needs of our dear cus-tomers above my own self-ish de-sires.]"


    Sobon felt a lit-tle em-bar-rassed, al-though she un-der-stood that every word the man said was cor-rect. And she knew, but forced her-self to ig-nore, the look that Lai Shi Po was giv-ing her, as every-one else had their eyes glued to the fat man in very ex-pen-sive clothes mak-ing a fool of him-self on the stage. It would be... cru-el, to say that she was es-sen-tial-ly fol-low-ing di-rec-tions from a tech-ni-cal doc-u-ment. She could say many things that would de-tract from the show go-ing on be-fore them, but none of it would change the very sim-ple fact that to all of these peo-ple, all of the dis-tinc-tions be-ing laid at her feet were true and hon-est.


    "[The two items which will be sold to-day are iden-ti-cal, and the name giv-en to them by this hid-den mas-ter was the (Crestan Crown). Be-fore it is re-vealed, I would be re-miss not to high-light the box-es, them-selves the work of this same mas-ter, or so I be-lieve. Al-though it looks to be forged of only steel and bronze--the two low-est met-als in the Com-mon Met-al Phase of Qi--it was de-lib-er-ate-ly de-signed to dis-guise the true wealth with-in. By se-cret and un-know-able means, it was de-signed and con-struct-ed in such a way that no hint of Forg-ing Qi re-mains, not even in the small-est de-tails, and every etch and edge is so smooth that it might have been pulled into cre-ation from its cre-ator''s own imag-i-na-tion. The hinges and latch...]"


    Sobon sighed, al-though in-ward-ly, she was still pleased, and some-what ex-cit-ed to hear the ex-pla-na-tion. "In spite of his demon-stra-tion, I re-al-ly didn''t think he was go-ing to talk about the box."


    But all the oth-ers were hang-ing on every word that came from the Ap-prais-er''s mouth. "[...the small-est de-tail. But of course, the true trea-sure lies with-in!]" with a flour-ish, the first of the two box-es was opened with a wave of the man''s hand, from where it stood on a pedestal in the mid-dle of the room. "[The Crestan Crown is a qi pu-rifi-ca-tion trea-sure, which con-tains a sin-gle mote of Pri-mori-dal Qi as a tem-plate against which the wear-er''s qi is mea-sured. And then, care-ful-ly and in sev-er-al stages, the wear-er''s qi is pu-ri-fied of stray in-tent, al-low-ing any-one at any lev-el of qi to ben-e-fit from its ef-fects. To be clear: it is in-tend-ed for use with un-na-tured qi, and even qi na-tures will be stripped from it dur-ing this process, pro-duc-ing qi one step clos-er to Pri-mor-dial Qi than that which was cir-cu-lat-ed through it. One is able to tell by which pu-rifi-ca-tion cir-cuit en-gages how pure the in-com-ing qi is. If one is able to feed the crown only the purest, high-est-qual-i-ty qi, one may even be able to re-fine their own Pri-mor-dial Qi!]"


    Lai Shi Po slammed her hands against the rail-ing, and shout-ed with a spe-cif-ic in-tent to by-pass the screen-ing wards. "[100 Im-mor-tal Flame Qi Coins!]"


    In spite of all the wards, Sobon felt like the eyes of the world fell on Lai Shi Po''s bal-cony, and the Ap-prais-er turned and grinned up at her, of-fer-ing a bow. "[And the ven-er-a-ble Lai Shi Po her-self has de-cid-ed on an open-ing bid for the first of these two trea-sures, at 100 Im-mor-tal Flame Coins. Does any-one in this au-di-ence dare of-fend such a mas-ter by bid-ding against her?]"


    Across the way, Sobon sensed a rip-ple as an-oth-er hand was placed on a bal-cony, and a voice rang out. "[200 Im-mor-tal Flame Coins.]"


    Lai Shi Po im-me-di-ate-ly hissed, glar-ing over at the rail-ing where she had said her hus-band resided. "[300!]"


    Sud-den-ly, the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly booth broke in. "[304 Im-mor-tal Flame Coins.]"


    Lai Shi Po breathed a sigh of re-lief. "[305.]" She glanced at Sobon. "It is an old arrange-ment. If they had fa-vored my hus-band, they would have bid 309."


    In-deed, there were no oth-er bids, and Sobon shook her head at the in-sane rate at which her for-tunes had risen. "That is... a lot of mon-ey."


    "It is the mak-ings of a less-er no-ble house," Lai Shi Po said, se-ri-ous-ly. "And in the hands of a non-Djang, at that. But with my pro-tec-tion, there is no rea-son to fear. At most..." She swal-lowed, and looked across the way, to where the Lai fam-i-ly leader stood, his sil-hou-ette clear at the bal-cony. "At most... you may be pushed into un-pleas-ant cir-cum-stances. But that mon-ey can-not be tak-en from you, and most like-ly, your next item will fetch a sim-i-lar price."


    Def-i-nite-ly high-er, Sobon judged, even as she no-ticed that Ki''el and Mian were speak-ing qui-et-ly, and Lui was ask-ing some-thing of Fau Mide, who just looked be-wil-dered. They wouldn''t have stopped if they weren''t in-ter-rupt-ed, and there is only one more.


    As the Ap-prais-er spoke in glow-ing terms about her-self, Lai Shi Po, and the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly be-fore mov-ing on to re-it-er-ate what he''d said and bring for-ward the sec-ond crown, Sobon just tried to keep her breath-ing even, re-al-iz-ing just how much so-cial pow-er she could have wield-ed, if she were any-one else, in any oth-er cir-cum-stance. And she be-gan to think about what she would do, should do with the mon-ey that was com-ing in.


    And as best she could imag-ine, she only had one good op-tion, one that just might line up with the things she thought she''d glimpsed through the fu-ture of the Crowns.

 51. Alassi - Plateau, Part 4: Auction II

    To say that the next auc-tion was con-tentious was an un-der-state-ment.


    Sobon knew that the start-ing bid of 100 coins would dis-ap-pear in-stant-ly, but she wasn''t ex-pect-ing the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly to im-me-di-ate-ly bid 300. But in spite of what Lai Shi Po had said, this time, even they had to com-pete to hold the high bid. But it wasn''t even the Lai Fam-i-ly Leader who im-me-di-ate-ly chal-lenged the bid; there were sev-er-al anony-mous bids in quick suc-ces-sion, all in 50 coin in-cre-ments, be-fore the Lai Fam-i-ly pushed the to-tal to 500. The ac-tion be-came heat-ed, with a se-ries of small-er in-cre-men-tal bids that the bid-ders had to know wouldn''t ac-tu-al-ly win.


    Even so, the bids didn''t stop, not even when the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly went to 700. Lai Shi Po was laugh-ing qui-et-ly to her-self as her eyes flicked from one bid-der to the next, but what-ev-er she was see-ing, what-ev-er the identities of the bid-ders, they were rais-ing the price too quick-ly for her to ex-plain. The Ap-prais-er, too, was bounc-ing on the balls of his feet, though he was no longer pranc-ing back and forth, sim-ply bob-bing up and down with poor-ly con-tained ex-cite-ment.


    Sobon glanced at each of the bid-ders, ex-cept a few where she might have had to lean too far out to see them, but with most of the booths re-veal-ing noth-ing but shad-ows, she would have to wait for Lai Shi Po to speak on the po-lit-i-cal war be-ing raged be-low and around them. The in-cre-ment of bids got small-er, but Sobon not-ed that the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly was be-ing silent, and she cor-rect-ly guessed that they were wait-ing to have the last word.


    In-deed, af-ter near-ly a dozen sin-gle flame coin in-cre-ment bids, the to-tal jumped from 746 to 1000 with only a word from the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, and Sobon could feel the in-tense dis-ap-point-ment and pres-sure from their booth, the aether feel-ing smoth-er-ing even to her.


    "[1001.]" Sobon looked over at the Lai Fam-i-ly booth, as-ton-ished that they would dare, but equal-ly as-ton-ished that they were still ar-gu-ing de-spite the mas-sive cost.


    "[1100.]" The Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly bid-der''s voice car-ried ac-tu-al mal-ice in its re-sponse, and Sobon shiv-ered, feel-ing cer-tain that all her aether ma-nip-u-la-tion abil-i-ties couldn''t pro-tect her if the peo-ple in that booth de-cid-ed they want-ed her dead.


    "[1101.]"


    "I''m start-ing to think I got a very good deal," Lai Shi Po said, with deep hu-mor in her voice, and a sharp light in her eyes. "If any-one in the room had known just how des-per-ate the bid-ding would get, the last one would not end up in my hands."


    "The Lai Fam-i-ly won''t end up with it," Sobon said, con-fi-dent-ly, de-spite the tense si-lence af-ter the last bid. "I--"


    "[1500.]" This time, the qi pres-sure wave that came from the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s booth ripped through all the pri-va-cy fields. Sobon, for her part, only got a mi-nor headache, though Ki''el, Lui, and Mian all im-me-di-ate-ly clasped their heads and stum-bled back. Sobon also could see that the low-er class peo-ple pop-u-lat-ing the non-pri-vate booths and the auc-tion floor all had much stronger re-ac-tions, with some of the ones on the floor sim-ply falling over and not ris-ing.


    More im-por-tant-ly, the pri-va-cy field pro-tect-ing the Lai Fam-i-ly rip-pled, as though de-fend-ing against and at-tack, al-though they held.


    "[With all due re-spect to the in-es-timable bene-fac-tors in Booth 1, we would like to re-mind you all that vi-o-lence is not ac-cept-able in this establishment, no mat-ter the cir-cum-stances.]" The Ap-prais-er''s voice was sud-den-ly much rougher, al-though still he man-aged to put nu-ance and in-tent into his every word. "[On be-half of the Jade Phoenix--]"


    "[1501.]" Sobon felt some-thing un-pleas-ant stir as the Lai Fam-i-ly spoke up. Sobon knew that the Ap-prais-er had been pre-pared to call the auc-tion, but with the bid al-ready topped, the man stopped.


    This time, how-ev-er, the pre-tens-es were dropped. A fig-ure, and then a sec-ond, sim-ply stepped onto and over the rail-ing of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s booth, re-veal-ing a young man and woman, both very hand-some and well dressed, with what Sobon would con-sid-er healthy aether--not blocked or re-pressed, not cor-rupt-ed or con-fused, with both nu-ance and strength. They walked in midair, on a qi plat-form that they sum-moned be-neath their feet, with the young man lead-ing, al-though both of them had match-ing an-gry looks to their faces. Not con-ceit-ed or ar-ro-gant, from what Sobon could see, but def-i-nite-ly an-gry.


    "Does the in-es-timable Lai fam-i-ly not be-lieve in giv-ing any face to the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly?" The young man''s words were not barbed, but there was no dis-guis-ing the anger, bor-der-ing on rage. Al-though he made no ef-fort to add in-tent to his words, they still car-ried eas-i-ly and clear-ly. "Per-haps you be-lieve that your cof-fers are deep-er than the Im-pe-r-i-al trea-sury it-self? Or per-haps you be-lieve that Our will is only so shal-low?"


    When the Lai Fam-i-ly''s pri-va-cy shield dropped, Sobon was half sur-prised to find that the face of what must be the Lai Fam-i-ly Leader--Lai Shi Po''s hus-band--was very hand-some, mus-cu-lar but still grace-ful-ly pack-aged and dressed, with a stub-born set to his face. Alas-si''s body had an im-me-di-ate re-ac-tion to his looks, which Sobon stub-born-ly ig-nored, though she could un-der-stand the at-trac-tion; phys-i-cal-ly, he was a pic-ture of strength and el-e-gance, al-though Sobon felt that his aether seemed off.


    "Prince Djang Ban Dai, Princess Djang Ban Fen." The Fam-i-ly leader of-fered a half bow, which didn''t even come off as sar-cas-tic. "Did not the Fam-i-ly just de-cide against us in the pre-vi-ous bid? With-out ques-tion, the po-si-tion of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly is great, but es-pe-cial-ly here, out-side of the Em-pire it-self, you can-not ex-pect to op-pose peo-ple and then be treat-ed as a trust-ed ally and friend."


    "And your an-swer at such a mo-ment would be to de-clare war?" The Prince''s voice wasn''t an-gry, only dis-ap-point-ed. "If the No-ble House of Lai weren''t so frac-tious, We are sure that the pre-vi-ous bid-der, be-ing your le-gal wife, would have very hap-pi-ly al-lowed you to share pos-ses-sion of her own. And yet this is not the first time that We have had to side with the ge-nius Lai Shi Po, fa-vored by our fam-i-ly, against you." The Prince took an-oth-er step for-ward. "In case it should be un-clear, we have al-ready giv-en or-ders that she and her par-ty be pro-tect-ed, in case any-one, even the no-ble leader of House Lai, should at-tempt to show her any dis-re-spect."


    The Fam-i-ly Leader''s face twist-ed mo-men-tar-i-ly, but when he spoke, it was clear-ly. "I, too, val-ue the in-de-pen-dence and well-be-ing of my wife, and I unashamed-ly ac-cept and ap-prove of the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s ef-forts to en-sure her safe-ty." Sobon glanced at Lai Shi Po, whose pos-ture was rigid as a stat-ue. Be-hind the Fam-i-ly Leader, a very tall man with shock-ing-ly white hair and a very wrin-kled coun-te-nance scowled, and spoke, but his words did not trav-el out-side of the booth. What-ev-er he said, it ap-peared he was ig-nored by every-one else as well.


    "Un-der the cir-cum-stances, Lai Ten, there are many rea-sons for Us to be of-fend-ed. Es-pe-cial-ly since this mys-tery item is from an un-known mas-ter." The Djang prince turned to Lai Shi Po''s booth, and Sobon stepped back, hes-i-tant-ly, but Lai Shi Po didn''t seem to even flinch, her eyes glued to the ex-change. "If Lai Shi Po her-self be-lieves that this item is tru-ly pro-found, then We are in-ter-est-ed to dis-cov-er ex-act-ly what this un-known mas-ter has pro-duced. But We would be for-giv-en, We think, if We be-gan to feel see signs of a con-spir-a-cy here. An un-known mas-ter, an un-prece-dent-ed ar-ti-fact, and mem-bers of a sin-gle house col-lud-ing to raise the price sub-stan-tial-ly."


    Al-though his voice seemed very small in comparison, the Ap-prais-er spoke up. "[The Jade Phoenix Auc-tion House would nat-u-ral-ly per-mit our bene-fac-tors, the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, to ex-am-ine the item and as-cer-tain to their sat-is-fac-tion that the item is as de-scribed.]"


    The Prince didn''t move a mus-cle, but the Princess tele-port-ed to the ground with a slight twist of her body. Al-though Sobon felt like she should not at all be look-ing at ei-ther of the two''s qi cores, she did glance, and found that both of them had cores like suns--balls of con-densed flame, the Prince''s Red, and the Princess'' Or-ange. Al-though it was only a glance, Sobon was cer-tain that the Princess was the stronger of the two.


    There was a ter-ri-fied still-ness in the auc-tion house as the Princess stud-ied the item, and it oc-curred to Sobon that the ma-te-ri-als she''d made the crown out of wouldn''t be-gin to work at their lev-els of qi, and that the Auc-tion-eer hadn''t spo-ken about its lim-i-ta-tions--per-haps be-cause, not know-ing how to speak of such things, Sobon hadn''t said any-thing when she spoke to him.


    "[This item has an up-per lim-it of qi it can re-fine, de-ter-mined by the ma-te-ri-als used in its con-struc-tion, but I be-lieve the item is ex-act-ly as pro-found as it was de-scribed to be.]" the princess in-toned, her voice calm and de-tached in spite of the tense cir-cum-stances, "[I ex-pect that such a mas-ter in-scrip-tion-ist, once in pos-ses-sion of prop-er re-sources, might cre-ate a ver-sion of the ar-ti-fact which would be of im-me-di-ate use to those of us in the Flame phase of qi, but I would not ex-pect this ar-ti-fact to be of use above the Heav-en-ly Gem Phase. At the Tran-scen-dent Gem Phase, they would be re-quired to use so lit-tle qi to avoid de-stroy-ing the ma-te-ri-als, that al-most no pu-rifi-ca-tion could be done. Even at the low-est lev-el of the Flame Phase, our qi would de-stroy the ar-ti-fact be-fore any pu-rifi-ca-tion could be per-formed.]"


    "[Even with only a mo-ment of study, I can con-firm that this ar-ti-fact con-tains a sin-gle mote of what the Ap-prais-er has termed Pri-mor-dial Qi, and it is there-fore an item wor-thy of fur-ther study. If this ar-ti-fact could be used to raise an ex-pert ca-pa-ble of re-fin-ing Pri-mor-dial Qi them-selves, they would be a pow-er-ful ally. Po-ten-tial-ly, this ar-ti-fact could be used to ac-cel-er-ate the cul-ti-va-tion of a prodi-gy by an ex-treme-ly high amount. Even among the high-est tal-ents of a gen-er-a-tion, it could raise one to the ab-solute pin-na-cle, per-haps even above in-nate ge-nius-es.]"


    "I see." The Prince''s voice re-mained even, with anger ev-i-dent there, but not over-pow-er-ing his good sense. "Dear Ap-prais-er, would the Jade Phoenix Trade House be will-ing, giv-en that the de-scrip-tion of the ar-ti-fact has changed, to restart this auc-tion from its ini-tial bid? We will not con-test the pre-vi-ous bid, won by Lai Shi Po."


    There was a pause, and Sobon thought she sensed cod-ed qi puls-es, but the Ap-prais-er bowed. "We are will-ing to restart the bid-ding, with an ini-tial bid of [100 Im-mor-tal Flame Coins.]"


    "Good." The Prince raised his chin at the leader of the Lai Fam-i-ly. "Our open-ing bid is [1500 Im-mor-tal Flame Coins.] Does any-one dare bid against us?"


    Sobon felt pos-i-tive-ly dizzy at that ex-change, and she imag-ined every-one else did as well. All of that to low-er the bid by a sin-gle coin? To give Lai Ten a chance to not stand up to them? Sobon glanced over at the man, who was star-ing at the Djang prince with a stub-born set to his chin, and the tall, white haired fam-i-ly El-der whis-per-ing fran-ti-cal-ly in his ear.


    When he fi-nal-ly spoke, it was with res-ig-na-tion in his voice. "The Lai Fam-i-ly will with-draw from this bid." And with a ges-ture, Lai Ten re-stored the pri-va-cy shield over his booth.


    No one else spoke, and the Djang im-pe-r-i-al Prince and Princess both smooth-ly and ef-fort-less-ly moved back to their booth. The Ap-prais-er, who had def-i-nite-ly stopped fid-get-ing at some point that Sobon hadn''t paid any at-ten-tion to, sim-ply re-mained bowed, near-ly as still as a Stat-ue, but with the oc-ca-sion-al twinge or shake. Af-ter a long mo-ment, he straight-ened. "[The Jade Phoenix Auc-tion House will take a short break to en-sure that all at-ten-dees are prop-er-ly seen to af-ter that dis-play of spir-i-tu-al pres-sure. We will re-sume the auc-tion in a few min-utes. Re-fresh-ments will be made avail-able to all our at-ten-dees, as well as med-ical at-ten-tion for any-one who feels un-well af-ter be-ing ex-posed to the pres-sure. If any-one feels any need or de-sire, please only find a mem-ber of the Auc-tion House and speak, and you will be at-tend-ed to.]"


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    When Sobon turned to check on Lui and the rest, she was star-tled to see the Lai fam-i-ly guards al-most im-me-di-ate-ly be-hind her--and Lai Shi Po im-me-di-ate-ly turned, her eyes wide, but her eyes nar-rows. "You did hear--"


    "Our loy-al-ty is to the Lai Fam-i-ly," one of the guards said, but there was more ten-sion there now, more fear. "And our only or-ders at this time are to safe-guard Lady Lai and en-sure that she does noth-ing to of-fend the House."


    Lai Shi Po sim-ply glanced at a crys-tal near the door, and spoke with care-ful in-tent, in-tent that Sobon could feel res-onat-ing strong-ly with the crys-tal. "[This Lai Shi Po would pre-fer that the house guards of the Lai fam-i-ly were re-moved from her booth. Again.]"


    Both guards tensed, and Sobon be-gan gath-er-ing aether in her arm Spir-it Bones, but it was only a mo-ment be-fore there was a knock at the door, and it opened to re-veal two Auc-tion House at-ten-dants, and a swords-man whose qi was in a tur-bu-lent riot, as though fu-ri-ous, al-though his sword re-mained firm-ly sheathed. Sobon only took a mo-ment to as-sure her-self that the swords-man was much stronger than the two house guards, and then re-al-ized, once again, that she was for-get-ting one of the ir-ri-tat-ing facts of this world.


    That her qi screamed her name--or rather, Alas-si''s--to any-one who could see her. It was too late to stop Lai Shi Po''s guards from know-ing who she was--but this guard was like-ly from the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly.


    Sobon took a breath and wove an aether bar-ri-er around her core, and she no-ticed sev-er-al eyes fall on her as she did, but the two Lai guards both sim-ply kept their hands far from their weapons and moved away to-wards the door. The swords-man didn''t move, and kept his eyes firm-ly on the two guards--and none of the three out-side stepped in-side. Once the two guards were out-side, the door snapped shut as though of its own ac-cord, and Lai Shi Po fi-nal-ly breathed a sigh of re-lief.


    "I''m sor-ry," she said, and Sobon re-al-ized with a start that the woman was pos-i-tive-ly ex-haust-ed. She glanced at Sobon. "I have an ar-ti-fact to con-ceal your qi''s name trans-mis-sion, but I didn''t think to give it to you. I should have, be-fore the Lai house guards even came, though they would not have al-lowed you to re-main anony-mous, not to them. Not to the House."


    "It was al-ways op-ti-mistic to think I''d get away stay-ing anony-mous, es-pe-cial-ly to the most pow-er-ful peo-ple here," Sobon said. She glanced back over the rail-ing, to-wards the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly booth. "That... I''m glad it didn''t get worse than that."


    "What hap-pened is bad enough. My hus-band is a damned fool, and El-der Lai Ton Bari is worse. He is one of the El-ders that keeps in-sist-ing on me bear-ing sons for the house. He has many meth-ods to en-sure that he al-ways has my hus-band''s ear, and some of them are black-mail in all but name."


    Sobon winced, but nod-ded. She glanced over at Lui, Mian, and Ki''el, who were all sit-ting down, but in good spir-its, all of them sip-ping some kind of tea that Fau Mide had some-how quick-ly brewed us-ing items from her space ring. "How are you three?"


    "The shield helped," Mian said first. "But I can still feel an echo of their... the Prince''s anger. Not quite as bad as the feel of your at-tacks, but it doesn''t want to go away."


    "It stings," Lui agreed, "the med-i-cine helps." She paused. "Were those re-al-ly... the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly?"


    "As much as there is such a thing," Lai Shi Po con-firmed. "There have been many gen-er-a-tions of sons and grand-sons of the Di-a-mond Lord, but He will nev-er be re-placed as leader. In-stead, a few of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly com-pete to gov-ern spe-cif-ic re-gions or parts of the gov-ern-ment, chang-ing when one choos-es to leave or does some-thing to of-fend the Di-a-mond Lord. But since the Di-a-mond Lord has been silent, none of their po-si-tions have changed in many years, not even the ones who want to pass their of-fice on."


    "I ex-pect-ed to dis-like them more," Ki''el said, qui-et-ly.


    But Lai Shi Po just shook her head. "Right now, they only ex-ist to grow stronger and learn what they need to know. If they take over a part of the gov-ern-ment, or if they get in-volved in the pol-i-tics of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, then they will be-come some-thing they are not, yet. Whether that is great or ter-ri-ble will only be seen then. But even then..." she paused, and glanced out over the bal-cony. "More of-ten it is oth-ers that are eas-i-ly cor-rupt-ed, swayed by need-ing to fight, be-tray, and steal to gain pow-er. Of-ten enough, the be-tray-al and back-stab-bing is what fi-nal-ly breaks the young ge-nius-es. Each gen-er-a-tion, we all hope it will be dif-fer-ent." She half turned her head. "Some-times it even is. But nev-er enough."


    Sobon just nod-ded. Even Crestan his-to-ry had long pe-ri-ods where things slow-ly grew in the wrong di-rec-tion, and every-thing wait-ed on a change that nev-er came. Usu-al-ly, some-thing had to shock it from the out-side, or else the cor-rup-tion had to reach a crit-i-cal lev-el.


    Af-ter a few more min-utes, the auc-tion re-sumed, if at a some-what more mut-ed tone. The very next item up for bid was the In-vin-ci-ble Sword that Mian had been fas-ci-nat-ed by, and al-though Sobon could see that it was, in-deed, a com-plex sword whose ma-te-ri-als and scripts were cho-sen to make it re-main pow-er-ful and sharp in all cir-cum-stances, it got that far with brute force, stor-ing great pow-er in-ter-nal-ly and pack-ing in-tent dense-ly be-hind the blade. Al-though she couldn''t see well from a dis-tance, Sobon imag-ined it would have been dif-fi-cult to adapt the de-sign to add any oth-er fea-ture along with its strength.


    Af-ter the In-vin-ci-ble Sword came a line of less-er Star-beast cores, start-ing with a Moon-stone core aligned with De-struc-tion in-tent, and a Sap-phire core aligned with de-fen-sive in-tent, or what Sobon would have called ''Struc-tur-al in-tegri-ty'' in-tent. Af-ter that were a va-ri-ety of less-er met-al phase cores, low enough lev-el to not in-ter-fere with in-tent as strong-ly, and here Sobon chose to buy two of them at bare-ly twen-ty Flame Coins apiece. Af-ter the cores came a se-lec-tion of raw met-als, and then al-chem-i-cal in-gre-di-ents, a few of which Fau Mide tried and failed to pur-chase.


    Af-ter that came Lai Shi Po''s sec-ond Space Ring, and Sobon re-al-ized they were only halfway through.


    "Most of the rest will be for the peo-ple be-low," Lai Shi Po said, as com-pe-ti-tion for her space ring heat-ed up. "When they form an auc-tion, they ask the pow-er-ful back-ers whether they want the in-ter-est-ing items ear-ly or late, as each will have dif-fer-ent sched-ules. Some can af-ford to spend their en-tire day at the auc-tion, but I am one of the few who does so every time--thus my rings be-ing spread through-out. The no-bles may leave an at-ten-dant or send one ear-ly, if they so choose, but most would rather be here for at least the in-ter-est-ing ones."


    "Will they wait un-til the end to de-liv-er pur-chas-es and mon-ey?"


    Lai Shi Po shrugged. "We can re-quest it at any time. Though, I should have made clear, the auc-tion house takes ten per-cent of your win-nings as a fee. Af-ter the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s mess, they might charge them the cost of the ex-perts who treat-ed the oth-er at-ten-dees, and if that fee is high enough, they may not take your stake of that bid." Lai Shi Po just shrugged. "Since it is your first time, they might give you that grace, if you de-mand it. They will want your re-peat busi-ness."


    "Un-for-tu-nate-ly, it seems very un-like-ly." Sobon looked down at her hands--at Alas-si''s hands. It was easy to ig-nore, when she was get-ting swept up in every-thing, just what was still com-ing, still vis-i-ble on the hori-zon. "We all need to speak on what comes next."


    "Af-ter this show-ing, you might gain the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s fa-vor. But even then, it will mean noth-ing if what you ask for is be-yond their abil-i-ty to give, and what-ev-er this trea-sure is you are af-ter, I imag-ine it is one the Di-a-mond Lord will not part with." Lai Shi Po turned away from the bal-cony, look-ing se-ri-ous-ly at Sobon. "But that is not all that you''re think-ing about, is it?"


    "You said that a few hun-dred Flame Coins could cre-ate a no-ble house," Sobon said, her mind slow-ly grind-ing on what she had been think-ing for a while. "Be-cause of my mis-sion, I can-not rule one, and as a non-Djang, they wouldn''t want me. But..."


    "Even a thou-sand Flame Coins can-not pur-chase me away from the Lai fam-i-ly. I know, I''ve tried." Lai Shi Po scowled. "And my hus-band, or more like-ly, the El-ders will try to col-lect you. If you only want your fam-i-ly tak-en care of, that would ac-com-plish your goal, es-pe-cial-ly if you choose to die and be re-born. But..."


    "I have no in-ter-est in that," Sobon waved dis-mis-sive-ly. "You''ve said enough about how the El-ders in-ter-fere with things. And there is still the mat-ter of end-ing things with the Mofu fam-i-ly; there will need to be a re-place-ment for them. An ide-al an-swer will be one in which my peo-ple, some-how, raise in to that sta-tion, while I fade away."


    Ki''el stepped around Lai Shi Po to look at Sobon, her eyes se-ri-ous. "You are un-will-ing to change your mind on this?"


    Sobon gave her a sad smile. "It needs to be done. And I will not be gone for good, Ki''el. What comes next is un-cer-tain, but I know that much for sure." It was im-plic-it in what she had glimpsed in the fu-ture of the Crowns, al-though those fu-tures came with caveats that she would not speak of, not yet. "I wasn''t sure be-fore, but now I am be-gin-ning to think that my mis-sion may be over soon-er than I thought."


    Not over, changed. Sobon let the thought roll around in her head. The spir-it she had spo-ken to, the one who had asked about myth, had said as much, and now her glimpses of the fu-ture re-in-forced the idea. Was she re-al-ly okay trust-ing that? With so much fate-at-tuned aether in this world, it was en-tire-ly pos-si-ble that her vi-sions had been tam-pered with, or that they would change sub-stan-tial-ly--and she still didn''t know how things would come to pass, only that a few spe-cif-ic things seemed cer-tain.


    "And you will come back to us, when your mis-sion is over?" Ki''el''s voice held a cer-tain sus-pi-cion.


    "I in-tend to, yes." Sobon let her smile speak for her, be-cause she wasn''t sure what words she might use to say what she want-ed to say while keep-ing her se-crets.


    There was a knock at the door, and Lai Shi Po frowned, but--once Sobon had re-freshed her iden-ti-ty-mask-ing field, the door opened and a se-ries of attendants en-tered, with per-mis-sion, to de-posit items, in-clud-ing a space ring for Sobon filled with mon-ey, as well as the Cores she had bought, and set-ting down the box Sobon had cre-at-ed on the table. Lai Shi Po, with ad-mirable re-straint, didn''t charge at the item she''d bought un-til the door closed.


    When she snatched it up, and ex-am-ined it, she couldn''t help frown-ing. She turned the crown over and over in her hands, ex-am-in-ing the in-scrip-tions and the in-tent as care-ful-ly as she could. "This crown... was de-signed to hold its true pow-er back, was it not? Al-though the Appraiser spoke in glow-ing terms of its staged pu-rifi-ca-tion process, that is a cheat, a de-cep-tion. It could pu-ri-fy your qi en-tire-ly." She glanced at Sobon. "And you in-stalled a lock so that you could use it in that way, if nec-es-sary."


    "I could. Ki''el could. And I could teach you." Sobon shrugged. "But hav-ing heard the Ap-prais-er talk, I like the idea that it teach-es peo-ple to ma-nip-u-late and rec-og-nize pu-ri-fied qi. There is lit-tle point to hav-ing it if the wield-er thinks of pu-ri-fied--Pri-mor-dial Qi as the same as reg-u-lar qi. It has spe-cif-ic use cas-es, cas-es where hav-ing any stray in-tent in your qi is un-ac-cept-able. I know you have run into a few your-self."


    "I have." Lai Shi Po turned to look at Ki''el, and the girl took a step back, her eyes now wide as saucers since Sobon had thrust her into Lai Shi Po''s at-ten-tion. "Pri-mor-dial Qi would be of im-mense ben-e-fit for in-scrip-tions, but also..." she stopped, and con-sid-ered the crown in her hands for a long mo-ment.


    "...But also, as the Princess said, it could ac-cel-er-at-ing the cul-ti-va-tion of a prodi-gy. We spend years try-ing to re-fine away mis-tak-en and ac-ci-den-tal in-tent, and cor-rupt-ed or dam-aged qi, so that we can ad-vance even a small step with-out harm-ing our next and fu-ture ad-vance-ments. To have qi to use for ad-vance-ment that can-not do any harm would change every-thing."


    "And that is why it can-not be giv-en out so freely," Sobon ac-knowl-edged, qui-et-ly. "It would sim-ply let a fam-i-ly buy progress and strength, buy suc-cess in pol-i-tics."


    Lai Shi Po stud-ied the crown for an-oth-er long mo-ment, then turned to look at Sobon. "And you can ac-tu-al-ly cre-ate this Pri-mor-dial Qi? Tru-ly?"


    She was tempt-ed--sore-ly tempt-ed--to pull out the nine aether dy-namos and pro-duce the qi drop, but she closed her eyes and forced down the urge. Al-though the meth-ods were most like-ly be-yond even Lai Shi Po, there was no telling what the woman would see or learn from the syn-the-sis process--even the ex-is-tence of pu-ri-fied fate and time aethers might make some-thing in her mind start work-ing in ways Sobon couldn''t con-trol. Any source of pow-er can be-come a bomb, if you are will-ing to sim-ply let it ex-plode in your hands. Mak-ing prop-er use of it is much hard-er.


    "I have, and I could again. But it''s not my se-cret to give away," was what Sobon fi-nal-ly de-cid-ed to say. It was true, af-ter all, and an hon-or-able way to de-flect from the ques-tion. Some odd part of Sobon want-ed to run the syn-the-sis process over and over, if only to have an ex-cuse to touch her Hy-pe-r-i-or Aether dy-namo again, and see odd glimpses of truth, or what-ev-er it was that the aether showed her, but it was dan-ger-ous, and she knew it. It would be wis-er--much wis-er--to dis-pose of all of those high-er-or-der dy-namos, pick-ing apart the hy-per-torus-es that were cre-at-ing them and let-ting the loop-ing flows ease. But she also wasn''t sure what would yet need to hap-pen to com-plete her mis-sion.


    "I see." Lai Shi Po sound-ed dis-ap-point-ed, but Sobon was pleased to find that the woman felt sat-is-fied with her an-swer, at least. And the woman fi-nal-ly placed the crown on her head, and sat down and fo-cused, and Sobon watched her try to pro-duce suc-ces-sive-ly clean-er qi. Sobon was pleased to find that her ear-li-est ef-forts were more than enough to by-pass the first loop, but got dis-tract-ed as an-oth-er batch of Core Ma-te-ri-als was put up for auc-tion--this time, less-er cores from nor-mal beasts rather than Star-beasts.


    So Sobon spent some more of her new-found mon-ey, and left Lai Shi Po to ex-pe-ri-ence won-der and a pro-found-ly new way to think of qi, in peace.

 52. Alassi - Plateau, Part 5: Auction III

    Sobon was pleased to find that Lai Shi Po was able to en-gage the third loop in the Crestan Crown, of a to-tal of five, rel-a-tive-ly quick-ly. There was, Sobon re-flect-ed as she watched, a mas-sive dif-fer-ence be-tween how she had been trained com-pared to peo-ple of this world; work-ing with pure aether, ma-nip-u-la-tion with-out in-tent was a stan-dard train-ing course. For these peo-ple, how-ev-er, putting in-tent into every-thing was the ba-sic les-son, and only lat-er did they be-gin talk-ing about turn-ing the in-tent-filled qi into some-thing more cor-rect.


    It only re-in-forced in Sobon that she had no idea how she should be teach-ing her stu-dents, even if she had the time, and she knew that she didn''t. In-stead, she was be-gin-ning to fil-ter through her thoughts, us-ing the men-tal data-base that the Ri''lef had giv-en her to put to-geth-er, or-ga-nize, and re-or-ga-nize her thoughts, with the hope that she could pass it on to Ki''el, and per-haps Lai Shi Po. And she was al-ready be-gin-ning to think, that if she wasn''t go-ing to be there for her found fam-i-ly for the im-me-di-ate fu-ture, that she need-ed bet-ter go-ing-away gifts, things to keep them safe and give them a fu-ture.


    Think-ing was, at least, some-thing she could do while not oc-cu-pied by any-thing else.


    As the auc-tion drew to a close, and Lai Shi Po''s third space ring was pre-sent-ed, the woman came back out of her med-i-ta-tion, clear-ly pre-oc-cu-pied. Al-though she stepped up to the bal-cony to watch the ring be-ing fought for--and it was a rea-son-ably hot con-test, end-ing at a price just high-er than the first ring--she quick-ly turned away from it to speak to Sobon.


    "I would rec-om-mend some ex-tra ef-fort to dis-guise your-self, and your peo-ple," she said, glanc-ing over at Fau Mide, who re-turned the woman''s look with a se-ri-ous ex-pres-sion. "Al-though they will be peace-able, I have no doubt that the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly will meet you be-fore we are able to leave. Af-ter all they have gone through, it would be de-cid-ed-ly im-po-lite to flee from that en-counter, al-though they will not con-test ef-forts to con-ceal your iden-ti-ty."


    "You said some-thing about an item?" Sobon wasn''t sure ex-act-ly how much the woman had pre-pared for this in-evitabil-i-ty.


    "I have a few," she said. "It all de-pends on how much you wish to dis-guise your-self. Your tech-nique is ad-e-quate to con-ceal your name, and I have var-i-ous clothes and ac-ces-sories to dis-guise your face and skin." She glanced around at the oth-ers. "The same prob-lem ex-ists for your peo-ple. While none of you, ex-cept Fau Mide, would be known to the no-bil-i-ty, they are not stu-pid, and their cu-rios-i-ty will in-spire them to or-der an in-ves-ti-ga-tion. Any clues you giv-en them will sim-ply ac-cel-er-ate their suc-cess, and I sus-pect their suc-cess will be in-evitable."


    Sobon had her own thoughts. Al-though the Crowns had not shown her own fu-ture--and would have bro-ken if she had tried, as the time flux tried to adapt to too many changes--she''d got-ten cer-tain im-pres-sions. It was dif-fi-cult, since she had nev-er been trained to ma-nip-u-late and use fate aethers, but if she ex-trap-o-lat-ed from her train-ing in On-ward and Re-verse aether... she had to trust her in-stincts, and not try to process it too strong-ly. She was still con-cerned, both in try-ing to learn from fates she had seen, and be-cause she had put Cor-rupt aether into the crowns to dri-ve away cer-tain fates... but she had to trust her in-tent. Her fate ma-nip-u-la-tion abil-i-ties would nev-er come close to match-ing her abil-i-ty to cre-ate and use aether weapons and de-fens-es, but those were based on math and cen-turies of en-gi-neer-ing, not a cou-ple days of ex-po-sure and some aca-d-e-m-ic the-o-ry.


    "I leave it to the oth-ers to de-cide how com-fort-able they are be-ing known," Sobon said fi-nal-ly, af-ter a mo-ment of re-as-sur-ing her-self. "But there is some-thing in-evitable here, al-though I don''t know quite what it is, yet."


    Lai Shi Po frowned, giv-ing Sobon a look. "First your talk of prophe-cy, and then this. I didn''t take you for the kind to yield to fate, Shi-va Alas-si."


    "Yield?" Sobon was go-ing to ar-gue against that, but stopped. In truth, the fu-ture she had seen was dan-ger-ous, fright-en-ing, and un-pleas-ant--but it was less dan-ger-ous than the world she had al-ready thought she lived in. The near-ly sui-ci-dal mis-sion to at-tack the home of the most pow-er-ful per-son in the world, to se-cure an ar-ti-fact that no one would will-ing-ly give her... the fate she thought she could see was much less dan-ger-ous than all of that. But what if she was be-ing ma-nip-u-lat-ed?


    She took a deep breath and shook her head. "I don''t know. But I know that fate and time are real con-cepts in qi, Lai Shi Po. The over-ar-ch-ing, gen-er-a-tion-span-ning prophe-cies are the weak-est ones--that is, the mag-ic en-sur-ing the prophe-cy can-not be changed is weak. But if a prophe-cy is made and passed down that long, that is a sign of some-thing else in play, some-thing that needs to be known and ac-count-ed for. Some-thing that of-ten will not be un-der-stood un-til that ex-ter-nal fac-tor is re-vealed."


    "Some-thing like you, you mean," Lai Shi Po glanced back over the rail-ing, as the an-nounc-er fi-nal-ized the last bid on her ring. "It will be dif-fi-cult to get to the aca-d-e-m-ic who can speak on your prophe-cy, not as long as the Roy-al Fam-i-ly are in-ter-est-ed."


    "Would the Prince or Princess them-selves know it? Aca-d-e-m-i-cal-ly?"


    Lai Shi Po turned back and frowned at Sobon. "And here I thought you were try-ing to avoid trou-ble."


    "I am try-ing to read the hand that fate has al-ready played for me," Sobon said, al-though the trans-la-tion of the Crestan phrase didn''t quite sound right to her ears, and from the look on Lai Shi Po''s face, it didn''t quite fit for her, ei-ther. "You said that there would be an ob-serv-er from the Roy-al Fam-i-ly when the Mofu fam-i-ly comes."


    "You ex-pect that will be a some-one at their lev-el? Ridicu-lous." Lai Shi Po shook her head. "They are both en-rolled in a pres-ti-gious school, and even this out-ing is time away from their stud-ies. Even if they were to take in-ter-est in the dis-pute, they would send some-one."


    "I''m not al-ter-ing fate," Sobon said. "But there is a greater chance than you may think. Did you not see pieces of vi-sions while us-ing the crown?"


    "I--" Lai Shi Po paused, her mouth open. "No. Or yes, if that''s what it was. But it wasn''t vi-sions, only flick-ers and flash-es of some-thing that I couldn''t see."


    "What I saw wasn''t much more," lied Sobon, al-ready re-gret-ting start-ing the con-ver-sa-tion. "But you have to un-der-stand how fate works. The Crown can only ever see its own fate, and that fate is least clear when the per-son see-ing it can change that fate. While wear-ing it, you can only see parts of the Crown''s fu-ture that you can-not, or will not, change. The more in-ter-est you have in ma-nip-u-lat-ing fate, the less clear it will be."


    Lai Shi Po frowned, glanc-ing at the oth-ers. "Could they see its fu-ture?"


    "Speak-ing of fate changes fate. It''s no sim-ple trick to change that kind of fu-ture, Lai Shi Po. I could not see the in-for-ma-tion I was look-ing for, but what I saw should be in-evitable. And un-der-stand-ing what should be in-evitable gives me hints of things that will not change. I also doubt that the Prince or Princess will be there, but you should also re-mem-ber," Sobon ges-tured at the crown, which Lai Shi Po had put care-ful-ly in its box. "They also can-not wear the crown. Not at their lev-el."


    "Ah. They would give it to a trust-ed at-ten-dant, and per-haps send that at-ten-dant to over-see House Mofu." Lai Shi Po looked at the crown. "Fate... are things tru-ly in-evitable?"


    "No," Sobon said, tired-ly. "The flow of time is ex-act-ly what it takes to cre-ate the fu-ture, Lai Shi Po. The process to cre-ate the fu-ture is dif-fi-cult and im-per-fect, full of de-tails and nu-ances. And the process to read the fu-ture is frag-ile, with prophe-cies break-ing as new snarls in time and fate change the de-tails. That is why I want to know if the prophe-cy from be-fore still ex-ists. If the prophe-cy it-self still ex-ists, the fu-ture that was read still ex-ists."


    "And if that fu-ture still ex-ists... then what?"


    "That de-pends on what the prophe-cy ac-tu-al-ly says," Sobon said. "But prophe-cies are com-plex things, and myth and prophe-cy can be dif-fi-cult to tell apart. Myths can also ma-nip-u-late peo-ple''s fate, by ma-nip-u-lat-ing how peo-ple think and what the be-lieve is cer-tain. It can be-come a mag-ic that ma-nip-u-lates souls and the fu-ture, back-wards and for-wards through time, just as prophe-cy does. It would take... a spe-cial-ist, to know the true dif-fer-ence be-tween a prophe-cy and a well-es-tab-lished myth."


    "Is this why you asked about myth?" Lai Shi Po made a face. "It seems to me the world would be bet-ter off with-out myth. Per-haps all such things should sim-ply be de-stroyed."


    Sobon took a deep breath, prepar-ing to ar-gue that, but to her sur-prise, Ki''el spoke up. "But that''s im-pos-si-ble, isn''t it?" When Sobon and Lai Shi Po turned to look at her, Ki''el shiv-ered, like their col-lec-tive qi pres-sure was a bit too much for her, but she stub-born-ly set-tled her-self and said what she was think-ing. "In truth, myth is sim-ply ig-no-rance, is it not?"


    "That''s a bit..." Sobon hes-i-tat-ed to call it re-duc-tion-ist, af-ter all that her peo-ple had said af-ter study-ing Myth and its ef-fects on so-cial struc-tures for cen-turies.


    "I have been think-ing about it since you spoke, be-fore," Ki''el said, look-ing from Sobon to Lai Shi Po. "You said that myth was only be-lieved by the fool-ish. But I do not know which of the things I be-lieve to be true are myth. When So--when Alas-si first spoke to me of... of qi, and how my pre-vi-ous un-der-stand-ing was wrong, I wasn''t sure what to think. I had be-lieved a myth about qi, one giv-en to me by my grand-moth-er, and it was pre-cious to me be-cause it was all that I had re-main-ing from my fam-i-ly. A few words on how things were sup-posed to work, and a bro-ken home. And some graves." She looked away, per-haps see-ing some-thing in Lai Shi Po''s eyes that she didn''t like.


    "But the truth is that I wasn''t fool-ish, I was only ig-no-rant. I was giv-en a sto-ry that didn''t sound cor-rect, but I had noth-ing else. When I was faced with some-thing bet-ter, I changed. I can imag-ine that if the sto-ry my grand-moth-er had passed to me sound-ed cor-rect, I might nev-er have lis-tened to Alas-si, and I would not be as strong as I am now. Isn''t a myth sim-ply some-thing spo-ken by the ig-no-rant, but which sounds cor-rect? Or at least cor-rect enough?"


    Lui piped up, as though in sup-port of Ki''el, and the girl seemed to re-lax when she did. "Don''t we all think we know things, but we''re just guess-ing? And when we tell oth-ers what we think we know, we''re of-ten wrong. If we nev-er find out the truth, if peo-ple nev-er do over their en-tire lives, how is any-one sup-posed to know what''s right and what''s wrong?"


    Sobon ap-pre-ci-at-ed what both of them said, and nod-ded en-cour-ag-ing-ly at them, but spoke up as Lai Shi Po stood frown-ing at the two younger girls. "In worlds with strong qi, like this one, strong myths be-lieved by a great many peo-ple can take on a life of their own, be-com-ing some-thing akin to prophe-cy, but with-out be-ing con-nect-ed to the truth. Peo-ple can have their fates al-tered, even in good and help-ful ways, be-cause they be-lieve in some-thing that isn''t ac-tu-al-ly true. In time, these qi-backed myths must be iden-ti-fied, stud-ied, and un-healthy ones re-moved, or else they will be-gin to com-pete for con-trol over the fu-ture with truth it-self."


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    "But not all myth is un-healthy myth. There are myths to dis-suade peo-ple from do-ing stu-pid and dan-ger-ous things, myths that en-cour-age peo-ple to trust in oth-er, well-in-ten-tioned peo-ple, myths that dis-cour-age trust-ing er-rat-ic or dan-ger-ous peo-ple, and myths that sim-ply stop peo-ple from ques-tion-ing why things work, as long as they do work. The ques-tion ''what does myth mean to you?'' sounds sim-ple, but it is not."


    "It seems like a rather sil-ly thing to study in such depth," Lai Shi Po said, with a sigh, but she turned to look at Sobon. "And I be-lieve we have got-ten off top-ic. You be-lieve that the prophe-cy... or promise, that was made to the Di-a-mond Lord, about a name-less threat, could only be a myth?"


    "As-sum-ing there is some-thing there, a qi-backed thing that af-fects peo-ple and the fu-ture, then peo-ple who have stud-ied it can name it with [aca-d-e-m-ic in-tent]," Sobon said. "That qi-backed thing may be one of three gen-er-al cat-e-gories: a [spir-i-tu-al truth], a [myth], or a [prophe-cy]. Telling the dif-fer-ence be-tween them re-quires an ex-pert, which I am not, but I be-lieve I can con-tact some-one else who can, as long as I have that in-tent."


    Lai Shi Po sighed, and shook her head. Af-ter a long mo-ment of si-lence, she spoke up. "Then, yes, I be-lieve one of the two mem-bers of the Roy-al Fam-i-ly could an-swer your ques-tion. And if they could not, once the ques-tion was posed to them, I be-lieve that they would want an an-swer to the ques-tion, and may in-sist all vis-it the aca-d-e-m-ic to-geth-er."


    Sobon nod-ded. "Then, as-sum-ing they are there to meet us, I will meet them with only my name hid-den, and light-ly con-ceal-ing my ap-pear-ance. If I am right, I will meet some-one from their par-ty again soon, and I be-lieve that them rec-og-niz-ing me will only help with what comes next."


    "What a mess," Lai Shi Po said, but she with-drew some items, look-ing to the oth-ers. "The rest of you should prob-a-bly be more dis-guised. I will let you bor-row a few things--"


    "No," Ki''el said, stub-born-ly, and Sobon glanced at her. "None of them will know me, and I do not like to dis-guise who I am."


    "Your iden-ti-ty was reg-is-tered with the mil-i-tary," Sobon re-mind-ed her.


    Ki''el looked at Sobon for a mo-ment be-fore it seemed to click in her head, and she looked ashamed. The oth-ers put up no fight at all af-ter that, and be-fore long, short-ly be-fore the last item was put up for dis-play at the auc-tion, Lai Shi Po led them back out to-wards the plat-form where their fly-ing trans-port had left them, re-quir-ing no as-sis-tance from the auc-tion house at-ten-dants to find it.


    The Lai fam-i-ly guards, and the swords-man from be-fore, were all wait-ing when they ex-it-ed the room, and Sobon sensed two sets of qi puls-es go out, no-ti-fy-ing the two dif-fer-ent groups that they were leav-ing, but no one tried to stop or slow them. Al-though it was only a rel-a-tive-ly short walk to the out-side plat-form, still by the time they ap-proached the last in-ter-sec-tion, a fig-ure stepped out of the dark-ness, one that hadn''t been there for more than a mo-ment.


    Lai Ten.


    Sobon could sense the many and tan-gled emo-tions with-in Lai Shi Po''s spir-it, al-though her new pu-ri-fied qi seemed to ab-sorb some of them, mut-ing the ef-fect. Sobon watched her glance at him, and then to-wards the arch-way lead-ing to the bal-cony, with frus-tra-tion and im-pa-tience, but she stopped and looked at him. "Hus-band."


    "Shi Po." Lai Ten looked like he want-ed to take a step for-ward, but stopped him-self, cross-ing his arms over his chest. "I trust that the re-sults of this auc-tion were agree-able to you?"


    "My new pur-chase is sat-is-fy-ing, yes," Lai Shi Po didn''t quite look away from Lai Ten, al-though she wasn''t ex-act-ly meet-ing his eyes, ei-ther. "I would have thought you would have more sense than to make en-e-mies of the Em-pire, Ten."


    "There are many dan-ger-ous peo-ple in the world," Lai Ten said, with some-thing of a scoff. "I have nev-er found the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly to be among them. They are trained..." Sobon could al-most hear the word dog drop from the man''s lips, though he re-frained. "...to be-come bu-reau-crats and over-seers, not war-lords or as-sas-sins. In a way, that is well, be-cause the Em-pire would have no peace if they were fight-ing amongst them-selves, or up-set-ting our neigh-bors."


    Bu-reau-crats don''t have, or know how to use, Flame phase qi, Sobon want-ed to ar-gue, though in truth, she had no idea how the Em-pire worked. If they did have peo-ple with great pow-er who sim-ply nev-er used it, they wouldn''t be any dif-fer-ent from the Founders, who raised every gen-er-a-tion with great abil-i-ty, and yet kept the peace... some-how. The galac-tic com-mu-ni-ty wasn''t giv-en any in-sight into in-ter-nal Founders pol-i-tics, but they would def-i-nite-ly know if the Founders waged war. That was the kind of things that made stars van-ish from the sky--and not one or two of them, but many.


    "I am sure that the El-der re-mind-ed you how your words af-fect more than sim-ply your-self," Lai Shi Po said, her voice sound-ing dan-ger-ous. "Even if you have very lit-tle chance of be-ing af-fect-ed, the House could eas-i-ly lose stand-ing."


    "If the Em-pire tried, they would find any re-place-ments in-fe-ri-or," Lai Ten said, dis-mis-sive-ly. "The Lai Fam-i-ly have been ex-cel-lent stew-ards and over-seers for many gen-er-a-tions. Be-ing dis-mis-sive of our ex-per-tise would cost them more than they would gain."


    Sobon felt the foot-steps, even though she didn''t hear them, but the voice that came from the oth-er branch of the hall-way was both qui-et and clear. "What a shal-low analy-sis, Lai Ten."


    Nei-ther of the Lai Fam-i-ly mem-bers was sur-prised, both turn-ing slow-ly and bow-ing, as the guards all dropped to a knee. Sobon, al-though she could have been proud and stood her ground, also took a knee. The veil she was wear-ing, which was just enough to hide her face, flick-ered slight-ly, as the qi in the area be-gan to in-crease, and the sen-si-tive threads in the cloth be-gan to fray of their own ac-cord. Sobon frowned, glanc-ing at it, and glanced back at the oth-ers, who were kneel-ing un-com-fort-ably.


    Sobon threw to-geth-er a rough qi pat-tern, not a su-pe-ri-or aether one, to blunt the ef-fect for Lui, Ki''el, and Mian, and she sensed the Prince and Princess glance her way, but the con-ver-sa-tion ahead was un-af-fect-ed.


    "We are not fool-ish enough to spark con-flict where none ex-ists," Prince Djang Ban Dai was say-ing, "but the strength of the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly ex-ists to be used when-ev-er and wher-ev-er con-flict does ex-ist. Should it so hap-pen that con-flict comes from a trad-ing house, that trad-ing house may be wiped out, no dif-fer-ent than con-flict aris-ing from a pow-er-ful Star-beast or for-eign army." He was walk-ing smooth-ly, as though un-hur-ried, with his arms crossed or clasped be-hind his back. "As for the cost... you are aware that we are hap-py to pay a high price for things that we de-sire."


    "Al-ways with wis-dom, Prince Djang Ban Dai," Lai Ten re-turned. "And it would be un-wise to dis-turb the en-tire mar-ket sys-tem of the Djang Em-pire over a few words at an auc-tion house."


    "No one is say-ing that bid-ding at an auc-tion will cause the death of you or your house, Lai Ten." Djang Ban Dai stopped when he was about as close to Lai Ten and Lai Shi Po as they were to each oth-er. Be-hind him, Princess Djang Ban Fen con-tin-ued just a step fur-ther to stand at his side, her arms crossed over her chest. Djang Ban Fen, for her part, had her eyes closed, seem-ing-ly deep in thought, al-though Sobon thought that she must still be pay-ing care-ful at-ten-tion. "But choos-ing not to give the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly face is both un-wise, and a sign of a deep-er lack of re-spect. Should there be such a lack of re-spect..." The Im-pe-r-i-al Prince paused. "We may need to close-ly mon-i-tor House Lai in or-der to en-sure that it is not a sign of a deep-er prob-lem."


    "We would nev-er wish to cause prob-lems for the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly," Lai Shi Po broke in be-fore her hus-band could say more. "And if our fam-i-ly leader does any-thing to of-fend you, I hope you would not paint the en-tire Lai fam-i-ly with the same brush."


    Al-though the vo-cal em-pha-sis was slight, Sobon didn''t need any train-ing in diplo-ma-cy to see the line in the sand that Lai Shi Po was draw-ing. Alas-si--whose spir-it had been say-ing less and less late-ly, as Sobon''s advancement seemed to be weak-en-ing her--sur-faced a thought about the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly of-ten wip-ing out whole fam-i-ly trees due to the of-fens-es of one or two lead-ers, in or-der to en-sure that there would be no reprisals.


    "We are ful-ly aware that Lai Shi Po in par-tic-u-lar does not stand with the rest of House Lai," Djang Ban Dai said, only glanc-ing at her for a mo-ment. "And there may be a few oth-er ex-cep-tions. But House Lai ris-es and falls by the ac-tions of its leader. As long as House Lai stands be-hind Lai Ten, there is noth-ing for the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly to say that has not al-ready been said."


    "Of course House Lai would nev-er do any-thing to of-fend the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly," Lai Ten said, in a voice that Sobon thought meant he thought he was be-ing smooth. "My com-ments ear-li-er were short sight-ed and in anger. I hope that you will not con-sid-er them to have been se-ri-ous."


    "Anger is anger, Lai Ten, and anger alone is enough to ruin bread and ships." Sobon blinked, that phrase sound-ing like it meant more than the words in it, but the Prince con-tin-ued smoothly. "But it is not you we are here to see. Lai Shi Po, are we to un-der-stand that the ex-pert who cre-at-ed these ar-ti-facts re-mains with you at this mo-ment?"


    Sobon rose smooth-ly to her feet, aware that with the qi pres-sure in the area, that should have been dif-fi-cult for her. The veil in front of her face re-mained in-tact, al-though Sobon could sense, and smell, that it was con-tin-u-ing to de-grade from the Im-pe-r-i-al auras. Sobon ig-nored it for the mo-ment, and put her hands to-geth-er in a Djang mil-i-tary salute, bow-ing, with Alas-si feed-ing her the stan-dard mil-i-tary ways of speak-ing. "Prince Djang Ban Dai, Princess Djang Ban Fen, this one is hon-ored to be in your pres-ence."


    "None of that." Djang Ban Dai stepped clos-er, though he stayed far enough away to not be in-tru-sive. "And since you are ca-pa-ble of shield-ing your-self from our qi aura, we will not take of-fense if you ex-tend that pro-tec-tion to your-self. We are im-pressed by your spir-it, but we are aware of the con-se-quences of ex-po-sure to high-er qi.


    "This one has no such need," Sobon said, smooth-ly, al-though she kept an eye on both her veil, and the spir-i-tu-al con-struct block-ing her name broad-cast, as well as the ones she had block-ing the oth-ers''.


    "I see. It is no co-in-ci-dence that you could pro-duce some-thing like Pri-mor-dial Qi." Princess Djang Ban Fen stepped around her broth-er, to the oth-er side, and looked at Sobon. Sobon thought that the aura that the Princess leaked was less in-tense, al-though ear-li-er, she had seemed stronger. More con-trol, so prob-a-bly, more po-ten-tial, Sobon thought, though she kept those thoughts pri-vate. "As ex-pect-ed, you are some-thing very odd, even for a for-eign-er. Your qi con-structs are very in-ter-est-ing, and I see that they in-clude many spe-cial-ized con-cepts be-yond our un-der-stand-ing. It is fas-ci-nat-ing, and I am tempt-ed to in-vite you over to speak more on them, should you ever reach a lev-el where that is ap-pro-pri-ate."


    Qi Con-structs. Sobon eas-i-ly kept her face neu-tral, al-though she re-mem-bered, not quite for the first time, that the Dy-namos she had con-cealed in her spir-it and buried in her core would be vis-i-ble to them. "With re-spect, Princess Ban Fen, not all of the se-crets I guard are mine to give away."


    "A sen-ti-ment rarely seen in mas-ters," Djang Ban Dai said, rais-ing his head and putting a hand to his chin ap-prais-ing-ly. "Those who reach mas-tery by learn-ing at the feet of oth-ers of-ten show no re-spect to their mas-ters'' wish-es. We are pleased that you show def-er-ence to the wise ones who came be-fore you, though a bit sad-dened that it keeps your thoughts from us. We will, of course, not in-sist, though we won-der if per-haps there is some-thing you would be will-ing to trade, in ex-change for even the small-est in-sight?"


    "What I tru-ly de-sire is be-yond even the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly to give me," Sobon felt like that was a tru-ism, al-though she knew many of the sim-pler, more ma-te-r-i-al peo-ple of the world wouldn''t be-gin to feel the same. "But I have two re-quests, both hum-ble, and I would be will-ing to speak some se-crets that are my own, in ex-change."


    "Make your re-quests," the Prince said.


    Sobon glanced at Lai Ten. "With re-spect, the hon-ored Lai Fam-i-ly Leader does not need to be pre-sent for this dis-cus-sion."


    Lai Ten bris-tled, and his con-trol over his qi slipped, show-ing a dan-ger-ous and un-sta-ble emo-tion-al core be-neath. "Any-thing that my wife can hear--"


    "Lai Ten." Al-though Djang Ban Fen un-leashed part of her core strength, she care-ful-ly shaped all of the re-leased qi pres-sure to be away from Sobon and the rest, so that only Lai Ten could feel it, and it was enough to make the man sink to his knees af-ter only a mo-ment or two. "Your habit of not re-spect-ing the wish-es of mas-ter crafters is ex-act-ly why the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly sides with your own wife against you. Please do not think that we would side with you when deal-ing with an in-de-pen-dent mas-ter crafts-man."


    Lai Ten open-ly scowled at that, and glanced at Lai Shi Po, who was al-ready glar-ing dag-gers at him. But he re-sealed his spir-it and bowed deeply from his kneel-ing po-si-tion. "As you wish, Prince, Princess. This Lai Ten will take his leave, then."


    But even as got to his feet and left, and Djang Ban Fen re-sealed her own qi, Djang Ban Dai spoke, sound-ing amused. "Per-haps this is a dis-cus-sion best had in a more pri-vate lo-ca-tion. If you and your par-ty would join us for an evening meal? We would de-light in treat-ing you all to the best food avail-able in this city."


    Sobon bowed a lit-tle low-er and spoke her words of agree-ment, hop-ing that, as was of-ten the case, good food would put the Im-pe-r-i-al Prince and Princess in a good mood, and that they would take Sobon''s words well, and not as a warn-ing. Be-cause, it wouldn''t be dif-fi-cult to imag-ine Sobon''s re-quest for knowl-edge spark-ing some-thing in ei-ther of them, some-thing that might lead their thoughts in the wrong di-rec-tion.


    She would be care-ful, and she knew this was all dan-ger-ous, but she hoped she un-der-stood what was com-ing well enough to be able to make her way through it all. If it did... hope-ful-ly, her mis-sion would be over soon, or at least, much less dan-ger-ous.


    She would have to see.

 53. Alassi - Plateau, Part 6: Feast

    Sobon found herself unsurprised when the "best food available in this city" was as much a matter of quantity as quality. In truth, she had been a little bit surprised that Commander Rai Su Anin had eaten only a regular-sized meal, despite her advancement; generally, aether warriors consumed fantastic quantities of food, especially if they were still advancing or had recently used large amounts of their personal aether. It was exactly the kind of thing that Sobon, both as an android, and as a user of dynamos rather than personal aether, generally was able to avoid.


    But seeing a Prince and Princess, both in the Flame phase of qi, devour a veritable mountain of food over the course of an hour, while keeping a passing semblance of dignity, was somehow... familiar.


    Fairy Marines, to be clear, would largely eat highly specialized meals aboard ship which had all of the calories and digestible aether of a larger meal, but it was bland and unappealing, even to watch someone else eat. Whenever they had shore leave, they would generally take it and stuff themselves with a variety of tastes and flavors, and if Sobon was being honest, the way in which these two Imperials ate was very much the same, suggesting that they were forced, in their daily lives, to eat similarly bland but packed foods. In fact, now that she was thinking of it, Rai Su Anin had also preferred variety over quantity--perhaps she was combining the bland food with added tastes in her daily life.


    The table that they were taken to was a reserved table on the highest level of a multi-floor restaurant, one that hung out over open space, connected only by one highly reinforced walkway to the rest of the dining area, plus one smaller walkway that led to a service door. From below, Sobon hadn''t even been sure that it even had a table, as it supported an ornate but oddly shaped chandelier, one which spread outwards more than it hung down. The Imperial swordsman who had guarded them, and the two from house Lai, were given a separate table closest to the walkway, and they all accepted the disinvitation gracrefully.


    As they approached, Sobon could sense several dozen privacy and defense wards, and some invasive scanning, including one that tried to pry its way through Sobon''s ward against name broadcasts. It might have worked, even, if it had been allowed to ramp up its efforts, but a gesture from the Imperial Prince silenced it.


    "I''ve ordered our usual, and the rest of you can feel free to eat whatever you desire from it," was all the warning that Djang Ban Dai gave them. The table had a rotating center, on which several platters of food were quickly deposited--large and whole roasted meats, neatly cut and plated large, cooked fish, piles of rice, a pot of molten cheese with several ladles and various types of bread sections and sticks, and stacks of cooked vegetables and prepared fruits, some even sugar coated.


    But more than that, every item on the menu had some form of aether supplement in it, and none of it forced. The meats and fish were clearly from animals with high personal qi, and most of the grown things as well, but there were also glazes, spices, and cooking methods that had been applied to each of them, each of which left their own particular flavors to the meal. And Sobon didn''t see anything particularly wrong with them, either; some aethers would leave lasting, impure residues, some of which wouldn''t be easily detected, but all of these were fairly basic and safe cooking methods, just ones masterfully used. There would still be some residues, but nothing she saw would be sticky or difficult to remove.


    Not that anyone was waiting for her analysis.


    The Prince took an entire tray of fowl, and the Princess an entire tray of fish, for their opening acts, and in between bites, they spoke cheerfully with Lai Shi Po about her progress in understanding spatial qi. Lai Shi Po, for her part, took a large helping of vegetables and coated them with cheese, speaking comfortably when not downing relatively large chunks of her meal at a time, and piled large amounts of fried rice on a side plate. Fau Mide ate fewer things and more delicately, and throughout the meal Sobon got the impression that she might be vegetarian, or perhaps simply disliked the meat and fish presented.


    Sobon had to encourage the others to eat, quietly, but they did, finding the nerve to take food out from under the grasp of the Imperial Prince and Princess, if only occasionally and in small amounts. For Sobon, she contented herself with a few things that seemed relatively straightforward, but wasn''t overwhelmingly interested in the delicacies or extravagancies--although Alassi''s body didn''t share her opinion. Sobon didn''t have to fight hard to control her body''s urges to reach for every morsel of smoked meat or sugar glazed fruit, she did have to fight, and she did so successfully, knowing what her own opinions were of the sorts of foods laid out before her.


    It didn''t help that after each serving was consumed, it was replaced, often with very different foods with their own delicious smells, but Sobon restrained herself well, trying to pay more attention to the talking than the eating.


    Lai Shi Po didn''t quite explain to the Djang Ban family what she had just learned about spatial manipulation or from where she learned it, but she did say that she''d discovered a fascinating new approach and explaining how she expected it would alter her understanding of space. Djang Ban Fen seemed more interested in the topic than her brother, who eventually shifted the topic to Lai Shi Po''s inscription foundary set, a topic which seemed to annoy her.


    "My mastery on that topic is more than lacking," she said, and Sobon could tell that she was deliberately not looking in her direction. "Recently I have made certain discoveries, but even those will take time and substantial effort to adapt and master. Our honored guest and her proficiency on the topic has more than simply wounded my pride; I feel ashamed of my ignorance and despondant on just how much there still is to learn."


    "Indeed," Djang Ban Fen shifted her attention to Sobon. "We have avoided making any requests out of politeness, but my brother and I share everyone else''s wonder at your masterful technique. And yet... to my eyes, the construction is in a way very simple, is it not? You use a profound technique for the forging, but the materials used are purified."


    "Princess Djang Ban Fen is correct," Sobon said, slowly, trying to speak as respectfully as she could, although she didn''t quite understand the patterns behind Djang formal speech, and neither did Alassi. "In truth, I could not match Lai Shi Po''s intense attention to detail as displayed in her Space Rings." Sobon quashed the part of her own pride that wanted to take that back, and say that she only needed time. It was an easy impulse to resist, but it was still there.


    "Attention to detail..." Djang Ban Fen had a very large piece of fish halfway covering her face as she appraised Sobon. "That is to suggest that it is your knowledge, and not your technique, that is your primary advantage?"


    "It''s not my place to say too much," Sobon said, tiredly. "But indeed, my greatest advantage lies in the work of others who came before me. While my techniques are by no means easy to teach or perform, knowledge has always been the greatest treasure of all."


    "Of that there is no question." Prince Djang Ban Dai, carefully, set down a large bone that he had been carefully eating the flesh off of, though Sobon noted he wiped the residue off his face with a qi technique within moments. "We trust you understand that even with our favor, lady Expert, there will be those more jealous of that treasure than us. And even Our favor--that is, err..."


    "Hah! You did screw up." Djang Ban Fen nudged her brother with a wide and almost innocent smile. "I told you that royal ''we'' crap gets in the way."


    Djang Bai Dai shook his head. "...Even my sister and I cannot stop other members of the family who may hear tales of you and your knowledge. We respect your anonymity, but... "


    "I am sure you are as aware of the danger as we could possibly make you," Djang Ban Fen interrupted her brother. "But tell me, if you would--can you give us your [Intent impression] of Primordial Qi? I cannot imagine that even one who masters the [Crestan Crown] will understand it the way you must."


    Sobon let her eyes flick from the Princess, to the Prince, to Lai Shi Po, and then to Ki''el. "I can, but in truth, I am not sure it''s the Intent that is the truly..." she glanced at Lai Shi Po. "...profound knowledge. Primordial Qi is simply... [Qi.]" She layered into that single word a brief form of the structure, untouched by intent, and without any of the specific knowledge she had--only that it was a framework for tying multiple aethers of different layers together. She had to deliberately hold back things she wanted to say--as she''d said to her students, but dared not speak in front of people who might do who knows what to change the world, and give the knowledge to who knows whom.


    Even though her voice couldn''t reach further than the table, and even though everyone in Sobon''s own group had heard her speak on it before, somehow the spiritual pressure from Lai Shi Po and the two Djangs hearing the word was incredibly intense; it was a palpable vibration, as though all three of them were tasting something more intricate and flavorful than the master cooking that was before them. All three of them stopped in their tracks, closed their eyes, and meditated on the concept, trying to lock in what they heard as though it was the last drop of water in a desert, and they were parched.


    "We were shown enough to know that we won''t be shown everything," Djang Ban Dai said, sounding disappointed, but not upset. "Layers--we have seen pieces of this, and we have understood that we are touching on something greater. But we do not yet understand what lays behind us, much less what lays before us."


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    "Our dear guest is noble in not giving away too much," Lai Shi Po said, though she had naked disgust in her voice--disgust Sobon thought was at least partially in jest. "It would be insulting, in a way, if after coming all this way, every answer was simply laid at our feet, and all our struggle was for nothing, would it not?"


    "Perhaps, and perhaps not," Djang Ban Fen said, stepping on something her brother was about to say. She glared at him, and favored Lai Shi Po with a kinder look. "The heavens always have a way of ensuring that a generation in need of power gets what they require. It is that which created the Diamond Lord, and that which has sustained the Djang Imperial Family ever since."


    Sobon didn''t miss how Lai Shi Po''s eyes flickered over to her, and she locked eyes with the Princess. "Do you study prophecy, Princess Djang Ban Fen?"


    "The prophecies related to the Djang Imperial Family are taught to all of us," she said, and glanced at her brother. "Some take them to heart, while others prefer to understand what was said, rather than simply assuming that prophets speak with a tongue of flesh."


    Sobon had to ignore that last phrase, which seemed like an allegory not meant to be taken literally. "In truth--"


    But Lai Shi Po spoke up, and Sobon stopped to let her negotiate instead. "There is one prophecy which I heard about lately but never got to hear any of the details. Or rather, I had always interpreted it differently, and had an argument about it recently. You know, the one about the doom of the empire, being nameless."


    "That''s a terrible summary," Djang Ban Dai said with a scowl, and from the look on her face, Djang Ban Fen was about to say the same.


    "The intent with which Grandfather spoke was odd," the Princess said after a moment, and Sobon noted the relationship with interest. "[[That thing], or another like it, will be the death of our empire. We must be forever on guard, for it can be [of any name] and [of any face]. I have already seen it; [such a thing] will preside over the fall of the Empire.]"


    Sobon almost let out a breath in relief, or maybe in terror, as either way, she didn''t need any help understanding the prophecy, and it had nothing to do with her. The intent, especially [of any face], spoke of aether powers great enough to rewrite reality itself, and there was only one race Sobon knew of capable of that. Still, she memorized the academic intent, hoping that at the very least, the Ri''lef could tell her whether the prophecy was referring to a Founder invasion force--or a single Founder working to put the world back on course.


    She did steady out her breathing and look around, noting that Lai Shi Po looked a bit dizzy, but was already speaking. "Is that really it? It''s not quite how I recall the intent."


    "Hum," Djang Ban Fen said after a moment. "There was another version of it, I suppose. That was Grandfather''s version, but supposedly, the Great Teacher said that [when the time comes that [their Way] is betrayed, it will only take [one insignificant life] to conquer all that we have created]. It''s that one bit of intent that''s most divisive--[one insignificant life]. Life without name, without achievement. People take from it whatever their own life suggests. Soldiers think the intent speaks of a soldier; assassins think the intent speaks of an assassin. People who have risen to power from poverty think it speaks of a revolutionary; third sons and daughters of powerful families think it means estranged nobles. Each argues against every other interpretation."


    And of course, I think it means a single Founder, though it could almost, technically refer to me, Sobon thought, though she kept her face masked even under her veil. She did her best to memorize the intent of that prophecy, as well. "And what about [their Way]?"


    "Ah, I suppose I should have been more discreet," said the Princess, although she didn''t sound sorry. "The Great Teacher gave the Diamond Lord much wisdom, but also put him under great restrictions, most of which he has never shared with anyone. In time, he rebelled against their Way, and he has maintained ever since that it was necessary to protect our world from a great disaster."


    "Thus we maintain guard against all enemies," Djang Ban Dai said, having demolished a pile of rice and several largish fruits while his sister was talking. "We dare not overlook even the most insignificant life, as the most insignificant life could be the end of the Empire itself."


    It was those words, in the end, that stopped Sobon. The most insignificant life. Not one insignificant life. The most.


    What life could be less significant than a slum boy without qi, doomed to be cut to pieces and served to cannibals in a Bilg slum? What life could be less significant than a common tree squirrel on an island, with only one human being within dozens of miles? What life could be less significant than an old, crippled, suicidal woman, whose family was barely able to scrape by and who whose only heir would almost certainly someday be stolen away, raped, and killed by the criminals her son-in-law grudgingly worked with, refusing to believe that he would be betrayed, even as he saw the look in their eyes, even as he saw the slaves in their carts?


    But Sobon stilled herself, her Cyborg instincts letting her regulate her outward expression as her mind caught up. She was sure she had given a sign, and knew that the Prince and Princess noticed, but she reviewed the intent again. [One insignificant life.] Although what Djang Ban Dai had said sounded very much like Sobon, the prophecy did not. Not only the word, but the intent spoke of a single person''s life--and Sobon had lived many, now. Unless it were a deliberate misdirection, it wasn''t in reference to her.


    "Lady Expert seems to have some trouble," Djang Ban Dai said, humorously, though Sobon could see the intelligent look in his eye. "Something about the prophecy strikes you as odd?"


    "In fact it isn''t the prophecy that I had trouble with," Sobon said, truthfully. "It was your phrase, ''the most insignificant life''. That called to mind some lives I have known, and... things might have gone very different. But none of those lives matches with the intent of [One insignificant life]." Here Sobon paused, and lowered her intent defenses fully, allowing her honesty to be read. "And no matter how I examine it, I do not think that intent matches anything I have seen in my life."


    The Prince didn''t react to that, but the Princess did, visibly relaxing. Sobon noted the two shared a look, and several very subtle qi pulses, before the Prince also let himself relax. "We take it that this matter was, in truth, one of the questions you wished answered, Lady Expert?"


    "I had been troubled by the thought since I heard of the prophecy," Sobon admitted, regaining her guard, but also being careful to speak only true things, though often deceptively. "Most of those insignificant lives I have known died terrible, sorrowful, short lives. One other is an unknown, and I hope that they can remain such. If it were to turn out that they were a danger to the empire... I would not wish to be part of that if it can be avoided, but likewise I could not ignore it if I discovered such a thing was true."


    "To be clear," Djang Ban Dai''s voice had an edge, although he still seemed friendly, "you wish to preserve the Empire? Even as a non-Djang, one who has, I imagine, seen much hardship because of us?"


    "It has never been my intent to cause the Empire any harm," affirmed Sobon. "I hope that no danger comes to it, certainly during my own lifetime."


    "Then all of that is settled." Djang Ban Fen clapped her hands, a qi pulse disrupting the sour mood that had settled over the table. "You had another desire, though? A smaller request, perhaps?"


    "Only this," Sobon said, her heart suddenly pounding in her chest. "Although I know it may sound conceited... I only wish for the Diamond Lord himself to hear of the Crestan Crown. I know that its materials cannot stand his presence, but I... believe that perhaps it would be of interest to him."


    Sobon could feel the two Djang imperials staring at her, as though in disbelief, but after a moment, the Princess broke out into a huge smile.


    "Our dear Lady Expert has a crush on grandpa!" She giggled madly, and the Prince rolled his eyes and grabbed another healthy serving of rice. "Well, you don''t need to worry, dear Lady Expert. Even though he''s been in a bad mood lately, he always is willing to come and speak with us, and we were planning to go see him after this shopping trip anyway. We speak with him of the outside world, and he speaks to us about qi, and the future, and the past. The sort of things that he has always wished to pass on, but can only do so one small piece at a time."


    This time, Sobon did let out a deep breath, aware of how it made her look. "Many thanks."


    But Lai Shi Po had turned and was glaring at her. "Are... are you not going to ask? About...?" She gestured away, and Sobon knew she was gesturing generally towards Emerald Valley. Or rather... towards what Sobon needed to protect.


    Towards the Mofu Army that would be coming.


    "Ah," Sobon said, though now she felt like her voice was smoother than it had been; less stressed, or at least, more certain of what she was doing. "Have you decided who you will be using your Crown to raise up? Some prodigy, perhaps?"


    "It is a bit early for that," mused Prince Djang Ban Dai, momentarily forgetting to wipe the rice from around his mouth--but only for a moment. "But we are excited to see it in action. We imagine that we will allow our Djang Do Min--our bodyguard--to make an attempt, as he is only in [Star Ruby Qi]."


    "He won''t do very well, I think," the Princess replied, looking at her brother with an open look on her face. "He dislikes external influences on his qi. But perhaps, since what is returned is purer, it will be better?"


    Sobon glanced at Ki''el, but only for a moment.


    "It''s him or one of our younger siblings," Djang Ban Dai said, sighing. "Any prodigy of our generation is too advanced. And most of the prodigies of the next generation are not loyal enough to our family to entrust with such an artifact... at least, not yet. There is our cousin... but no," he laughed, as his sister immediately made a face. "I agree, not him. So if we wish to see the Crown used, for now, it will be him. And when he can no longer use it, we will find a younger sibling worthy of the advantage."


    "At [Star Ruby Qi], he won''t be able to use it long," Djang Ban Fen said, glancing at Sobon. "Star Ruby is the lowest of the Heavenly Gem Phase. I was being generous when I appraised the artifact as not working above that stage; perhaps even mid-Heaveny Gem will be too much for it. I trust him to be careful, but..."


    "Princess Djang Ban Dai knows these matters better than I," Sobon said, trying again to sound formal, since she had nothing actually useful to say.


    "Perhaps we will only let him use it for a few days," Djang Ban Fen mused, then suddenly brightened. "While my brother and I go deliver your love letter to our Grandfather, he can attend that stupid meeting in our place! He can make use of it until that''s finished."


    The Prince had a complex set of emotions cross his face, as he took her words seriously, then as a joke, then considered them seriously again. But Sobon simply did her best to keep a neutral face, feeling stress building up again.


    Was this what it was like to toy with fate? To see everything seeming to go in the direction you expected it to go, while still feeling like everything is out of your grasp? To be terrified at every turn and every step that you were making a terrible mistake, only for the other shoe to never drop?


    Was this set of circumstances all coming to fruition her manipulating fate, or was someone or something else tampering with what she''d seen? Or had she always been mistaken, and she was being led down this path, but for the wrong reasons?


    Sobon covered her expression by drinking tea, having barely noticed the cup among all the food spread on the table, and did her best not to overthink it all.

 54. Alassi - Plateau, Part 7: Plans

    Sobon''s return to her home was understated, with the four of them going to their small mansion and Lai Shi Po choosing to bunk with Lady Fau for a while. Although she imagined that Lord Shida, among others, was curious about the results of the auction, Sobon found that she had much to do and even more to think about, and she found that she really didn''t care to get anyone else involved in those thoughts, at least at first.


    So she immediately set to work with her attunements and with designing and crafting things to face the Mofu army with, but within a day she found herself feeling incredibly distant from the rest, and recognized only with some effort that she was feeling everyone else''s reflected desire to talk as well as her own--that aether, as always, was a force of connection, between people and those they cared for, just as it was a force of connection between casters and their magic, warriors and their tools.


    So she made an effort to sit and talk with Ki''el and Mian about aether late in the afternoon, but it felt empty. And then after dinner, she made time to speak more with Lui, intending to talk about revival aether and her emotions, though they didn''t end up getting to that.


    "In all honsety, Grandma Sobon," Lui said, as the two of them sat and watched the dusk sky, "lately... after you..." She looked down, then at Sobon, and then away. "After you said that you had to go... I started to understand that Gradma Alassi really is gone. And that someday, you''ll be gone, too. And I know you said that you''ll come back, but..."


    Sobon could hear the ache in the girl''s voice, and wanted to reach out, but something about the way the girl was sitting didn''t invite her closer. "The world is far from fair, Lui," Sobon said. Privately, she could admit to herself that she was seeing the symptoms of severe depression in herself as well as the others. "I wish that I could just live an innocent life, with all of you, but I think that what comes next is important. Too important," she clarified, "to act like our feelings, our hopes and dreams, matter more."


    "Why?" There was naked pain in the girl''s voice--and Sobon couldn''t help recall whose body she was in. And she knew she had explained it--to them and to herself--and she knew that the answers would never make up for it all.


    Sobon just shook her head. "I do understand, Lui. You want me to have answers. I could ask others--but they would say the same as I said to you, and the people above them would say the same to them if they asked. The more of the picture you see, the more you understand that it takes hard work to let us have happy days and a comfortable life."


    Lui just looked away, and Sobon knew she was unsatisfied. She let the girl think for a moment, until at last Lui spoke up again. "Tell me about your home," she said. "You never talk about it."


    Sobon looked over towards the shed in the corner, where Mian and Ki''el were sitting, and she thought they both looked over, but Sobon just sat there for a long moment, looking at nothing.


    Home. In different circumstances, to different people, she would have deflected the question, or simply summarized it all as being meaningless. In truth, ever since becoming a Marine, she hadn''t looked back very often, and was more or less content with that. But in the end, it wasn''t meaningless, not to Lui, or Ki''el, and probably not to Mian. It had made Sobon who he was--who she was, now.


    "Home," Sobon spoke up enough that Ki''el and Mian could hear her clearly, although she was aware the two of them quickly moved closer. "The place where I grew up was never ours. We paid to live in a small room in... a few different places, at different times, in a grand city. Many things were possible there, but I never found my place among them. The city was very tall," she cast out a small aether illusion of many tall buildings, where they could see it, "and it had more people in it than you have ever met, or may ever meet. They made a great many buildings full of a great many small rooms for people to rent out, and used space in other buildings for food, entertainment, education, work."


    Sobon reflected on the days before she had chosen to be a Marine, thinking a little bit analytically, and more than a little bit nostalgically. In the end, though, even with a Cyborg''s mind, those memories were fading, blunted by how they''d never turned out to mean anything, both the good ones and the bad. "They taught everyone, in our world," she said after a moment. "There were no homeless, and the leaders took it upon themselves to ensure there was no disease, that everyone was healthy. All of that came with expectations, and they were mostly reasonable, but they always felt wrong, to me. To be a part of the..." she found herself wanting to say machine, but there was no easy translation to the local tongue. "...the grand societal array, as it were, which sustained that society, felt like a mistake."


    "Societal array?" Mian''s voice sounded sour, as though it was a confusing or displeasing concept.


    "It''s the wrong word," Sobon acknowledged. "What I mean is that we all moved according to the rules, and we all benefitted, but we all must move to the rules once we have a place. Like a spiritual array or inscription, but not... not exactly magic." It was, of course; society depended on magic, including the aether-backed Foundational Social Myth, but that was all another topic. "I made some choices, and left home. And eventually, due to enemy action, my home city was destroyed."


    "Who was your enemy?" Mian interrupted again, leaning forward, though Sobon wasn''t sure what to read in the man''s face.


    "People from another world," said Sobon, dismissively. "They didn''t look particularly different, but our people and theirs were enemies. I would later learn that our people had done awful things to them, as well. But at that point, I was certain that going to war would consume the rest of my life. And it did."


    "But--oh." Mian shook his head. "Sorry, I know, it''s just..."


    "The last ship that I was on was a patrol vessel," Sobon changed the topic, looking up at the sky, noting more stars peeking through the dark than there had been. "It was a very long ship, narrow, like a needle, and named after a thin sword, for stabbing and not for slashing. The [Iridescent Rapier]. I lived on ships like that for long enough that I thought of those as my home, and not planets. But that life was very cramped sleeping rooms, practicing and doing drills, and taking my spare time to walk or stare at the stars out the windows."


    "So it was not a happy home," said Ki''el, sounding unhappy.


    "It was not happy. I was not happy. But I didn''t worry about happiness, not as long as I was a soldier." Sobon looked down from the stars at Ki''el, who was looking back at her. And she felt different, now, although it was unfair to the girl, because she knew Ki''el was so young. But Sobon couldn''t help but think that Marine Sobon would have wished for a woman who looked at him like that, eager to hear the details and empathetic about his suffering.


    He--she looked away. "When I joined the military, they taught me many things. I learned well and did well, but I was never elite. There were many soldiers better than me, from the beginning to the end. But the military was what I needed, or so I thought--it was a world I understood, where my skills made sense. Because when my parents and I lived in the city, it didn''t make sense to me. But that world I understood, and that is why I felt that was where I belonged."


    "And now I''m here..." Sobon found herself stopping, not sure what she wanted to say. "I came here after I died on my last mission. I came here from being trapped and alone among the dead bodies of my companions. And my first experiences on this world were somehow just as bad, if not worse. I was a Bilg boy named Jom, I think on the other side of the world." She summarized Jom''s short, sad life as best she could, though there was still so much she didn''t know.


    "And when that scythe hit me, my spirit was sent into the Beyond, but not to die--not to join the Infinite Cycle, to be reborn somewhere else as a brand new life. Instead I looked down and saw this world, wounded, perhaps dying. And in truth, it was worse even than what I saw from there. But the aether of this world--the qi of this world--looked so unhealthy from up there."


    He--she--turned and looked at Ki''el. "And then I met you," he said. "My spirit tumbled around the world until it landed in a stupid little squirrel in a tree. If it had any spirit or intelligence, it was wiped out, and I was alone, lost in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where I was or what was going on. I was miserable, still full of hate, and confused as hell. But I found you, and you needed help. And while my life didn''t make sense, helping you did. Because you were innocent and scared and alone, and even stuck in the body of a stupid tree rat, I could do something to help."


    "So I tried to teach you, and helped you fight the pirates, and then... I made a mistake, and died." Sobon shook her head. "And I met the people who actually brought me here, and learned that the world was in even greater danger. And I had a mission, and that made sense. But there was also Lui, and her needs, and Mian and his, and you needed me again," Sobon just kept looking to Ki''el. "Each of those things, those needs, made sense, but all of them together don''t. With the mission and with helping you all, I can make use of everything I''ve known and everything I''ve done, but the more I focus on the things I''m good at, the more I think of the mission above all else."


    "I know," Sobon said, accepting that she was having a conversation with her own spirit as much as with the others, "that focusing on the mission above all doesn''t make sense. Not when I want to protect you all, and be with you. The problem is that this is what I do. Going out to fight, working every angle until I figure it out. And all that expertise says I need to fight, now. But I am worried that I may not come back this time."


    "You think your immortality will break?" asked Mian, as Lui sucked in a breath, nervously.


    Stolen story; please report.


    "No," said Sobon, finally putting into words the sick thoughts she''d been trying not to focus on. "I think I''ll finally be facing someone powerful enough to sense my spirit on the other side after they kill me. And I think that if they can do that, they''ll capture me, and I will be trapped somewhere." She looked at Lui, and then at Ki''el. "I am a foreigner to this world, and they wage a war on Starbeasts, and the Diamond Lord believes they are here to protect this world from other worlds. If they know, or believe..."


    "Then you must not go," said Ki''el, firmly, resolutely. "Even if it means abandoning your mission, you cannot simply let yourself be captured like that."


    "I had those thoughts," Sobon said, nervously, then looked around. Although she couldn''t sense anything, she frowned, and stood. "Let''s continue this in the secret area."


    Although the others were confused, they let Sobon lead them down there and seal off the exit. Sobon let her paranoia run wild, sweeping her detection array around, but could sense no stray spirit, no aether connected to any grand spiritual god or similar. And then finally, she sank down against the wall, exhausted.


    "When I created the Crestan Crown, I saw a future," she said. "Not my own future, but the crown''s. This..." she looked up, at the other three. "This must never be spoken of, even if others cannot hear. Matters of fate manipulation can be very delicate. But... the future I thought I saw was not one where I''d been captured, I think. But I also don''t think I was allowed to return to you all."


    "Why?" Ki''el''s question was all but a demand, as she stood dead center in front of Sobon, staring back at him.


    "I..." Even with all of her protections, Sobon felt scared, somehow. Of saying it, and being proven wrong. "I am beginning to think I understand the whole situation, and that''s why I have to go. Because I should be able to come back, but not soon. Not soon enough." Sobon looked away from her, knowing the answer was lousy.


    "As long as you come back, that''s enough," said Lui into the quiet.


    Sobon looked at the girl, remembering the first moment she saw Alassi''s granddaughter, who had still worried for, cared for her, despite Alassi''s crippled body, spirit, and mind. Kinder than Alassi deserved. Kinder than I deserve, I think.


    "If you never saw your own future, how do you know you didn''t come back to us?" Mian asked the question after another moment of quiet, and Sobon turned to look at him, acknowledging the question with a slow nod.


    "I don''t know," Sobon admitted. "But I felt like I was involved with... something, which would probably consume all of my time. I suppose I could be wrong, but... it feels like it would take a miracle for that to happen. To be able to shape the future of this world, take on all those burdens, and still be able to be there for you all."


    "Shape the future?" Mian half straightened, as though he understood what Sobon was saying, and Lui and Ki''el both reacted as much to his tone as to Sobon''s words.


    "I dare not say what I''m thinking, even here," Sobon said. "If I''m right, things will work out for us all--but we may still not be able to be together. And that thought scares me, because I worry that the job that I''ll find myself doing won''t make sense, and I''ll be back to being trapped in another way, forced to live a life that makes no sense in the hopes that everything will work out. And--but. But if I''m wrong."


    "If you think you are sparing us heartbreak by not telling us," said Ki''el, "you are not. We want to know, Sobon."


    Sobon looked at her, but shook her head. "No. There is a reason I can''t speak of this, and it''s because of aether--a power that connects things." Because the Diamond Lord is directly connected to everyone in this world through his blessing, and if I''m wrong, my wrong guess might just attract his attention. Sobon understood, logically, that the thought was pure paranoia--and yet, she didn''t dare ignore it.


    There was a tense stillness after that, but Sobon spoke up, trying to sound cheerful. "But if I am right," she said, "I hope that you will all be able to get good educations with the money from the auction. I will do what I can to ensure that happens, even if something happens to me. And if I do come back, we''ll make a future together. A better one."


    "I do not care about an education," Ki''el started to say, but Mian put a hand on her shoulder, startling her.


    "I understand," he said, forcing positivity as well. "I know I''ve always felt out of place here--" Mian gave an apologetic shrug. "As an older man rather than a teenage girl. But I care about Lui, and I am coming to like Ki''el as well. I''ve been thinking, ever since you talked about your mission for the first time, that maybe there was a place for me to stand up and fight. And I was angry that I couldn''t just..." he clenched one hand and looked at it. "...make my body become strong, the way you have."


    "But then I heard what the princess said, and began to understand. Every generation has prodigies that rise to the top, and I''m never going to be that." Despite his words, Mian didn''t sound disappointed. "But that''s not what it takes to be a warrior--no, to be a soldier, the way you talk about, is it?"


    "No," Sobon said, although she wasn''t sure yet what Mian was saying.


    "A soldier, a warrior, a hero," Mian said, sounding like he was explaining something to someone else, although Sobon wasn''t sure to whom or why, "is someone who comes in to save the day. And here you are, trying to save the world by facing something really awful."


    "So I guess..." Mian smiled. "I can face the idea that I''ll never be a great warrior, not among my generation. Maybe not even a good one. I''m already too old, and too far behind, to ever be someone that rises to the top."


    "Mian..." Sobon looked at him. "I really don''t understand what you''re saying."


    Mian closed his eyes for a minute, thinking, then opened them to look at Sobon.


    "I''m going to find a woman and get married."


    Sobon, and the two girls, all just sort of gave him strange looks.


    "I guess it''s a strange time to say it, isn''t it?" Mian gave a grin. "But I see all three of you being truly fantastic people. And it all makes me want to go find some other amazing woman, and protect her from all the hell in the world, not by being a stronger warrior than her, but the way you protected me. The way you protected us. By showing courage and confidence, and believing in your heart that amazing women can change the world, like you and Lai Shi Po, or like Princess Djang Ban Fen."


    "You''re still really not making sense, Uncle Mian," Lui said, trying to sound gentle.


    "The point is," Mian said, "that you are going to need followers, and a Noble House, right? Lai Shi Po said that your money was enough to create a Noble House, but you can''t do that, not as a non-Djang. Me, I''m Djang, but an outsider, and people will be confused by that. But I was listening when Lady Fau was talking with Lai Shi Po."


    "They talked about being oppressed because they tried to openly rule in this country. Few noble women would trust a man with no background who came calling, because they would likely just be after their money, after their power. But a man who already has money..." Mian scratched his chin. "...admittedly, I''ve not completely thought this through, yet. But I am willing to bet that with the help of Lady Fau, and Lady Lai, I could find the right woman to build a house with. Someone with smarts and a noble name, and I just act like the one in charge."


    Lui and Ki''el were both rolling their eyes. Sobon wasn''t sure what the man was saying made any sense--but he could also see that it was what the man had always wanted, after having chased Alassi in the beginning. "I expect a proper noble house will expect you to be, or become, strong. Aren''t they using the noble houses to fight the Starbeasts?"


    "There have to already be exceptions for the occasional noble son who is no good," said Mian. "I just have to disguise myself as one of those, and let my woman do the hard work, while everyone is distracted by me."


    That... Sobon stared at the man, until finally a switch flipped in her brain, and she wasn''t sure she cared anymore. "Talk with Lai Shi Po and Lady Fau about this," Sobon said, "and get back to me in a few days. If they find some wisdom in it, if they have someone they would trust, it''s worth considering. But ''I''ll just get married'' is not a plan, not even the beginnings of one."


    "No, I know," said Mian, his smile fading just a bit around the edges. "But I... I had been sure that my desire to be a hero was going to be about me swinging a sword. And now I wonder if I''m supposed to take my attitude and pass it down to other people, to raise someone to be the hero I can''t be. Because I believe there is room in the world for heroes, and for strong, beautiful... amazing women." Sobon gave the man a look, which he didn''t seem to notice. "And I want everyone else to feel the same way. And how can one do that without raising the next generation?" He shrugged. "It all makes sense."


    "I... just, talk to them first," Sobon said, putting the whole matter out of mind. "Maybe this... noble house of yours could adopt Lui and Ki''el, keep them safe."


    But Mian looked shocked, somehow. "But they''re my sisters, not my children," he said, sounding frustrated. "Well... I don''t know. Perhaps. We''ll have to see."


    "What about this House Mofu?" Ki''el''s voice sounded suddenly contemplative. "You were planning to destroy them, but perhaps we could make use of them instead?"


    "From what we''ve heard and seen, we would have to destroy all their elders," Sobon replied. "We can''t trust them to have control over us. After doing that, what good is their name? And would anyone in that family want to ally with us?"


    There was a moment of silence, but Ki''el sighed. "No, you are right. I just feel like it would be best if there was no need to fight."


    "It would be," Sobon admitted, leaning her head back against the wall of the basement, sensing the aether behind her head with some familiarity. "But that part of it... the fighting part, you can leave that to me. Especially now having enough materials, I do not fear them. And the rest... I don''t know. I need help. And maybe Mian and his imaginary bride can help that."


    "Imaginary?" Mian sounded offended, but Ki''el laughed.


    "You are imagining a wife, and you do not have one," she teased. "Isn''t that just how it is?"


    The two bantered, but Sobon looked to Lui. "And you..." she felt her voice almost catch, but was able to smooth it out. "Lui. I worry that you and Lady Fau may have to carry on the appearance that everything is normal while all the rest of us are confused and struggling. I intend for you to get a better education, to grow strong, and become something amazing in your own right, but in the meantime, if people come looking for us, thinking we are some kind of monsters, I feel like we need someone that just looks..." Normal? Innocent? "...pure. And you are that. Just search for ways to help people, and make it obvious that is who you are, and what you''re doing. As long as we don''t run into another monster like Lord Mofu who kills indiscriminately, people like you who just do respectable work may help deflect attention from everything else."


    Lui frowned, but looked at Sobon. "I... guess that''s what I was going to do anyway?"


    Sobon nodded. "As long as you can do that, don''t feel like you''re not contributing, okay? You don''t need to fight, or grow your qi, or even become the best Alchemist in the world, if you don''t want to. Because Mian is crazy," Sobon jerked a thumb at Mian, and the man turned and glared at her, "and Ki''el and I will probably attract the wrong attention. There ought to be some proof in this world that not everything I touch goes to shit."


    Lui actually gave a loud, clear laugh at that. "Okay, Grandma Sobon," she said, though Sobon thought the girl wasn''t using the term out of blind respect, the way she had when she was a child. She was saying more with it, perhaps even teasing, and Lui was never much of a joker.


    Sobon felt a part of her heart relax, and although she wouldn''t admit it where Mian could hear, she couldn''t help noting that she, too, was only really thinking about the next generation, and less and less about herself. Perhaps some part of that was from inhabiting the body of an old woman--a mother, a grandmother. But it felt right, even to the old, bitter, mechanical parts of Sobon.


    It was, ultimately, part of being human. Or more than that, part of being alive in the first place.

 55. Alassi - Culmination, Part 1

    Sobon used her de-tec-tion ar-ray to track the rel-a-tive progress of the army that the Mofu fam-i-ly was as-sem-bling over the next few days, as she at-tuned two new arm bones, and forged her new Star-beast cores into a weapon and a shield con-struct. And she con-tin-ued to do her best to spend time with her fam-i-ly, al-though Mian wan-dered off to speak to Lai Shi Po and Lady Fau and nev-er seemed to re-turn, and Lui... seemed to be struck by a melan-choly that Sobon had no way to dis-si-pate. Ki''el, for her part, did her best to pester Sobon with ques-tions about qi and aether, though it was clear she didn''t un-der-stand too many of the an-swers. Still... she seemed to have a good mem-o-ry, and did her best to ab-sorb every-thing she was told.


    Sobon let her-self be con-vinced that she had enough in the way of heavy weapons to han-dle an army, and moved from that to util-i-ty. The Cy-borg Wings were the foun-da-tion for some-thing greater, and very flex-i-ble tools, but only when Sobon was able to craft a sim-ple har-ness with a Star-beast Core at its cen-ter was the thrust enough to make se-ri-ous com-bat move-ments. Ide-al-ly, she would do the same for her wings--but that would take too long. The best way to en-hance that would be to weave core ma-te-r-i-al into her shoul-der blades, re-plac-ing the sec-tions of bone where telekine-sis scripts were, but even un-der the best of cir-cum-stances--with mod-ern ma-te-ri-als, a sur-geon on hand, and ma-te-ri-als that her body was guar-an-teed not to re-ject--the heal-ing time for such a graft would be weeks, not days.


    So in-stead, she fo-cused on time ma-nip-u-la-tion, craft-ing a rel-a-tive-ly sim-ple bauble that would ac-cel-er-ate her mind, body, and aether with On-ward-spin aether. Paired with her Out-spin aether spir-it bones, which let her build aether struc-tures in midair us-ing only her mind, she would be able to ad-just and adapt her con-structs very rapid-ly.


    All of those prepa-ra-tions led her to one con-sis-tent prob-lem, though: aether ac-cu-mu-la-tion. When her spir-it had ad-vanced to Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, it had opened up a spir-i-tu-al stor-age core for pour-ing qi into, but Sobon hadn''t fo-cused on ac-tu-al-ly us-ing it for that, nor had she been run-ning her dy-namos at full pow-er to grow their thorns. And al-ready, she had seen that when pressed, she could ma-nip-u-late more aether than the lo-cal en-vi-ron-ment could give her--though this area was prob-a-bly light-ly set-tled ex-act-ly be-cause it didn''t have a large amount of free aether, or qi, in the air and ground.


    One an-swer, if she were cold-heart-ed, would be to con-struct an-oth-er crown, or some-thing like it, and pull qi from the air, pu-ri-fy it, and con-dense it into sol-id form un-til she had enough to wage prop-er war with. That, how-ev-er, would have side ef-fects; the free aether was nec-es-sary for liv-ing things, and ''min-ing'' that qi for sev-er-al days, or even a large frac-tion of one day, would do sig-nif-i-cant harm to the re-gion.


    Sobon had an an-swer... and one none of the lo-cals would ex-pect or un-der-stand, but even though she could make it with rel-a-tive-ly sim-ple ma-te-ri-als, and even giv-en the rel-a-tive-ly low like-li-hood any-one would be able to grasp the tech-nique... she wor-ried about set-ting prece-dent. Still, she threw to-geth-er the tools in an af-ter-noon--just two sim-ple crys-tal spikes, a matched set, which con-tained a matched pair of spa-tial nodes con-nect-ing one to the oth-er.


    Still, de-spite some reser-va-tions, she queried the Coro-na for the math, and af-ter form-ing a rather tricky aether ar-ray, and then dou-ble and triple check-ing the math... tele-port-ed one of those aether spikes to the moon''s L2 La-grange point, a point on the far side of the moon, where the mo-tion of the moon and plan-et would hold it in po-si-tion. Be-cause of the spa-tial nodes, she could cast through one spike to reach the oth-er--so she could draw on aether from be-yond any-one else''s reach.


    She test-ed the aether out there--cold and un-at-tuned, with-out much qi mixed in, but there was a lot of it, as she''d sus-pect-ed. Plan-ets like this one could cre-ate their own aether, but by and large, the qi in the uni-verse came from the same source as the mat-ter in the uni-verse--forged and then cast off by stars of unimag-in-able size, age, and pow-er, aether sim-ply float-ed through the cos-mos in ways that de-fied nor-mal physics. The uni-verse be-longed to those who un-der-stood aether and its sources--but life still pre-ferred to live in these shel-tered lit-tle worlds, of which there were few. And there would be far few-er with-out the Founders, who (if Sobon were to be-lieve Crestan in-tel-li-gence, though per-haps it was some-thing they were told by the Founders them-selves) moved plan-ets into new or-bits and seed-ed them with wa-ter and life in the quest to cre-ate new civ-i-liza-tions through-out their part of the galaxy.


    In short, if a plan-et had great aether, there was like-ly more in the sur-round-ing space. In its own way, that tilt-ed the scales in a bat-tle like the one be-tween the Di-a-mond Lord, who most like-ly drew on lo-cal aether... and some-thing like the Tidal Coro-na, or even the Rapi-er, ei-ther of which would have used its pow-er cores in-stead. The pow-er dis-tri-b-u-tion net-work aboard a ship that size was a mas-sive bot-tle-neck, and while it was pos-si-ble to cre-ate large ar-rays in space the same way that Sobon did, those were gen-er-al-ly spe-cial-ized sys-tems on spe-cial-ized war-ships, with a whole crew ded-i-cat-ed to the art aboard. Sobon had seen war-ships of oth-er races, in par-tic-u-lar, that used such tech-niques, but they were not a fa-vored tool in the Crestan Em-pire.


    Sobon shook her head and sim-ply put the oth-er spike in her space ring. With-out go-ing out of her way to cre-ate an-oth-er pu-ri-fi-er, ac-cu-mu-lat-ing en-er-gy in that way wasn''t a great idea, and Sobon didn''t want to spend the rest of her time ac-cu-mu-lat-ing and pu-ri-fy-ing en-er-gy. Not when she still wasn''t sure what would hap-pen af-ter the com-ing bat-tle. So in-stead, she asked Ki''el to bor-row the aether sword again, and took it apart to make some up-grades with the Core ma-te-r-i-al she had left.


    Sobon ex-pect-ed to wor-ry more about it--about the bat-tle, the pos-si-ble af-ter-math, and the few go-ing-away pre-sents she had more or less de-cid-ed on--but as she fin-ished up-grad-ing Ki''el''s sword, leav-ing her one last gift con-cealed care-ful-ly in-side, she felt strange-ly calm. There was no deny-ing that some of what she was do-ing was fool-hardy, es-pe-cial-ly giv-en how much of the fu-ture she hadn''t seen, but if there was one thing that felt right, it was leav-ing the sword for Ki''el. Al-most every-thing else, she doubt-ed, but that... per-haps not. Still... she knew that the girl wouldn''t un-der-stand, cer-tain-ly not right away. Es-pe-cial-ly not giv-en how Sobon had con-cealed the real prize with-in.


    For Lui, Sobon asked her sev-er-al ques-tions about how Lady Fau did her alche-my, and then did her best to cre-ate an ap-pro-pri-ate tool to help. The best thing that Sobon could come up with was an alche-my pot which had some ba-sic chem-istry process-es built in, but which also con-tained Sobon''s Re-verse-spin, or Re-vival, aether dy-namo, care-ful-ly mount-ed into place with a rel-a-tive-ly com-plex en-grav-ing. The Re-vival aether, along with its matched en-grav-ing, would let one very slow, re-sist, or slight-ly re-verse a process that seemed to be go-ing wrong, giv-ing more time to fix it--but it was too weak to ac-com-plish much more than that. Sobon did her best to demon-strate the con-cept, and ex-plained the chem-istry scripts, but in truth, she wasn''t sure it was re-al-ly the use-ful tool she in-tend-ed it to be.


    Fi-nal-ly, though, when in the morn-ing a check of her de-tec-tion ar-ray showed the army on the march, Sobon couldn''t de-lay any longer. Af-ter let-ting Lui and Ki''el know, she moved quick-ly to the City Lord''s man-ner, and was quick-ly able to meet him and the pris-on-er, who Sobon was ...some-what dis-pleased to note had been tor-tured to some ex-tent. Not sur-prised, ex-act-ly, but dis-pleased.


    Lord Shi-da didn''t seem to ex-pect any sort of cen-sure for it, though. "We did our best to en-sure he would spill se-crets about House Mofu," he said, sound-ing dis-gust-ed, "but his strength was too much for us, even with your ar-rays con-tain-ing and weak-en-ing him. But you said that you need him?"


    "Just as I said when I cap-tured him," Sobon said, mak-ing no pre-tense of hid-ing her words from the man... Mofu Kaishin? Sobon didn''t quite care. "He will de-liv-er a mes-sage to the house of Mofu, which has raised an army to de-feat me."


    "Ah." The pan-ic in Lord Shi-da''s voice was ev-i-dent, but Sobon shat-tered the re-straints around the Mofu scion with-out a care. The man fell to the ground with-out a sound, but when he looked up at Sobon, his eyes had mur-der in them.


    "Go and tell your fam-i-ly leader that they may pick a bat-tle-field any-where along the route be-tween this city and your home," Sobon said. "I al-ready know where they are, and my prepa-ra-tions are all but com-plete. I will come to them, and they may set up what-ev-er de-fens-es or ar-rays they like. Since House Mofu has de-clared war on me, I will wipe them out. But if they do not pre-pare... I will am-bush them along the way." Sobon held up her hand. "If I do not show up with-in three days, they may blas-pheme my name and de-stroy my home all they like. But whether you con-sid-er it warn-ing them, or let-ting them know that I am a fool, you will tell them that I am com-ing. And that I know they have a mem-ber of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly there as wit-ness." Sobon half turned and glared at the guards be-hind her. "Let him go."


    The man, Mofu Kai Shin, fled the city like his life de-pend-ed on it, and Sobon was sure that all of his haste would bare-ly have him meet-ing the army in two days--far clos-er than the halfway point, but Sobon couldn''t spend the time wor-ry-ing about that.


    "You plan to meet them far from here?" Lord Shi-da''s voice sound-ed... bet-ter, Sobon re-al-ized, than it had short-ly af-ter the Mofu el-der had at-tacked Emer-ald Val-ley. She turned to look, and thought the man''s eyes were brighter, his aether more ac-tive. "To pro-tect the city, and all you have built, I as-sume?"


    "All of that, and be-cause the kind of war-fare I rage is not meant to be done in a city," Sobon said, look-ing away from the City Lord again. "I wish I could tell you this would all end well, Lord Shi-da. But there is still a chance that they have brought along some oth-er, more ter-ri-ble en-e-my, that I may not be able to de-feat."


    "Any ob-serv-er from the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly will pre-vent an out-sider from..." Lord Shi-da''s voice drift-ed off. "...but then, you are not Djang."


    "No. I am plac-ing many bets on the fu-ture, Lord Shi-da, be-cause I be-lieve I un-der-stand what is hap-pen-ing. But if I am wrong, then every-thing that comes af-ter-wards will be ter-ri-ble. For me, for those I care for, for you, for the city. Most like-ly, for the whole world."


    Lord Shi-da swal-lowed, and Sobon thought she sensed swirls of myth en-er-gy around the man--a re-minder that she had yet to send a re-port to K''val about the prophe-cies. She frowned--she was good at re-mem-ber-ing these things. Why had she put it off? She as-sem-bled the mes-sages for the Coro-na to re-lay, wor-ried that there was some force of fate work-ing against her... but noth-ing felt like it had changed, not re-cent-ly.


    "If I am right, how-ev-er, then all will be for the best. I can only hope I am not mis-tak-en." Sobon forced her feet to move, tak-ing her out of the City Lord''s dun-geon, and the man and his guards fol-lowed. "I should have told you ear-li-er, and for that I apol-o-gize--but there is lit-tle I can re-al-ly do to en-sure your safe-ty be-yond win-ning, and I trust you un-der-stand, that was al-ready the plan."


    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    "I trust that Lady Alas-si''s prepa-ra-tions are sub-stan-tial, then?" Sobon could feel the man prob-ing her spir-it. "You have cer-tain-ly... ad-vanced very far. Though I con-fess I do not un-der-stand the dis-tinc-tion be-tween Ti-ta-ni-um and Bis-muth Qi."


    "I couldn''t care less," Sobon said, not hav-ing even con-sid-ered or no-ticed when her spir-it en-er-gy changed col-ors. "My qi is in-signif-i-cant. The pow-ers I wield will not be fu-eled by them, and the bat-tle will not hinge on them. Or, it most-ly will not."


    "Ah..." Lord Shi-da''s voice be-came hes-i-tant again, al-though again, Sobon couldn''t help feel-ing like there was more strength be-hind the man than there''d been. "As you say, Lady."


    "Just..." Sobon turned and looked at him. "If I do lose, or even if I win, if peo-ple come de-mand-ing an-swers, feign ig-no-rance and pro-tect my peo-ple as best you can, al-though I am hop-ing they will not be here, ex-cept per-haps Lui with Lady Fau, and even they would like-ly be safer else-where. I may still come back some day, so if some-one shows up with the Seal of Sobon that I gave you be-fore..."


    "I have kept it safe," Lord Shi-da con-firmed. "It will be there to con-firm their iden-ti-ty, even if some-thing hap-pens to me."


    "That is all I can ask." Sobon shuf-fled men-tal-ly through her space ring, then hand-ed the City Lord a large bag of coins, ones that made the man''s eyes widen even be-fore he saw them. "These are for the trou-ble, past and fu-ture. You have been more than fair to us, Lord Shi-da. I have hope that you will not suf-fer as a con-se-quence of all of this... but I do not con-trol the fu-ture."


    "Lady Alas-si--! Per-haps, at the auc-tion...?"


    "Let a woman keep her se-crets," was all Sobon chose to say, be-fore leav-ing.


    She looked for Lai Shi Po at Lady Fau''s, but nei-ther of the women were there. Sobon thought she sensed them some-where in the city, but wasn''t in-tent on chas-ing them down. In-stead, she left a mark that she was sure one or both of them would find, and re-turned home.


    Lui and Ki''el were there, both scared out of their minds.


    In-stead of try-ing to be-lit-tle them, Sobon moved in front of them and stood, meet-ing their eyes. They were both try-ing to keep a brave face, and each fac-ing dif-fer-ent demons; that much Sobon knew. She of-fered a sad smile. "We have an-oth-er cou-ple days, I think," she said, "and my work is... ba-si-cal-ly done. I am still hop-ing that this will all work out, but... it''s worth tak-ing some of the time re-main-ing just to be to-geth-er." She found her-self not quite ea-ger to say the word, though she forced it out. "...Like a fam-i-ly."


    Lui smiled more gen-uine-ly, al-though Sobon thought the word meant more to Ki''el, be-cause Sobon had nev-er been her fam-i-ly--and Alas-si had been Lui''s. And Sobon sat and talked with them, not about qi or war or the fu-ture or oth-er grand things, but on the sad state of the house, and de-li-cious food, and all the ma-te-ri-als Sobon had gath-ered. They talked about the weath-er, and the rea-son for the sea-sons, and the sun and the moon, the winds and the tides. And be-fore long, it was din-ner time, and Lai Shi Po and Lady Fau ar-rived.


    Along with Mian, and a guest that Sobon would nev-er have ex-pect-ed to meet.


    <hr>


    "The Lady is tem-porar-i-ly back from a mil-i-tary cam-paign over-seas," Mian was say-ing, his face flushed with some com-bi-na-tion of pride, em-bar-rass-ment, and ea-ger-ness, as the woman next to him let her eyes rove around, from one thing to the next. "Al-though her fam-i-ly prop-er is not here, her un-cle runs a lo-cal trad-ing house--"


    "Un-cle Mon is kind enough to put up with me, while my par-ents find my oc-cu-pa-tion dis-taste-ful," Xoi Xam said, not let-ting her eyes rest on any-thing in par-tic-u-lar. "The fam-i-ly busi-ness is a mat-ter I find quite dis-taste-ful--a high-ly spe-cif-ic vari-ant of ge-o-man-cy for peo-ple close to break-ing through, to in-still in them the right mind-set, or so we like to say. And this house... has the sec-ond-worst ge-o-man-cy I''ve ever seen."


    "Ah, your un-cle then is Lord Xoi," Sobon nod-ded, un-der-stand-ing that the com-ment had been a snub, but not com-ing close to car-ing. "I met him the oth-er day, and passed him be-fore that when meet-ing with Lord Shi-da."


    "Yes, es-pe-cial-ly with the re-spect-ed mas-ter Lai Shi Po''s in-tro-duc-tion, I was cu-ri-ous to find out about the man who was in-ter-est-ed in a po-lit-i-cal mar-riage, but more in-ter-est-ed in this mys-tery backer." Xoi Xam''s eyes met Sobon''s, though the oth-er woman showed not even a faint hint of recog-ni-tion. "Want-i-ng to make use of the Xoi fam-i-ly name, to hide po-lit-i-cal refugees... and be-ing will-ing to work with one who is cur-rent-ly in the mil-i-tary? Very brazen in-deed."


    "Only you''re not ex-act-ly cur-rent-ly in the mil-i-tary, are you?" Lai Shi Po''s voice was teas-ing, but with an edge as sharp as a knife, as though she knew she had the oth-er woman at her mer-cy. "Some-thing about a mil-i-tary coup?"


    "Not a coup, an at-tack." Xoi Xam sighed. "We were sta-tioned in a re-mote colony, and there was a promis-ing lo-cal. One so promis-ing that a lo-cal ex-pert offed him just to en-sure we didn''t get to re-cruit him. They have a dim view of the Djang em-pire out there."


    "Ah," Sobon said, find-ing that her voice had no warmth to it at all. "And this at-tack was dam-ag-ing to your ca-reer, Lady Xoi?"


    "As some-one who had just re-cent-ly en-coun-tered the prodi-gy, I was held re-spon-si-ble for his safe-ty, which is ridicu-lous. The en-tire fa-cil-i-ty was mil-i-tary con-trolled, and the at-tack-er was above my cul-ti-va-tion lev-el." She sighed, cross-ing her arms over her chest, and slump-ing slight-ly. "Ever since then, there have been a num-ber of slights by the mil-i-tary lead-er-ship. I have not re-tired, not been re-tired by any-one else," she turned to glare at Lai Shi Po. "But it is clear that a num-ber of ter-ri-ble things have hap-pened to me ever since that in-ci-dent, and it all feels quite un-fair."


    Sobon cleared her throat, cast-ing her mind back for just the right words. When she found them, she looked di-rect-ly into Xoi Xam''s eyes, and spoke with the most false-ly sin-cere tone to her voice that she could.


    "If you''d like me to add to your un-com-fort-able list of trag-ic ex-pe-ri-ences, please give me time to change out of this dress. It is dif-fi-cult to clean."


    Sobon could feel that some-where in the woman''s spir-it, she rec-og-nized the words as ex-act-ly the ones she''d said to Jom, al-though in a dif-fer-ent lan-guage, and the qi in her veins all but seized, slow-ing down to a crawl. In-stead of say-ing more, Sobon pro-duced two sim-ple dy-namos from with-in her spir-it--one left, one right--and let them hov-er over her hands, know-ing the woman would rec-og-nize the tools that she''d sensed in Jom''s spir-it.


    "Who--how?" Xoi Xam looked at the two cores. "That boy--"


    "Lady Xoi," Sobon said, se-ri-ous-ly, ig-nor-ing the out-burst and re-plac-ing the cores in her spir-it. "I do not in-tend to com-pel you into a po-lit-i-cal mar-riage, es-pe-cial-ly not if you found it to be un-fa-vor-able. But trust me when I say that for all my short-com-ings, I am a very ...strange per-son, and it is far bet-ter to be my friend than my en-e-my. And un-der-stand, also, that very few peo-ple in this world will like-ly have a chance to be-come my friend."


    Xoi Xam looked at her, then at Mian, who was mak-ing a very in-no-cent face, though Sobon thought most every-one else here--per-haps not Lui--could read the thoughts be-hind that face. "That''s... I''m not go-ing to make that kind of de-ci-sion on a mo-ment''s no-tice. It would be--"


    "It would be a very fool-ish idea, I agree," Sobon said, se-ri-ous-ly. "In-stead I am ask-ing for some help in en-sur-ing that my peo-ple do not fall into any dan-ger. If af-ter some re-flec-tion, you and Mian find each oth-er to be a match, I only hope you will not think that you are ac-cept-ing an un-prof-itable bar-gain." Sobon raised her nose, wrin-kling it. "I will also say that your com-ing here, our meet-ing like this, smells of fates, of things be-yond our con-trol. But in spite of all that, I hope you un-der-stand that this whole mat-ter of po-lit-i-cal mar-riages is some-thing I have lit-tle ex-pe-ri-ence and less in-ter-est in. If you can keep my fam-i-ly safe, I will en-sure that you are com-pen-sat-ed."


    "Can you re-al-ly trust her?" Ki''el wrin-kled her nose at the woman. "She''s not much stronger than..."


    "Her strength isn''t what I want from her," Sobon said, though she ap-praised the woman''s spir-it again, now that she knew more about qi. When Sobon had known her, she was at 9 Gold Stars, and now, she was at the peak of gold, 10 Gold Stars. From the steadi-ness of the woman''s core, Sobon guessed (some-what blind-ly, for sure) that she knew how to pass through the Gold-en Wall, the tribu-la-tion that marked the ris-ing to Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, but was ready-ing her-self for it care-ful-ly. And she was still fair-ly young, though not a child; she was doubt-less younger than Mian, in truth, though it was hard to tell for sure since Xoi Xam''s body was kept younger by her qi, while Mian''s body was not. Mian had, in truth, lan-guished at low lev-els of qi for... prob-a-bly decades, af-ter he had fol-lowed Alas-si to her fam-i-ly''s inn.


    "I don''t ex-act-ly have sway over my fam-i-ly, and you clear-ly have some con-nec-tion to Un-cle Mon al-ready," Xoi Xam caught her-self look-ing for too long at Mian, and looked away, with what Sobon hoped was em-bar-rass-ment at be-ing caught star-ing, though she didn''t hold on to that hope too tight-ly. "I... can ask. And I sup-pose it wouldn''t be hard to take one or two peo-ple with me, es-pe-cial-ly if I can say one is a re-tain-er, and the oth-er... a mar-riage can-di-date would be only a lit-tle strange to be car-ry-ing along, noth-ing too out-landish." Xoi Xam sighed. "But I need po-lit-i-cal cap-i-tal if I want my mil-i-tary ca-reer to re-sume, and get-ting caught up in all of this..."


    Fau Mide whis-pered in Lai Shi Po''s ear, but the oth-er woman just nod-ded. "As it so hap-pens, Lady Xoi, I hap-pen to have a small num-ber of rec-om-men-da-tions to a rather ex-clu-sive sect, one with enough con-nec-tions to the mil-i-tary that they could fore-stall any judge-ment. You have heard, I imag-ine of the Moon-stone Is-land Sect?"


    In an-oth-er crowd, that name would like-ly have turned many ears, but Sobon and her crew had nev-er heard of it, and Lai Shi Po and Fau Mide both al-ready knew of it, so only Xoi Xam and Mian had any re-ac-tion. "The float-ing sky is-land sect?" Mian said, when Xoi Xam was sim-ply star-ing. "Aren''t they a place where only, like... high-ly elite no-bles go?"


    Lai Shi Po snort-ed. "Any sect will claim that ''only'' high-ly elite no-bles go there, and all will be ly-ing. But the Moon-stone Is-land Sect has con-nec-tions to many mil-i-tary fam-i-lies. I be-lieve even Gen-er-al Gaum went there, did he not?"


    "...He did." Xoi Xam shook her head. "It is a place with a steep en-trance fee, even with a rec-om-men-da-tion. My fam-i-ly will not af-ford to give me two hun-dred Flame Coins for that, and I can''t imag-ine--"


    "If you will keep my fam-i-ly safe, six hun-dred flame coins is not too much to ask." Though Sobon looked to Lai Shi Po as she said that, giv-ing the woman a very dirty look for rec-om-mend-ing some-thing so ex-pen-sive.


    But Xoi Xam just turned her eyes wide, and im-me-di-ate-ly snapped into a servile mode that im-me-di-ate-ly grat-ed on her, tak-ing a for-mal pose and bow-ing deeply. "If... if the Lady is will-ing to put that much in me... then of course, I will do every-thing in my pow-er to en-sure that your com-pan-ions re-main safe-ly by my side, at least as long as the Sect will have us. Though..." She looked up, and half turned to Mian. "...they will ex-pect great per-for-mance, and not hes-i-tate to kick peo-ple out who can-not meet that ex-pec-ta-tions. Even with a rec-om-men-da-tion, if you can-not ad-vance..."


    "I will en-sure that Ki''el is sent along with some of my wis-dom," Sobon said. "I trust that she and Mian, when giv-en time and re-sources, will be able to un-der-stand, and find their way for-ward."


    Mian looked with some pan-ic at Xoi Xam, then at Sobon. "I mean... if you be-lieve I can do it, Alas-si. But you know I''m be-hind..."


    Sobon shook her head. "I don''t know, Mian, but I be-lieve you can. There will be a great many who be-lieve it can-not be done. There were those who be-lieved I was ca-pa-ble of noth-ing, too." She glanced at Xoi Xam. "Dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stance re-quire dif-fer-ent teach-ing meth-ods. My own wasn''t too help-ful for you--"


    "Not at all!" Mian stepped around Xoi Xam to more ful-ly face Sobon. "Your in-sight about me be-ing cen-tered in my heart has made all kinds of dif-fer-ence. The progress is slow, I ad-mit, but it makes sense now, where it re-al-ly didn''t be-fore."


    Sobon not-ed the look on Xoi Xam''s face, of con-fu-sion, but ig-nored it for now.


    Ki''el looked to Mian, and then to Sobon. "He has had to un-learn things," she said, sound-ing gruff. "As have I. I am also un-sure that a... a Djang sect would be a great place for me. But I un-der-stand what you mean, and if you be-lieve it would be good for me, I would do all that I can to en-sure that the op-por-tu-ni-ty is not wast-ed."


    Sobon just nod-ded. "Then that part is set-tled." Sobon glanced around, then shook her head. "But we have been stand-ing around for too long. Let''s get din-ner, and we''ll talk more lat-er." And the rest, with some prod-ding, moved on, though Sobon didn''t miss how Lai Shi Po shot her a strange look, one that she knew meant the two of them would have at least one more pri-vate chat be-fore every-thing was through.

 56. Alassi - Culmination, Part 2: Fate, again

    Sobon finished the day with a only a few things--putting most of the contents of her space ring into the basement, excepting only what she would take into battle, then making the frame that held her basement portable, finishing the large bracelet space ring and placing inside, and giving that to Lai Shi Po for safekeeping.


    Everyone else, for the moment, was occupied; Xoi Xam had insisted on bringing Mian and Ki''el to her uncle, and Lui and Fau Mide had gone to examine the properties of the cauldron that Sobon had gifted her. That left Sobon and Lai Shi Po, for the moment, alone in Sobon''s house, with only guards posted outside, far from able to hear or see what went on within.


    For whichever reason, Lai Shi Po, while she made the bracelet disappear, didn''t stop staring at Sobon. "You acting like you''re going off to death," she said, her voice somehow rougher than normal. "But even if you''ve insulted a major house--and the Mofu clan is a very minor house--you could have appealed to the Imperial Family to intercede. For the help of a genius, that wouldn''t be too much to ask."


    "I know," Sobon said, tiredly, as she turned to look back over the house. It hadn''t been hers for very long, and she wasn''t particularly attached to it, yet--but it was all that she had at the moment, and it was strange to leave it. "I suppose you of all people would understand..." she paused. "You hate being called Lai Shi Po, so what would you prefer I call you?"


    Lai Shi Po just bared her teeth like an animal, without giving an immdiate answer. "I should not have been upset about it before. My name is my whole being. Every piece a part of my history. And yet..." she closed her eyes, and kept them closed for a long time. "...Every time I have gained a new name, it was an acknowledgement from someone that I was worthy. Ever since joining house Lai, I have felt like that declaration of worthiness was a lie, a poison. It is a prestigous name, but cold and brutal, like my husband." She reopened her eyes, but they were just as clear as ever. "You can call me anything you like. I put up with Fau Mide''s childish name because it means she found me worthy as well, of friendship."


    Sobon just shook her head, since that answer had avoided the question entirely. "If I asked for the Imperial Family to interfere, then that would be our relationship. Aether--the foundation of qi--is an element of connection, across distance, and even across time." As she said that, she was reminded that she had heard nothing back from the Ri''lef engineer regarding the prophecies and/or myths... but had her own private guess as to why. Nevertheless, she sent a ping to the Corona, the AI confirming that her messages had been delivered successfully. "There is a specific political reality that I must avoid in order to do my job, I think."


    "A specific political reality?" Lai Shi Po''s voice was somewhere between irritated and... what? Afraid? Sobon wasn''t sure.


    "At least, that''s my working theory. I''m not a politician, or even really a strategist." Sobon shook her head. "But I can''t let this world come to depend on me as though I was one of their geniuses. I''d do a terrible job of hiding everything I know, and if I refused to act, it would be with the whole world''s eye on me. Hiding from public sight is part of what I need to do, and..." Sobon shook her head, again, more firmly this time "Even if I''m right about the future... that will still be either necessary, or a damned good idea."


    "You''ve been different, since you created the crowns," Lai Shi Po observed suddenly, and Sobon thought it was accusatory.


    "I have," Sobon said. "The process necessary to create primordial qi exposed me to more complex aether than I was ever directly able to use. One of the things that has made me so strong, and able to rise swiftly, is because my soul has already used higher-level aethers, controlled them, been a part of them. Parts of me exist in higher levels, and it''s the same for you, and others who have cultivated great levels of qi. I was trained to see and manipulate aether clearly and cleanly, and so these lesser things seem so base in comparison. But touching the highest level of aether... well, no. Not highest." Sobon shook her head again, half lost in her thoughts. "But higher than I''d ever gone before. Touching that, and using it safely and successfully... puts just a little bit of me on a higher level than I was before."


    "It''s... new," Sobon admitted, taking a deep breath, and sensing things in the air, in the walls around, in the ground beneath her feet. "And concerning. I''d done very little with fate aethers, before, and having any insight into that at all is terrifying."


    "Fate... is simply a level of power? Control over fate? Perception into it?" Lai Shi Po''s voice, still rough, was suddenly rapturous. "How can that be?"


    "It''s not that simple," Sobon said, shaking her head. "I can''t, and won''t, explain much, Shi Po. But as long as a single thread of aether exists from the past to the future, you can hear echoes of the future through it. That thread can be easily broken, especially if you listen at it too long--hearing the future changes it, which puts strain on it."


    "You saw the future through the crowns," accused Lai Shi Po, and Sobon just nodded, tiredly.


    "Not my own," she confirmed. "Through the entire future of the crowns that I saw, none of the people who held those crowns ever met me again. That includes you, and Ki''el."


    "You can''t be certain."


    "No, but I''m certain enough." Sobon shook her head. "It doesn''t mean we may never speak again. But an in-person visit... I don''t think so. Being around me has changed you already, Shi Po, and I don''t see signs of that again."


    The woman stood stock-still for a moment, and when she spoke, it was with an angry voice. "So break that future--"


    "You don''t understand why I''m choosing that future," Sobon interrupted. "Shi Po, I haven''t heard back about the prophecies, but let me tell you what I heard in them. The first one was easy--that one or more members of the alien master race, who stands above all other life in known space, would preside over the end of the Empire. I''m not them, and that prophecy cannot possibly be about me." Sobon shook her head. "The bit about [of any face] even carries traces of intent that are specific to their abilities. When they wish it, the world dissolves like sand around them, rebuilding however they wish it to look. When they wish to disguise themselves, their disguise is as good as reality to any but the most powerful masters--and I have never been, and will never be, at their level."


    Lai Shi Po was still standing there in shock. "Then... could they already be here?"


    "The people I work for should already know that, if it were true," Sobon said, finding herself stressing the word more than she meant to. "But if they had arrived on this world, I don''t think they would be subtle about it. From what I know, they would be very disappointed in this world and what''s happened here." Sobon paused only a moment, but moved on quickly. "The second prophecy--at a guess--wasn''t a prophecy, and not a promise, as you said, or not exactly. It was a myth."


    Lai Shi Po frowned. "A myth? But it had intent, and the weight of prophecy."


    "Right, sorry," Sobon paused only a moment to form the full intent for the word, then spoke. "I believe it was a [myth]. My people study what [myth] means on worlds of aether, and the ...people I work for here can detect, track, and understand some forms of myth in ways I cannot understand. What I do know is that [myth] energy is tied to fate. Once an aether--a qi-backed myth comes into existence, it is similar to a prophecy, only without basis in fact. Importantly, myth energy is, or can be, very healthy for society. It can also destroy societies, species... even worlds."


    "I..." Lai Shi Po''s voice was confused.


    "I shouldn''t speak too much, but I''ll talk about my world. In the time before the Empire was founded, which has sustained us for hundreds of years, leaders were for a time elected by popular vote. This was very useful, as those who were bad at leadership were unpopular, but in time, there became a science and an art to manipulating people to gain control. That is best described in terms of aether-backed myths."


    "In these contests for control of leadership, there were of course factions, and the conflict was first, between the factions, and second, within them. But the fractious war between the factions was the most poisonous, because each side demonized the other. They swore that the other side only existed to do harm or cause strife, that their own people were the ones who should be trusted. For generations, it was believed that the words themselves were what swayed people, made them believe that one side or the other was superior, the other side was evil."


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    "But as we came to understand aether better, we understood that there were things buried within our society that were magical, which we had thought were not. At the founding of the empire, two great figures created defenses against myth, and forced it first on the leaders, and second on the people. What they discovered was first, that these defenses blocked harmful effects, but second, that they also blocked positive effects. They adjusted their defenses until the result was healthy, and the empire has lasted as a result."


    "So you believe that [myth] controlling people is... good?"


    "Don''t confuse the energy with the intent," Sobon corrected, although as she spoke, she found her own thinking on the topic expanding. How long had it been since she had really talked at length about these things? Not counting her strange discussions with a spirituals hadow? "Myth exists through and around people. It can control people, and it can sway people, and it can misinform people, and it can help people to resist control, manipulation, and misinformation. It connects people. It is difficult to manipulate an entire people connected with bonding [myths]--unless you are an insider, given the priviledge to do so as a matter of social or political status."


    Sobon paused, and in that context, tried to recall the RI''lef concept of mythic [shear]. Sobon''s existence, without a doubt, put strain on people''s connections with one another; she existed outside of these people''s world, and it wasn''t hard to imagine that people would need to pick a side--Sobon''s or the Djang''s--if the distance between them became too great. And myth energy wasn''t intelligent like a person, but instinctual--a combination of what the Ri''lef called [Sacred] and [Corrupt], energies which attracted fates or avoided them. If myth itself recognized Sobon as something which people must polarize themselves towards or against... some part of that energy would transfer throughout the whole myth network, whenever people spoke to one another, became entangled with one another, traded energy with one another. That must be the [mythological fault] that they were afraid of.


    She considered those thoughts as she continued speaking, letting her words fall into things she knew better so she didn''t have to focus quite so much. "My people like to talk about the foundational social myth--the myth, both the words and the energy, that binds an entire society together. Because while you may consider the Djang to be all one people, for instance, the lives on different sides of the nation are very different, and the lives of farmers and warriors are very different, and the lives of city folk and fishermen are very different. But no matter where you go or what you look at, two Djang will agree that they are both Djang, and you can also sense it, if you have the [academic intent] of what it means to be a Djang. If both are connected to the [myth of being Djang], then that exists within their spirit."


    "But this myth can be disrupted, or completely destroyed. It will first fracture, like ice or stone. A people will still technically be whole, but they won''t believe it, or feel it. And if that fracture is not healed, and especially if any more stress is put on it, it will widen and widen. That is a spiritual truth, and fully recognized as such by my people, but it also reflects what happens in words and actions in the real world. If people doubt that it is a good thing to be Djang, they will still be Djang--but they may not hold tightly to it. They may decide that if another options comes, perhaps that other option will be for the best. And the power of myth that both manipulates them, but also helps them resist the manipulation of others, will fade, and they will be swayed by the words and feelings of others, even if those words and feelings are lies."


    Sobon paused, realizing she''d been preaching, and shook her head. "None of this is really relevant to you. But the point is that the Diamond Lord''s words about [one insignificant life]..." Sobon stopped. She had intended to say one thing, about how it the intent had felt like a warning, but now she felt differently. "Only it wasn''t his words, it was the words of the wise one, right? And that was ...an alien master. Which meant that it wasn''t a warning, but a curse."


    But Lai Shi Po was disoriented, seemingly more overwhelmed by the topic than she had been about Sobon''s topics of advanced math applying to qi and space itself. So Sobon shook her head, and the other woman process for a long moment, and she also did her best to keep her mind on track.


    Because, ultimately, she couldn''t lead these people, and she would never follow them.


    The social mythos of this world was utterly and completely foreign to Sobon, and mostly offensive. Its roles for women, its brutality, the high handed way the Djang muscled down the rest, the way that they had so casually begun slaughtering Starbeasts in droves... Sobon had been avoiding entangling herself with the world, but still found so much that was completely incompatible between it and herself. If she tried to force her own way of thinking into the world, they would only see her as... well, who knows exactly what. Most likely, a foreign entity that must either be conquered or yielded to.


    Violence or submission. Ki''el said her grandmother summarized qi itself into those polarizing opposites, but it spoke to their worldview as a whole. When it came to power itself--you either fought it, or submitted to it. Doubtless, the woman would have said the same thing about the pirates, or the Djang, or the Starbeasts, or the Ri''lef, or the Founders. Fight or yield. As though there''s no such thing as coexistence.


    "If..." Lai Shi Po''s voice broke into Sobon''s thinking. "If that''s all true... then what? What do we do? What changes? I am not sure that I understand."


    "It''s not useful knowledge in everyday life," Sobon admitted, doing her best to mentally return to where she''d left the conversation. "But it speaks to leadership and power. For example... there is a [social myth] tying the Lai family together. I am sure you can speak better than I about what it actually is, except... that you need to be able to step outside of it and look at it without being controlled by it." Sobon frowned, and trying to draw a little bit on her Superior and Inverse dynamos, reached out and touched Lai Shi Po''s shoulders. Her intent was simple--she formed just the slightest bit of circulation, breathing fresh aether into the woman without adding anything new. Technically speaking, nothing should change--she was still connected to everyone she had ever been connected to, but now...


    Now she was also connected to the world, in this moment. That was the distinction between fresh and stale aether; one was connected to the now, and one was only connected to the past.


    Lai Shi Po took a sharp, deep breath, blinking, and held her breath, as though she expected some kind of miraculous revelation to descend, but Sobon just laughed.


    "Sorry," she said. "That''s not some kind of magic spell. But... from the outside world, Lai Shi Po, your husband being able to control you, and you being unable to leave despite all your power and genius... it''s ridiculous." Sobon knew that the woman would likely be hearing the words as though for the first time, and tried to speak carefully. "The name is only a name. Their actions are their actions. Your value is your value. The family leader is simply the person currently leading. Many things that feel like mountains to you are only what they are, and nothing more."


    "And..." Sobon felt like the connection was tenuous, but spoke anyway. "That''s... why I have to go fight. Everyone here wants me to be what I am to them, and I cherish Ki''el, and Lui, and Mian, and Lord Shida, and you. But the things that actually are larger than us are out there, waiting. They are not patient, and the world is cold and cruel. The things that feel big to us here need to be kept in context, and the facts are such that... if I am wrong, or do the wrong things, this entire world might die."


    Lai Shi Po turned and looked at Sobon, her eyes clear, but empty, as though the woman wasn''t sure what to make of what she was hearing.


    "Fate energy, and powers greater than it, are still only energy. The whole world continues to go on. Tearing through fates that want to keep us where are is difficult, but it is also necessary. The bonds that hold you down, the bonds that want to hold me in place, the bonds that might have crushed Lui and Ki''el and Mian, those things are bigger than our individual lives, but the world is so much larger than those bonds of fate that it makes a mockery of them."


    "I don''t understand," Lai Shi Po said. "What... is to be done about myth? About the future?"


    Sobon just shrugged. "I told you. If you try too hard to listen to the future, the connection breaks. Trying to find the perfect future by paying careful attention to myth and prophecy only ends up causing a lot of chaos, altering the future so much that nothing can be predicted anymore. Stable futures, prosperous ones, require that people be predictable, to some extent. So the best thing to do about myth is pay attention to the fact that it exists, and try to detect unhealthy ones. Those specific unhealthy ones, you destroy, or at least refuse to be bound by. The rest..." She made a vague gesture in the air. "Let them be. Coexist with them. Profit from them, if you can. Let others profit from them, if you can''t. No one is supposed to control the future, and that includes the wisest sages, and masters of magic. If those of the past could control the future, why would we, here in the present, even need to be born?"


    "Just let them be?" Lai Shi Po''s eyes remained fixed in the far distance. "But... they are wrong."


    "Often," Sobon acknowledged. "Should I point it out to you every last time you''re wrong? For the rest of your life?"


    Lai Shi Po blinked, and looked at Sobon. "No. But that would have been a much more appealing marriage proposition than the one my husband made to me."


    Sobon took a moment to really understand what she was saying, before she laughed. "Ah... I suppose. But it gets tiring, even if you like the person. We can''t actually correct our every thought and action, and if you were given the opportunity, you wouldn''t enjoy it."


    "No," Lai Shi Po said, "but I would have enjoyed living with someone clever enough to notice when things were wrong, and brave enough to point them out. Subtle enough to pick up on things too small even for me to notice. Instead, Lai Ten too often cannot grasp even the simplest things. A better man, a cleverer man... I cannot imagine what it would be like to have a happy married life. With someone who was a good match."


    Sobon looked at her, and shook her head. "Do you think that Mian...?"


    "I don''t know either of them well. But something in the two of them harmonizes." Lai Shi Po shook her head. "For myself and Lai Ten, it was the opposite. So, I would say there is hope."


    Sobon nodded, and smiled. "Sometimes, that''s all we have." And inwardly, she forced herself to move on as well, to push her thoughts back to what was coming.


    And what she was going to do about it all.

 57. Alassi - Culmination, Part 3: War I

    Sobon had pre-pared the fol-low-ing morn-ing for things to go one of two ways; ei-ther she snuck off with-out hav-ing to face Ki''el and Lui, or some-one stopped her be-fore she could. As it turned out, she was able to get away, and with every-thing else more or less pre-pared, she moved as far from the city as fast as she could. It wasn''t so much that Sobon couldn''t stand good-byes... and more that she want-ed des-per-ate-ly to pre-tend that it wouldn''t be one, and that every-thing would, some-day, be fine.


    Only when she was well away did she send sev-er-al pings to the Coro-na, giv-ing an up-date, pro-vid-ing in-struc-tions, and mak-ing sure, one last time, that the Ri''lef en-gi-neer, or even the Cap-tain, hadn''t left any oth-er di-rec-tions, in-for-ma-tion, or in-sight. It was... min-i-mal-ly sur-pris-ing that she did get one brief mes-sage back, from the Ri''lef cap-tain, say-ing [We re-gret in-volv-ing you in this mat-ter. I have asked the Coro-na to ap-prove your re-quest.] But only that, and with-out ad-mit-ting, even on one of the most se-cure chan-nels on the plan-et, what Sobon had sur-mised.


    So she turned to the mat-ter at hand, and lo-cat-ed the Mofu army, trav-el-ling the dis-tance to meet them at more than the speed of sound. They had found a suit-ably dra-mat-ic re-gion of the moun-tain road lead-ing from Emer-ald Val-ley into the Djang em-pire; it was a pret-ty val-ley, for the mo-ment, with a moun-tain over-look where a few non-com-bat-ants had set up, and be-neath that, a widen-ing of the val-ley where more sol-diers than Sobon would have ex-pect-ed them to bring were sud-den-ly surg-ing into po-si-tion, as they all de-tect-ed her ar-rival. Among the watch-er on the cliff, Sobon though, must have been the ob-serv-er from the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, but she was dis-tract-ed from them in the first mo-ments by the enor-mi-ty of the army be-fore her.


    Sobon had though that House Mofu had per-haps a few hun-dred ex-perts to bring to bear. Per-haps they were mak-ing use of their wealth to pur-chase as-sis-tance, be-cause there were thou-sands of qi war-riors there, though most of them were garbage--un-less the house had some kind of de-fens-es, Sobon ex-pect-ed many would die just from the amount of qi that would be thrown around, with-out ac-com-plish-ing any-thing. With-out ques-tion, a full-fledged bomb pat-tern would clear all but the high-est lev-el ex-perts here, but that... would leave Sobon''s lega-cy in much greater jeop-ardy.


    As the army moved, though, Sobon was eas-i-ly able to de-tect that there was a hid-den method be-hind it all, as they be-gan to surge into cir-cu-lar for-ma-tions, ones with cir-cles with-in cir-cles and lines con-nect-ing larg-er pieces to-geth-er. From above, it was ob-vi-ous-ly a mas-sive mul-ti-user ar-ray; al-though Sobon was by no means an ex-pert in their back-wards meth-ods, she es-ti-mat-ed the whole less-er half of the army might pre-tend, briefly, to be an-oth-er two Ti-ta-ni-um-lev-el ex-perts.


    There was an enor-mous gap be-tween that and any of the play-ers in the fight that ac-tu-al-ly mat-tered.


    Al-though Sobon had found it dif-fi-cult to judge the "star lev-el" of her op-po-nents us-ing the de-tec-tion ar-ray from a dis-tance, she had known the rough num-bers, and now was able to place them as two op-po-nents with Mithril qi--what was that met-al sup-posed to be, any-way? Sobon had no idea, ex-cept that it had light band-ing pat-terns--and three more at Dam-as-cus, which was a much more ob-vi-ous black and white band-ed pat-tern, and five at Bis-muth, which had all the col-or-ful ox-ide splash-es of the crys-talline met-al. For Ti-ta-ni-um war-riors, there were per-haps a dozen, not count-ing what-ev-er ef-fect the rest band-ed to-geth-er were sup-posed to have.


    "For-eign de-mon witch!" The Mithril el-der leaped into the air, al-though what-ev-er qi pat-terns he was us-ing to at-tempt to fly flick-ered and fum-bled, fi-nal-ly pro-duc-ing a gold-en, burn-ing, hand-like plat-form for him to stand on. Two oth-ers, one a Mithril and one Dam-as-cus, joined him, and Sobon thought they must have been the first Mofu''s broth-er and wife, who Lord Shi-da had said would be around that pow-er lev-el. "You may have come to plead for your life, or the lives of those you got in-volved in our dis-pute, but it is fu-tile! We have al-ready de-clared a blood feud with the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, and we will wipe out all those who have ever sup-port-ed you, to the five de-grees al-lowed for in Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Law!"


    Sobon didn''t even both-er ask-ing Alas-si about those de-tails, and in-stead glanced over, fi-nal-ly, at the cliff. There were two things, there, which set her teeth on edge; the least of them was that Mofu Suno him-self, his cul-ti-va-tion crip-pled and one arm am-pu-tat-ed, was there, and Sobon could all but feel in-tense swirls of fate aether wrapped around him, the ed-dies of which curled back to-wards her. In truth, she wasn''t ex-act-ly sure what the sen-sa-tion was, but it was an aether above her abil-i-ty to per-ceive, and every-thing about the sit-u-a-tion, and what she had al-ready seen, sug-gest-ed it was ex-act-ly what the K''val had warned her might hap-pen. A myth-ic shear fault? She con-sid-ered that only for an in-stant, though, be-cause her eyes drift-ed to the oth-er pow-er-ful man stand-ing be-side him, and her heart clenched.


    The man was for-eign to Sobon, his qi core a sol-id red crys-tal--Ruby, she as-sumed, and there was no oth-er any-where near his lev-el around. His face was frozen in a mask of ar-ro-gance, and he was, for the mo-ment, pay-ing no at-ten-tion to her or the bat-tle, in-stead ar-gu-ing with a ser-vant about the bot-tle of... some al-co-hol, she as-sumed, that had been of-fered him. With a flick of his fin-ger, one of the ser-vant''s arms was ripped off, spi-ralling off the moun-tain-side, but the ser-vant bore it with an as-ton-ish-ing willpow-er, only bow-ing and re-treat-ing as though she had only been light-ly punched or smacked. The man, de-spite his protes-ta-tions, clean-ly cut off the top of the bot-tle and be-gan to drink straight from it, re-lax-ing in a large padded couch that he had ap-peared from a space ring.


    What-ev-er had hap-pened, the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly ob-serv-er was not the swords-man she had met with the Prince and Princess.


    "With us is the es-teemed majesty, Djang Ren Sui, who shall en-sure that the Em-pire for-ev-er re-mem-bers what hap-pens here to-day!"


    The name meant noth-ing to Sobon at all, ex-cept that the man low-ered his bot-tle enough to get a look at Sobon, his eyes burn-ing only for a mo-ment as he as-sessed her. And then... with-out con-cern, he raised the bot-tle again, turn-ing his head away, and be-gan to re-al-ly dig into the cush-ions on his couch, end-ing up with his head propped up on one hand as he lay slouched there. Sobon was half ready for the ar-ro-gant man to snap his fin-gers and sum-mon half-naked women, or men, to at-tend to him, but per-haps that was the rea-son why he was so in-sis-tent on drink-ing heav-i-ly.


    Sobon glanced back at the army be-low, not-ing that the mul-ti-man ar-rays were now linked up. In-stead of do-ing any-thing in par-tic-u-lar about it, Sobon turned and bowed to the ob-serv-er, speak-ing with sim-ple in-tent.


    "Greet-ings, Djang Ren Sui. You seem in a worse mood than your cousins were when I spoke to them a few days ago." That was a to-tal shot in the dark, but when Sobon felt the aether in the en-tire re-gion crack, as though an earth-quake had placed enough shear force on a sin-gle piv-ot to cleave mile-thick stone into sev-er-al pieces at once.


    At the same mo-ment, the bot-tle of wine in the man''s hand shat-tered into dust, though for a long mo-ment, he didn''t move. "Cousins?" he asked, af-ter a mo-ment, his voice only in-ex-pert-ly mod-u-lat-ed with qi.


    "If you would pass on to Djang Ban Dai and Djang Ban Fen that I would be hap-py to have din-ner with them again some-time, I would be in your debt." It took more of Sobon''s cy-borg self con-trol than she would ever ad-mit to keep the wry smug-ness from her voice and in-tent, leav-ing the words seem-ing-ly in-no-cent.


    The ef-fect that they had on the man was not to be un-der-es-ti-mat-ed, but per-haps to his cred-it, the Mofu el-der--or rather, pa-tri-arch, Sobon sup-posed--didn''t let Sobon com-plete-ly dis-tract from their pur-pose.


    "Your bluff will not fore-stall this any fur-ther! In hon-or to the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, I com-mand the Mofu fam-i-ly. At-tack!"


    Al-though it had been said that the Pa-tri-arch was crip-pled, and al-though Sobon could see that fact plain-ly her-self--as there was a ma-jor crack run-ning through his spir-it, which bled qi even as she watched--his mas-tery of qi tech-niques far sur-passed Mofu Gin. He ges-tured with both hands, and sev-en nee-dles of pure flame en-er-gy ma-te-ri-al-ized above him, every one of them denser and pur-er than the tech-niques Gin had used, and when they lanced for-wards, they were a match for bul-lets in speed. As they left his con-trol, Sobon could clear-ly hear the man''s tech-nique name screamed by his qi: [Sev-en Gold-en Sun Spears]


    But Sobon was not un-pre-pared for com-bat this time.


    She bent time com-pres-sion to her ad-van-tage, speed-ing up her aether and qi use, and cast an qi gath-er-ing net-work through her cap-tive por-tal to the oth-er side of the moon, us-ing the hauled in pow-er and di-rect-ing it into ar-rays hang-ing in midair. She com-plet-ed them in in-stants, lay-er-ing three large shield walls be-fore her, com-bin-ing qi and aether into a de-fense she her-self would hate to have to pen-e-trate.


    Un-like Gin''s [Gold-en Sun Shot], these nee-dles did not bounce. In ac-cel-er-at-ed time, Sobon thought they were in-tend-ed to be like pen-e-trat-ing ex-plo-sives, ex-plod-ing into what-ev-er sub-stance they struck, but her first aether de-fense dis-trib-uted the load across their sur-face, cre-at-ing a shock-wave out-ward that screamed [burn-ing] into the aether in the way Sobon''s own at-tacks screamed [de-struc-tion]. That shock-wave caught every im-pu-ri-ty in the air on fire, and where it met ground, an in-fer-no sprung into be-ing... but the shield held.


    Sobon spared the mo-ment to cal-cu-late how close the at-tack had been, but de-cid-ed the first shield had room to spare, even as she ad-just-ed her sec-ond and third lines of de-fense. But one of the oth-er two high-est-rank-ing Mofu flew, at what Sobon sup-posed was a nice high speed for the lo-cals, to flank Sobon, piec-ing to-geth-er his own tech-nique. Sobon men-tal-ly tracked the boy, who must have been Mofu Gin''s broth-er, and de-cid-ed the man had only just re-cent-ly reached Mithril Qi.


    If Sobon had any sym-pa-thy for the Mofu fam-i-ly, she would have ad-vised the man not to fight. He seemed younger, and gen-uine-ly hurt by the loss of his broth-er. But for whichev-er rea-son, whether he was emo-tion-al-ly dis-turbed, or get-ting used to new qi, new im-plants, some-thing, his head wasn''t on straight, and his tech-niques fum-bled in the de-tails. Sobon knew the boy was aim-ing to get around the shield that Sobon had set up, and could have ad-just-ed the shield be-fore he got into po-si-tion, but with-drew from her space ring a set of rings of Core ma-te-r-i-al.


    These weren''t even from a Star-beast core; aether beasts on this plan-et all cre-at-ed cores of one kind or an-oth-er, and Sobon had got-ten sev-er-al cheap-er sim-ply be-cause they were lo-cal. But the Ri''lef hadn''t in-vent-ed the con-cept of beast aether cores, nor had this plan-et been the first one the Founders used the pat-tern on. So Sobon sim-ply formed one core into sev-er-al matched rings, sup-ple-ment-ing them with di-a-mond around the edges, to recre-ate the can-non pat-tern she''d used on Mofu Gin in a much more com-pact, much more ef-fi-cient, and much more durable form.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    It took more care-ful work than any-one watch-ing the bat-tle knew, for Sobon to draw the in-tense en-er-gy from be-yond the moon through the can-non pat-tern with-out ex-pos-ing her-self too much or burn-ing out her own aether path-ways. It was in-stinct, most-ly, and she had to flick tem-po-rary bar-ri-ers into ex-is-tence briefly when the coil-ing en-er-gy got too close. She could also sense that the oth-er army forces were not wait-ing for her to fin-ish, and once she was con-vinced the can-non was charg-ing cor-rect-ly, she spared a glance at oth-er forces.


    They were most-ly try-ing to scat-ter and ap-proach her from many an-gles, al-though sev-er-al were mov-ing to-wards her and forg-ing large tech-niques, ei-ther to dis-tract her or to at-tempt some oth-er so-lu-tion to... well, any of the mas-sive-ly dan-ger-ous abil-i-ties Sobon was show-ing.


    Sobon found her-self sur-prised, though, when one of those tech-niques ac-tu-al-ly worked.


    It was from the only real wild-card Sobon had ex-pect-ed--Gin''s wife, who was only half a step be-hind her broth-er-in-law in pow-er, but was not of the Mofu clan, and had an en-tire-ly dif-fer-ent type of tech-nique. It was, in fact, some form of ice tech-nique, but one which also in-volved time and space ma-nip-u-la-tion; just as Sobon was about to fire the can-non at Gin''s broth-er, a bar-ri-er of frozen space and time snapped in place be-tween Sobon and her tar-get, its qi scream-ing, [Ab-solute Freez-ing Do-main].


    Sobon''s can-non shot, which was pure essence of de-struc-tion with-out any ad-di-tions, had no way to pierce a de-fense meant to stop space and time.


    What she did have, how-ev-er, was a small sup-ply of much small-er ri-fle pat-terns on lit-tle di-a-mond-and-core rods, and she scat-tered them at the oth-ers tak-ing places around her bar-ri-er, all of the ex-tra time she gained form her time ac-cel-er-a-tion go-ing into charg-ing and aim-ing those ri-fle shots. With much low-er en-er-gy re-quire-ments, she was able to lance dozens of beams at them, each shot send-ing a tar-get reel-ing, but with so many tar-gets, she knew she would need to fo-cus fire on any one in or-der to take them down. The Ti-ta-ni-um war-riors she''d faced off against at her home had tak-en sev-en or eight shots apiece, and that was with-out any time to re-cov-er.


    Most-ly, these shots were a de-ter-rant. She was con-trol-ling six-teen now, and feed-ing aether into them and her main can-non script. With the six-teen less-er guns, she could dis-suade the ones around the edges, but that was all just buy-ing time.


    A block of frozen time and space ap-peared at the edge of Sobon''s de-fens-es, stop-ping some of the in-com-ing fire. She could have con-grat-u-lat-ed her-self--she had the mo-ment to spare--but her in-stincts were rapid-ly falling back into old pat-terns. Cy-borg Ma-rine pat-terns. She''d as-sumed the woman''s freez-ing field couldn''t pass through her own de-fens-es, be-cause she used space in her de-fense, and so even do-main-type at-tacks like a freez-ing field would have to ap-proach from an-oth-er di-rec-tion. Giv-en how long Sobon ex-pect-ed those fields took to cast, it was a dan-ger-ous les-son to learn, but one the en-e-my woman would need to know if she planned to win.


    And doubt-less, that was what all the en-e-my planned to do here. Sobon wasn''t un-der-es-ti-mat-ing any-one--not the Pa-tri-arch, the broth-er, the wife, the oth-er ex-perts, and not the le-gion of less-er war-riors pow-er-ing a pair of mas-sive ar-rays.


    Now that Sobon stud-ied them, they were rapid-ly con-vert-ing the lo-cal qi to some kind of So-lar qi, and col-lect-ing it in a pair of mas-sive balls of fire. They lacked the fi-nesse and pow-er even of Gin''s [Gold-en Sun Shot], but that as-sumed that they were meant to be an at-tack. Sobon could eas-i-ly imag-ine the pa-tri-arch snag-ging the en-er-gy and com-press-ing each down into a much denser weapon, es-pe-cial-ly af-ter they grew some more.


    As Sobon''s can-non reached full charge again, she sensed every-one on the bat-tle-field lock-ing their sens-es on it, an-tic-i-pat-ing an-oth-er shot, per-haps half ex-pect-ing it to be wast-ed on the Freez-ing Do-main. But in-stead, Sobon gripped all of her de-ployed items with her wings, and ac-ti-vat-ed her move-ment core.


    They were pre-cise move-ments, and only one per-son on the bat-tle-field was able to fol-low it with his eyes from above, but Sobon didn''t care ei-ther way. She sim-ply flicked for-ward through space four times, ap-pear-ing on the ground at an an-gle no one could have pre-dict-ed, even with a war-ship''s pre-dic-tive AI. That was no guess; she''d iden-ti-fied al-most a dozen ad-e-quate lines of ef-fect, and with a small, fate-shield-ed al-go-rithm, picked ran-dom-ly be-tween them three times, then among the re-sults twice.


    She ap-peared on the ground and re-leased the can-non shot seem-ing-ly at ran-dom, the shot tear-ing straight through a hill-side be-fore it hit the first of her tar-gets--the cen-ter of one of the ground ar-rays. The man lead-ing it, a mere ti-ta-ni-um, of-fered no re-sis-tance, and the beam lanced through to hit an-oth-er four ground tar-gets across both ar-rays, but pass-ing close enough to hun-dreds more that the can-non''s de-struc-tive aether ef-fects washed over their sens-es, throw-ing their con-cen-tra-tion and co-or-di-na-tion com-plete-ly off, and in some cas-es, forc-ing that de-struc-tive aether into the pat-terns them-selves.


    Three of the ex-perts hold-ing the mas-sive ar-rays to-geth-er suf-fered se-ri-ous back-lash, but Sobon sim-ply moved again, tar-get-ting the war-riors at and be-low Gold Qi with one or two shots apiece, and sim-ply flick-er-ing through the en-tire army in a scant mo-ment, leav-ing al-most noth-ing be-hind but bod-ies.


    At a mo-ment when she deemed it un-like-ly to be pre-dict-ed, she tele-port-ed up be-hind the Mofu Pa-tri-arch, and un-leashed all six-teen ri-fle rods in a sin-gle wave, then tele-port-ed away with-out wait-ing to see what hap-pened. She wasn''t ex-pect-ing him to die from that much, and he did not dis-ap-point.


    Sobon was dim-ly aware that peo-ple were speak-ing, and a part of her cy-borg in-stincts tried to col-lect the words while re-main-ing large-ly in com-bat time ac-cel-er-a-tion. It was an in-ex-act art, and she was dis-tract-ed, but Sobon could tell that the Djang Fam-i-ly ob-serv-er was speak-ing, and when she checked, she found him slow-ly stand-ing up from his couch, a firm-ly dis-pleased look on his face.


    In-stead of wor-ry-ing too much about it, Sobon flick-ered close enough to Gin''s broth-er to use her Thrust Aether ar-ti-fact of-fen-sive-ly, throw-ing the man at the ground, then leaped back be-hind her shield, ma-neu-ver-ing slight-ly so that she could be-gin fo-cus fir-ing her ri-fle rods on ex-perts. By now, sev-er-al of them had forced up per-ma-nent or semi-per-ma-nent de-fens-es, and Sobon could see they were all wild-ly dis-tract-ed and con-fused by her move-ment dis-play.


    She could keep that up, but made the cal-cu-lat-ed de-ci-sion to seem wind-ed, slow-ing down her charg-ing and fire rates as she dou-ble checked the aether on the oth-er side of the por-tal. In truth... she was us-ing more en-er-gy than she was hap-py with, but she repo-si-tioned that far end of the pick-up with a sud-den thrust, putting it on a course into open space where she could col-lect more aether.


    Two Ti-ta-ni-um War-riors fell, and a Bis-muth bare-ly raised an ef-fec-tive bar-ri-er of some kind of Met-al na-ture qi in time to avoid to-tal de-struc-tion; Sobon moved on to un-de-fend-ed tar-gets rather than waste her time cut-ting through. As she did, she paused briefly, catch-ing up to what Djang Ren Sui was speak-ing into the bat-tle space.


    "What kind of mon-sters have those de-mon-damned fools...?" Sobon didn''t take the time to try to trace the sen-tence to a log-i-cal con-clu-sion, in-stead let-ting her sub-con-scious con-tin-ue as the bat-tle con-tin-ued on, one long sec-ond af-ter an-oth-er.


    Her can-non charged again, and Sobon flicked at un-pre-dictable an-gles to a spot where she was sure she had a clean shot at the Mofu Pa-tri-arch, as well as Gin''s wife, and once more feigned ex-haus-tion, spend-ing a mo-ment too long aim-ing.


    As she hoped, Gin''s wife snapped a bar-ri-er in place--not mas-sive, and in-deed, if she''d fired the can-non from any re-spectable dis-tance, the can-non blast would have been at least di-min-ished by the shield by the time it ar-rived, if not en-tire-ly stopped.


    But Sobon didn''t fire, in-stead leap-ing again to Gin''s broth-er, who was gath-er-ing in-tense so-lar en-er-gy into some kind of bat-tle suit, with wings, clawed feet, and a mas-sive beaked hel-met, but Sobon sim-ply moved be-hind him, lin-ing up a shot that would strike the Pa-tri-arch from an an-gle he would nev-er ex-pect--straight through Gin''s son.


    To be fair to him, the man re-act-ed al-most in-stant-ly, and used the dense en-er-gy he was rais-ing to de-flect as much of the can-non shot as he could, but still the shot tore through his shields and body and con-tin-ued on to his sis-ter-in-law and the pa-tri-arch. With so much of the en-er-gy de-flect-ed or used up, though, the pa-tri-arch had a long mo-ment to set up a prop-er de-fense, an an-gled one which took lit-tle dam-age.


    Sobon was al-ready mov-ing, though, scyth-ing through an en-e-my that had no con-cept for the tac-tics she was us-ing, tac-tics she would nev-er have in-vent-ed her-self. Al-though the Mixed Ma-rine hand-book didn''t ex-act-ly have sec-tions ded-i-cat-ed to this kind of fight, they cer-tain-ly had laid out sev-er-al tac-tics to sur-vive against su-pe-ri-or num-bers us-ing high mo-bil-i-ty, ad-vanced aether, and psy-cho-log-i-cal ma-nip-u-la-tion. Al-though there were still hun-dreds of ad-vanced fight-ers left, and al-though Sobon''s own qi, and re-mote-ly sourced aether, were not tech-ni-cal-ly lim-it-less... to Sobon, this still felt more like a drill than a war.


    A par-tic-u-lar-ly screwed up drill, one in-vent-ed by a sadis-tic Ma-rine Com-man-der, most like-ly as an at-tempt to prove that he was wor-thy of every-one else''s re-spect... but still a drill. Sobon could imag-ine get-ting out of a sim-u-la-tor pod at the end, when the Com-man-der had pulled rank and some-how cheat-ed her side out of vic-to-ry, and Sobon would sim-ply con-tent her-self in know-ing ex-act-ly how hard the man had need-ed to cheat.


    Sobon wasn''t ex-act-ly think-ing about that anal-o-gy as she moved, but a part of her sub-con-scious con-sid-ered it, and con-sid-ered who in this sce-nario would be that ar-ro-gant Ma-rine Com-man-der, set-tling on Djang Ren Sui. And that sub-con-scious piece not-ed the flows of fate qi around him, and around the crip-pled Mofu Suno. And al-though Sobon wasn''t quite aware of it, the sub-con-scious piece flagged those flows as con-se-quen-tial.


    Sobon trust-ed her in-stincts, when things like that came up, but when she glanced over and not-ed the fate flows, she in-stant-ly saw a prob-lem: the mytho-log-i-cal fault that was de-vel-op-ing ei-ther fell on a war-rior too pow-er-ful for her to kill... or on Mofu Suno, who she would still have to of-fend the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al in or-der to at-tack.


    It wasn''t a prob-lem for her to deal with in the mid-dle of com-bat, though, and so Sobon flicked away, ded-i-cat-ing a part of her mind to it even as she went back to at-tack-ing the Mofu army and tak-ing oc-ca-sion-al shots at the Pa-tri-arch, or more com-mon-ly, spook-ing them into think-ing she was at-tack-ing and then pick-ing a dif-fer-ent tar-get. She saved her can-non for tak-ing out ma-jor tar-gets, but used the splash to harm oth-ers; one more Dam-as-cus Qi ex-pert fell, along with all but one of the Bis-muth.


    With-out a word, fo-cus-ing only on her, Sobon con-tin-ued through the bat-tle sec-ond af-ter sec-ond, though she saw di-min-ish-ing re-turns as the en-e-my be-gan to adapt. Even-tu-al-ly, a quar-ter of an hour af-ter the bat-tle be-gan, Sobon had cut the num-bers of the Mofu by more than half--not count-ing the droves of near-ly help-less less-er war-riors--and their ef-fec-tive pow-er by per-haps eighty per-cent. The Pa-tri-arch and Gin''s wife had worked to-geth-er to guard each oth-er''s backs, along with the last re-main-ing Dam-as-cus ex-pert, who was some kind of ar-ray or pat-tern ex-pert who had im-proved their de-fens-es, and giv-en the two the oc-ca-sion-al win-dow to shoot back.


    For Sobon, though, more than ten times that amount of time had passed, and her aether chan-nels and spir-it bones were aching, the en-grav-ings in her spir-it and her bones get-ting clos-er to fray-ing--some-thing far more dan-ger-ous with-in her body and spir-it than it was when she lost tools.


    And she was be-gin-ning to lose tools.


    At no time had the en-e-my de-clined to try to shoot her with var-i-ous qi blasts, burst, beams, fields, whips, claws, blades, or oth-er col-or-ful metaphors for an-tique weapons. Some had got-ten close; a few had come from odd an-gles and only been de-tect-ed in time for Sobon to de-flect them with per-son-al aether de-fens-es. One had de-stroyed two ri-fle rods as it passed, and Sobon had made the per-son who per-formed that at-tack pay dear-ly for it. Oth-er ri-fle rods, not quite per-fect in their ma-te-ri-als and con-struc-tion, were be-gin-ning to fray, and the can-non it-self had tak-en a beat-ing from be-ing used too of-ten and too much. It would con-tin-ue to fire for a while yet, but each shot was less pow-er-ful and less ef-fi-cient than the last.


    Her thrust qi core and wing pat-terns were the most abused, though, even though Sobon was us-ing both to-geth-er to min-i-mize the strain on each. That was al-ways the true dan-ger--los-ing weapons of-fered few-er chances to win, but shields and en-gines on the verge of fail-ing were in-vi-ta-tions for in-stant de-feat and death.


    Sobon kept her eyes on the two on the cliff--and their at-ten-dants, al-though she had some doubt any of them were in-volved in the fate aethers swirling around them--but still wasn''t sure ex-act-ly what she was see-ing meant, or why.


    In the end, that ig-no-rance cost her great-ly.

 58. Alassi - Culmination, Part 4: War II - Fault

    Mofu Suno was not the sort of person, even after all he''d been through, to acknowledge fault. And yet... as he watched the destruction of his clan, from its least supporting members to the most elite, and watched his own Patriarch shrivelling moment by moment as his qi began to run dry, all because of the one insignificant woman that he, Mofu Suno, had provoked, it began to register to him. The phrase ''woken a sleeping dragon'' had never seemed to apt or appropriate, to him.


    Mofu Suno''s cultivation was broken; his dantian was cracked, and all his stored qi had vanished. His qi senses all burned at him and echoed strangely if he tried to use them, and so he watched the final hour of the Mofu clan with his eyes and ears alone. But although he was qi-blind, even he could not even begin to miss the breakdown that Djang Ren Sui was beginning to have.


    His qi was in a riot, ever since that foreign demon witch had mentioned his cousins. In the first moments after she had begun to fight, he''d said something strange: "What sort of monster have those demon-damned fools allied themselves with?" And as the demon witch showed no signs of slowing or running out of qi, slaughtering even those beneath her in station with ruthless efficiency--though the clan had not brought anyone weaker than the witch had seemed when Suno had first seen her--his qi had begun fluctuating more and more, as though the man was becoming increasingly unstable.


    Mofu Suno only ever caught him saying one thing, and it was, "This is it." Perhaps if he''d understood what the man meant, he might have fled in time, but he did not.


    The moment at which the man snapped appeared arbitrary to him. The Mofu Patriarch and his mother still stood, although the total numbers of the Mofu clan army had dwindled to less than twenty. The Mofu Patriarch had unleashed a technique that seemed entirely profound to him, one he had never seen, and he regretted that his qi core''s damage meant that he could not hear the name of the technique. It seemed a variant of the Golden Sun Shot, but so concentrated that even qi-blind Suno could feel it, the point echoing painfully in his mind up until the moment when the shot struck the demon witch''s shield.


    The explosion knocked Suno off his feet, although he was almost a half dozen li away, and the sound of cracking trees and churning stone could just barely be heard over the echoing explosion and rumbling fireball. He did his best to jump to his feet and rush to look out--but he was mortal, now, and the fall strained something in his shoulder when he landed badly on a rock. By the time he limped to the edge, the massive fireball''s blackening soot cloud was still there in the sky, growing in size as it lost its intensity.


    One of the witch''s three shields was finally broken, the second... was perhaps damaged. It was a long ways for mortal eyes to judge. She was speaking with her qi to the patriach, and while Suno could not hear them, Djang Ren Sui could.


    There was a moment just before the man snapped when suddenly, Mofu Suno could imagine for a very strange moment that he had not been crippled, that the qi in his core had suddenly been replenished, although... it felt strange, somehow. Foreign. And when he tore his eyes from the battlefield to look down at his hands, a movement at the edge of his sight drew his attention, but not in time.


    Djang Ren Sui''s qi was suddenly unleashed, and when he did, his technique began to appear almost of its own accord--massive spiritual chains appearing in midair, circling him and expanding out into arcs and loops, joining and separating from other lengths of chain as they went.


    One of those chains passed straight through Mofu Suno''s chest. He felt the pain as it did, a pain some part of him expected to be phantom, illusory, but his torso fell over in two pieces, and he found himself laying there on the ground, helpless, as he began to bleed out.


    He had never known, nor cared, how long it took a person to die from blood loss. For him, it felt like an eternity. But where he fell, he could see what followed.


    "You will not take this from me," Djang Ren Sui, said, apropos of nothing, moments after he had inadvertently killed him, and then teleported towards the demon witch. Although she maneuvered those impossible shields to try to stop him, the man''s chains appeared from nowhere and everywhere, at all angles, and latched onto the demon witch''s arms and legs in instants.


    Mofu Suno was in no physical condition to feel excitement, and yet in his mind, he could not help feeling hope, that at the very least, all his suffering--all his clan''s suffering, he correct himself, could at least be avenged.


    And then Djang Ren Sui''s chains ripped one of the witch''s arms off, and she screamed. Mofu Suno, though his nerves were flayed and his mind waning, felt his lips spread into a wide and contented smile, as the Djang ripped off a leg, and then the other arm, the other leg. Only moments before he lost consciousness for the last time, Mofu Suno watched the witch''s torso be ripped entirely to pieces by spiritual chains, and one small part of him felt entirely at peace.


    His spirit, no doubt, would find its way to hell, but he knew it would be received there with a party in his honor.


    <hr>


    Djang Ren Sui lost the last shreds of his patience when this coddled expert raised by his so-called cousins in secret had stopped a true forbidden technique, one that he himself would have hated to face directly, for all his Ruby Qi was a full stage superior to the Mofu Clan Patriarch''s Mithril. The Patriarch had been forming this technique for minutes, and had clearly spent decades designing it. It resonated perfectly, somehow, with their Golden Sun qi, producing an explosion much more powerful than his qi alone should have produced. Only with the assistance of that woman by his side had the patriarch even survived it, and it had drained the last of the woman''s qi to defend against it.


    But the foreign demon had simply sounded impressed. "I wasn''t expecting to see that kind of technique here," she said, as though she was a witness to a tournament, or shopping for a new sword. And then... to Djang Ren Sui''s horror, she spoke again.


    "Clearly you don''t know quite how it works, but you came very close."


    It was then that Djang Ren Sui thought he understood it all. This was no expert raised by the Djang Ban clan, but a visitor from the heavens themselves, come to enshrine the Ban once and for all as the true descendants of the Diamond Lord. His own Ren clan had worked hard to create geniuses through time, but their every effort to suppress the Bans had failed.


    Djang Ren Sui was younger than his cousin the Prince, but older than his cousin the Princess--and the Princess was stronger than her brother. Ren Sui was so thoroughly outclassed by the Ban prodigies that he could not even bear to think of all the stages between them. They were Flame Qi, and he was still in Earthly Gem.


    And this prodigy, this... being in front of him had all the knowledge the Ban would need in order to raise even more geniuses. No. His official role here as overseer was only to witness what occurred, but he could spin this if needed. He unleashed his qi, the [Quenching Chain]s scattering around him, and growled under his breath.


    Djang Ban Fen... "You will not take this from me."


    He leaped at the woman, and wasn''t surprised when she pivoted her shield with a thought, even without turning to look at him. He sent one chain, then two, against the shield, and they might have cracked if he had applied more pressure. But he could see her forming more shields, and could remember with perfect clarity just how easily she had thrown the shields together. If her qi was truly bottomless, she could slip even from his grasp.


    But unlike the other fools here, Djang Ren Sui didn''t need to physically move around the shields in order to command his chains to strike her from other angles, and his [Infinite Thirst Prison] spreading out to control the entire area around her. Once she was within his domain, his chains attached themselves to her instantly, sucking the qi from her dantian.


    Only... it wasn''t her dantian that was powering all of the effects.


    The woman''s face held pain, it was true, but somehow she had the sheer gall, the nerve, to try to speak to him, no doubt to attempt to negotiate, but Ren Sui simply pulled her arm off. It was a fascination of his, limb loss--he had been studying joints ever since he began to use his clan''s chain techniques, and he had dislocated joins or removed limbs on hundreds ever since then. A macabre fascination, he might have admitted to a friend or lover, if he''s had either, but one that had served him well.


    When the woman screamed, finally, Dajng Ren Sui''s mouth stretched into a sneer without his conscious knowledge. But he sensed something, in the arm that he''d removed, and he let himself be distracted. The [Quenching Chains] were quite sensitive to qi, as they had to be to suck things dry, and so he noticed that one of the bones was peculiar.


    It was soaked in qi, or... no, it was already fully attuned. It even had a qi technique engraved into it, though it was a strange one. Djang Ren Sui''s eyes turned from the arm and its bone to the woman. This was a technique that should not be possible below the Earthly Gem phase, and even then, only with the help of elders. Only a prodigy could have designed their own below the Heavenly Gem Phase, and it was more common in the Transcendent Gem phase, as people reached sufficient mastery of their techniques that they could finally say they knew what they wanted to make permanent in their qi.


    She had more than just one bone fully attuned and engraved with intent. This was beyond genius; it truly could only be something from the heavens, beyond all rational human capability. And Djang Ren Sui could, in his mind''s eye, so perfectly picture the woman turning and smirking at Djang Ban Fen, not even bowing in her presence, and the other woman smiling back, warmly, openly.


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    He would not have it.


    Djang Ren Sui methodically ripped the woman''s limbs off, and from each of the removed limbs, extracted those spiritually enhanced bones and threw them in his spirit ring, and then he began tearing apart her torso as well, ignoring all else as he searched for any abnormalities. But physically, she seemed so... human. Her blood, her liver, her womb, her stomach... none of them accounted for her abnormal nature, even when he held them in his hands, studying them closely. There were... at least more bones in the torso to keep and study, but none of the interesting parts. None of the organs.


    He felt them approaching, of course, and found that he didn''t care. When all that remained of the woman''s torso was her spine, he ripped that out, too, leaving only a disfigured, blood-smeared head staring back at him, but no matter how he looked over the spine, it was nothing.


    When his two cousins appeared on the battlefield, he glanced up at them as though completely unconcerned, although it was an act. The two of them had sensed something was wrong, surely, but they didn''t know that he had crushed their little pet, their friend from afar, until they arrived. He got to see the look of horror on their faces, as he turned to them and smirked.


    "Ah, cousins... did you know that this foreign invader, this ...foolish demon working to bring down the empire, claimed to be a friend of yours? How shameless."


    Djang Ren Sui had several times experienced qi effects strong enough to leave a mark in his mind. Mostly, this was only intent performed by experts, and usually amplified by a weapon. The Mofu Patriarch''s [True Golden Sun] had for a moment, reached that level, when the technique released and generated extra qi through its self-destruction.


    Never before had he felt such a qi mark simply from an expert unveiling their qi.


    He felt genuinely blinded by Djang Ren Fen''s aura, the sensation of her beautiful [Jade Feathered Wings] technique burned into his mind, far overshadowing her brother''s [Seven-colored rainbow sword] technique--and these were just their natured qi expressing itself, pouring into their attunements and engraved organs, without explicit intent.


    He couldn''t stop himself, though, as his smile only widened. No matter how much they hated him, they could not harm a member of the Djang Imperial Family, not unless he attacked them directly. That was a rule set by the Diamond Lord Himself, and even they dared not cross it. Even if he pissed on the faces of angels, they would not dare.


    "You have no idea how badly you''ve messed up this time, Ren Sui," said Djang Ban Dai, but Ren Sui could only smile and hang there in midair, trying to adapt to their qi in time to have something more pithy to say.


    But Djang Ban Fen--why was it always her, that damned woman? That girl?--spoke quietly. "The one you have just slaughtered is one that Grandfather expressed an interest in meeting. One that we were commanded to bring before him, personally. Today."


    Djang Ren Sui felt the smile slip from his face. There were plenty of excuses he could have made, but he already felt it--the inexorable and inevitable unfairness of it all. The Ren clan knew all too well how unfair the ''true'' Imperial Family was, and how it would persecute any of the branch families for the smallest offense. He could see how this was turning from him conquering an invader to him spitting in the face of the Diamond Lord.


    He could see how fate had aligned against the Ren and in favor of the Ban, again. And something within him started to fray, something that the two in front of him could never understand.


    Because Ren Sui was truly a despicable person--not that he would admit it to anyone who mattered--but he had grown that way because his family were despicable people, and they were despicable because they had been abandoned, marginalized, and forced to fight for scraps of power and resources while the Ban wasted theirs, producing prodigies who would so often go on to be unambitious people, foolish followers in a land that needed true leadership--leadership that had been missing since well before the Diamond Lord had entered seclusion.


    It wasn''t even something that Ren Sui''s family had needed to say, although it was clear in how they framed things. The hunger of the Ren, their pride and ambition, were far superior to the pathetic subservience of the Ban. And yet here they were, succeeding once again where he had failed.


    The thing inside frayed, but not quite enough.


    Djang Ban Dai held out a hand, his eyes like portals straight into his overwhelming dantian, an endless sea of qi; Ren Sui could feel them with his own eyes shut, feel the fury behind everything.


    "Give her to me, and we might spare your entire family from Grandfather''s wrath."


    Might. Might spare. Djang Ren Sui could not stop himself from laughing, and could not feel fate rearranging itself. The fate of their two clans had been on a precipice for centuries, but now Ren Sui knew for certain that one way or another, that was finished.


    He threw the blood-smeared skull at Djang Ban Dai, though it was Fen who caught it, the bitch. Her Jade Feathers were sublime, able to protect that worthless piece of meat from their combined qi. Ren Sui had hoped to see the thing explode simply from the pressure, but he could only snarl at the two of them.


    "That thing is an enemy of the Empire. I here today witnessed her challenge and slaughter the Mofu clan--"


    "The Mofu clan were the oppressors." Suddenly, Do Min, their family-appointed lapdog, appeared, his approach concealed from Ren Sui by the auras of the Ban. The man had been there when Ren Sui had been chosen to watch over this ...debacle, and had sworn off getting involved, because he had some new artifact to play with and wanted to enter seclusion for a short while. He had heard the same summary, and Ren Sui knew his clan couldn''t pressure him, not with his position. "They originally attacked Lady Shiva Alassi at her home. Twice."


    Ban Dai and Ban Fen traded looks, and Ban Fen, without a single word, scattered her Jade Feathers, and every remaining Mofu who had come with the army died instantly, mostly painlessly. Nothing--not the patriarch, not the cripple... oh, Ren Sui had killed him with his chains earlier. He hadn''t even noticed. It was meaningless, although his father and uncle would have chided him for not keeping better control.


    "Where is her space ring?" Ban Dai demanded, and Ren Sui blinked. The woman... had a space ring earlier, it was true, but his Chains would not make that mistake--it was not on her person, had not been. He frowned, searching through everything his chains had touched, but...


    "I have found it," said Ban Fen, suddenly, and a jade feather appeared next to her, with what Ren Sui thought must have been a Lai Shi Po ring on it. "It has... a number of things in it. Perhaps she discarded it to keep it from him." She turned to Ren Sui, and when she finally laid eyes directly on him, Ren Sui was sure that the intensity of her Orange Flame Qi--a full stage above her brother''s--made his own qi seize and stagnate of its own accord.


    Djang Ban Dai glanced down at the head. "And the Lady Expert... will she make it to meet father?"


    Of course the answer was no, and Ren Sui felt a tingle of excitement at the idea of watching them confront their powerlessness, but Ban Fen''s next words stopped him.


    "Her soul defense technique appears intact," she said. "At the very least, she should be able to speak with Grandfather. What he will do is another question, perhaps, but..."


    Everything, everything, everything lines up in their favor, Ren Sui thought. He was certain, in that moment, that his own life was a cosmic joke, that the universe itself had been put here specifically to make him suffer. Even that thing, that... heavenly visitor, if that''s what it was, was only here in order to make him suffer.


    He made up his mind, as fate swirled around him. He only had one option left, and he knew it. The whole Ren family only had one option. They would rebel, with every last shred of their resources. Nothing else would save their lives.


    "Then you''d better hurry," was all Ren Sui said. "I would hate to disappoint Grandfather any more than we already have. Wouldn''t you?"


    Djang Ban Fen, at least, took that seriously, immediately departing. But Ban Dai turned and leveled the [Seven Colored Rainbow Sword] at him. At him! "You will come with us, cousin."


    "Ah..." Ren Sui trembled. If he didn''t escape, there would be no one to warn the family. "I think not, cousin."


    Ren Sui was bluffing, of course. The [Seven Colored Rainbow Sword] was not something held in his cousin''s hand; it was thirty meters long and five wide, but no more than half a meter thick at its widest, its spiritual mass so concentrated that one could feel its movements from a ways away. Like most techniques of that level, it moved as though of its own accord, listening closely to Ban Dai''s intent while having its own, and the sword sensed its master''s fury. If that sword was commanded to strike Ren Sui down, all his techniques wouldn''t give him more than a single moment''s respite, certainly not enough to get away, not even with his emergency teleportation token, not unless he could use it while his cousin was surprised.


    He was more and more serious about trying to use it now with every passing moment. The space artifact would shatter when used, and they were insanely rare, as space artifacts always were. The whole Ren family only had two left, and it was precious luck that one was in his space ring right now. It was likely his only chance to escape, but there were few things more precious to the family, especially if they... no, not if. Because they needed to go to war.


    From the look on Ban Dai''s face, his cousin was seriously considering ending Ren Sui right there and then, and so Ren Sui stalled him, knowing he was less clever than his sister. "Who even was that... expert, you say? Cousin, surely you know that I was interfering for the good of the Empire? Look at the slaughter she committed here."


    "An expert craftsman," Ban Dai said, closing his eyes in memory, the fool, if only for a moment. Ren Sui withdrew the token but kept it hidden, not able to break it quite fast enough. "She produced an artifact that we purchased at great expense. One which will ensure the next generation of prodigies rises even higher than We did. And, we imagine, a person capable of creating other, truly profound tools in the future."


    "Yes, yes, I''m also very impressed by her ability," Ren Sui snapped, hoping to find a weakness in Ban Dai''s focus. "But who is she? Where did she come from? Is she some being of great destiny? Perhaps from one of the prophecies?" Ren Sui, himself, didn''t believe in prophecies one bit, but the family had passed them all down, on orders from the Diamond Lord. The bit about insignificant people destroying the empire had felt like insulting nonsense, and no one that he knew took any of it seriously.


    And yet... Ban Dai hesitated. Ren Sui''s smirk returned with a vengeance.


    "Ah, so there is a prophecy, perhaps? One of Grandfather''s? Maybe you think--maybe even you know that she was here to destroy the Empire? For shame, cousin, if you want to offend me, the great Djang Ren Sui, who stopped that prophecy and saved the empire, by saying I did something wrong."


    That was the moment he needed. Djang Ban Dai set his jaw, looking ready to argue, and lowered the Seven Colored Rainbow Sword. Ren Sui threw up his chains in a defensive mesh and exerted all of his qi, focusing on the teleportation token. Even so, it was almost not enough.


    In the last moments before the token broke and his body was moved instantly away, Djang Ren Sui felt the very tip of the Rainbow Sword cut through his nose and begin to pass cleanly through his skull. In truth, it was only fate itself that allowed the token to act before the blade cut into his brain.


    Fate had decided that the Djang Empire would go to war with itself, and so it would.

 59. Consequence I

    "[Grandfather...]" The words of Djang Ban Dai reached Sobon in spite of the pain, mostly because the man spoke slowly, and with intent. "[We know it is inexcusable, but despite our best efforts...]"


    [Be at peace, Dai.] Unlike the Imperial Prince, the words of the Diamond Lord were mental, and they spoke to exactly the kind of profound practice that Sobon had expected. And, also unlike the prince, Sobon found that she--if she could really be called a person anymore, let alone female--couldn''t escape their meaning and their subtext. [We were more than capable of monitoring your progress from here. The cushion, if you would.]


    Alasi''s severed head was already all but being preserved by the Prince''s qi, but when it was placed on a cushion on a small pedestal, another, somewhat more powerful effect took over the effort. It was a relief; under different circumstances... no, Sobon could admit that even as a cyborg, having your spine ripped straight out of your skull would have been a level of trauma beyond his ability to recover from on his own. There was no way to do that level of violence, even surgically, without removing parts of the brain, and despite the Ri''lef resurrection protections... Sobon felt like she had lost a very literal part of herself, even as someone used to detachable prosthetics.


    No, assuming Sobon lived again, today would be a mark that never left. That kind of spiritual damage...


    While Sobon was considering, the Diamond Lord and the Imperial Prince exchanged a few more words, and then the latter was excused. Once the Diamond Lord, ruler of the Djang Empire and strongest man in the world, was alone with the severed head of Alassi, he simply waved a hand in Sobon''s direction.


    Nothing regrew, but Sobon''s pain faded, and her... his? spiritual distress eased. Sobon looked up at the man, blinking, then glanced around, taking in the room for the first time.


    Sobon might have expected he would be brought to a meditation room, a work room, or perhaps the excavation site for the Founder''s facility, but the room that surrounded him... her? Sobon wasn''t sure he even counted as alive anymore, much less as being Alassi, but the room around him was like a lounge, with many plush cushions on the ground organized in circles around low tables, as though a number of friends would sit on around to discuss the matters of the day in comfort. Above were many cloth awnings that fluttered in the breeze, and all the walls of the room were stone bricks laid out in patterns entirely unlike those the Djang architecture Sobon had so far seen.


    When he finally turned his gaze to the Diamond Lord, he found the man studying his eyes so intently that even Sobon felt profound disquiet. He was no stranger to people able to see through him; the Marines had many counselors and mental healers on staff, and attendance was mandatory at least once a year. If Sobon were back in those circumstances... he couldn''t help imagining the look of pity they would have for him, as people who understood spiritual violence and wounds in ways he himself never would.


    But the Diamond Lord''s gaze was... not so clinical.


    [Crestan,] the familiar voice said, as the Diamond Lord sank to a nearby cushion. [Pity about your circumstances. I suppose you were gambling on fate, but the fate of this world is not kind to anyone, from its greatest lord to its lowest peasant.]


    Sobon... took some effort, because of the spiritual damage, but was able to form the coherent thoughts she knew he could. [The Diamond Lord... in name only, I assume.]


    [I was curious if you had guessed.] The Diamond Lord barely gestured, but lifted off the cushion, seeming a bit more comfortable as all the weight came off his body. [I imagine you still have many questions. I would be curious just how much you do understand, and what you''ve only guessed at.]


    [I saw you at the other end of the future,] Sobon said. [Your aether signature matched the spirit form you sent to speak with me.]


    [Impressive attention to detail,] the Diamond Lord noted, though Sobon knew the man was only filling in the awkward quiet as Sobon nursed her headache.


    [If you wouldn''t mind my asking...] Sobon knew it was a dumb question, but now, confronted by the truth... he could feel, at last, that his mission was over, or at least, the urgency was--except suddenly, most of the questions left her mind, as a wave of pain and panic crossed through her spirit, the injuries flaring through her whole being anew.


    She was forced to start thinking of a question from scratch, and so she asked the first thing that came to mind.


    [What... is your answer, if I can ask?] Sobon paused as the Diamond Lord adjusted something in her spirit, quieting the waves of nausea, terror, and panic that was gripping her. In all... she wasn''t sure how she was managing to hold together enough to have a conversation at all. Most likely, it had more to do with the man in front of her than it had to do with his cyborg history.


    His? Her? Its? Was Sobon dead?


    [My answer...] The Diamond Lord, no stranger to picking apart intent, still seemed to fumble with Sobon''s question, no doubt because her mind had been frayed when he''d asked it. [Oh... about myth?]


    [Yes, that.] Sobon tried to use the question to focus on herself again, focus on her mind, be able to think. It was only a marginally successful effort. [I--]


    Suddenly, in a flash, Sobon existed again.


    It wasn''t a thing that made sense, even knowing what Sobon knew. He looked down at his body--not Alassi''s, but not Sobon''s, either. It was more like a puppet''s; the consistency of its spirit was too even to act even like a good prosthetic, and the joints were all rough. But all of Sobon''s missing spiritual parts were replaced with, at least, a rough approximation, and the panic subsided, as all of Sobon''s and Alassi''s joint instincts on how a body was supposed to work were suddenly correct again.


    [Myth...] The first word that Sobon heard without it being swallowed up in his own agony was filled, he suddenly realized, with disgust. [In truth, you won''t find any closure in my answer, Crestan. The idea of myth was on my mind not because of prophecy or grand social architectural problems. It has not left my mind ever since I murdered my predecessor and put us all into this unfortunate situation.]


    Sobon turned and, in lieu of blinking suddenly, projected his confusion. [Your predecessor?]


    [Suffice it to say I felt... betrayed. I am, in a sense, still very young and inexperienced, in spite of my centuries. I believed I was being brought here to help make things better. I was told in no uncertain terms that my beliefs were a myth, and specifically, the very same sort of aether backed myth that you speak so much of.]


    Sobon''s head was more than simply fuzzy, although with a prosthetic body and spirit temporarily holding the worst consequences at bay, his mind was able to function, at least. [Aether backed... as in, your society allows itself to be deceived, so that things can continue as they have been?]


    [Adequately summarized,] The Diamond Lord actually clapped his hands, and not even too sarcastically or ironically, a very strange gesture from the man. [Without going into detail--not until you can convince me you already understand the basics already--I thought we were... a more noble people. But they were content with more sacrifices than I expected. And I... also may have misunderstood my predecessor. The actual details, once I looked into them, more supported his his choice of actions than mine.]


    Sobon closed his eyes and tried to shut out most sensations other than the conversation, only to open them again and turn to stare at the floating figure of the Diamond Lord. [I... suppose I had hoped that the Founders society was somewhat more stable than that, given how immensely powerful you all are.]


    The Diamond Lord''s mouth stretched into a wide smile--unnaturally so, and then his body dissolved into sand, reforming into a figure that Sobon had only ever seen in official Crestan Navy briefings. The Founder that hung in the air was a grey-skinned humanoid with larger-than-human eyes, ones that appeared all black at a casual glance. His mouth, too, was too wide; in contrast, while there seemed to be holes for nose and ears, there was no flesh there to mark them. Hairless, sexless, naked, and far shorter than the Diamond Lord had been, the being might have appeared innocent or harmless, if there was any way to capture an image of them that didn''t exude immense spiritual pressure.


    Sobon didn''t dare look too closely at the details, but according to Crestan intelligence, their physiology really wasn''t all that different from human, just... incredibly advanced, and entirely customized by extremely early adaptation to aether. Early, and deep. Sobon had no doubt that every cell in this being''s body was attuned to aether more complex than Sobon himself had ever wielded.


    For whatever reason, the Founder spoke out loud, and without intent, as though the entire thing with speaking intent was nothing more than a trivial fabrication, a roleplay that he had dropped instantly. "I can understand the outer races wishing to believe that we were as wise and all-knowing as we pretend to be. Rather than being wise, we would say that we are adults, and all the rest of the universe are children. In the case of lesser-developed races, such as the ones of this planet, they are more infants than children, still having barely begun to learn."


    Sobon considered that, but the being continued. "Since it will be necessary to address sooner or later, I would appreciate if you would explain your concept of a [Hand]. You don''t need to worry about getting it wrong; it''s inevitable, and quite forgivable."


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    "A hand..." Sobon did her best to recall what the Ri''lef had said, trying slowly to piece together the thoughts she''d had afterwards. "A Hand is a social organization designed to grasp the future. It''s a metaphor describing how social groups must specialize and work together as a whole; some act, like muscles, some support like bones, some protect like skin, some coordinate like nerves."


    "A good start," the founder waved one grey-skinned hand, eagerly. "Continue. Theorize, if you''ve reached the end of your knowledge."


    Sobon frowned at that, feeling like they were getting further away from the discussion of myth--and further still from any practical conversation. Still, he continued. "I... suppose that a hand, in particular, doesn''t have a brain, though--no decision making nexus, but it''s also not designed for the pieces to work together. Not a democracy, or a collective. Biologically, it''s supposed to be a part of a larger whole."


    "Not inaccurate, though generally, we acknowledge that as a shortcoming of the metaphor rather than an extension of it." Suddenly, the Founder slipped back to its feet from its floating position, and began to pace. "In truth, I am beginning to believe that what you''ve said is in fact the point, in ways that only further my sense of betrayal."


    "You see, I considered myself to be a part of a Hand, one that exists--so I thought--to resist corruption in other parts. A Hand that fights our excesses and callous behavior towards to child races. Without getting into the metaphor, I thought I existed only to destroy disease, and as such, I was tasked with reporting here, to a member of the Greatest Circle, to ensure that a diseased Child planet would not contaminate others."


    "When I discovered that the local administrator''s definition of a ''diseased planet'' amounted to a few architectural problems, I naively believed they simply were not trying hard enough, and reiterated my own belief that we existed to help child species grow into adults. It is this that my predecessor called a ''myth''. And in truth, perhaps this is not wrong. As a society, we wish to believe firmly in our adulthood, and we wish to believe well of ourselves."


    "Given my unfortunate reaction," the Founder said, turning and offering Sobon a surprisingly human expression of guilt, despite their alien features, "I can certainly say that we as a species are not too advanced to make grave mistakes."


    Sobon considered all that, trying to ignore the pounding headache and occasional flashes of trauma and strangeness that he suspected may never go away, but certainly not in this body. "There''s always a difference between species and individuals," she said, finally.


    "There is, of course." The alien turned and continued pacing for a moment, then stopped and pivoted to look straight at Sobon. "You know, Crestan... I like you."


    Sobon blinked several times, sending a packetized response that was a generally accepted shorthand for ''you need to explain yourself better than that'' with some wry humor undertones.


    "Sorry. And I know, it''s a terrible time for you to talk. Rest assured, you will have time to rest. But I... have not had anyone to talk to in a while. I hope you won''t mind if i am selfish for a little while longer." The Founder took a deep breath, and half turned away, looking at nothing in particular, for a long moment.


    And then he spoke again. "You know," he said, "in Founder society, it''s considered impolite to have a gender in public."


    Sobon blinked, not having heard that. "Gender in the sense of identity?"


    The creature nodded. "I have been monitoring you, usually indirectly. I caught your discussion with your... how shall I say? Nestmates?" The sense Sobon got was that the Founder knew the term was ridiculous, but lacked a good grasp of Sobon''s culture, or perhaps, human cultures in general. "About how your gender was no one else''s business, except in those rare cases where you chose it to be so. We consider that to be a bare minimum of acceptable behavior, simply as a matter of... shall I say cleanliness?" It cocked its head, then nodded. "Sanitation, perhaps. A variant on that concept."


    "You mean aether contamination," Sobon said, mostly guessing. "Because gender is a spiritual transmission of a personal truth."


    "You are close enough that there''s no reason to quibble over the differences." The Founder turned and cast itself back into a floating rest-state. "Gender and power do not mix, or I should say, gender and a power differential. A being of sufficient aether strength can simply decide that another should be attracted to them, and reality will bend in favor of that outcome. On the level of crude biology, this even seems appropriate. But one does not need to advance much past being an infant to see that being manipulated by others is not a positive outcome."


    Do... they think we reach puberty as infants? Sobon blinked, and repressed any judgmental thoughts, for now, trying to focus and stay sane, for the moment.


    "It''s for that reason, I suppose," the Founder went on, "that I look at you and see something much closer to adult than anyone on this planet--any other child race I''ve seen, in fact. Not for any intellectual reason, but on instinct. You consider yourself gender-less, and without that, you could not possibly have remained focused on this corrupt, juvenile world, especially in a body of a foreign sex." The founder gestured at Sobon with one hand. "Any one of my people would see that aspect of you and understand it as maturity."


    "Because I don''t care about having sex?" Sobon was fine with the idea that they considered that mature, but it seemed like a very strange thing to be complimented on.


    "Vhai-ziil," the Founder said, sounding perhaps a bit harsh, and Sobon frowned, completely unsure of the translation. "Because you do not push your identity onto others, on a spiritual level. If in your private life you had a hundred wives, it would still not be the business of anyone else. Your public persona is your identity with no private details included. I believe the closest word is ''professional'', but I do not like the implications of it."


    Sobon just stared at the Founder, and after a moment, it shook its head.


    "All of this has been an aside," it admitted, sounding frustrated. "The intent of the aside was that I see you, the individual, as far more mature than anyone else in this society. Likely, I would find you more to my liking than many others of your own world, though I will plead ignorance. I was never intended to be a... outward-facing member of our Hand."


    Sobon sighed and nodded. "So you... killed the Diamond Lord. When? Why?"


    "For the reasons you suspect, I''m sure." The Founder huffed. "For when... what does it matter? I suppose what you''re asking was whether it was part of the inciting incident or not, and no, the Diamond Lord only died recently. I have been at a loss in how to replace him adequately, as I have been at a loss since killing my predecessor. Regrettably, this is a matter that should have been left to a specialist, and I am not that specialist."


    There was a pause, so Sobon vocalized what he thought he understood. "So he broke into the facility... where you had been hiding, I suppose, since you murdered your colleague and disabled the communications. That lack of communications brought the Ri''lef here, and then the Diamond Lord found the place and broke in. But..." But things still didn''t add up.


    The Founder made a noise, which registered to Sobon as annoyed. "As I said. I was naive at first, and I believed that the solution to this problem was for the locals to regain control over their world rather than for them to be controlled by my own meddling. So I... increased the aether flows to the planet, above the normal operational thresholds."


    Sobon frowned. Hadn''t the Ri''lef captain said, ah, right. "The Ri''lef thought that was due to damage to the facility."


    "Of course they would. Because I screwed up everything, and all of my efforts to contain the situation only made it worse." Sobon struggled to conceal her reaction to the Founder suddenly snarling and throwing a fit, though doubtless she couldn''t hide anything from them. "I thought I understood the aether composition and the structural diagrams, but I was naive. Even among our people, the knowledge necessary to actually properly use these kinds of facilities is highly regulated. My understanding was beyond flawed, any my naivety threatens this world."


    "And then the Ri''lef showed up."


    "I wasn''t responsible for the Diamond Lord''s decision to bring down their ship. He had some wisdom, having been tutored in various things by my predecessor, but he was still a child. He panicked, just as I did, and everything only got worse. Then the Ri''lef panicked, and created their Starbeast breeding program, and the locals discovered just how useful their cores were." The founder put one hand to their forehead and massaged it. "This whole debacle has been one foolish choice after another, from start to finish."


    "So why did--or how did the Diamond Lord get to the facility?"


    "Obviously I allowed it," the Founder said, sounding perhaps a bit cross with itself. "I hoped that I could be an adequate replacement mentor. That was foolish. I admitted what I had, also foolish. He thought he could challenge me, which was... perhaps only ignorant. But I crushed him without really understanding just how much trouble replacing him would be."


    "So all this time you''ve simply pretended to be him when his people come to visit."


    The founder shrugged, a bit theatrically. "I may not be able to regulate world energies, but I can pretend to be a stupid, brutish child just fine."


    Sobon let her thoughts run ahead of himself for a bit, wincing at the twinges, before speaking again. "You said you expected my mission to change, once I understood the truth. Change, rather than end."


    "Yes." The Founder hopped back out of its floating stance and onto its feet, then the sands reappeared around it, assembling into the Diamond Lord. [I trust that you understand, Crestan, that the opinion of the Founders, and their estimation as to this planet''s future, will not change unless someone changes it. It must be civilized, and grow at least from being brutish infants into being merely petulant children. They will inevitably come here, and they must see a more civil world, even if its development remains backwards.]


    Sobon looked at the Diamond Lord, or rather, the alien master disguising itself as the most powerful man in the world. "You can''t do that yourself." The words weren''t a question, though she sent along the implication that she needed clarification.


    [I can''t, the Ri''lef can''t, and I think you''re coming to understand that you can''t, as well.] The Founder stepped closer, looking down on Sobon''s puppet body. [Foreigners can guide, but locals must take charge of their own fate. And the one responsible for this atrocity must also be the one to delay the day of judgement. When the Founders come, the one responsible will leave with them. I believe that the military will allow more interested Hands to send representatives to study the world. It will likely be decades, or perhaps centuries, before those monitors are ready for an official decision, but only decades before they have a preliminary one.]


    [Show progress, and you will buy more time. This world will make it difficult on you, and on whomever you choose. But whatever you or the Ri''lef may think of me, Sobon of Crest, you are the only one I know whom I can see as an adult, capable of overseeing this project. I wish there were more options; I know you are not a specialist in any of this. And if worst comes to worst... you will have simply failed to prevent the inevitable. That is not shameful.]


    "You want me to raise Ki''el up to be the next Diamond Lord?" Sobon raised an eyebrow.


    [Your adopted child, or members of the Imperial House, or anyone else in the world you choose. I wouldn''t recommend putting all your faith in the first person you meet, but then, perhaps that is how fate will balance things out. Perhaps all of your suffering, and mine, and all of theirs, is balanced against us finding the right people for the job in spite of it all.]


    Sobon made a face. "Is that really how fate works?"


    The Diamond Lord just laughed. "No," he said, with his voice, and it came out an exceptionally smooth baritone. "No, Sobon of Crest, it is not. But perhaps, just perhaps, it is how luck works."


    Sobon just sighed, closing her eyes against the pain in her head.

 60. Consequence II - Book 1 End

    Ki''el woke up with a start in the mo-ments af-ter Sobon left. When she would look back on it, she would lat-er won-der what she had known, what she had felt, and what she would have guessed about what was com-ing. Cer-tain-ly, she was fixed with a cer-tain dread, a sense that what-ev-er came, lit-tle if any of it would be good.


    As her wak-ing mind re-placed her sleep-ing one, it was ob-vi-ous to her that Sobon had left. She got up from her sleep-ing cush-ion, wan-der-ing back and forth for sev-er-al min-utes, un-able and un-will-ing to ac-knowl-edge the idea that she would nev-er see her mas-ter again. Only... what was she to Sobon? When the squir-rel had said he came from far away, some part of her en-vi-sioned meet-ing his true form, a hand-some old-er man who would take care of her, take her away from this world of death, be-tray-al, and cru-el-ty.


    And then he re-turned as some-one else''s grand-moth-er, and this was not what Ki''el had ever ex-pect-ed or de-sired. And yet, that old woman had in-deed tak-en her from a place of be-tray-al and cru-el-ty to this small lit-tle home, far from her sim-ple is-land vil-lage. And again and again, when-ev-er some-thing threat-ened, she had been there to keep Ki''el safe. She had said a great many things that awoke a great many thoughts, all of which she did her best to keep in-side her mind, but she was not ea-ger to grow stronger and fight, and she knew that this was what Sobon was ex-pect-ing.


    She did not think Sobon want-ed to raise a war-rior, but she... he? Ki''el had al-ways heard a man in his men-tal voice, when he was a squir-rel, though now it was hard-er to be sure. Ki''el was sure that Sobon had ex-pect-ed her to some-day de-fend her-self, which seemed... cru-el. To be ex-pect-ed, per-haps, but cru-el. Af-ter bury-ing her fam-i-ly, her neigh-bors, every-one she had ever known, Ki''el had been un-sure that life was even worth strug-gling for, much less tak-ing an-oth-er''s life to en-sure.


    She picked up the mod-i-fied aether blade that Sobon had left, study-ing it again as best she could. She could al-ready de-tect the se-cret with-in it, though she was not sure what the se-cret was, how it was sealed away, or what she would need to do to un-seal it. What she was cer-tain was that hold-ing the blade felt dif-fer-ent, not only be-cause of what was sealed in-side, but be-cause Sobon had re-made the in-scrip-tions. She could feel, for one, that the in-scrip-tions were writ-ten on a bet-ter ma-te-r-i-al, one that would han-dle more pow-er, but also, there was some sort of spa-tial pock-et where she could store her own per-son-al aether, and call it back lat-er. She was not sure why she would do this, rather than us-ing the stor-age thorns on her Left and Right Cy-cles, but when she fed in en-er-gy, she could vague-ly sense it there, just be-yond her reach.


    There were also three ad-di-tion-al func-tions, though she had not had the heart to try them. She had told Sobon that she did not wish for her sword to be a bet-ter weapon; she de-sired its sim-plic-i-ty and pu-ri-ty. So she ig-nored the ex-tra in-ter-nal switch-es of the blade, in-stead sum-mon-ing the aether blade in front of her, in its sharpest, nat-ur-al form.


    In most ways, it re-mained ex-act-ly as it was, though as she held it, she felt that the aether was dif-fer-ent, but not un-pleas-ant-ly. It was dif-fi-cult to put a fin-ger on, and most-ly, she could sense just a hint of Sobon''s spir-it through the blade. That was enough for her; she placed the flat of the blade against her fore-head, feel-ing its en-er-gy against her skin, and sim-ply hoped that the blade would con-tin-ue to be a blade, that it would keep her safe, and that per-haps some-day, she could meet Sobon again.


    For some rea-son, she felt the blade slight-ly re-sist-ing her will when she made those prayers, which was odd. She had done some-thing sim-i-lar be-fore, with the blade, only wish-ing for it to be a blade and noth-ing more. Now... but no, Ki''el was not able to keep her fo-cus on the ques-tion, not with all of the wor-ries in her heart. In-stead, she low-ered the blade, putting her-self in a stance that Sobon had taught her and that Mian had helped her prac-tice. Al-though in her mind, she could see Sobon wield-ing Mian''s blade with fury and fi-nesse, all she could feel from hold-ing her sword was the tense-ness of her arms and hands, the cool solid-ness of the blade han-dle. They did not feel right, and she knew that they were not right.


    She was no ex-pe-ri-enced war-rior from the heav-ens, and al-though the blade was not heavy in her hands, she did not trust its light-ness. With a twist of her will, she dulled the blade, then moved through the mo-tions, notic-ing but un-able to stop her-self when every move-ment was off its mark, how at the end of every swing, it the blade had the wrong an-gle or end-ed in the wrong po-si-tion, or both. But Mian had said that it was good that she saw it, and to nev-er ig-nore it, to al-ways fo-cus on get-ting it right.


    It would be eas-i-er if he were here, but he had not re-turned for the night, in-stead go-ing off to be with that woman he wished to wed. She un-der-stood lit-tle of his plans, and al-though she thought she un-der-stood what Sobon want-ed, the man and his mar-riage seemed a very strange thing to be at the cen-ter of so much, es-pe-cial-ly since she wasn''t sure whether he want-ed to be with that woman or not. Cer-tain-ly... he had trou-ble keep-ing his eyes off of her, and had a strange look on his face ever since he had met her, but Ki''el was not sure what that meant in men. Of course, she was not sure what it would mean in her-self, or Lui, ei-ther.


    Some dark part of her heart said that she hoped nev-er to see Sobon with that look on his or her face, what-ev-er form he took, but it was a thought she nei-ther faced nor avoid-ed, but sim-ply did not en-gage with.


    She did not prac-tice for very long be-fore Lui awoke and be-gan mak-ing break-fast, and not long af-ter that be-fore the oth-ers be-gan to ar-rive at the house. First was Lady Fau and her guest, Lai Shi Po; her guards, which some-how had con-tin-ued to fol-low them in spite of every-one''s dis-trust and un-ease, re-mained out-side the walls. Not long af-ter, Mian and his woman, that Xoi Xam, showed up as well, with an old-er man that Xam in-tro-duced as her un-cle.


    Of all of them, the un-cle looked the most ner-vous. Ki''el looked around, but most every-one seemed nor-mal, ex-cept per-haps Po, for whom Ki''el was un-cer-tain what count-ed as ''nor-mal''. That woman had showed up dressed like a beg-gar, but once she had shamed the woman into dress-ing prop-er-ly, she had changed--and then prompt-ly nev-er changed or cleaned her clothes, or cleaned or done her hair, even once since then. Per-haps she would wear these clothes un-til they were as ragged as her last set, un-less some-one com-pelled her not to. In any case, that so-called ge-nius looked dis-tant, but Ki''el was un-cer-tain what the look meant, ex-cept that she did not ap-pear half as ner-vous as the mer-chant un-cle.


    When break-fast was ready and they all be-gan to sit down, it was Lui her-self who raised the ques-tion. "So are you ac-tu-al-ly go-ing to get mar-ried?" she asked, look-ing with-out guile at Mian, seem-ing-ly very in-ter-est-ed. Ki''el her-self was cu-ri-ous, but couldn''t help feel-ing like she would sound dis-in-ter-est-ed if she asked, or per-haps just rude. She was not sure how to en-gage with peo-ple about mat-ters like that; it seemed cru-el to pre-tend that she sym-pa-thized or un-der-stood them, and so she did not wish to make them think that she was open to speak-ing about these things. But... it did not mean she did not wish to know, it sim-ply... did not seem ap-pro-pri-ate for some-one like her. In her mind, it was fine for Lui, who was in-no-cent and kind, but she was...


    In the end, Ki''el could only ac-cept that she did not know her-self that well.


    "I have al-ready filed the pa-per-work," said the mer-chant un-cle, which star-tled Ki''el. She glanced at Mian, but he and Xoi Xam were... hold-ing hands, but also look-ing away from each oth-er, look-ing a lit-tle bit con-fused, but nowhere near as con-fused as Ki''el felt. "The City Lord was kind enough to back-date a few things as well, to help con-ceal the whole busi-ness. Ac-cord-ing to records, they have been en-gaged for sev-er-al years, and Mian is giv-en a false name struck through so as to be un-read-able, as though re-ject-ed by a clan." He leaned back. "You did not an-swer yes-ter-day, when I asked if you wished to be adopt-ed into the clan. In name only, if you wish."


    Xoi Ki''el? Xoi Doua Ki''el? She had not want-ed to en-gage with the ques-tion yes-ter-day, and she did not wish to en-gage with it to-day, but she knew that she must. If she wished to hide, re-mov-ing any trace of her old fam-i-ly name would be ap-pro-pri-ate, but as Sobon had said, she al-ready had pa-pers reg-is-ter-ing her with the Djang em-pire, ones that for now, re-mained in Po''s poses-sion. She ei-ther tried to hide her con-nec-tion to that iden-ti-ty, or em-brace it. Ei-ther way, the ques-tion left her feel-ing very far from her home, wish-ing that she could re-ceive guid-ance from her grand-moth-er, or from her neigh-bor Shi''sel, who had of-ten been kind to her on the days her grand-moth-er had been strict. Shi''sel... had not been among the peo-ple she buried. She had no idea what had hap-pened to the woman.


    "I do not wish it," Ki''el fi-nal-ly said, af-ter a long pause. "But I be-lieve it would be wise. I... would like to keep my fam-i-ly name in it, how-ev-er."


    "That seems best, since you have the pa-pers al-ready. I''ll make sure it''s done." The man nod-ded. "There will be some-thing for you to sign be-fore we leave. As for that..." Xoi Mon glanced to Po, who sighed.


    "Yes, the arrange-ments are done. We''ll all go to-geth-er to the sect, and Mimi and Lulu will come with me to one of my work-shops. Mon, you and your sons will get dropped off at the Xoi com-pound in at Pur-ple Moun-tain City." She made a frus-trat-ed ges-ture into open air. "Every-one gets what they want, every-one takes their own part of Alas-si''s small for-tune with them. And I get back to work, which is all any-one ever want-ed from me in the first place."


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    Ki''el winced a lit-tle at the dis-gust in Po''s voice, and she thought Lady Fau did as well. But if the al-chemist wasn''t will-ing to ar-gue with her, Ki''el would cer-tain-ly not be one to in-trude. So she glanced at the mer-chant un-cle, who was sit-ting back, look-ing some-what pleased.


    "Very good, then," he said, sound-ing like some of the weight was off of his shoul-ders. "I would nev-er have thought I''d see my niece Xam ei-ther mar-ried or ac-cept-ed into a ma-jor sect, let alone both in the same month!"


    "Not ac-cept-ed, yet," said Po, her voice a lit-tle harsh, and Ki''el looked at her. "Moon-stone Is-land sect will most like-ly ac-cept all three of you, but they are ex-clu-sive enough that they will need proof that you are ca-pa-ble. Even be-fore you join the out-er sect, you will most like-ly need to join the sect''s less-er house. They will ex-pect you to work un-til you meet the min-i-mum stan-dards of the sect, which will most like-ly be reach-ing the Gold-en Wall. Then, an ex-pert will guide you through pass-ing it. You must not only suc-ceed, but show through your tribu-la-tion that you are more than a com-mon cul-ti-va-tor."


    Ki''el frowned. Sobon had helped her ad-vance to gold qi, and she or Xam could help Mian ad-vance, but the man was still be-hind them. Al-though he was slow-ly ad-vanc-ing through sil-ver qi, he did not have the ad-van-tage of Sobon''s cy-cles... she frowned, still not quite lik-ing the term, but re-fus-ing to use the for-eign word that Sobon al-ways used. They are what they are, cy-cles of pow-er, she though, though the thought still felt for-eign in its own way. But with-out these pow-er cy-cles, Mian will be much slow-er, and Sobon nev-er taught him. I am not sure that it is my place to do so if he did not. She glanced at the man, then over at Po.


    "May I ask you a ques-tion, Lai Shi Po?"


    The ge-nius ar-ti-fact cre-ator put her full at-ten-tion on Ki''el, mak-ing the girl feel im-me-di-ate-ly very vul-ner-a-ble, but she suf-fered through it with as much grace as she could muster. "Of course."


    "The Crown that Sobon cre-at-ed. May we see it?"


    It was only when Po made a face that Ki''el re-al-ized she was sup-posed to use the oth-er name for her mas-ter in front of oth-ers. She glanced at the two Xoi, but nei-ther had much of an ex-pres-sion on their faces.


    "You wish to test the pu-ri-ty of your qi against it?" She shift-ed her weight and way of sit-ting un-til as though un-com-fort-able, or just dis-tract-ed. "For Alas-si''s peo-ple, I sup-pose I can make an ex-cep-tion, but un-der-stand that I paid a very high price for the ar-ti-fact. I will not be even speak of it to most peo-ple, much less let any-one else touch it."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but spoke. "In truth... I do wish to test my-self, but I most-ly wish it for Mian. I have my own ad-van-tages--"


    "We can talk about that on the way," Po in-ter-rupt-ed, sound-ing ir-ri-ta-ble. "I know there are chal-lenges for all of you, but trust me when I say that we''ll all be much hap-pi-er when we''re far away from here. I don''t know if any-one will sur-vive Alas-si''s blood feud and come here look-ing, but it''s best not to be here just in case."


    Ki''el start-ed to nod, al-though she no-ticed that there was sud-den-ly some-thing off in her spir-it. Off, but not vi-o-lent-ly so. In-stead, it felt like... she stood up, and sim-ply nod-ded. "I... wish to med-i-tate for a few mo-ments."


    Xoi Mon spoke up as she turned away. "I will come back lat-er and bring you to see the City Lord, to sign the adop-tion pa-pers. Most like-ly be-fore noon."


    She nod-ded, ab-sent-ly, then moved back to her room and shut the slid-ing door. No soon-er did she make her-self com-fort-able than she felt some-thing for-eign at-tach it-self to her mind.


    [ No-tice: (Hon-orary Crewmem-ber) (Sobon) has re-quest-ed that you re-ceive one mes-sage and two aether pack-ages. If you do not agree, to ac-cept the pack-ages, in-stal-la-tion will not com-mense. You are be-ing mon-i-tored in case you are un-able to pro-ject a resonse at this time; sim-ply in-di-cate your con-sent or re-fusal with in-tent. ]


    Ki''el fum-bled, but sig-naled [ Mes-sage ] af-ter a mo-ment.


    When the en-ti-ty re-layed the mes-sage from Sobon, she could tell that it had done so clean-ly, with pure aether that did not add more than a touch of its own fla-vor to it. [ Ki''el. I''m sor-ry for leav-ing with-out see-ing you and Lui. I don''t know what''s com-ing, and I don''t want to end up spend-ing my whole morn-ing think-ing about it. I''m writ-ing this in ad-vance, and I''ll be ask-ing the (Ri''lef) (star-ship) (Tidal Coro-na) to re-lay it to you. I''ve also asked it to of-fer you two things, one of which I''m not sure you''ll ac-tu-al-ly want. ]


    [ The first is what I would call an (un-trans-lat-able: un-nat-ur-al-mind). It''s a (un-trans-lat-able: book-thing) that will at-tach to your mind, filled with things that I know and wish you to un-der-stand. Un-like your own mem-o-ries, you will have to (ask) it with in-tent, but it will con-tain more than enough hints and guid-ance, and it will have oth-er abil-i-ties if you get used to it. I... would hope that you will ac-cept this, but I can''t force you. I would nev-er force you. ]


    [ The oth-er is the same thing that pro-tects my soul when I die and lets me come back. You have to un-der-stand, Ki''el, that if you do ac-cept that... it will be the same thing that has hap-pened to me. You will wake up in a stranger''s body, per-haps in a place and in cir-cum-stances that are aw-ful. You do not need to ac-cept it, and as-sum-ing they ac-cept my re-quest at all, I''ll ask that the (Tidal Coro-na) leave the op-tion open for you to ac-cept it lat-er. Spend what-ev-er time you need to de-cid-ing, just... know that it isn''t a bless-ing. It may let us meet again some-day, but it may also give you a fate you do not want. ]


    Ki''el shiv-ered, sud-den-ly feel-ing in-cred-i-bly ner-vous. She knew that the pres-ence she was feel-ing was what she thought of as the Voice of the World, what Sobon had called the (Tidal Coro-na), and she un-der-stood what it was. But now that its eye, too, was on her, she was un-sure that the at-ten-tion of such a thing was tru-ly a good thing. It felt cold and heavy, and some-where be-yond her mind, Ki''el thought she sensed ocean waves and crushed sand--but while those things should have felt fa-mil-iar, like her home vil-lage, they ra-di-at-ed a feel of un-nat-u-ral-ness, for-eign-ness.


    The pres-ence shift-ed, though the feel-ings did not go away. The shift it-self felt mas-sive, even as noth-ing seemed to change. [ Con-fir-ma-tion: You are sens-ing an echo of the (Tidal Coro-na)''s (un-trans-lat-able: un-nat-ur-al-skin). (I) am a for-eign (un-nat-ur-al) (life) meant to con-trol a (star-ship), and my (skin) was nev-er in-tend-ed for con-tact with (things). All such con-tact is (thought of) as (pos-si-ble dam-age). (I) apol-o-gize for any in-con-ve-nience. ]


    Ki''el parsed what she could of all of that, but dis-missed it af-ter a few mo-ments, form-ing a que-si-ton with con-tent. [ What pack-ages? ]


    [ Pack-age 1: Stan-dard (un-trans-lat-able: add-to) (un-trans-lat-able: mind-book-ad-vanced-thing), with (un-trans-lat-able: mind-han-dle) and (un-trans-lat-able: be-gin-ner-help) ad-di-tion, pre-pared by (Crewmem-ber) (Sobon). Pack-age 2: Stan-dard (Ri''lef) (un-trans-lat-able: live-again) pro-to-col. Note: De-liv-ery of ei-ther pack-age may be de-layed (un-trans-lat-able: for how-ev-er long you wish, prob-a-bly?). ]


    In the end, it didn''t take Ki''el long to make her de-ci-sion. [ De-lay 2. Ac-cept 1. ]


    The cold feel-ing against Ki''el''s spir-it spiked, and she felt some-thing for-eign at-tach it-self to her mind, in a strange place around the edges, but there was no pain, only... only a strange some-thing. A weight, per-haps. And af-ter only a mo-ment, the oth-er pres-ence with-drew, leav-ing her alone.


    Ki''el reached for the new weight in her mind, try-ing to sig-nal it with in-tent, but when she did, a se-ries of flick-er-ing slash-es seemed to run through her mind. She flinched, but held her ground, cer-tain that what-ev-er Sobon left, it would not be dan-ger-ous. Af-ter sev-er-al mo-ments, the flash-es be-gan to have shape, and then the shapes be-gan to move slow-ly through her mind. It was... not painful, ever, but if she didn''t trust Sobon, it would have been tor-ture, hav-ing it so deep in-side of her.


    Even-tu-al-ly, how-ev-er, the pat-tern seemed to find its place, and sud-den-ly, a small clear shape ap-peared in the cor-ner of Ki''el''s vi-sion. It con-tained text that seemed to flick-er sev-er-al times, un-til fi-nal-ly, Ki''el could read it.


    It sim-ply said, {Sys-tem Start-ing, Please Wait}.


    <hr>


    By the midafter-noon, Ki''el was un-cer-tain ex-act-ly what to think about any-thing at all.


    She had gone with the mer-chant un-cle to sign pa-pers that said she was adopt-ed, and she did not know what to think about that. And she watched the City Lord bow to her as though she were some-one im-por-tant, and was not sure what to think about that, ei-ther. Then she wait-ed for hours for any-one to have an-oth-er task for her, or have some-thing they wished to speak of, but every-one was busy with their own things, and she wasn''t sure what to think about that. Mean-while, this un-nat-ur-al-mind thing that Sobon had left her con-tin-ued to flick-er strange-ly in her mind, say-ing noth-ing more than it was "start-ing" and that she should wait.


    When fi-nal-ly Po ar-rived to bring every-one to where an-oth-er fly-ing-box was wait-ing, she was un-sure of what to think of that, as well. The fly-ing-box that had tak-en them all to the auc-tion had seemed odd to her, cramped and too blunt, but the one that came now was ugli-er and less com-fort-able, but larg-er, with room for every-one--her-self, Lui, Mide, Po and her two guards, Mian, Xam, Mon and his two sons, and one stranger who ap-peared to own and con-trol the box it-self. There was some squab-bling about seat-ing, and Ki''el found her-self stuck un-com-fort-ably be-tween Lui and one of the mer-chant un-cle''s sons, who smelled like a sweaty man who had cov-ered him-self with some-thing to try to hide it. It was not pleas-ant.


    Once they were un-der-way, Po spoke up again, abrupt-ly stand-ing up. "Al-right, it''s a good six hours to the Moon-stone Is-land sect. I''m go-ing to try mak-ing some-thing, so if any-one bumps me or makes me mess up," she glared at her neigh-bors, es-pe-cial-ly Xam, who was across from her, and then at the one in charge of the fly-ing box, "I will be very up-set."


    The one in charge of the box just nod-ded his un-der-stand-ing, and Lai Shi Po turned and sat on the floor, us-ing her seat as a crude table as she pulled small in-gots of met-al out of nowhere and be-gan carv-ing into them with in-tense fo-cus. As the rest sat in un-com-fort-able si-lence, Ki''el turned to Lui and whis-pered, very qui-et-ly, "Sobon left me a mes-sage be-fore he left. Only to say that he was sor-ry he did not say good-bye, and that he want-ed to."


    Lui turned to look at her, and Ki''el thought the girl was al-ready too close to cry-ing. She knew very lit-tle about Lui''s his-to-ry, but took the oth-er girl''s hand and squeezed it tight-ly. Al-though she didn''t know what hav-ing a sis-ter was like, and gen-er-al-ly had few in-stincts on how to deal with oth-er young peo-ple, she could see that the girl need-ed help to get through every-thing that was hap-pen-ing.


    It did not help that they had felt some-thing very dan-ger-ous hap-pen in the dis-tance... and then, af-ter a time, go qui-et. There had been a mo-ment when the most pow-er-ful qi she had ever felt had been un-leashed, and she was sure that it be-longed to the Djang Princess, but that mo-ment passed with-out fur-ther vi-o-lence. She was un-sure whether what she felt was ex-act-ly what Sobon had in-tend-ed, or some-thing far worse, and she re-ceived no con-fir-ma-tion, not for a very long time.


    It was long past dark, but well into the six hour trip, when Ki''el felt the brush of qi from far away.


    [ Re-lay from (Sobon): Can-not talk now, but we will meet again some-day, I promise. ]

 BOOK 1 OUTTAKES

    Sobon and the rest of the sur-vivors of the Iri-des-cent Rapi-er came out in a civ-i-lized part of the as-ter-oid belt, but rocks out-num-bered peo-ple by a fac-tor of thou-sands to one. In fact, it was a rock farm in-hab-it-ed by mas-sive as-ter-oid golems; their crip-pled troop ship ap-peared out-side a gi-ant stone win-dow, the met-al ve-hi-cle tum-bling through the open-ing com-plete-ly un-con-trolled.


    Alas, in-side, a ten-kilo-me-ter-tall stone woman was hav-ing a bath, and when she saw the in-trud-er, she screamed, and swat-ted it back out-side. It pin-balled off of sev-er-al dozen-kilo-me-ter-long rock sheep, fi-nal-ly tum-bling into the hy-per-space tran-sit lane just out front.


    Sobon bare-ly man-aged to get his bear-ings in time to see the head-lights of a de-liv-ery truck bear-ing down on them. But not be-cause the truck was mov-ing--in fact, it was completely stopped, parked just out-side the building. The troop ship tum-bled end over end, banged once into the hood, then plant-ed it-self straight on the delivery truck''s wind-shield with a graceless thwack sound.


    The stone golem dri-ver, when he got back into the car from de-liv-er-ing a pack-age, glanced at the ugly smear on the wind-shield and just said, "Eww." He flipped on the wipers, and the trans-port ship was knocked away into open space.


    Three months lat-er, it would re-en-ter the at-mos-phere of Crest, un-no-ticed by the or-bital de-fens-es. It, and its last sur-viv-ing pas-sen-ger, even sur-vived re-en-try.


    At least right up un-til the mo-ment when it fell on a small-er, hu-man de-liv-ery truck.


    Mo-ments lat-er, a de-liv-ery truck woke up in the body of Jom, and looked up at the two nasty Bil-gs who had thought they had just killed the boy. And the de-liv-ery truck squint-ed at them, filled with righteous fury, and said, "I know kung fu."


    Ex-cept he was a truck, so it was re-al-ly just a very long, loud "HOOOONNNNK" noise.


    <hr>


    "...but more cu-ri-ousss-ly," the Bilg butch-er hissed, "I wasss told that you did not pos-ssesss the tal-ent for qi. I hear a great many liesss from a great many peo-ple, young street rat, but I too mussst live in fear of the great pow-ersss of the world." The man''s back hand, by his side, ges-tured, and sud-den-ly, the knife that Sobon had dropped was in it again.


    "Ssso, I mussst know, who your massster isss, young ssstreet rat." The knife re-versed it-self, from a thrust-ing grip to a back-hand-ed one, and he moved the knife be-hind his body, as though to hide it. "I would not wis-ssh to in-ss-sult a great massster by dessstroy-ing hisss work."


    Sobon looked at the man, squint-ing, and said, "Chuck Nor-ris."


    The butch-er blinked twice. "What?"


    "Chuck Nor-ris? The leg-end?"


    "Nev-er heard of him."


    "Okay... what about Ran-did-ly Ghosthound?"


    "Is that ss-sup-pos-ssed to be a name?"


    "Uh..." Sobon cast his thoughts out into the aether, try-ing to find any-thing that sound-ed plau-si-ble. "Would you be-lieve... Maxwell Smart?"


    "I would not be-lieve you were re-lat-ed to any-one named Sss-mart, no.


    "What about the Calami-tous Bob?"


    "I am be-gin-ning to think you ss-sim-ply don''t know how to lie."


    "Blue? Vi-o-let? Zo-ri-an? Quick-save? Look, just pre-tend that one of the names I gave you was in-tim-i-dat-ing."


    "You could have re-al-ly jussst giv-en me any name I didn''t know and been mysssteriousss about it."


    "Shit. Can I start over?"


    <hr>


    "We''ll be ship-ping out soon, he''s wound-ed and a half-star, and I''m al-most out of leg-irons, so would you do us all a fa-vor and throw him in the pit? If he''s go-ing to die, he might as well feed the bar-gles."


    "Sounds good to me!" The cheer-ful guard dragged him along by his arm into the bar-racks. "More''s the pity, boy, but all for the best, you''ll see. Open up the bar-gle pit, got a fresh one for you!"


    "Fresh one," replied a voice, also too cheer-ful, and there was a metal-lic scrap-ing.


    A mo-ment af-ter Sobon was thrown into the pit, he was caught by a strong pair of hands. He looked up, to find a very tall man with a wide and pro-found mous-tache glar-ing dag-gers at him. He wore all white, in-clud-ing a very large, poofy hat atop his head. Even as Sobon took him in, though, the man dropped him and be-gan shak-ing his fist at the hatch in the ceil-ing where Sobon had been thrown in.


    "Sacre bleu! ''ow am I to serve th'' bar-gles when th'' only ''elp you send is ''alf dead street rats?" He picked up a la-dle from the near-by stove and flung it up, but it banged in-ef-fec-tu-al-ly off of the iron grill. "Would it keel you all to send me prop-er help?"


    "Aww, shove it, you Fonch Nin-ny," the guard above sneered. "You work your helpers to death any-way, so who''d ever vol-un-teer?"


    To death? Sobon swal-lowed, but the chef sim-ply huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, turn-ing to glare at Sobon.


    "Al-right, you lit-tle waste of breath. We ''ave over two thou-sand huge, man-eat-ing pigs to feed, and if they get any-thing less than the finest cui-sine, they will turn into a rav-en-ous beast from which there is no es-cape. Your task will be to go to that meat grinder and keep turn-ing it un-til your arms fall off. If you stop, I will per-son-al-ly feed you into it! As I did your pre-de-ces-sor! Now go!" He snapped up a pan and banged it loud-ly with a spoon. "Hur-ry up, hur-ry up! I need one hun-dred pounds of ground meat in the next twen-ty min-utes, or there will be hell to pay!"


    Sobon lept at it, con-fused and con-cerned, all the while feel-ing quite cer-tain that he was al-ready in hell.


    <hr>


    On this morn-ing, af-ter Ki''el set out in her boat to fish, she re-turned to find a squir-rel wan-der-ing around the ru-ined vil-lage, smelling things and paus-ing at each open door-way, as though con-fused why every-thing was emp-ty.


    When it turned and saw her, the two sim-ply stared at each oth-er for a long time. And then, sud-den-ly, the squir-rel turned and be-gan writ-ing in the dirt.


    Ki''el went and ex-am-ined the scratch-es, puz-zling over them un-til they fi-nal-ly seemed to make sense. "I... am... a... space... alien." She turned and looked at the squir-rel.


    It looked back at her.


    So Ki''el just shrugged. "Makes sense to me," she said. "Teach me mag-ic."


    The squir-rel gave her a very small thumbs-up.


    <hr>


    As Ki''el''s feet fi-nal-ly reached the deck, the most heav-i-ly built man took a half-step for-ward, his greasy skin shin-ing in the ear-ly af-ter-noon sun. "What a lit-tle treat has worked its way up onto our deck. In-ter-est-ed in sign-ing up, lit-tle lady?"


    A roll of laugh-ter passed through the crowd, but Ki''el just grinned a fer-al grin, know-ing that none of them knew the tricks that Sobon had taught her, tricks that would let her fi-nal-ly avenge her fam-i-ly.


    "No," she said, her voice growl-ing, fer-al. "I have come to chal-lenge you all to a dance-off."


    There was a long si-lence, bro-ken when Ki''el flung her arms out to her side and slammed one foot in front of her, as Sobon''s aether speak-ers be-gan play-ing a zesty latin melody, and his aether spot-light flashed down onto her from above, to let the en-tire pirate crew know that they were out-classed.


    But then, there was a thump. The whole crew turned to the cap-tain''s quar-ters as the door was flung open, and a man with a big straw hat, strange noodly arms, and a goofy look on his face came out, blink-ing in the sun-light.


    "Did you say a dance-off?" He said, sound-ing un-rea-son-ably ex-cit-ed. "That sounds like fun! Hey guys, break out the in-stru-ments! We get to have a dance-off!"


    The crew scat-tered, fetch-ing brass and wood-en in-stru-ments from near-by bar-rels, and from the crow''s nest, a man de-scend-ed, sur-round-ed by a full kit of drums held to-geth-er with mops and a nest of rope. Ki''el swal-lowed, and some-where, Sobon felt his heart drop. Both of them knew in-stant-ly that they were out-classed.


    "Al-right, guys! One, two, one two three...!"


    <hr>


    It was a few min-utes be-fore a strange face ap-peared in a glow-ing win-dow in front of him. The per-son in the com-mu-ni-ca-tions win-dow had skin that had once been smooth like a dol-phin''s, and fa-cial fea-tures that had orig-i-nal-ly been stream-lined, be-fore tens or hun-dreds of thou-sands of years of se-lec-tive breed-ing had pro-duced a more hu-manoid ver-sion of the same. When the alien opened its mouth, the teeth were uni-form-ly sharp and point-ed, but small, used to eat-ing meat but not prac-ti-cal for a preda-tor.


    "Who are you?" The voice that came through was fil-tered, and Sobon sus-pect-ed that the AI was trans-lat-ing the words to the lan-guage of the Crestan em-pire, or else the lan-guage of the lo-cals, on his be-half. He chose not to spend the men-tal cy-cles fig-ur-ing out which. "How--why are you con-tact-ing me?"


    "I, uh," Sobon blinked at the screen. "Sor-ry, I wasn''t ex-pect-ing you to be a fish."


    "I''m not a fish, you''re a fish!"


    Sobon blinked, then looked down at Alas-si''s body. It def-i-nite-ly was not a fish. "What?"


    "For-get it. Coro-na, just blow that thing up. Can-cel res-ur-rec-tion pro-to-cols."


    "Wait, I was just jok-ing--!"


    But it was too late. Sobon saw the red light of a tar-get-ting laser strike the win-dow, and raised her hand, find-ing the beam was trained straight on her fore-head. Some-where in the dis-tance, she heard a fe-male voice say, "Nu-clear launch de-tect-ed."


    "Nu-clear launch? For a joke? What did I--"


    And a in-con-spic-u-ous chunk of moun-tains west of the Djang em-pire ex-plod-ed, for no rea-son any-one else could de-ter-mine.


    <hr>


    The no-ble and his body-guard called their rid-ing beasts to a stop well into the clear-ing where the inn sat, and he sneered at Sobon, ini-tial-ly dis-re-gard-ing her. "Let the war-rior who slew the in-no-cent mer-chants I hired step forward! On my hon-or, I will see jus-tice done!"


    Sobon''s spir-it re-mained even as she stepped for-ward. "They were no in-no-cent men," she said, ig-nor-ing the many and pan-icked in-stincts from Alas-si to bow down be-fore the man.


    "I don''t care what you have to say! If I say they were in-no-cent, then they were!"


    But Sobon just shook her head. "Not if I say, ''nuh-uh.'' You know that''s how that works."


    There was a si-lence, and then the city lord cleared his throat. "That is, in fact, how it works, Lord Mofu. Once ''nuh-uh'' has been said, it can nev-er be tak-en back."


    "Shit." The no-ble stopped for a minute to think, scratch-ing his chin. "What about pa-per-rock-scis-sors? That still works after ''nuh-uh'' has been declared, right?"


    Sobon swal-lowed. The man was far more wily than she had an-tic-i-pat-ed.


    "Yes," the city lord said. "I believe that pa-per rock scis-sors will set-tle this dis-pute just fine."


    Sobon stepped for-ward, one hand closed on top of her oth-er, open hand, but sweat poured down her neck, soak-ing her blouse. With-out her cy-borg agili-ty, she would nev-er be able to form the ''scis-sors'' hand sign, leav-ing her only with rock and pa-per. There was still a good chance she could win this fight, but what if he threw pa-per?


    What if?


    <hr>


    Soon enough, though, they took a side road off of the Way of Sil-ver into one of the many ex-pen-sive, well-kept dis-tricts that Sobon had not-ed from a dis-tance. Close in, every house that they passed was con-tained in a walled court-yard, with aether in-scrip-tions of some sort pro-vid-ing ad-vanced pro-tec-tion. She tried to keep a frown off her face--at this point, she still wasn''t en-tire-ly cer-tain whether she was be-ing gift-ed prop-er-ty or al-lowed rent, pos-si-bly free rent, but ei-ther way, this area seemed a bit up-scale for that.


    When at last their guide brought them to a stop, Sobon was fi-nal-ly able to re-con-tex-tu-al-ize. In the nar-row al-ley be-tween two hous-es was a set of four rather large card-board box-es. Dish-wash-er box-es, from the look of them. She glanced at the guide, who nod-ded in con-fir-ma-tion.


    "Okay," Sobon said, pulling a broomhan-dle from her pock-et. "Time to kill every-one and take over this city."


    Ki''el, Lui, and Mian just nod-ded their un-der-stand-ing, as the guide stood frozen, a look of ter-ror on his face.


    <hr>


    Sobon found her-self stand-ing in the mid-dle of the court-yard, con-tem-plat-ing, when she de-tect-ed a spir-i-tu-al pres-ence. That might have meant a num-ber of dif-fer-ent things--every-thing from an ac-tu-al lo-cal spir-it of some kind, to a lo-cal mage, to a plan-e-tary spir-i-tu-al god, or pos-si-bly one of the Ri''lef en-gi-neers, pro-ject-ing across the world with an ad-vanced aether mech-a-nism.


    She kept a men-tal eye firm-ly fixed on the spir-it, but couldn''t tell much of any-thing from its form or aether sig-na-ture. It chose to ap-pear hu-manoid, but its pres-ence was bare-ly a shad-ow, hid-ing what-ev-er it was ca-pa-ble of. What-ev-er it was, it passed through Sobon''s de-fens-es like they didn''t ex-ist, and paused to look at Sobon, watch-ing her watch-ing it. Sobon didn''t speak first, though she did pro-ject a gen-er-al, in-quis-i-tive spir-it wave.


    [ Crestan, ] the spir-it sent back. [ Do you know the muf-fin man? ]


    Sobon cocked her head to the side. [ The muf-fin man? ]


    [ The muf-fin man. ]


    [ Yes, I know the muf-fin man. He lives on the Way of Sil-ver. ]


    [ Could you please tell him to de-liv-er me two dozen fresh blue-ber-ry muffins? I''m ac-tu-al-ly a space alien pos-ing as the coun-try''s leader, so I can''t do it my-self. ]


    Sobon blinked. [ You''re a space alien? But I''m a space alien! And I love blue-ber-ry muffins! ]


    [ Oh gosh! We have so much in com-mon. Let''s be best friends! ]


    <hr>


    A quick pe-rusal of the Ri''lef notes on qi brought her to a sec-tion about the ac-tu-al geom-e-try of qi, which was fas-ci-nat-ing. Ap-par-ent-ly, qi was in-her-ent-ly shaped like a ba-nana, curved and with a lit-tle stem on one end of it. Ac-cord-ing to the notes, how-ev-er, it was ac-tu-al-ly more like sev-er-al dif-fer-ent fruits all with-in a ba-nana peel, and with var-i-ous gaps for peo-ple to in-sert spoons, forks, and oth-er tools in or-der to ex-tract the de-li-cious fruit in-side.


    Al-though the doc-u-ment didn''t go into depth on ex-act-ly how to ex-tract the fruits, it did re-late them to Sobon''s un-der-stand-ing of aether spins, us-ing the Ri''lef words for them: what Sobon knew as left and right spins they called Blue-ber-ry and Rasp-ber-ry, while In-ward and Out-ward spins were Or-ange and Ap-ple, On-ward and Re-verse were Pineap-ple and Wa-ter-mel-on. Strange-ly, both Su-pe-ri-or and In-verse were both la-belled ''Straw-ber-ry'', ex-cept Su-pe-ri-or was ''Fresh straw-ber-ry'' and In-verse was ''ar-ti-fi-cial straw-ber-ry fla-vor''.


    Sobon ab-sorbed all of the in-for-ma-tion greed-i-ly, al-ready en-vi-sion-ing the day when she could proud-ly smack peo-ple in the face with her gi-ant qi ba-nana. With her ad-vanced cul-ti-va-tion, she had no doubt it would be the best qi ba-nana in the en-tire world.


    She set-tled her-self down and be-gan to cul-ti-vate, her mouth wa-ter-ing at the thought.


    <hr>


    Sobon cut off her en-gine be-fore she was close enough to re-al-ly see any-thing aboard the ship close-ly. For her, all that mat-tered was res-cu-ing Ki''el. She flared her telekine-sis scripts to cre-ate a gi-ant air-brake, but by the time she was close enough to stop, peo-ple board both ships were clear-ly on edge and pre-pared to strike at her. She looked down, suit-ably in-tim-i-dat-ing, and am-pli-fied her voice with an aether wave. "You will give the girl to me."


    The fig-ure be-low cupped both hands to its mouth and shout-ed. "Nuh-uh."


    Sobon sud-den-ly be-gan to sweat. Once ''nuh-uh'' has been said, it can''t be tak-en back. But she shook her-self. She''d pre-pared for this. "I de-mand a dance-off."


    The woman be-low dropped her hands, and Sobon thought she heard her say, "Shit." They be-gan to mill around on deck, but then the oth-er ship, the one with the black sails, came clos-er, and Sobon turned to look at it.


    Only, Sobon re-al-ized sud-den-ly, the ship wasn''t just a ship. On the front of its hull were two large, white lights, and with a sud-den lurch, the ship leaped into the air, hov-er-ing on an in-cred-i-ble surge of qi, one that seemed to come from the depths of the world.


    Sobon stared at the ship as it spend great amounts of qi to lev-el its gi-ant spot-lights on her, and heard a rum-bling voice.


    Al-though the ship it-self could only speak with a great, blar-ing "HOOOOONK," Sobon caught its in-tent. [ YOU! ] it screamed at him. [You''re the one who killed me! The me-te-or from the skies! You trapped me in this shit-ty world!]


    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.


    "What?" Sobon blinked. "I didn''t--"


    "HOOOOOOONK!" [Now it''s time for my re-venge!] And with that, the de-liv-ery truck rein-car-nat-ed into a pi-rate ship ac-cel-er-at-ed sud-den-ly, smash-ing into Sobon and con-tin-u-ing up into the sky.


    Mada Rui, stand-ing on the deck of her ship, shrugged. "Okay, well, so much for sell-ing the girl." She turned to her first mate. "See if she''s any good at cook-ing. That guy we got from the Bilg has been de-mand-ing more help."


    <hr>


    The base com-man-der was a Djang woman who, if Sobon didn''t know bet-ter, would have passed for un-der-age, with shock-ing blue hair that per-fect-ly matched her vivid blue qi. Her fea-tures them-selves were soft and beau-ti-ful, the very pic-ture of health and youth; if her face had split into a wide smile and--


    "OMG!" The blue-haired woman sud-den-ly bounced for-wards, grab-bing both of Sobon''s hands. "I didn''t know that there were, like, space aliens around! This is, like, SOOOO cool!"


    "What!" Sobon pulled away in shock. "How did YOU know I was a space alien?"


    Rai Su Anin just gig-gled mad-ly. "I didn''t! You just told me! Aau-ugh, Oh-Emm-GEEEE I can''t be-lieve that worked!"


    "Wow," said the pa-trol-man who had brought Sobon in. "I''ve heard you say that, like, two hun-dred times. I thought it was all just a joke." He turned and shout-ed down the hall-way. "Hey guys! The base com-man-der ac-tu-al-ly caught some-one with her ''space alien'' trap!"


    Sobon just buried her face in her hands, curs-ing qui-et-ly to her-self. She should have known bet-ter. She should have.


    <hr>


    Sobon found her-self pleased, to walk into Lai Shi Po''s shop and find it well-stocked. Her eyes roved around the room, tak-ing in a num-ber of dif-fer-ent items, and she filed away var-i-ous rune com-bi-na-tions as she looked around.


    Sud-den-ly, an alarm blared. "ALERT - ALERT - COPY-RIGHT IN-FRINGE-MENT DE-TECT-ED"


    Two dozen armed guards poured out, half from from the back room, and half from the out-er door, al-though they had not been there when Sobon had walked in. In each one''s hand was an as-sault ri-fle, and Sobon swal-lowed, putting her hands up.


    "Ah-ah-ah," Lai Shi Po said. "You can''t just read my de-signs with-out buy-ing any-thing. They''re pro-pri-etary." The woman be-hind the counter sud-den-ly leaped onto the shoul-ders of one of the guards, and then leaped again, catch-ing her-self against the wall and the roof and brac-ing her-self there, in one of the cor-ners, look-ing down. From there, her face fell into shad-ow, though Sobon could still see her eyes, and her teeth.


    Those wide, ter-ri-ble eyes haunt-ed Sobon, even as she re-al-ized that all of the guards had trained their guns not on her, but on Lai Shi Po. She turned and grabbed Ki''el, div-ing for the floor, as be-hind her, the thun-der-ous sound of two dozen as-sault ri-fles go-ing off at once briefly over-pow-ered even the shriek-ing theft alarm.


    Sobon didn''t un-cov-er Ki''el''s head un-til the shoot-ing stopped, but when she turned around, all she saw was a blood-soaked Lai Shi Po, back-lit and sur-round-ed by corpses. And all that Sobon could see of her, aside from her sil-hou-ette, was those eyes.


    Those eyes.


    Lai Shi Po ad-vanced slow-ly, her mouth open to re-veal rows of shin-ing teeth, and the last sound Sobon ever heard was was one word.


    "PRO-PRI-ETARY!"


    <hr>


    Now, in the mid-dle of the night, the spir-it that had come to speak with her be-fore was there, Sobon knew, in the court-yard. Sobon went out to meet it, half sur-prised that it main-tained its se-date be-hav-ior. [ (Spir-i-tu-al vis-i-tor), ] Sobon pulsed the greet-ing along with notes of cau-tion and in-quiry.


    [ Crestan. ] The en-ti-ty''s spir-i-tu-al voice was clear, and Sobon not-ed, its in-quiry was care-ful-ly di-rect-ed such that the oth-ers sleep-ing near-by wouldn''t hear it. [ Dude, we haven''t hung out in like, nine chap-ters. Are we not cool? ]


    [ No, no, we''re cool. I just... was busy. ]


    [ You haven''t been re-spond-ing to my texts, though. ]


    [ I just, uh... ] In truth, Sobon had ig-nored the meme-heavy mes-sages. Worse, al-most all of them them were full of emo-jis. Like... a lot of emo-jis. Waaay too many of them. [ They... weren''t get-ing de-liv-ered. ]


    [ Dude, you know I have read re-ceipts! Come on, what''s the mat-ter? I thought we were cool! Or do you not want me as your girl-friend any-more? ]


    Sobon blinked. [ Wait, you''re a girl? ]


    [ Yes! ] The spir-i-tu-al form re-vealed it-self to be that of the Founder, which was... still grey-skinned and sex-less, as far as Sobon could tell. [ What, you''re telling me you don''t think I''m pret-ty? ]


    Sobon found her-self sweat-ing. [ No, I mean, you''re very pret-ty, it''s just... ]


    [ It''s just what? ] There was a pause. [ Is there... is there some-one else in your life? Some-one you love more than me? ]


    Sobon im-me-di-ate-ly thought of the most pow-er-ful per-son she''d met thus far. [ Uh... yes. Her name is Rai Su Anin and she''s, like, so cool-- ]


    Sobon could feel the in-stant the nu-clear blast went off, as the port city where she''d met Rai Su Anin van-ished into flames in-stant-ly. And the spir-i-tu-al form of the Founder be-fore her had bare-ly even twitched.


    Then it took one step for-ward, and then an-oth-er. And Sobon could sud-den-ly see the form''s eyes, and they were star-ing straight into her soul.


    [ So, ] the founder said. [ I''m your girl-friend, and we''re cool. Right? ]


    Sobon nod-ded, word-less-ly.


    [ And you''re go-ing to re-spond to AAAAL-LLL of my texts from now on, right? ]


    [ Right, ] Sobon re-spond-ed, her men-tal voice very small.


    The spir-i-tu-al pres-sure re-ced-ed. [ OK! Cool. You should come over in an-oth-er, what, twen-ty chap-ters or some-thing. We''ll have a sleep-over! It''ll be so fun! ]


    God, if there is a god out there Sobon prayed, word-less-ly. If it looks like that might ac-tu-al-ly happen, just... like... kill me. I don''t care how. Tear me limb from limb. Just don''t let that woman have me.


    Sobon''s prayer was heard... but even the gods'' best ef-forts could not save her.


    <hr>


    Sud-den-ly, Mian un-der-stood in his spir-it what he had rec-og-nized in his mind once or twice, that Sobon was not ad-vanc-ing her qi to some great height. No, Sobon Alas-si was re-cov-er-ing. If she only ful-ly healed, she would be a war-rior per-haps as great as the Di-a-mond Lord, per-haps even greater. She had been dis-mis-sive of slavers and cal-lous to-wards the city lord, had ca-su-al-ly of-fend-ed a no-ble Young Mas-ter and his body-guards be-cause like those Star Mas-ters she spoke of, she had held the stars them-selves in her hands, and con-sid-ered them only warm.


    And some-where in-side of Mian, a small part of his spir-it that had been en-tire-ly dead be-gan to move.


    "Oh god!" he sud-den-ly shout-ed, jump-ing to his feet. "I''m re-al-ly, re-al-ly into pow-er-ful women step-ping on me!"


    There were sev-er-al sounds of dis-gust around him, and he dim-ly heard Sobon say, "TMI," but he didn''t care. He had dis-cov-ered his place in the world, and it was be-neath a re-al-ly, re-al-ly hot woman''s feet.


    "Hey, do any of you know any hot, rich, des-per-ate women? Tell them I''ll do any-thing they want! Any-thing!"


    <hr>


    For the Ri''lef, the con-cept was sim-ple--once you had at-tuned a sig-nif-i-cant part of your body, your core would un-con-scious-ly emit a sig-nal, which the lo-cal spir-i-tu-al gods would pick up on, and one would mon-i-tor you. If one sig-naled such a god, they would be smit-ed, and forced to de-fend against a sig-nif-i-cant aether at-tack. But the point wasn''t sur-viv-ing the at-tack. Buried with-in the dense aether would be a key re-quired to un-lock the next tier of ad-vance-ment.


    It''s cute, Sobon thought. Ad-vanc-ing by fac-ing a tribu-la-tion. So Sobon walked out of the city, punched the near-est spir-i-tu-al god in the throat, and was struck by light-ning. Only... the key she re-ceived wasn''t the one that un-locked her qi core, but rather, an old-fash-ioned iron key.


    She frowned at it, im-me-di-ate-ly rec-og-niz-ing the iron key for what it was. She took it, and went im-me-di-ate-ly to a lit-tle-no-ticed door on the side of a bridge along the Way of Gold, glanc-ing around to make sure no one was watch-ing, be-fore turn-ing the key in the lock, and step-ping in-side.


    She took a long se-ries of met-al stairs down, emerg-ing in a sub-way tun-nel, where a ma-tron-ly old woman was wait-ing in a near-by door frame. "I''d heard of this place," Sobon said. "Nev-er thought I''d find my-self here."


    "Some things are best kept un-der-ground," the old woman said back.


    "An aban-doned sta-tion for aban-doned agents."


    "It''s been a long time, dou-ble-oh Sobon." The head of the Crestan In-tel-li-gence Agency glared at him. "But we''re re-ac-ti-vat-ing you. We need you to take down the leader of the Djang Em-pire."


    Sobon just nod-ded. "Do you have any gad-gets for me?"


    "A stealth car. A ring that will break glass floors. A laser built into a watch. A VR head-set for train-ing."


    "Man, those are ter-ri-ble." Sobon shook her head. "You know, if you want to keep your as-sas-sins, you re-al-ly ought to give them bet-ter tools."


    The woman just scoffed. "If you think those are bad, you should see what the guy we re-placed you with has to work with. Some-times we don''t even give him the things we have. Q makes a game of it. We just watch him on the satel-lite and say, ''Oh yeah, we have a thing for that.'' But he doesn''t."


    Sobon shook his head. "Fine. Where is this... stealth car?"


    Sud-den-ly, there is the noise of an en-gine revving up. And be-fore Sobon can do any-thing, an in-vis-i-ble de-liv-ery truck smash-es into her, and con-tin-ues straight into a wall.


    "HOOOOOONK!" [ Ha! I got my body back be-fore you did, suck-er! ]


    "Please don''t do that, Dou-ble-oh Truck-kun."


    "HOOONK." [Sor-ry, ma''am.]


    <hr>


    Weird-ly enough, Sobon''s quest for ma-te-ri-als had her cross-ing paths with Kibar, and not in any of the usu-al places. He was sim-ply walk-ing by, when he spot-ted Sobon look-ing rather cross as she left a shop.


    "Lady Alas-si." His words were for-mal, if a bit sullen. "You look per-turbed."


    Sobon might have snapped at him, but so far, the man had been harm-less. "I am search-ing for ma-te-ri-als," she said. "Un-suc-cess-ful-ly."


    "Tru-ly?" Kibar glanced at the shop, seem-ing-ly con-fused. It wasn''t ex-act-ly a world-class shop; Sobon had gone to the shops in the Ways of Gold and Sil-ver first, and end-ed up in more of a back-al-ley shop-ing dis-trict by the end. "If I may ask, what is it that you are so des-per-ate to find?"


    "Plu-to-ni-um."


    "Ah, fas-ci-nat-ing." Kibar tilt-ed his head to one side. "As it just so hap-pens, I have about six kilo-grams of plu-to-ni-um lodged up my ass right this very mo-ment."


    "Re-al-ly? That''s con-ve-nient."


    "Not for me, I as-sure you."


    "Can I bor-row it? Like... all of it?"


    "Ab-solute-ly."


    Two hours lat-er, for rea-sons the lo-cals would never dis-cov-er, the Di-a-mond Lord''s palace van-ished into an enor-mous fire-ball.


    <hr>


    If Mofu Gin hadn''t locked on to that sense of the oth-er qi user, he might have been in-sult-ed when Shi-da Ken took him to-wards one of the less-er quar-ters of the city. It in-censed him, to think that the one who had harmed his son had tru-ly been of less-er sta-tion, but when they turned the last quar-ter and found four peo-ple curled up in-side card-board box-es, there could be no more deny-ing it.


    "This is ridicu-lous," he said, charg-ing his [Gold-en Sun Shot]. "They aren''t even peo-ple. They''re un-housed!


    He threw the small ball of nu-clear fu-sion for-ward, but sud-den-ly Sobon leaped from one of the card-board box-es with a base-ball bat, and smashed the ball straight back at him. Gin, tak-en en-tire-ly by sur-prise, raised his hands and opened his mouth to shout, but the ball of fire went straight into his mouth and down his throat.


    He only had a mo-ment to look sur-prised be-fore the ex-plod-ed from with-in.


    Sobon just raised his bat and yelled. "Home RU-UUUN!"


    <hr>


    "Of course not," the man said, straight-en-ing like he''d just been paid a com-pli-ment. "Any of my de-signs would out-class some-thing a woman could do. I''d stake my name on it."


    A cold set-tled over those peo-ple near-by who, un-like this man, had ac-tu-al-ly been pay-ing at-ten-tion. Sobon could feel eyes flick-ing be-tween her and Lord Pan, won-der-ing just how she was go-ing to re-solve this.


    "You stand be-hind your weapon de-signs, then? You''d con-sent to, say, a friend-ly duel, each of us with a weapon of our own de-sign?" Sobon had no heat in her voice, though she heard in it a very dry amuse-ment.


    "Of... of course!" The man nod-ded, try-ing to keep a sales-man''s look on his face, still ob-vi-ous-ly un-aware who he was speak-ing to.


    "You with your best sword, and me with, say, the weapon that I de-signed just this morn-ing." She paused, then just as the man would have replied, added, "The one that killed Lord Mofu Gin, at the peak of Mithril Qi, in a sin-gle blow."


    The man thought for a minute, then nod-ded, smil-ing bright-ly. "Yup!"


    So Sobon pulled out the can-non, and as every-one else around be-gan to flee, the man pulled a knife out of his pock-et, hold-ing in di-re-clty in front of him. Sobon frowned, but true to her word, aimed straight for the knife and fired.


    When the dust cleared, Lord Pan stood un-touched, two long trench-es dug, one to ei-ther side of him. The knife glowed red-hot, but was oth-er-wise un-scathed.


    "Well, I''ll be damned," Sobon said, low-er-ing the can-non. "That''s a pret-ty good knife."


    "Oh, it''s not a knife," the man said, and turned it to face Sobon, so that she could see the switch on top of it. And when he flicked the switch, it sud-den-ly changed forms, from a knife, to a fork, to a spoon, and then to a leather whip. "It''s just my best omni-tool ever. I like to call it the ''I''m se-cret-ly the main char-ac-ter and no-body even no-ticed!''"


    Sobon blinked, and then re-al-ized it was true: she wasn''t the main char-ac-ter. How could she be, when she was fe-male?


    And I, the se-cret self-in-sert sex-ist misog-y-nist prick of an en-chanter, then went on to save the world and get all the chicks with my awe-some mas-culin-i-ty, be-cause that''s what men do: they win and get all the chicks.


    End of sto-ry.


    <hr>


    Lui scram-bled to her feet and checked on the urchin, but the girl was look-ing out from be-hind shag-gy bangs, an in-tense look on her face, her teeth bared in a snarl. She... Lui paused. Al-though Lui wasn''t ex-act-ly great at de-tect-ing wounds, or most oth-er things, what she felt from the street urchin was more than sim-ply an un-harmed girl. She had care-ful-ly masked depths of qi, such that Lui couldn''t be-gin to guess what her strength was.


    Still, she smiled at the girl. "Come on," she said, and Popo glanced at her, still scowl-ing, but turned and, some-what rude-ly, scam-pered into the al-chemist''s shop.


    Lui glanced at Lady Fau and Kan Fen, but they re-mained stand-ing and fac-ing one an-oth-er, so she fol-lowed the oth-er girl. She stopped, though, as soon as she walked in the door--be-cause the girl had dived onto the counter, her head dis-ap-pear-ing down be-hind it, her torn and loose short pants fac-ing the door and af-ford-ing the poor girl no dig-ni-ty at all. Lui let out a shocked gasp, but rushed for-ward, grab-bing the girl''s legs. "What are you do-ing?"


    For her ef-forts, Lui was kicked in the face. When she re-cov-ered from the blow, she saw the woman was hang-ing from one of the planters near the ceil-ing, brac-ing her-self against the wall. From the woman''s mouth, she heard a strange hiss.


    "What--what are you--"


    But then the woman''s head sud-den-ly snapped around, to a pot-ted plant that Lui had been work-ing on her-self. And the woman leapt over to the pot, study-ing the in-scrip-tions around the edge. Lui... Lui had re-paired the in-scrip-tion, at Fau Mide''s di-rec-tion, and she won-dered just what the woman was look-ing at.


    The hiss just got loud-er, though. And then, Lui heard a word that made her blood run cold. "Copy."


    "W-what?"


    "Mod-i-fi-ca-tion." The woman''s head snapped one hun-dred and eighty de-grees around, its eyes wild with ha-tred. "PRO-PRI-ETARY! MOD-I-FI-CA-TION! PRO-PRI-ETAR-RRRYYYYY!"


    Lui screamed, and the grem-lin leaped at her, but noth-ing struck her. When she opened her eyes, she found Fau Mide shield-ing her with a sin-gle piece of pa-per.


    "Li-cense," Fau Mide said, open-ly glar-ing. "And terms of use."


    The grem-lin hissed back. "No. NO! Pro-pri-etary!"


    Fau Mide stomped hard on the floor. "Right to re-pair!"


    The Lai Shi Po hissed back at those words, as tan-gi-ble burns ap-peared on her skin. "Don''t say that! NEV-ER say that!"


    The al-chemist just grinned, wag-gling the pa-per back and forth. "Right to repaaaai-iii-iiir."


    "Noooooooo....!" With one last shriek, Lai Shi Po with-ered into a gaunt skele-ton, then crum-bled into dust.


    <hr>


    Sobon shrugged. "I heard from Lord Shi-da that you only ac-cept a small frac-tion of the ring blanks giv-en to you, but it''s hard-ly a sur-prise. The var-i-ous ma-te-ri-als and the way they in-ter-act with qi are fussy, af-ter all."


    "Fussy," Lai Shi Po said, as she rolled the ring be-tween her fin-gers, peer-ing close-ly at the in-scrip-tions. "Yes, you can call ab-solute mad-ness fussy. But I sup-pose you know all of these things? All the whys and hows of the ridicu-lous re-stric-tions that I have had to learn by tri-al and er-ror?"


    "No, I don''t know them," Sobon said, and wait-ed a beat, know-ing she ex-ud-ed a sense of smug-ness. "I had them all writ-ten down, but un-for-tu-nate-ly ne-glect-ed to bring them with me."


    Lai Shi Po squint-ed at her, as if try-ing to fig-ure out just how se-ri-ous Sobon was.


    "Oh, also, I talk like every day with a star-ship. I mean, the AI that con-trols it. I bet it could prob-a-bly give me the plans for its sub-space dri-ve, and maybe it''s hy-per-drive as well."


    "You''re fuck-ing with me."


    "Also I''m to-tal-ly just sit-ting on full knowl-edge of how qi works, and the math-e-mat-ics of space time, time trav-el, fate ma-nip-u-la-tion--"


    "You can stop mak-ing fun of me now."


    "--oh, how much do you guys know about bi-ol-o-gy and ge-net-ics? A lot less than me, I bet! And sure a lot less than the ship''s AI, since they cre-at-ed all the star-beasts!"


    "That''s just not even plau-si-ble."


    "Oh man, do you know...? I know how to cre-ate por-tals, so I could to-tal-ly just turn this plan-et to ash by cre-at-ing a por-tal straight into the cen-ter of the sun. In fact, let me show you!"


    And then the en-tire plan-et ex-plod-ed, and Sobon felt at peace for the first time in a very, very long time.


    <hr>


    Lai Shi Po shift-ed her over-size sword and thrust, cre-at-ing an im-pos-si-bly dense stab of pres-sur-ized wind qi that hes-i-tat-ed a mo-ment be-fore leap-ing for-ward. Again, cir-cles ap-peared and van-ished, and the en-e-my at-tack nev-er got close, and again, the oth-er woman''s spir-it shift-ed, more qi leak-ing out.


    "Since you''re tak-ing your time," Sobon said, "let me show you what kind of at-tacks my de-fens-es were meant to han-dle."


    She snapped her fin-gers, and a man sud-den-ly ap-peared from nowhere, his fin-gers on his fore-head. He was wear-ing a strange or-ange fight-ing out-fit and had a blue belt tied around his waist.


    "Oh, hey Sobon, what''s up?" The man waved cheer-i-ly.


    "Hey, G-man. Give me a full pow-er blast, would you?"


    "Oh, man. Full pow-er, are you sure?" The man, at least, had the de-cen-cy to ac-tu-al-ly ap-pear con-cerned for Sobon''s safe-ty.


    "Yup. Show-ing off for my friend here. Don''t wor-ry, I''ll use my ''se-ri-ous'' shields."


    "Oh, okay." With that, the man sort of crouched in midair, go-ing strange-ly qui-et.


    Sev-er-al sec-onds passed, and Sobon stage whis-pered to Lai Shi Po. "Don''t wor-ry, he''s hav-ing a flash-back. He''ll start here in a sec-ond."


    And then the man start-ed clench-ing every mus-cle in his body and shout-ing. And sud-den-ly, his black hair turned yel-low, and be-gan to grow longer, and longer, and longer still. And he kept shout-ing, loud-er and loud-er, and loud-er.


    Sec-onds turned into min-utes, and sud-den-ly, it was an hour lat-er, and Ki''el, Mian, and Lai Shi Po were all bored out of their minds, but still the man con-tin-ued to shout, his gold-en hair con-tin-u-ing to grow. It was now ex-pand-ing out into a floof ball dozens of me-ters across and five times as long.


    Sobon just yawned, though. "Yeah, sor-ry," she shout-ed over the noise to Lai Shi Po. "I should have warned you this part takes a while."


    Sud-den-ly, the man stopped yelling and moved his hands close to one an-oth-er. "Kaaaaaaaaa...."


    "Oh good. See? We''re al-most done."


    "...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam-mmm-mmm-mmmeeeeee..."


    "He''ll fin-ish his at-tack in... about an-oth-er five min-utes or so. So get ready!" Sobon gave Lai Shi Po a thumbs up.


    <hr>


    Sobon was... not im-me-di-ate-ly im-pressed, to find that the Ap-prais-er was an obese man with spec-ta-cles and qi firm-ly stuck at two Gold stars. Not like Man Gai, who was only mild-ly chub-by; this man looked like he didn''t com-mon-ly like to stand or move around, and lounged in an ex-ces-sive-ly or-nate chair with only a sin-gle wood-en table to his side, where a plate of food, a bowl, and a large carafe of wine all laid out be-side him. His fin-gers were fes-tooned with rings, and his hair hair hung long and straight be-hind him.


    And yet, once the crowns crossed with-in per-haps ten paces of him, the man leaped to his feet nim-bly and rushed for-ward in a grace-ful bound. The ser-vant, though Sobon saw her jolt, pa-tient-ly stopped and held the tray for his in-spec-tion.


    "Oooo-hhh..." the man bub-bled. "Do I smell... MON-EY?" He tip-toed over to the box, and be-gan do-ing strange dances around the box and the woman hold-ing it. "I do! I do! Mon-ey mon-ey mon-ey mon-ey mon-ey..."


    "Uh..." Sobon looked at him, con-fused.


    "Mon-ey, mon-ey, mon-ey! Ooh! I want to lick it. Can I lick it?"


    "Please don''t." The man turned and gave Sobon pup-py dog eyes, but she weath-ered the at-tack suc-cess-ful-ly. "No."


    "Oh, al-right." How-ev-er, the obese man still put his nose right up to the box, and sniffed very loud-ly. It was ac-tu-al-ly quite im-pres-sive--the man sim-ply kept breath-ing in through his nose, for up-wards of a minute, all the while pro-duc-ing enough suc-tion to be au-di-ble from quite a ways away.


    When he let his breath out, all at once, the ser-vant was blown clean out of the room, the blow also knock-ing the box-es into the air. Sobon leaped at them, catch-ing them in midair, and just stared at the fat man in rich cloth-ing, as he stood there with his eyes closed, think-ing about what he''d smelled.


    "That''s enough," he said, wav-ing dis-mis-sive-ly. "I''ve got-ten all I need to know. I''ll write up a de-scrip-tion for you."


    "But I... haven''t said any-thing." Sobon stared at the man, who sim-ply re-turned to his chair and start-ed writ-ing.


    When the ser-vant re-turned, the sil-ver tray bent in half from what-ev-er she''d hit along the way, Sobon just looked at her, pa-tient-ly hold-ing the tray out in front of her, and then placed the box-es on the tray care-ful-ly, turned, and walked out of the room as fast as she could.


    The less she in-ter-act-ed with that man, the bet-ter.


    <hr>


    "Hon-ored cus-tomers!" The man who en-tered the stage was thin and an-gu-lar, ex-tra-or-di-nar-i-ly well dressed, and ex-ud-ed a sense of joy that was in-fec-tious. "We have a love-ly col-lec-tion of only the finest ar-ti-facts in store for you to-day, in-clud-ing a new col-lec-tion from our fa-vorite pa-tron, the Hon-ored Lai Shi Po, as well as a mys-te-ri-ous sub-mis-sion by a per-son she has per-son-al-ly vouched for. But our first items up for bid are, of course as al-ways, slaves! Lots of slaves! We''ve done our ab-solute best to make their lives as mis-er-able as pos-si-ble, de-meaned them and bro-ken their spir-its! Every-body, let''s give it up for ssssslav-ery!"


    Ki''el felt her-self freeze as every-one in the en-tire au-di-ence hall be-gan to ap-plaud, in-clud-ing Lui, Sobon, and Lai Shi Po. She looked around, feel-ing small, and shrunk back against the wall.


    "And up first are a whole bunch of peo-ple from the is-land na-tion of Il-lan! These peo-ple were all in-no-cent vil-lagers un-til a cou-ple years ago! Now they''ve been bru-tal-ly beat-en and are no longer even aware they used to be hu-man. Let''s all give an-oth-er warm round of ap-plause for slav-ery!"


    Every-one ap-plaud-ed again, and Ki''el could hear peo-ple whistling and cheer-ing from some-where be-low the booth. Lai Shi Po, for her part, sim-ply shout-ed, "Yay cap-i-tal-ism!"


    "Re-mem-ber once again, since we''re sell-ing for-eign-ers, you have to say what you''ll be us-ing them for and it''s the low-est, most de-mean-ing bid that wins. We''re short on time, so let''s start with the butch-ers down in the front row. What''s your bid?"


    Ki''el clasped her hands to her ears, col-lapsed against the wall, and start-ed to cry.


    <hr>


    "But you have to un-der-stand how fate works. The Crown can only ever see its own fate, and that fate is least clear when the per-son see-ing it can change that fate. While wear-ing it, you can only see parts of the Crown''s fu-ture that you can-not, or will not, change. The more in-ter-est you have in ma-nip-u-lat-ing fate, the less clear it will be."


    "I don''t un-der-stand," Lai Shi Po said, sound-ing frus-trat-ed. "Does time trav-el work or not?"


    "What? No, of course time trav-el works. It just doesn''t work in our time stream, be-cause I al-ready went back in time to stop us from hav-ing this con-ver-sa-tion."


    Lai Shi Po had an an-swer for that, in a dif-fer-ent time stream, but in this one, her head sim-ply turned into a crab and walked away, leav-ing her body be-hind, be-cause writ-ers just get to freak-ing de-cide how time works, and if the writer says time trav-el turns peo-ple''s heads into crabs, then it does.


    "What? No, that''s not how time trav-el works, at all." Sobon turned to face the nar-ra-tor, con-fused, only to have her head turn into a crab too, on ac-count of her be-ing a smar-tass.


    <hr>


    Lui just looked away, and Sobon knew she was un-sat-is-fied. She let the girl think for a mo-ment, un-til at last Lui spoke up again. "Tell me about your home," she said. "You nev-er talk about it."


    "Home," Sobon sighed. "Well, I might as well start at the be-gin-ning. At age six, I was born with-out a face."


    Lui felt a se-vere headache come on in-stant-ly, and she looked at Sobon, baf-fled.


    "My fa-ther told me that I would be ac-cept-ed as I am, as a true man. Lit-tle did he know that that wouldn''t be the case, ac-tu-al-ly. He didn''t lie, he just didn''t know."


    Lui stared at Sobon. He turned and looked back at her.


    "Okay," she said. "Let''s not talk about your home. What about your job? You were a pro-fes-sion-al sol-dier, right?"


    "Yes," Sobon said, look-ing away. "I was called off to war to join the di-nosaur laser fight."


    "The... di-nosaur laser fight?"


    "In space. With sharks." He paused. "Did I mention that our army was made up of fairies and robots? I was a robot. Well, half robot, on my dad''s side."


    Lui, who did not know what any of those things were just buried her face in her hands, ac-cept-ing that she would nev-er un-der-stand this weird space thing that had tak-en over her grand-moth-er''s body.

 [TAS] Simile: The Moonstone Island Sect

    Xoi Doua Ki''el stepped off of the transport, resisting the urge to turn and look back. In one way, she was doing this to echo the actions of her master, Sobon, who had just days ago left before dawn to face her destiny, fighting an army raised by a lesser Djang noble house. Sobon had offended them, and not trivially, by denouncing a slave trade that was being conducted by their house, and when a young master of their family challenged her, she crippled him, despite being much lower in cultivation. When an elder of the house returned to get revenge, Sobon slew him, again being much lower in cultivation. And then, apparently, they had raised their entire family, Ki''el knew not how many, to try to crush Sobon once and for all.


    Ki''el had not heard directly from him since then, but she had received one message. It was a simple mental message, relayed to her from afar by a strange mental voice that she trusted, a voice that she knew she could not explain to most people. A voice that belonged to some great power, one which might... just might, be heralding the destruction of this world.


    More than that, Ki''el did not understand, or not clearly. Sobon had spoken on it, and Ki''el would think on it, but there was no one else who could explain it, not unless she wished to talk to the voice and ask it questions, and Ki''el felt that would be testing her luck quite a bit.


    Sobon had done and said many great and meaningful things in the short time that Ki''el knew her, and Ki''el had at first grasped on to his words as the only light that she had. Now, behind her, two other forms stepped out of the simple transport, people who were, on paper, her adopted-sister or sister-in-law, and her adopted-brother. Xoi Xam was a warrior with several interesting stories, and she seemed clever, but Ki''el did not know her well, not yet. And Xoi Datta Mian had apparently also been taken in by Sobon, who seemed to trust him, and now he carried a part of Sobon''s fortunes and a mission to help build a house in support of her.


    It was... complicated, she knew, and she didn''t relish the idea of having to explain it to anyone.


    If there was anyone who would ask for more details, it was the calm man standing at the gate, though it likely wouldn''t be Ki''el that he asked. Ki''el could tell that his qi was very high, although she was polite and did not try to listen to or look at the man''s qi core, which would tell her the man''s name and his qi rank. She herself had a very low qi ranking; it was still only two Gold Stars, which was the end of the lowest phase of qi--but still within that lowest phase, known as the Common Metals. This man... without question, if he chose violence, no one they had brought would be able to face him. Even without assessing his qi core, Ki''el knew that.


    But no one here was doing anything at all to provoke him, either.


    "Lai Shi Po." The man bowed in recognition as yet another person exited the transport behind Ki''el. Lai Shi Po, a genius creator of scripted items, was also a friend of Sobon, and it was because of her that Ki''el, Mian, and Xam were here now. "I sensed your qi pulses. Given the edge to them, I was worrying that there was some trouble, but you seem well."


    "Mai Han Du." Lai Shi Po, who was usually a very irreverent person, took two steps forward and then bowed deeply, her voice far more formal than usual. "I am very pleased to see you are well."


    Mai Han Du--Ki''el would, at least internally, mostly think of him by his given name, Du--let out a wave of aether, or rather qi, that Ki''el thought indicated humor. The difference between qi and aether... no, she should simply not think of aether at all, and certainly not speak to it, not to anyone here. It was a word that her master used to speak of something much simpler than qi, something more profound, and Sobon had taught her some little pieces of what she knew. Those pieces had made Ki''el stronger, but it was still unclear to her what how she should approach either qi or aether. In theory, Sobon had left her some notes on that, but... they remained sealed, for now. In a way.


    When Du spoke, his voice contained some humor. "After your marriage into the Lai family, Po, I began to wonder if anyone was going to find a way to tame you. Please don''t tell me you cheated on your husband and need to hide out here? We''d help of course, but...?"


    Po straightened and made a fake retching noise. "Don''t even start, Du. Sex is as unappealing to me now as it was then. No, I am here to recommend these three to the sect. They even have a sponsor to pay their entrance fees."


    Mai Han Du glanced across the three, his eyes starting with Ki''el, who met them, although she could feel the weight of qi behind his eyes, like the weight of an entire mountain threatening at any moment to drop down on her. But his gaze remained gentle, without any sign of worry or discomfort, and after a moment, his gaze moved on to Mian, and then Xam. "Two of them seem good, but this man..."


    "I know," Mian said, standing proudly. "But I have been holding myself back for too long. Now that I am married to my lovely wife Xam," he smiled and reached out for her hand, but Xoi Xam, who was trying to stand tall and proud, batted his hand away, looking concerned. "...I must do everything in my power to catch up, and I *will*." He just looked at the man, and nodded his head with conviction. "As long as I am given the time, I promise that I will."


    Mai Han Du''s eyes flicked across them again, and then his head moved slightly, a movement that she assumed meant he agreed. She also sensed just the slightest flicker of the man''s qi, one which seemed to send away a very subtle message wave. "While I could take your money, it would be improper. I have sent for Elder Gol, who is normally in charge of these things."


    After that, Du and Po began to speak quickly about people and events that were of little consequence to Ki''el, and so she looked around. In truth, she was not sure what she should have expected from this place; she had been told that the Moonstone Island sect was a series of floating stone islands in the sky, and she had seen some of that as the transport approached, but in truth, she was not able to see much out of the cramped box''s small windows.


    Here, she stood on a very wide boulder whose center had been flattened, although it tapered off and then rounded around the edges. In several directions, she could see clouds below them, and far below the clouds, she could see vast quantities of land, land that she supposed must stretch off in every direction somewhere beneath her. But while she could see much of the clouds and distant lands below, she could also see several more large floating islands above and below in several directions.


    But they were far from simple boulders like this one. Most of them were forested; without trying, she could spot two that had rivers pouring endlessly off the edge of the island, making her itch to explore and find the source. But while most had signs of wilderness, there were also signs of domestication; there were many buildings scattered around, but also, there were fields of growing things sown in regular fields, not unlike the orchards of her home islands.


    Unlike her home islands, however, there was no sea to travel on from one to the next. While some of the islands seemed to have bridges of one type or another, and still others seemed to at least be tied to others by rope or cable, others still had no obvious tether, and some of the islands were far from the rest. Ki''el trusted that they would teach people to travel safely from one island to the next, especially those islands that they would need to go to; even so, the lack of obvious paths between them was... concerning.


    When the man called Elder Gol finally arrived, it was clear to Ki''el that he was choosing deliberately to move slowly, perhaps even to provoke a reaction. Although she could tell that he had incredible qi reserves, he moved at a walking pace too slow to even be called sedate; it was more like he was drawing out the length of his walk, in order to meditate or think something through. His eyes and head wandered as he walked, as though he were keeping mental note of all of the plants he saw and all of the small scratches in the rock.


    When at least he drew close enough that Lai Shi Po and Mai Han Du stopped their idle talk to acknowledge him, Ki''el felt like she had been standing and watching him approach for entirely too long--perhaps five minutes or more, when the man had only to cross thirty meters of open stone. Still, she showed her own respect and bowed, as did the others, and she noted no sign of disrespect or even stress in Lai Shi Po''s voice.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    "This Lai Shi Po one again greets Elder Gol," she said.


    "Young sister Shi Po. We have not seen you since you last came by to maintain our ward stones." Elder Gol''s voice was friendly, Ki''el thought, though she wondered if there was something deep inside that she could only barely hear. "From what I hear, you are a very popular inscriptionist, now. Word reaches even these ears... *sometimes.*"


    Po had eased out of her bow, but only fully straightened after he finished speaking, Ki''el and the others following suit a moment later. "There is not a straight road between the Ways of the World and the Ways of Men, sifu. I know I still have much to learn."


    Elder Gol chuckled. "Indeed, we are a long way from the Ways of Men here, child. But you wish to recommend entrants into the sect?" He turned his head oddly, giving Shi Po a very specific Look. "Entrants who can pay?"


    Lai Shi Po gestured, and Xoi Xam stepped forward, focusing to bring forth money from a space ring. The Elder swept his eyes over the sum for only a moment before the bag of coins simply vanished into his own ring. "This money has recently seen the Jade Phoenix Auction House, I can tell. None of it is old money, I think, eh, young sister?"


    Ki''el felt a chill run through her at the casual way the man spoke. It made little, or no sense at all, to Ki''el, that he could tell where coins had come from, but then, she wouldn''t have been too terribly surprised if Sobon had been able to find some such detail. She resolved, quietly in her mind, to not be surprised when other masters showed similar depths to them. Even if, in truth and in Ki''el''s heart, none of them could match up to Sobon.


    "Sifu is clever as always," Po said, though her voice sounded a bit tired. "I cannot speak too much without offending a hidden master, so I will leave it to Sifu and the others to discover the strange fate that lies over these three." She turned and gestured to Ki''el, who was a little further back, and to Mian and Xam. "But we will start with Xoi Xam, born of the Xoi trading family, and until recently in the service of the Diamond Lord''s Army."


    Xam stepped forward, and gave a martial salute, as Ki''el moved up beside Mian. She tried to look polite and at attention, though she didn''t know quite what was expected of her. She hoped that this place wouldn''t expect her to gain the rigid formal stances that Xam used. "This Xoi Xam is honored to be considered to place within this sect, and eager to get started as soon as possible."


    Elder Gol and Mai Han Du both chuckled. "Relax," Du said. "We are only greeting you. You won''t truly be able to enter the sect until you pass the Golden Wall, and you should do that with one of our Elders present."


    Xam gave a firm head not and a single bark of acknowledgement, then stepped back.


    "Next is Xoi Dulle Mian," Po said, using the man''s fake name, as he stepped forward and bowed. To disguise the fact that the three were using Sobon''s money, Mian was playing as though he was a disgraced member of a nonexistent noble family; it was something that the Xoi understood and accepted, or at least, Xoi Mon, Xam''s uncle, did. The man had helped them put everything together, along with the City Lord of Emerald Valley, who was... much indebted to Sobon, Ki''el supposed. "Recently he has married Xoi Xam and entered into their family. We are aware that he is far behind the others, but he believes he has the willpower necessary to make up the difference."


    "It will be difficult," Du said, as Elder Gol appraised him and stroked his beard. "But there are few better places in the world to make the attempt, at least."


    "Last is Xoi Doua Ki''el. The Xoi have adopted her into the family as well, both because of her potential, and as a favor."


    Ki''el felt the keen senses of the Elder pass over her, and could feel Mai Han Du''s eyes on her. She wondered just what they were looking for, and what they thought they saw, and sensed, but she held her tongue and simply gave a stiff bow.


    "Interesting," was all Elder Gol said.


    "I have told them that they will be in the lesser house until they can pass the Golden Wall," Po said, "unless the sect has changed its mind?"


    The simple headshakes from them both, with neither offense nor pity, was all the answer that question needed.


    "Then, I suppose I will leave them all in your care." Po smiled. "Now, Elder... does the Moonstone Island sect have any projects that you would wish my input on while I am here?"


    The man turned to face her full on, scratching his chin with one finger, and took a rather long time to think about that question, long enough that Ki''el began to think that the man''s terribly slow walk before must simply be a part of the man''s character. "Not unless your comprehension of spatial qi has advanced enough for you to look into the teleportation ring," he finally said. "Lately, only those with strong will have been able to use it."


    "I have learned a fair bit about space recently," Po responded, "and I wouldn''t mind looking, but I have not had time to properly integrate what I''ve learned. Perhaps I will be able to understand the problem better now, but I imagine fixing it will take another trip."


    "Come along then, young sister," he said, "walk and talk with me. Brother Du, if you would see our newest brother and sisters situated."


    "Of course, Elder." Du only briefly bowed to the man, before turning to look at the three of them, a sharp and hard light in his eyes. "As for the rest of you... come along. Let me tell you about the Lesser House of the Moonstone Island Sect."


    Unlike the elder, Du struck out at a fairly quick walking pace, and his voice was also quick. "The lesser house is full of hopefuls," he said, "people who have the money to apply for the sect, but may or may not have the talent. Although the people there are free to leave, if they were to leave the sect without passing the Golden Wall, they would need to pay again in order to return. Most of them are noble scions too afraid of their family to return there a failure, and so they either pretend that they have already accepted and are exploring the heavens with us, or they promise that things are right around the corner. Those who truly have talent, most often, do not stay long."


    "The Lesser House are expected to work for the sect, and you should expect to work for no less than a month, even if you could break the Golden Wall today. Only in the case of a true prodigy would that rule be bent. We like to think of working for the Lesser House to be a test of patience and respect, though..." he chuckled. "The fact that so many remain years after it became obvious they had no talent has made the Lesser House a very different kind of test. It is not even a new circumstance; although no one from my initiate days remains in the Lesser House, it was full even then."


    "Those that pass the Lesser House and become Outer Disciples will also work for the sect, but with more benefits. While you are in the Lesser House, you will be fed and clothed, your *needs* attended to, but nothing beyond your need, and not a single copra paid to you for your time--at least, not for official sect work. For some, especially noble scions, it is difficult to accept work without rewards. However, that is the Way of the World."


    They continued on in silence for a few moments. Although Ki''el and Xam were in good enough shape that they could endure the walk easily, Mian seemed a little taken aback by the pace, although he was not yet sweating or upset. Already, they had come up to the end of the boulder on which they had landed, and there was a narrow rope and plank bridge stretching to the next island, which swayed and even danced a bit in the swirling winds around the islands.


    Xam spoke up, as the man began passsed without pausing onto the bridge. "What exactly is the Way of the World, sifu?"


    "I am not your sifu," the man said, turning and walking backwards effortlessly, despite the swaying bridge whose planks were at times unevenly spaced or bouncing in the wind, "I do teach some of the Outer Disciples, but even then, it is not personal attention, or not much. To them, and to you, I am simply a Sect Brother." He only paused for perhaps two breaths before addressing the question. "The Way of the World is a concept that most of the sects agree on, although their wording varies. To us, the Way of the World is this: you can receive a good fate through sheer luck, but if you wish to earn a good fate, it comes through suffering and hard work. And although it is less often said, we sometimes add that you may *receive* a bad fate through sheer luck, but those that have truly *earned* a bad fate deserve no pity or sympathy at all."


    Ki''el thought about that for a time. There seemed little doubt that bad fate haunted Sobon''s steps, and her own, though Sobon had talked about fate and time as some kind of strange energies that others might seek to control. They had both suffered, and watched others suffer. She could imagine no reason why her own fate would be anything other than bad luck, but she truly had no idea of what exactly was in Sobon''s history. He spoke of wars and distant things, and it was not hard for Ki''el to think that he had once done awful things, but she also did not know that such was true, and she believed that Sobon was a good person.


    When no one else spoke for a moment, Ki''el raised her voice to ask a question. "What did Lai Shi Po mean when she said there was no straight path from that to the Ways of Men?"


    "Ah," Du smiled at her, not bothering to catch the railing as the bridge swayed to the side a bit in the wind. "That is an old saying, a favorite of many of the elders of the sect. The Way of the World is that people earn good fate, but the Ways of Men is for people to buy their way forward. For them, hard work becomes money, money becomes power, and power defies fate. For us, hard work and earnesty produce both power and good fate, but little money."


    "Those who learn one Way often struggle with the other. I believe that Lai Shi Po was always meant to follow the Ways of Men, though she earned respect in the time she spent here, following the Ways of the World. She expected recognition for her efforts, reward for her labors. Although she does search for power and truth directly, she is motivated at heart by coin, which gives her the ability to do more in the future. For a crafter, that is not wrong, but it did mean that she had little place here."


    "For now," he said, as they finished crossing the bridge at last, and began to walk through a relatively dense but not wide stand of trees. "We approach the Lesser House." Du gestured with one hand as the building came to be visible through the trees.

 [TAS] 1. Kiel - Arrival, Part 1

    Ki''el had not re-al-ly got-ten her hopes up, and yet was still some-what dis-ap-point-ed by the form of the Less-er House it-self. It was a sin-gle large build-ing, per-haps five sto-ries tall. It was too well-built to be called ram-shackle, but too poor-ly main-tained to be called in good con-di-tion; the out-side was some form of paint-ed plas-ter or stone, with only oc-ca-sion-al bits of wood stick-ing through, and al-though it ex-ud-ed a sense of strength, it was ob-vi-ous that the out-side, at least, was main-tained by peo-ple who had no con-cept of build-ing things prop-er-ly. The plas-ter that cov-ered it was high-ly un-even, and the paint, which at least was all the same col-or, had ob-vi-ous dif-fer-ences in thick-ness all across the sur-face.


    Ki''el stud-ied it, not hav-ing ex-pect-ed a tall build-ing to be con-cealed be-hind the trees, but Mai Han Du sim-ply kept speak-ing. "Al-though the Sect goes through some trou-ble every few years to en-sure the build-ing is safe, most of the main-te-nance, as well as all of the cook-ing and clean-ing, is done by mem-bers of the house it-self. Out-er Dis-ci-ples have not been per-mit-ted to help, even when they wish to. Mem-bers of the Less-er House are free to at-tempt to re-pair, main-tain, im-prove, and even ex-pand the house, as they wish, though that must be in their free time."


    "There are many peo-ple in the House, too many for you to have pri-vate rooms. We gen-er-al-ly in-sist that for the first month, at min-i-mum, a group like yours can have a room to your-selves, though af-ter that, any-one that re-mains," he glanced at Mian, "will need to make arrange-ments with the oth-er res-i-dents. Peo-ple share both large and small rooms, here, but you three will most like-ly be giv-en a sin-gle small room to share."


    As they ap-proached, the first per-son that they saw from the Less-er House was a tall and thin woman in a red dress. In spite of Du''s as-sur-ances that the peo-ple here all worked, Ki''el though the woman had a con-temp-tu-ous face, and she was lean-ing against the door-frame with a wide pa-per fan. Ki''el frowned at her, if only for a mo-ment, and Ki''el thought the woman''s eyes im-me-di-ate-ly snapped to her face, and a scowl crossed her fea-tures.


    "Ah, is Se-nior Broth-er Du here to dis-ap-point yet an-oth-er batch of can-di-dates?" The woman fanned her-self with her im-ple-ment, slouch-ing fur-ther. "Un-for-tu-nate-ly our en-tire Less-er House is at ca-pac-i-ty. There are no rooms for new in-com-ing ser-vants, un-for-tu-nate-ly."


    "Young sis-ter Lan Wu," Du greet-ed her, half turn-ing so that he could face both her and the oth-er three. "I be-lieve you were asked to in-form an el-der if there would not be space for new ad-her-ents. And I do be-lieve the last I heard was that two peo-ple left the Less-er House, some nine months ago."


    "Is that all they told you?" Ki''el frowned, feel-ing some-thing bris-tle in-side of her qi as the woman spoke. "When the Boju Broth-ers left, they de-stroyed sev-er-al of the rooms on their way out. We have all been very busy with our own re-pairs, and many spaces are still not liv-able."


    "The sect''s ju-nior broth-ers did come to re-pair that dam-age, did they not?"


    Lan Wu''s lips curled into a sneer. "They deemed the task be-neath them, and said that the Sect''s stan-dards were met. But you may ex-am-ine it if you wish, Se-nior Broth-er Du."


    Ki''el frowned, but pushed slight-ly on her Right-eous Cy-cle, flood-ing her own qi with pu-ri-fied aether. As she thought, it pushed back some-thing from the woman, some kind of mi-nor spir-i-tu-al ef-fect that was laid into her voice. It seemed strange to Ki''el--many things did, but she did not ex-pect that even in the Less-er House, there would be peo-ple us-ing some form of ex-ter-nal qi to in-flu-ence oth-ers.


    Mai Han Du glanced back at the oth-er three, and nod-ded. "Come along."


    As Du turned and stepped for-ward, Xoi Xam leaned in to whis-per to Ki''el. "What did you do?"


    Ki''el turned and met Xam''s eyes, and though she still strug-gled to do it, pro-ject-ed a thought at the oth-er woman. [Do not trust woman''s voice.]


    Xam frowned, but Ki''el trust-ed the woman had heard her and turned to the build-ing. Lan Wu seemed con-tent to sim-ply step aside and let Sect Broth-er Du through the door-way in-stead of fol-low-ing, so Ki''el moved up to and then past her, try-ing to mea-sure the woman with her eyes as she did.


    The woman met her eyes, and Ki''el thought that those eyes were sharp, dis-pleased. Ugly.


    If Ki''el had been ap-pre-hen-sive see-ing the state of the build-ing from the out-side, in-side it was worse. The best com-pli-ment she could pay was that the build-ing was kept clean. Al-though the wood plank floors were un-even, they were swept free of dirt; al-though the walls were not straight and had cuts, holes, and burns across them, they had been washed. Al-though the ceil-ing''s sur-face was poor-ly fin-ished with some kind of plas-ter or soft rock, they had no cob-webs and no dis-col-oration as from smoke or heat. The door-ways that they passed by were not straight and had no doors hung in their frames; Ki''el no-ticed a kitchen on the left that showed signs of be-ing lived in, and what might have once been a com-mu-nal room on the right that was filled with beds.


    Once they passed the im-me-di-ate en-trance, the hall-ways branched to the right and left, while above, a steep cir-cu-lar stair went up, cen-tered in a very nar-row cir-cu-lar hole that cut through all five floors of the build-ing. The stair, at least, was iron or some sim-i-lar met-al, and al-though the steps were nar-row and looked in-se-cure, the cen-tral pil-lar that sup-port-ed them seemed com-plete-ly sol-id. Sect Broth-er Du, as well, seemed to show no sign of con-cern; the man im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan climb-ing the steps with such con-fi-dence that Ki''el at first thought the stairs must be more sol-id than they looked.


    But when Ki''el first stepped on the low-est step of the stairs, she felt it be-gin to slide out of its hole, and when she lept back out of sur-prise, the mo-tion only ac-cel-er-at-ed the small flat iron peg out of its po-si-tion, and it fell to the floor with a clat-ter.


    Ki''el felt her face im-me-di-ate-ly go flush with shame, more so when Sect Broth-er Du looked down at her, but the man didn''t look sur-prised or shocked at all. "Be at ease, Young Sis-ter. The pegs are in-deed loose, which helps with your mind-ful-ness. Put the step back in its place and then fol-low." But he did not stand around to wait for her, and sim-ply con-tin-ued up the steps.


    Ki''el leaned down and grabbed the step, push-ing it back into its hole, feel-ing a ris-ing pan-ic. As she straight-ened, though, she felt a com-fort-ing hand on her shoul-der, and found Mian there, a se-ri-ous look on his face. "Calm down," he whis-pered, qui-et-ly. "Don''t pan-ic. Re-mem-ber to breathe."


    Ki''el was breath-ing, of course, but not in-ten-tion-al-ly. She stepped back and fo-cused on breath-ing with pur-pose, let-ting the act of breath-ing calm her down. It was one of the few pieces of ad-vice Mian had been able to of-fer; the man had not said where and when he''d learned it, and only said that he picked up a few pieces of ad-vice be-fore he be-came a cook, at the small inn where he met Ta-lai Lui and Shi-va Alas-si, the woman whose body her mas-ter Sobon would lat-er in-hab-it. Mian had in-deed known a few things about us-ing a sword cor-rect-ly, though from the looks Sobon gave him, her mas-ter would have much pre-ferred to cor-rect them both, if only she had time.


    Sobon nev-er seemed to have time, for them or for much else.


    Ki''el''s mea-sured use of breath helped calm her a lit-tle, and she rec-og-nized that she had in-deed pan-icked, and her at-tempts to make her-self not seem a fool would only prove that she knew lit-tle. By the time she had calmed, Mian had pro-ceed-ed slow-ly up the stairs, his steps mak-ing the stairs squeak and shift, but none of the stairs came loose, and Xam was start-ing to move up af-ter her, the woman''s steps much qui-eter and more sta-ble.


    Ki''el watched, but aside from the fact that she could tell that Xam was us-ing her qi in-ter-nal-ly, she had lit-tle un-der-stand-ing of what the woman did. But then... Xoi Xam was old-er and more ex-pe-ri-enced than Ki''el, hav-ing gained her qi in mil-i-tary ser-vice. How ex-act-ly she could do that, and still re-main not much stronger than Ki''el... she did not know, and put out of her mind.


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    When she fi-nal-ly steeled her-self to stand on the steps, she felt it shift again, but only mo-men-tar-i-ly, and Ki''el bared her teeth at the stair-case, of-fend-ed by its in-ad-e-qua-cy. While she had no doubt that it had re-mained in such a sor-ry state be-cause some-one de-mand-ed it, she could imag-ine Sobon''s dis-gust at the con-cept, and could plain-ly en-vi-sion her fix-ing the steps with a wave of her hand. In-deed, with the pow-er she had gained re-cent-ly, Sobon could prob-a-bly have fixed the whole build-ing in mo-ments, if she wished.


    Buoyed by her thoughts of her mas-ter, Ki''el found the courage to con-tin-ue up the steep stairs, al-though she felt some part of her-self re-ject-ing the whole ex-is-tence of the stair-case with every step. As those above her con-tin-ued to mount, prov-ing that their tar-get was not the sec-ond or third floor, Ki''el con-sid-ered that part of her spir-it, fi-nal-ly set-tling on some-thing Sobon had told her.


    She said I seemed to be fo-cused in my skin, Ki''el ra-tio-nal-ized. Some part of my spir-it al-ways wants to de-fend me, to keep evil things out. And this stair-case of-fends me. It wish-es to tell me I am wrong in how I walk up stairs. It was hard not to per-son-i-fy the stair-case as some-thing evil, some-thing that would de-light in watch-ing her fail, though Ki''el knew it was not true. And some-how, be-tween those two thoughts... Ki''el thought that their rough edges were sim-i-lar, as though the one and the oth-er may be re-lat-ed, just as Sobon had said.


    That thought did not pro-vide an an-swer, but it did help her feel more at peace with the ir-ri-ta-tion that she held for the stairs. As she con-tin-ued to move, con-tin-ued to feel the steps slip slight-ly when she shift-ed her weight, she ac-cept-ed that her in-tense ha-tred for the stairs was a part of her strug-gling to pro-tect her, and fo-cused again on her breath-ing, try-ing to re-main aware of more than just the stairs.


    It was a good thing, too, be-cause short-ly af-ter-wards, Xam stopped sud-den-ly and even moved back a step on the stairs, al-most tak-ing Ki''el by sur-prise. For cer-tain, if she had been as fo-cused on her steps at the end as she was at the be-gin-ning, she might have made some kind of mis-take, but as it was, she sim-ply caught her move-ment and stopped, wait-ing.


    A minute lat-er, every-one pro-ceed-ed up again, and Ki''el found her-self on the fourth floor, to find that it was a ter-ri-ble mess. The plas-ter cov-er on the walls had all been torn to pieces, most-ly by what looked like blade strikes, but there were places where some-thing worse had clear-ly hap-pened, though what ex-act-ly, Ki''el could not tell. What was cer-tain was that at lesat three rooms on this lev-el opened up into each oth-er, and the hall-way, and the floor above, and the floor be-low, with many ex-posed beams of wood that must have been sup-port-ing the walls or floor bare and ex-posed. Only the hall-way floors had been ful-ly re-paired, al-though Ki''el no-ticed that even the ru-ined rooms had at least been swept, even if no fur-ther at-tempts to clean them had been made.


    Mai Han Du stood among it, glanc-ing around, be-fore turn-ing back to them.


    "It is a grim sight," he ad-mit-ted, "but it is not un-liv-able. The sect ex-pects the Less-er House to do re-pairs of this lev-el; even with-out qi, as long as the ma-te-ri-als are pro-vid-ed, it should be pos-si-ble. Es-pe-cial-ly for new ad-her-ents, it does not seem un-rea-son-able to ex-pect you to fix small things like this."


    "Small things? I do not wish to sound en-ti-tled, Sect Broth-er Du, but this does seem a bit much." Xam''s voice sound-ed fierce-ly ir-ri-tat-ed, though Ki''el sim-ply looked numbly at the walls and floors. In truth... the ru-ined rooms brought back mem-o-ries of her own vil-lage, which she had found ru-ined and loot-ed by pi-rates, when she fi-nal-ly made it back af-ter be-ing lost in a storm. In time, Ki''el had forced her-self to take pieces from sev-er-al ru-ined hous-es in or-der to fix one; be-fore that, she had spent many months hid-ing from rain-storms by crawl-ing into the one cor-ner of her house that was still most-ly cov-ered.


    Here, at least, the roof of the build-ing it-self was in-tact. She could imag-ine oth-ers be-ing quite up-set with the state of the room, but she her-self had lived in much worse.


    "It seems nei-ther of your com-pan-ions shares your dis-dain," not-ed Du, and Ki''el turned her head to fo-cus on Mian. The man had a grim set to his face, but it was a de-ter-mined one, and he turned his head to her, eyes mea-sur-ing her for only a mo-ment be-fore he nod-ded. Ki''el nod-ded back.


    Xoi Xam took a mo-ment to school her own breath, but nod-ded. "My apolo-gies, Sect Broth-er. Does the sect at least have in-struc-tion on this kind of main-te-nance for us, or are we ex-pect-ed to find oth-ers among the Less-er House who al-ready have that ex-per-tise?"


    "An ed-u-cat-ed ques-tion." Du''s face bright-ened, enough that the man no longer looked like he was sur-round-ed by a half-ru-ined build-ing. "As long as you are per-form-ing sect busi-ness--and the Less-er House be-longs to the sect, and so its main-te-nance is sect busi-ness--you may ask any-one in the sect for ad-vice, even mas-ters, al-though not all will have the same pa-tience for small mat-ters. Re-gret-tably we do not have any-one who spe-cial-izes in this kind of con-struc-tion and main-te-nance, with-out the use of qi, though there may be many peo-ple who could com-ment on the ma-te-ri-als. The wall-plas-ter, for ex-am-ple," he not-ed, ges-tur-ing around, "is a com-mon ma-te-r-i-al used by a great many, but I have had sev-er-al fas-ci-nat-ing dis-cus-sions with Broth-er Kemu, who stud-ies both the mu-ndane chem-istry and the spir-i-tu-al alche-my of such ma-te-ri-als, and the dis-cus-sions of each are very dif-fer-ent. I can say that he has of-ten been asked to help with such mat-ters."


    "Sim-i-lar-ly, the floors," he ges-tured down. "We have many spe-cial-ists in the mun-dane and spir-i-tu-al prop-er-ties of wood. Here I will sug-gest Sis-ter Muzi, only be-cause I be-lieve most of the oth-ers are busy on as-sign-ment. It is not triv-ial to pre-pare wood such that it can be used for many years with-out trou-ble, and those who at-tempt to make the fastest and sim-plest re-pairs most of-ten are dis-ap-point-ed months or years lat-er."


    Ki''el frowned at that, and moved over to the near-est wood-en pil-lar, lean-ing in to ex-am-ine it more close-ly. The wood had clear-ly been cut clean-ly and then at least rough-ly smoothed, but not fin-ished, per-haps be-cause this pil-lar was meant to re-main in-side of the wall. She did not know what it would take to fin-ish walls, or floors, but she had seen more than enough vari-a-tion in the woods used to build the huts in her vil-lage, and those woods that had been ex-posed only af-ter the vil-lage had been at-tacked had rot-ted much faster in the weath-er than those meant to be out-doors. By the time she had not-ed those dif-fer-ences, how-ev-er, there was no one left to ask how the woods were pre-pared, or why.


    Her eyes ranged around af-ter that, not-ing that where the beams of wood joined, ei-ther ad-vanced qi tech-niques had been used to merge them, or some-thing like rope, cloth, or leather sur-round-ed the joint, or bits of met-al or wood were forced through one and into an-oth-er in or-der to pin them to-geth-er. The only thing Ki''el felt sure of was that there were far few-er qi joins, and only on the larg-er pieces of wood. The oth-er tech-niques... she wasn''t sure which was bet-ter, or would be pre-ferred, or why.


    So she sim-ply asked, ges-tur-ing at the joints, and Du glanced at them, nod-ding.


    "Each of these joins looks to have been in-fused with at least a lit-tle qi," he said, "and so I imag-ine that they were used as prac-tice by mem-bers of the Less-er House. Al-though it is ear-ly for peo-ple to at-tempt to cre-ate even a rudi-men-ta-ry qi na-ture be-fore breach-ing the Gold-en Wall, many peo-ple, es-pe-cial-ly those from de-vel-oped clans, al-ready have some un-der-stand-ing, and will use it to in-fuse their qi with in-tent. Things like this..." he ges-tured to them, "these are the re-sult of peo-ple prac-tic-ing in pri-vate. Most fre-quent-ly, I be-lieve, the ones who al-ready have a grasp of their fu-ture are not long for these halls, while the ones who lan-guish still to this day do not un-der-stand even mi-nor uses of qi like these."


    Ki''el stud-ied the joints and the walls and floors. She no-ticed some very small qi fluc-tu-a-tion as Broth-er Du spoke, but did not no-tice quite when or about what, and had to let the thought go quick-ly. In-stead, she looked at the floor and the walls, notic-ing that some of the bro-ken pieces had been clean-ly cut, while oth-ers had not. "There will be tools as well?"


    "Of course, as with all sect busi-ness," Broth-er Du said again, pa-tient-ly. "You will be re-quired to main-tain and re-pair the tools as well, of course."


    Ki''el nod-ded, feel-ing more com-fort-able, and glanced to Mian and Xam. The lat-ter looked out of her el-e-ment, but Mian at least showed no signs of flag-ging willpow-er. So Ki''el just looked to Broth-er Du and nod-ded.


    "Very good. Now... I will speak with a few oth-ers in the sect to en-sure that the tools and ma-te-ri-als are pro-vid-ed to you, but you will also need to speak with Sis-ter Futi, who is in charge of tasks for the Less-er House. You should ex-pect much of your time to be tak-en with these tasks, and you will need to bal-ance your own cul-ti-va-tion, rest, and pri-vate tasks in the time that re-mains." Du ges-tured back to-wards the stairs. "Come. I will in-tro-duce you."


    Ki''el was last down the stairs, as she was last up them, and turned to look back at the ru-ined rooms. The at-mos-phere of the house gave her an un-pleas-ant feel-ing, es-pe-cial-ly now that Du was leav-ing, and Ki''el felt cer-tain that there would be ad-di-tion-al un-pleas-ant-ness as soon as the three of them were alone. There was no rea-son for her to speak of it, not for now; she was sure that Broth-er Du would make any-thing that hap-pened sound rea-son-able, and the oth-ers most like-ly also un-der-stood that their time here would be un-pleas-ant.


    If the worst trou-ble Ki''el had here was a room with ru-ined walls and floors, she would feel lucky, and Ki''el did not trust in her own luck.

 [TAS] 2. Kiel - Arrival, Part 2

    Sis-ter Futi was, to Ki''el, a woman very far from the looks of an av-er-age cul-ti-va-tor. Ei-ther she did not hide the marks of age on her body, or she wished to look mid-dle aged, per-haps even el-der-ly, with a stom-ach that was too large and flab along her limbs. Al-though she was not with-out qi, the woman dis-played only a gold-en star rank-ing, which meant to the sect that she be-longed in the Less-er House.


    And yet, when Sect Broth-er Du met with her, Ki''el felt that his bow was not forced or fake, and the man smiled with-out guile at her.


    "Sis-ter Futi," he said, with some fond-ness. "May I pre-sent to you Xoi Xam, Xoi Dulle Mian, and Xoi Doua Ki''el."


    Sis-ter Futi was crammed into a cor-ner of-fice of the Less-er House''s first floor, and sur-round-ed by a great many ar-rays in-scribed into the walls, floors, and ceil-ing. Al-though Ki''el had no doubt that they were all real and prac-ti-cal in-scrip-tions, she could also see at only a glance that the writ-ing of the glyphs and the care-ful cir-cles of the ar-rays were all faulty, full of mis-takes and crooked-ness. What she could not tel, at a glance, was whether those in-scrip-tions were all her own and main-tained out of pride, or whether she could sim-ply not find some-one to fix them.


    Arranged hap-haz-ard-ly in places where they would not block the in-scrip-tions were book-shelves, scroll racks, and piled stacks of to-kens. The only thing that did in-ter-fere with the in-scrip-tions was a sim-ple desk and an odd bent wood-en frame that must have been a chair. The table was emp-ty of all but a sin-gle un-rolled scroll, an inkwell, and a bronze sty-lus that was se-vere-ly bent out of shape, laid be-side the inkwell with-out any kind of pro-tec-tive cloth and with no signs of drips or stains. Ki''el glanced around, not-ing that there was many emp-ty book-shelves and scroll racks as there were filled ones, but that none of them seemed dusty or for-got-ten. Al-though she could see lit-tle or noth-ing on the shelves that she could read--no la-bels and few cov-ers or free pieces of pa-per--Ki''el got the sense that every-thing here was used fre-quent-ly, or at least, had been used re-cent-ly.


    "Ah, more new trou-ble for me, ex-cel-lent." Sis-ter Futi her-self was stand-ing, not sit-ting at her desk, and she reached out to a near-by in-scrip-tion. She only need-ed to place her hand at the cen-ter and pull, and her hand came away with a rolled scroll, now crum-pled along one edge, which she walked over and threw down on the table, climb-ing onto the bent wood in a kneel-ing po-si-tion, the frame bend-ing only slight-ly to hold her weight. When the woman un-rolled the scroll onto the desk, some-how it came away as three sep-a-rate sheets, al-though Ki''el was un-clear on whether it had been cut or had ap-peared from the in-scrip-tion as ex-act-ly what she need-ed. "Sib-lings? No, or not en-tire-ly, not with a pure fam-i-ly name and two ex-tras. A no-ble and her ser-vants?"


    "My hus-band and sis-ter," Xam said, still sound-ing a lit-tle testy. "If that is in-for-ma-tion that the sect re-quires."


    "Oh, it''s not all for the sect, though such mat-ters will oc-ca-sion-al-ly be of in-ter-est." Sis-ter Futi snagged the sty-lus and dipped it into the ink, and Ki''el not-ed the woman''s grip on the im-ple-ment matched its form per-fect-ly. But was the sty-lus matched to her writ-ing style, or had she grown used to it? "Xoi as the house, us-ing the char-ac-ter for Rush, cor-rect?" She glanced at Ki''el. "And I as-sume Doua is from the Il-lanese Sand. Rush-ing Fox, Rush-ing Sand Ea-gle, and..." she looked at Mian. "Dulle... you don''t look like one of them."


    Mian squirmed slight-ly, though Ki''el felt some-thing pleas-ing stir with-in her. She had not thought hard about Xam''s fam-i-ly name, even when her un-cle Mon had talked for a while about it, but some-how this woman made it seem like a very hon-or-able thing.


    "It is com-pli-cat-ed," Mian said fi-nal-ly.


    But Sis-ter Futi only shrugged. "I can''t ar-gue against keep-ing se-crets, but per-haps have your lies bet-ter pre-pared for oth-ers, Xoi Mian. You can trust, though, that what-ev-er pol-i-tics you be-lieve you will es-cape here, you have only en-tered into a new world of very dif-fer-ent pol-i-tics, and I for one do my ut-most best to avoid both. Now." The woman'' who had writ-ten their names on top of the three scrolls with-out look-ing, set the sty-lus down. Ki''el not-ed that Mian''s sheet did not list his false fam-i-ly name, though it did list Ki''el''s true one. "It is im-por-tant that I, more than the sect or any oth-ers," she glanced at Broth-er Du know-ing-ly, "know what you are ac-tu-al-ly ca-pa-ble of. Im-press-ing the sect is not crit-i-cal, but it is best to avoid up-set-ting them by claim-ing you can do a task you can-not. I have seen sev-er-al no-ble scions who take on tasks, ei-ther com-mon or ob-scure, as-sum-ing with-out proof that they are up to the task."


    "For years, the sect would hound me for send-ing them fools and id-iots, but by now, I have their sym-pa-thies. Again and again, those who think they can lie their way into the sect," the woman''s glance shift-ed to Mian, "dis-cov-er that even raw tal-ent can fall afoul of the slum-ber-ing ir-ri-ta-tion of mas-ters who were promised some-thing that was nev-er de-liv-ered. If a task is ac-cept-ed and not com-plet-ed, they do ask who should have done it. Word does spread. And when a fa-mil-iar name is put for-ward for a pro-mo-tion test, it is not dif-fi-cult to re-call where the name was heard be-fore."


    "I have no prob-lem with hard work," Mian said, some frus-tra-tion ap-par-ent in his voice and ap-pear-ance. "I only wish to leave my past be-hind."


    "Hard work is good; in the eyes of many, it is bet-ter than skill. It will cer-tain-ly put you ahead of some oth-ers in the Less-er House. But this is still a sect, and much of what needs to be done re-quires spe-cif-ic skills and abil-i-ties." Her eyes slipped from one of them to the next. "I don''t know how much you are aware of this, but your qi star lev-el means very lit-tle. There can be great dif-fer-ences in pow-er even with-in a sin-gle star rank-ing."


    Both Ki''el and Mian strug-gled not to dis-play their amuse-ment too ob-vi-ous-ly at that, al-though from the sud-den pause, and the slight edge to Sis-ter Futi''s voice when she con-tin-ued, she no-ticed their re-ac-tion.


    "The many tasks the Sect will re-quire your as-sis-tance with in-volve both mun-dane mat-ters and mat-ters of qi. Al-though you are only at... or be-low Gold Qi," she gave Mian a look, "it mat-ters how much qi you have, your abil-i-ty to mold in-ter-nal and ex-ter-nal qi, and your abil-i-ty to im-bue your qi with in-tent. Gen-er-al-ly, more ad-vanced mea-sures, such as be-ing able to co-op-er-ate with an-oth-er with-out your qi clash-ing, will not mat-ter un-til you are at least an Out-er Dis-ci-ple, though if you wish to be mea-sured for some-thing spe-cif-ic..." she shrugged. "Tell me, and I will find a suit-able spon-sor."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered men-tion-ing her aether rings, the pow-er cy-cles that Sobon had taught her, but kept qui-et about them for now.


    "What mat-ters least, to the point where it need not even be men-tioned, is abil-i-ty to fight. Even among the Out-er Dis-ci-ples, fight-ing out-side of spars is frowned upon, but for the Less-er House, mak-ing use of any weapon is only go-ing to have the at-ten-tion of the el-ders brought down upon you, and they will not look fond-ly on any-one in the Less-er House en-dan-ger-ing them-selves, Sect prop-er-ty, oth-ers of the less-er house... but most of all, they have no pa-tience for mem-bers of the Less-er House at-tack-ing prop-er Sect dis-ci-ples." She huffed, and glanced at Broth-er Du, who re-mained silent. "There have been a great many who passed into this house be-liev-ing that they would qual-i-fy for bet-ter ed-u-ca-tion, soon-er, if they de-feat-ed, wound-ed, or worse killed a dis-ci-ple. Those prob-lem-at-ic stu-dents were all of them thrown off the is-land."


    There was a si-lence, and Ki''el thought she de-tect-ed a trace of qi pass-ing be-tween Broth-er Du and Sis-ter Futi, as though one ask-ing the oth-er some-thing, be-fore at last, Broth-er Du spoke up.


    "Yes," he said, "ac-tu-al-ly thrown off, over the side. Mem-bers of the Less-er House are not to at-tack Sect Dis-ci-ples un-der any cir-cum-stances. I..." he frowned. "I don''t know, but I do be-lieve I heard at least one of them sur-vived, but that may have been strange cir-cum-stances, or per-haps a fam-i-ly guardian. In any case..." he turned to glance at them, one at a time and start-ing with Xam, "do not test your luck."


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    Ki''el had no in-ten-tion to fight any-one, but the thought did bring up a few ques-tions, one of which Xam was quick to ask.


    "What if we are at-tacked first?"


    "There will be an in-ves-ti-ga-tion. De-pend-ing on your rep-u-ta-tion, and the rep-u-ta-tion of the oth-er, it may be a long in-ves-ti-ga-tion... or a very short one."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but spoke up. "And what if... our cause is just?"


    Sis-ter Futi glanced at her, frown-ing, but Broth-er Du only gave a strange smile in re-turn, to that. "There are those who will say that the Less-er House is nev-er jus-ti-fied in strik-ing first, no mat-ter the cir-cum-stances. There are also those much more nu-anced. But I spoke of pa-tience. The sect will not be pa-tient and take the time to de-ter-mine who is at fault, not for those who have not even reached the rank of Out-er Dis-ci-ple. Lat-er, when the con-flict is be-tween an Out-er Dis-ci-ple and an In-ner Dis-ci-ple, or be-tween an In-ner Dis-ci-ple and a Core Dis-ci-ple, or when oth-er con-flicts come up..." Broth-er Du gave a large, ex-pres-sive shrug. "There will be more pa-tience on dis-play. More, but of-ten, not much."


    "Is pa-tience such a rare quan-ti-ty in a sect?" Ki''el was sur-prised that Mian spoke up, even if his voice was edged with hu-mor.


    "In my ex-pe-ri-ence, stu-dents have a way of test-ing their teach-ers'' pa-tience no mat-ter how high or low you go," Broth-er Du said. "As I was say-ing, what the Sect least needs from the Less-er House is the abil-i-ty to fight," he turned and gave Ki''el a strange look, the taller man look-ing down on her in a way that did not feel ac-ci-den-tal at all. "Al-though fight-ing is a time-hon-ored tra-di-tion, and an ad-e-quate way for dis-ci-ples to test their un-der-stand-ing of qi, and al-though there will even-tu-al-ly be hunts for qi cores and... star-beasts, in gen-er-al, your task in the sect is not to learn to fight or kill, but to un-der-stand the deep-er na-ture of re-al-i-ty, and cre-ate your iden-ti-ty. And... your task in the Less-er House is to prove you de-serve the chance to en-ter the Sect. Fight-ing should be fur-thest from your mind, no mat-ter what you see or hear."


    Ki''el, though she felt re-luc-tant, nod-ded. She also not-ed, how-ev-er, the strange lilt to Broth-er Du''s voice when he spoke, as though he dis-liked the term or top-ic, but since his pa-tience seemed to be stretched, she did not press the mat-ter.


    "So," Sis-ter Futi spoke up once it was clear that no one else would in-ter-ject, "please tell me things you are good at, or have done com-pe-tent-ly be-fore."


    Xam spoke up first. "I worked for the Djang Mil-i-tary, and I can do a va-ri-ety of pa-per-work. My cal-lig-ra-phy and arith-metic ex-ceed the Djang mil-i-tary stan-dards. I am fa-mil-iar with the use of tal-is-mans to speed com-pre-hen-sion of lan-guages, hav-ing used them sev-er-al times. I have used stealth and move-ment tal-is-mans ex-ten-sive-ly, pow-er-ing them with my own qi. And of course, the Xoi clan has sev-er-al per-cep-tion tech-niques, al-though they are not to my taste."


    As Xam spoke, Sis-ter Futi took care-ful notes, and Ki''el not-ed that Broth-er Du had stepped back and closed his eyes, ei-ther think-ing or sens-ing some-thing be-yond their cur-rent cir-cum-stances.


    "I''m a fair cook and butch-er, even ex-tract-ed a core or two in my time, though al-ways for sell-ing," Mian said, "I''ve done my fair share of log-ging and wood-cut-ting, and a lit-tle car-pen-try, though I''m no good at it. I''ve used in-ter-nal qi to en-hance my strength, but only a lit-tle. I only... just start-ed with ex-ter-nal qi at all, and I''m no good at it. Can''t say I can sense qi very well, ei-ther. Late-ly I''ve start-ed pow-er-ing script-ed items with my qi, but I''m not sure how good I am."


    Sis-ter Futi nod-ded, her eyes fi-nal-ly slid-ing to Ki''el.


    And what was Ki''el to say? Re-al-ly? She had been noth-ing for a very long time, and now, ...much of what she could claim all came from Sobon. And while not much had been said, Po and oth-ers had sug-gest-ed keep-ing much of what she knew from Sobon qui-et, es-pe-cial-ly for now."


    "I don''t know," she said, tak-ing a breath. "I was taught to sail, swim, and fish, but I do not think those are use-ful here. I have also cooked, and har-vest-ed fruit, and tend-ed to some fields, but not well. I... have had some suc-cess deal-ing with an-i-mals," she did well not to let her thoughts drift to Sobon here, "and I have done some small re-pairs to hous-es." She looked down at her hands, un-sure of how to qual-i-fy her skills with qi. In truth... she al-ready knew, from speak-ing with Mian, that it was dif-fer-ent from how she had used aether, though ex-act-ly how... she was still un-sure.


    "I have... a strange tech-nique," she fi-nal-ly said, know-ing that both Broth-er Du and Sis-ter Futi had perked up, "which was giv-en to me... by my mas-ter." She turned to look at Mian, but the look on the man''s face was only sup-port-ive. "It is not quite the same as us-ing qi nor-mal-ly, so I do not know how to com-pare it. I have... used it. With-in me, and ex-ter-nal-ly."


    "In-ter-est-ing." Sis-ter Futi glanced up at Broth-er Du. "I... would rec-om-mend you speak with some-one about how use-ful it may be. But it is very ear-ly for you to be us-ing na-tured qi."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but spoke. "I am un-sure how to de-scribe it, but it is not na-tured qi."


    "Is that what your mas-ter told you?"


    Ki''el nod-ded. "He spoke a great deal about it," she said, re-al-iz-ing af-ter she spoke that she was re-fer-ring to Sobon as a man, again. For what-ev-er rea-son, it was still how Sobon struck her, even af-ter hav-ing known her in Alas-sis'' body for a time. "I... am un-sure how much he would wish me to share."


    "I see. While it''s not im-pos-si-ble you will find a schol-ar in-ter-est-ed in such things here, I wouldn''t en-cour-age you to hope. A few peo-ple might wish to see strange tech-niques, but many in the sect are pre-oc-cu-pied with mas-ter-ing their own qi. It would take some-thing tru-ly spe-cial to in-ter-est most of them."


    "I was not ex-pect-ing to use it to gain sup-port," Ki''el said, quick-ly. "I only... know that it will com-pli-cate things."


    "In-deed." Sis-ter Futi put down her sty-lus, again. "In that case, it is wise to speak with some-one who you trust, who you can demon-strate your tech-nique to and com-pare meth-ods. For now, I will not rec-om-mend you for any qi-based tasks... but, you un-der-stand, that doesn''t leave you with a lot. As you say, your wa-ter-re-lat-ed skills are of lit-tle use here."


    Ki''el frowned at that, her heart beat-ing in-tense-ly, as she was faced once again with hav-ing to jus-ti-fy her place here. She... was sure there were things, but...


    "She also has a very good mem-o-ry," prompt-ed Mian. "In-clud-ing for com-pli-cat-ed things, and I think she''s pret-ty sen-si-tive to qi. She and I were ex-am-in-ing an in-scrip-tion, and she could say a lot about it, even a while lat-er. She no-ticed things I didn''t, and could re-mem-ber them clear-ly."


    Sis-ter Futi picked up her sty-lus and looked at Ki''el, who took a mo-ment to breathe deeply, try-ing to keep her mind sharp, and nod-ded. "I have al-ways had a good mem-o-ry, but... I am un-sure how clear my per-cep-tion of qi is."


    From be-hind her, Broth-er Du spoke up. "Ki''el. Which wood join, of the ones you saw up-stairs, was re-paired by more than one per-son?"


    More than one per-son? Ki''el half turned, cast-ing her mind back to it, but it seemed a strange que-si-ton. "I would imag-ine most of them were. More than one of the joints that was fused to-geth-er with a wood qi tech-nique also showed signs of oth-er meth-ods. But the one that strikes me is the joint with the short met-al spikes. There was some-thing else, dam-age to the wood done with qi and in-tent, though it was un-clear what was done."


    "Ex-cel-lent re-call, and that is suf-fi-cient qi sen-si-tiv-i-ty." Broth-er Du smiled down at her. "A good mem-o-ry will be use-ful for as-sist-ing many peo-ple, though much of it will wait un-til you reach Out-er Dis-ci-ple, or at least, un-til you gain a prop-er rep-u-ta-tion."


    "In-deed." Sis-ter Futi swept up the three scrolls with a ges-ture, plac-ing them in a small stack on a near-by rack. "And next... is the mat-ter of your sect to-kens." She moved grace-ful-ly around her desk, pick-ing three to-kens from a large stack in a cor-ner of the room. Ki''el could tell, at a glance, that they were rel-a-tive-ly cheap, but and while they were en-graved, they did not con-tain qi.


    But once Sis-ter Futi had passed one to-ken to each of them, she turned to one of the in-scrip-tions on the wall, plac-ing her hand to a mark on its side. "Take your to-ken and press it to the cen-ter of the in-scrip-tion here. It should link your spir-it to the to-ken, with my own spir-it as a wit-ness. Once that is done, that to-ken will be your proof as a mem-ber of the Less-er House. When you are ac-cept-ed as an Out-er Dis-ci-ple, you will be giv-en a dif-fer-ent to-ken. Do not at-tempt to take any-one else''s to-ken, and if you find one loose on the grounds, bring it to any-one else im-me-di-ate-ly."


    First Mian, then Ki''el, then Xam all touched their to-kens to the cir-cle as in-struct-ed. Ki''el thought she sensed some-thing odd when she did, a quick tug at her spir-it, but gen-tly, and only for a mo-ment. When that was done, the to-ken al-most seemed a part of her, con-nect-ed as it was to her spir-it, though she could also sense Sis-ter Futi''s spir-it with-in the to-ken. Cu-ri-ous, Ki''el pressed light-ly on her right-eous aether ring, but the aether that passed through her spir-it did not also pass into the to-ken. She sensed that she could have forced it, but... did not think it was wise to try.


    "I will also be able to use the to-kens to com-mu-ni-cate with you," Sis-ter Futi was say-ing, "at least, for those of you who are sen-si-tive enough to no-tice it. If you sense a qi pulse from it, please come and see me as soon as you can. For now..." she ges-tured. "I will send out in-quiries for work for you all. Ex-pect that you will be work-ing most of the day, every day. If you per-form well and prove trust-wor-thy, you should ex-pect bet-ter work, but there are many un-pleas-ant things that must be done, and you will all be called for it. Now, leave."


    They did, though Ki''el glanced back at the woman as she passed through the door-way. Sis-ter Futi seemed to be a good per-son, she de-cid-ed, though there was more to her than Ki''el could sense or un-der-stand. She hoped that the woman was trust-wor-thy, though, be-cause she seemed to be ex-cep-tion-al-ly sharp. If she was not to be trust-ed... then that bod-ed ill for all of them.

 [TAS] 3. Kiel - Arrival, Part 3

    It was ac-tu-al-ly only a few min-utes af-ter they walked away from Sis-ter Futi that Ki''el''s to-ken pulsed with qi. The three of them had bare-ly be-gun think-ing about what to do next, and Ki''el had be-gun think-ing about the space ring that the three of them shared, which Xam was tak-ing care of, and the only thing with-in it that mat-tered to her: the Aether Sword that Sobon had left her.


    But no, she made her apolo-gies and turned back, to find Futi half fac-ing one of the wall glyphs, her eyes glow-ing bright-ly from with-in. She turned as Ki''el ap-peared in the door, that light not dim-ming as she spoke.


    "Ah, my apolo-gies, Young Sis-ter Ki''el. As it hap-pens there is a re-quest that you may be well suit-ed for, if you are in-ter-est-ed."


    And that is how, half an hour lat-er, Ki''el found her-self in a pond, fetch-ing and wash-ing riv-er stones.


    Some-how, when Sis-ter Futi spoke of the task, she made it sound like some-thing no-ble and use-ful. An Out-er Dis-cio-ple had some need for a large num-ber of medi-um sized, plain rocks with min-i-mal qi, and if there should be any qi, it should not be Wind na-tured. There should be min-i-mal or no con-t-a-m-i-na-tion with any-thing else--moss would need to be re-moved, and any-thing more than a thin lay-er of riv-er slime was too much. For their pur-pos-es, it was not ac-cept-able to break a large rock into pieces, and shap-ing the stones with qi would de-feat the pur-pose.


    And so a dif-fer-ent out-er dis-ci-ple helped Ki''el bal-ance on a fly-ing stone rod as he took the two of them down far be-low the Moon-stone Is-lands and to a near-by riv-er. This dis-ci-ple spoke only briefly with her, his tone blunt and his eyes dis-tant, his face youth-ful but sug-gest-ing sev-er-al more years than it showed. When Ki''el in-tro-duced her-self, he only glared and did not speak, and Ki''el thought that more than ar-ro-gant, the man''s face seemed un-in-tel-li-gent, as though he did not have the room in his mind to hold what-ev-er he was think-ing of and a con-ver-sa-tion at the same time. This dis-ci-ple grudg-ing-ly de-liv-ered her to the ground, promised to fetch her some hours lat-er, and then left, leav-ing Ki''el alone near a for-eign riv-er with only a sect-pro-vid-ed space ring to hold stones in.


    It was not a small riv-er, ei-ther, and Ki''el found af-ter some quick div-ing that there were more rocks of the size she was search-ing for deep-er into the riv-er than at the edges, and so she spent her time div-ing and re-turn-ing to the edge, over and over, build-ing up a large pile of rocks. In truth, Ki''el did not find the task ob-jec-tion-able, not at first and not hours lat-er, when she had ac-cu-mu-lat-ed what she deemed to be a good quan-ti-ty of fist-sized riv-er stones. The riv-er wa-ter was not quite the same as sea-wa-ter, but she felt more at home in the riv-er than she had felt even in Sobon''s home in Emer-ald Val-ley.


    The space ring she was giv-en was more dif-fi-cult to use than she ex-pect-ed, and did not look like the ones by Lai Shi Po, and so in-stead of putting each stone in once she had it, she made a stack of them on the edge of the riv-er, and once the stack was a good size, she set to check-ing them, wash-ing them, and only then putting them away, find-ing that she need-ed to fo-cus in-tent-ly but care-ful-ly on mov-ing each stone in.


    She was cu-ri-ous to find that per-haps one in twen-ty of the stones that she had picked up out of the riv-er had what she sus-pect-ed was too much qi for the as-sign-ment, and for now, she sim-ply set those aside. Only once she had col-lect-ed per-haps a hun-dred stones did she look at the pile of qi laden stones and touch them, con-sid-er-ing them with her qi sens-es, or per-haps more cor-rect-ly, her aether sense. She did not know which was which, not ex-act-ly, but as she stud-ied the stones, she felt that the en-er-gy that col-lect-ed in the riv-er stones was not like her aether rings, but it was also not like the en-er-gy in her qi core. In-stead, most of it felt...


    Ki''el felt her thoughts in-ter-rupt-ed when at last the gift of her mas-ter Sobon ac-ti-vat-ed in her mind. It was an odd thing, and when it had been of-fered to her, it seemed a dif-fi-cult con-cept for the Tidal Coro-na--a pow-er-ful for-eign thing that Ki''el did not un-der-stand, most-ly--to try to ex-plain. Its best trans-la-tion of the gift was some-thing like an add-to, ar-ti-fi-cial-mind, and now it stirred.


    { Start-up, Phase 2 of 3, is ready to be-gin } a small win-dow in her mind told her. { This start up phase re-quires in-ter-ac-tion and can be de-layed. Do you wish to con-tin-ue? }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, but when she could feel no sign of qi or dan-ger near her, found a place where she could sit with her feet in the riv-er, and fo-cused on the win-dow. [ Con-tin-ue. ]


    { Start-up Phase 2 re-quires you and to un-der-stand sev-er-al terms in or-der to in-ter-act prop-er-ly. The for-eign phrase (aug-ment) you trans-lat-ed as (add-to) is more cor-rect-ly (a thing added in while you re-main whole), specif-i-cal-ly, you will not suf-fer for it be-ing there. The for-eign phrase (aether AI) that you trans-late as (ar-ti-fi-cial-mind) is not in-cor-rect, but specif-i-cal-ly, it is (a com-plete mind with-out pur-pose or ego), specif-i-cal-ly, a mind that does not nat-u-ral-ly re-quire free-dom or in-de-pen-dence. }


    Ki''el frowned at those thoughts. They were all very clear in her mind; Ki''el could imag-ine that if she had been asked to ex-plain them to some-one, she might have used sim-i-lar words, but per-haps not quite the same. The flow of its thoughts was very sim-i-lar to her own, but clear-ly not hers. It was not that hard to tell that it was there, now that it was ac-tive, and there was no pain or dis-com-fort. She felt a lit-tle con-fu-sion... but she had known it was there, and ac-cept-ed it.


    { Dur-ing the first phase, I stud-ied your mind in or-der to do no harm while at-tempt-ing to join you. Dur-ing the sec-ond phase, you will need to show how you wish to in-ter-act with me. Un-til you are more com-fort-able, I will do noth-ing un-less you ask, and I will only do what you ask, even if I can do more. I be-lieve this is what you wish. Do you agree? }


    Ki''el was tempt-ed to speak out loud to it, but caught that in-stinct be-fore she did much more than breathe in. Both with-in the sect, and be-yond it, she did not want to get caught hav-ing a trea-sure as for-eign as this thing, as she was still wor-ried what oth-ers would think and do about it. So she only took a deep breath, feel-ing the cool wa-ter around her feet and an-kles, and let it out. [ Yes. ]


    { There are sev-er-al re-quests you will be able to make of me. I can help you re-mem-ber the rock and its aether. I can help you re-mem-ber what Sobon said about aether. I can help you vi-su-al-ize things. I can at-tempt to un-der-stand it and tell you what I think. I will not do any of these things un-less you ask. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered. [ How do you think this match-es what Sobon said about aether? ]


    { Sobon spoke of Gen-e-sis and Con-sump-tion aether as pat-terns that ei-ther flowed end-less-ly out or end-less-ly in. These stones show those kind of pat-terns. }


    Ki''el had been on the edge of hav-ing the same thought be-fore the... aether AI? in-ter-rupt-ed her. She looked back at the pile of stones, not-ing that there were some of each there, stones that seemed to drink in the lo-cal aether and stones that seemed to leak it, but none of them were strong sen-sa-tions. In-stead, the ones that leaked aether only felt like a small swelling of the world around them, and the ones that drank only seemed to shrink the aether slight-ly.


    But... if the nat-ur-al en-er-gy of the stones was aether, and not qi, how did qi users make use of them?


    { Some of those an-swers ex-ist with-in me. You do not rec-og-nize the phrase (data-base), but it is a store of knowl-edge that Sobon left for you. Much of it was giv-en to her by oth-ers, but there are some places where he left her own thoughts. }


    That made Ki''el''s blood stir. [ I wish to know what Sobon left me. ]


    { Most of Sobon''s thoughts are about spe-cif-ic things, and you will hear them when you ask a ques-tion that she can an-swer. But she left you a note. I would have told you when we were done, but I can tell you now. }


    Ki''el closed her eyes, feel-ing the wa-ter, and took an-oth-er breath, in and out. [ Tell me now. ]


    [ Ki''el. ] Sobon''s in-ner voice was there, still with an echo of Alas-si''s voice to it. Be-cause Ki''el had known Sobon when he had first land-ed on the world--or, she found out lat-er, not when he first land-ed, but the sec-ond time--and been in the body of a squir-rel, she still did not think of the woman whose body Sobon had lived in re-cent-ly as Sobon''s true form, and some part of her did not like hear-ing that woman''s voice as part of the mes-sage. Still, she fo-cused on the words, and the feel-ing of the per-son be-hind them.


    [ I''m sure I didn''t say much lead-ing up to when I had to leave. This is per-haps the only way I could pos-si-bly tell you the truth, and I''m not sure you''re ready for it all yet. For cer-tain, you will not find many of the se-crets use-ful for many years, if you ever do. ]


    [ I need to tell you one im-por-tant thing, Ki''el, and that is that you have been more im-por-tant... to me, per-son-al-ly, than any-one else I''ve met on this plan-et. I was alone on a vi-o-lent world. Be-fore any-one else found me or did any-thing mean-ing-ful to help me, you gave me hope that there was any-thing at all on this damned world worth fight-ing for. What-ev-er hap-pens, if I can do some-thing to save you, I will. Liv-ing with-out some-thing to fight for is not liv-ing, Ki''el. ]


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


    With-in the mes-sage, Ki''el could feel buried thoughts and feel-ings, ones not un-like the things Lui had man-aged to pry from Sobon by the end. Ki''el knew that she was still too in-ex-pe-ri-enced to know much, but these buried thoughts were clear-ly things that were heavy on Sobon''s mind.


    [ But more than that, ] Sobon''s men-tal voice cleared, but it was not as though a fog lift-ed, but more like it was placed be-hind walls, caged. [ I wor-ry that the world may need you. It''s un-kind of me to ask, but I hope that you will find a way to be-come tru-ly strong. Strong enough to face the strongest peo-ple in this world, by my side or with-out me. I be-lieve that you can do it, and if you are will-ing, I will do every-thing I can to teach you. ]


    Ki''el could not de-scribe the feel-ing that went through her at that thought. It was like watch-ing a beau-ti-ful thing hap-pen in the dis-tance--a wa-ter-fall, a bird div-ing and catch-ing a fish, a leap-ing dol-phin--but it rolled through her, crash-ing through her in ways she would nev-er have ex-pect-ed some-thing could. She found her bare feet clench-ing in the riv-er mud, and her fin-gers caught on the edges of the rock she sat on. It seemed a very wild thing for Sobon to say she want-ed, and wilder still for her to tru-ly be-lieve.


    And Ki''el could not im-me-di-ate-ly find it in her to ques-tion Sobon. If her mas-ter be-lieved she could reach the same heights that Sobon could, then Ki''el im-me-di-ate-ly thought it must be so, even if it made no sense to her at all. And if Sobon said that she should...


    Ki''el felt her heart beat-ing heav-i-ly, felt the sun-warmed rocks on her hands and the cool wa-ter on her feet, and lis-tened to the rest of the mes-sage while hold-ing her breath.


    [ I... could tell you why now, but I think I''d bet-ter wait. If I''m wrong, you''ll prob-a-bly know by now, but if I''m right, it''s a se-cret you''ll have to keep close, and per-haps it''s just bet-ter not to be think-ing about it. So fo-cus for now on learn-ing and grow-ing, and just know that I''m wait-ing for you. As-sum-ing I''m still out there, when you''re ready to hear the se-crets, just ask the Coro-na to con-tact me. We''ll prob-a-bly talk by re-lay be-fore then, but I don''t think we''ll meet in per-son for a long time. And we prob-a-bly won''t even do that for a while, even if I''m right. ]


    [ There are com-pli-cat-ed things go-ing on, but leave those to me for now. Take care of your-self, Ki''el, and I hope you nev-er feel alone. ]


    Ki''el only let out her breath and sucked in an-oth-er when the pain in her chest got to be too much. I hope you nev-er feel alone, she heard in her mind, and she un-der-stood what her mas-ter was re-al-ly say-ing. I know that pain, and I hope you do not feel it.


    She looked up at the sky, at the Moon-stone Is-land sect in the dis-tance, and al-though she prob-a-bly could have found a way to send Sobon a mes-sage, in-stead she sim-ply whis-pered, "I hope you do not feel it ei-ther."


    <hr>


    Over the next hour, Ki''els "aug-ment", or "aether AI," con-tin-ued to demon-strate what it could do a lit-tle bit at a time, com-mu-ni-cat-ing only through the lit-tle box in her mind, and then all at once, it sim-ply switched to say-ing some-thing else, a larg-er box ap-pear-ing all at once.


    { Start-up phase 3 is now ready. Dur-ing this phase, I need you to trust me, as I will at-tempt to put thoughts into your mind. I will not put in any-thing you do not ask me for, and I will do it very care-ful-ly. If you wish to wait be-fore try-ing this, we can. Do you wish to con-tin-ue? }


    Ki''el had gone from sit-ting on the rock to wad-ing fur-ther into the riv-er, but not so far that she was swim-ming, not now. She paused and turned her head, frown-ing. She... did not like things in-trud-ing into her mind, but she had al-ready ac-cept-ed this aug-ment, and she trust-ed Sobon com-plete-ly. [ Yes. ]


    Al-though it took a mo-ment and there was a first at-tempt that did not quite work, af-ter only a mo-ment, Ki''el found her-self pic-tur-ing a young Il-lan girl much like her-self, and she un-der-stood from the im-age that it was the aug-ment. The girl held out a hand, and in the hand was a thought, an in-tent, and Ki''el knew that she could name the aug-ment if she wished. And then the girl closed one hand and opened the oth-er, and in it was a short, con-nect-ed se-ries of thoughts, sug-gest-ing that she could choose to have an an-swer giv-en to her as a whole thought if she wished, but it would not be done un-til she was ready.


    A mo-ment lat-er, the girl dis-ap-peared, and Ki''el let out her breath in a dis-ori-ent-ed huff, squeez-ing her eyes shut. The im-age had giv-en her a slight headache; it was not more than that, but she didn''t like the sen-sa-tion. It was... not so strong that she hat-ed it, not yet, but she def-i-nite-ly did not feel like this was some-thing she want-ed right now. "Do not do that," she said out loud, tak-ing an-oth-er breath.


    { I will not do it un-til and un-less you ask. Some things are more eas-i-ly ex-plained with a whole thought, but it will nev-er be the only pos-si-ble way. }


    Ki''el took an-oth-er breath and let it out. She shook her head. "I think that is enough for now."


    { I will not do any-thing more un-til you ask for me again. } A mo-ment af-ter Ki''el had read the last mes-sage, the men-tal box dis-ap-peared, and Ki''el felt... more or less nor-mal.


    Still, she stood there for a long mo-ment in the riv-er, and when it was clear that the aug-ment was in-deed not com-ing back, she turned back to the small pile of nat-u-ral-ly aether-in-fused stones by the riv-er. Al-though she did not know what to do with the stones, or even if there was any-thing re-mote-ly use-ful to do with them, she went over and sat by them. Al-though some part of her was dis-pleased that some-thing else touched her mind--and was still there, though it did noth-ing--Ki''el forced those thoughts from her mind, try-ing to think of what she would have done, what she would have thought, if the whole con-ver-sa-tion had not hap-pened.


    Sobon had talked of the end-less flows out and in as only an-oth-er kind of cy-cle, like her left and right pow-er cy-cle rings, but it did not make sense, not ex-act-ly. It felt odd to her that she could find ex-am-ples so eas-i-ly in na-ture of things that showed the same out-ward and in-ward flows, but when she sim-ply sat and touched the stones for a time, con-tem-plat-ing them, she could sense some-thing.


    It was like a mem-o-ry in the stones, only, a mem-o-ry with-out self. If Ki''el put one out-stone and one in-stone next to each oth-er, the mem-o-ry of the two was the same--the end-less flow of the riv-er, some-times pulling at the stones, some-times push-ing at the stones. Only, the two stones had to-geth-er split that one mem-o-ry, so that one stone re-mem-bered the push-ing, and one stone re-mem-bered the pulling.


    The two to-geth-er form some-thing more, Ki''el mused, re-leas-ing the stones, and feel-ing her stom-ach rum-ble. She looked up at the sky, re-al-iz-ing that it had some-how got-ten much lat-er in the day than she had ex-pect-ed, but there was no sign of the sect Out-er Dis-ci-ple who said he would re-turn to get her.


    So Ki''el pulled out her sect to-ken and at-tempt-ed to fo-cus on Sis-ter Futi, puls-ing a sim-ple mes-sage with in-tent when she thought she was touch-ing the oth-er woman''s spir-it. [ Not picked up yet? ]


    There was only a heart-beat be-fore an ir-ri-tat-ed qi pulse came in re-ply, and with-in only a few min-utes, an-oth-er out-er dis-ci-ple ap-peared, this one a some-what more adult-look-ing woman who had shaved her head clean ex-cept, for a long pony-tail at the back. This woman was rid-ing what looked like a wo-ven mat made from a sin-gle liv-ing tree sapling, with its roots in a soil ball at the cen-ter. As she ap-proached, Ki''el no-ticed a rock hov-er-ing above her palm. "You are Ki''el?"


    "Yes," she said, gath-er-ing her-self up. "You are--"


    "I''ll bring you back." She low-ered the mat all the way un-til Ki''el could sim-ply step on it, and then it lift-ed off very quick-ly and eas-i-ly back to-wards the Is-lands. "Apolo-gies. Broth-er Zhon is very bad about hold-ing to promis-es like that, but keeps ac-cept-ing re-quests that he should not. What did they ask you to do here?"


    "Gath-er-ing riv-er stones, with-out qi."


    "Ah." She looked up. "Don''t re-sent the work. Some-day you too will find just how nice it is to be able to ask peo-ple to do some-thing ab-surd, so that you can con-tin-ue your work. You can call me Sis-ter Pin." The woman, stand-ing on the mat, clasped her hands and made a half bow, turn-ing her head down-wards, and Ki''el matched the woman''s pos-ture re-spect-ful-ly.


    "Sis-ter Pin. A plea-sure." Ki''el straight-ened, and the oth-er woman did so as well, im-me-di-ate-ly. "Thank you. Is this float-ing tree yours?"


    "Yes." Pin knelt down and gen-tly touched the soil ball at the cen-ter. "I have raised it for the last three years, but only re-cent-ly have I been able to chan-nel my own qi through it. It is tricky, be-cause it was not a spir-it plant to be-gin with, but that is my Way. Now it is able to com-mu-ni-cate with me, a lit-tle."


    Ki''el could sense that, in-deed, the plant had some-thing like a spir-it through it, but most-ly what she felt was Sis-ter Pin push-ing her own qi through her feet and into the tree, where it ac-ti-vat-ed some kind of ar-ray stone with-in the root ball. That stone, plus the arrange-ment of the plant''s wo-ven and twist-ed trunk, seemed re-spon-si-ble for the fly-ing ef-fect. "It is im-pres-sive work."


    "When I was still in the Less-er House, I thought so too, but in truth they ex-pect every-one to make use of the Fly-ing Stones. The ar-ti-fi-cial merid-i-ans with-in the tree are not a good match for it, I think. We''re here."


    Ki''el had been split-ting her at-ten-tion be-tween the tree mat and the ap-proach-ing is-land, and was not tak-en by sur-prise when Sis-ter Pin came up right next to the Less-er House. She stepped off and bowed, match-ing Pin''s ear-li-er ges-ture. "Thank you very much, Sis-ter Pin."


    "You seem to have a good soul, Sis-ter Ki''el," Pin re-turned the ges-ture. "Good for-tune to you, and don''t let the Less-er House up-set you. We all had to go through it."


    Ki''el nod-ded and straight-ened, turn-ing away, and by the time she had reached the door, Sis-ter Pin was long gone.


    Ki''el, when she turned in her space ring of stones, was only told by Sis-ter Futi that she had re-ceived sect points for her work, and then was im-me-di-ate-ly of-fered an-oth-er job weed-ing an herb gar-den, which she took with a bit of con-fu-sion. Rather than be-ing picked up by an-oth-er out-er dis-ci-ple, she was di-rect-ed down a se-ries of paths through the trees. When she fol-lowed the di-rec-tions, she found her-self sur-prised to emerge into a small clear-ing, still on the same small is-land that con-tained the Less-er House, where a clear-ly not-young man was sit-ting on a box, smok-ing a pipe in front of a small hut. He did not have a clas-sic Djang look, but one that Ki''el did not quite rec-og-nize.


    All around the hut, in every di-rec-tion, were rows and rows of low plants, all shad-ed by the for-est around them.


    "You are Sis-ter Ki''el. A plea-sure to meet you, I think." The sect broth-er who was smok-ing there seemed to put his pipe out with less than a ges-ture, and tucked it into an in-ner pock-et of his vest. "Sis-ter Futi does not warm up to peo-ple quick-ly, but she doesn''t hate you, and she sent you here, so she thinks you can be trust-ed not to screw this up. I am Both-er Arex."


    "Most-ly, what I ex-pect you to do is no harm. If you have even a mo-ment''s ques-tion as to whether some-thing is a weed, do not pick it. Some of these herbs have been grow-ing for years and still look like sin-gle half-grown blades of grass or pop-py leaves. Don''t weed an area un-til I point out which plants are sup-posed to be in it, and if there is any ques-tion at all, ask first. Is that clear?"


    Ki''el nod-ded, and got to work, won-der-ing just what oth-er tasks she would end up do-ing, and when ex-act-ly she would have the time to be-gin to com-pre-hend the com-plex-i-ties of qi and aether, and the mys-te-ri-ous aug-ment that her mas-ter had left her.

 [TAS] 4. Kiel - Arrival, Part 4

    The end of Ki''el''s weed pick-ing as-sign-ment marked the last of her tasks for the day, ac-cord-ing to Futi, leav-ing Ki''el un-cer-tain as to where her friends--or fam-i-ly, were now. Futi was will-ing to di-rect her to Mian, as he was in fact prepar-ing for the evening meal along with oth-er kitchen staff, but said lit-tle more about Xam ex-cept that she was away.


    Ki''el had seen the small kitchen on the way in, not-ing that it seemed to have been lived in, and so she was un-sur-prised to find that the air was charged when she looked. Mian was do-ing lit-tle at the mo-ment, ob-serv-ing and stir-ring a pot, while an-oth-er man, one with shoul-der-length black hair that looked a bit too wild, was in-tent-ly fo-cus-ing on chop-ping veg-eta-bles. He glanced up at the door when Ki''el ap-peared, but did not dis-tract him-self fur-ther.


    "Ki''el." Mian''s voice was warm when he glanced up and no-ticed her. "I hope you''re hav-ing a bet-ter day than me so far."


    "Noth-ing to com-plain about," Ki''el said, though it wasn''t quite true. She glanced at the oth-er cook. "Did any-thing bad hap-pen?"


    Ki''el not-ed the oth-er cook giv-ing Mian a look, but nei-ther man dwelled on it. "Only peo-ple who don''t want my help," he said. "Es-pe-cial-ly when I first ar-rive. There''s not much I can do ex-cept try to prove my-self, but even so, one nev-er came around." He checked back on the pot he was stir-ring, then set the la-dle aside. "There are... strong per-son-al-i-ties here."


    "You step on land-mines," the oth-er cook said, naked dis-trust in his voice. "I don''t know if you''re just stu-pid or some-thing worse, but the way you talk will get you in-tro trou-ble no mat-ter where you go."


    Mian gave Ki''el a shrug, and then turned back. "Should I start the next--"


    "No." The cook paused his chop-ping for a mo-ment. "Yes. Fill a pan with wa-ter and get it heat-ing. Not the clos-er well, the clean one."


    Mian quick-ly stirred the pot again be-fore set-ting the ladle aside and grab-bing an-oth-er lar-gish pot. Ki''el stood aside and fol-lowed him as he be-gan quick-walk-ing down the hill. "I told him I wasn''t like the peo-ple who didn''t want to work," Mian said once they were a lit-tle ways away. "I know that it''s a thing around here. I sup-pose I know that it''s a fool-ish thing to say, but I''m also not sure how to say it bet-ter."


    "He might not wish to work," Ki''el said, though she could also ad-mit she didn''t un-der-stand. "But he also does not wish to be re-placed."


    "I sup-pose every-one around here finds their place. It''s hard for me to un-der-stand their point of view, though."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered it, as they walked a lit-tle ways into the for-est, where a small cir-cu-lar well with a long-han-dle pump on top sat, sur-round-ed by a small stone-brick cir-cle. Mian pumped the han-dle a cou-ple times, and al-though the wa-ter that first came out ap-peared clear, he con-tin-ued for an-oth-er mo-ment be-fore fill-ing the pot.


    "I sup-pose we did pay a lot to come here," Mian said, as he bal-anced the pot with still pump-ing the han-dle. "It''s hard to keep that in mind, since it was Alas-si--Sobon''s mon-ey."


    Ki''el watched him bal-ance the pot un-til it was full, then turn and be-gin walk-ing, de-lay-ing a mo-ment too long and need-ing to hur-ry to catch up. What Mian said wasn''t wrong, but it also didn''t quite an-swer it for her, ei-ther. "This place is an op-por-tu-ni-ty to do great things. I do not see why it would be dif-fi-cult to ac-cept work-ing for that."


    "Is it?" Mian''s voice sound-ed a lit-tle dis-tant, as they came back in view of the build-ing. "Couldn''t she have taught us bet-ter? Taught us more?"


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, want-i-ng to speak of the aug-ment that Sobon had left be-hind with her, but rec-og-niz-ing as they drew clos-er that oth-ers might be lis-ten-ing. "She didn''t think so."


    "And yet a few words from her are worth a thou-sand from some-one else. You know it''s true." Mian straight-ened as they came through the front door, and by the time he had put the pot on the stove and got-ten back into stir-ring the oth-er, any sign of the in-tro-spec-tive mood he''d had van-ished.


    Ki''el watched for a minute more, but turned away when she heard voic-es com-ing from out-side.


    She was sur-prised to find, out-side, sev-er-al mem-bers of the Less-er House, ones that had not been there even mo-ments be-fore, gath-ered around an-oth-er, a young man or an-drog-y-nous woman with the bright-est red hair that Ki''el had ever seen. Al-though there was pal-pa-ble re-sent-ment and angst in the air, it was un-clear why, and the sit-u-a-tion made no sense to Ki''el, see-ing it from the out-side. From what she could tell, they were not far apart in their cul-ti-va-tion, and while she would not be sur-prised if they were far apart in sta-tus, as most of the rest of them looked clear-ly Djang, she could not imag-ine what must have tran-spired for that to mat-ter.


    When she felt one of the sur-round-ing mem-bers of the Less-er House reach out to the red-haired per-son, there was some-thing so dirty about their qi that Ki''el un-con-scious-ly gave a shout of protest, draw-ing at-ten-tion that she im-me-di-ate-ly knew she should not have drawn.


    "A new one?" The clos-est man to Ki''el twitched slight-ly as he pushed his qi into an ar-ti-fact bracelet, and Ki''el could tell im-me-di-ate-ly that it linked him to the oth-ers in some way, as the group of eight sud-den-ly moved as though with a sin-gle mind, leap-ing through the air un-til they sur-round-ed her much like they had sur-round-ed the red haired one. She felt her qi surge pro-tec-tive-ly with-in her... but it was very lit-tle com-pared to what was sud-den-ly around her. "What is it with this sect," the man com-plained, sneer-ing down at Ki''el, "ac-cept-ing half-breeds and for-eign trash, just for, what? A lit-tle mon-ey? Pa-thet-ic of them."


    "If they would just ac-cept more of our fam-i-ly''s do-na-tions, they wouldn''t need such piti-ful things," one of the oth-ers agreed, and Ki''el glanced to find her sneer-ing.


    Ki''el im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan push-ing on her Right-eous Cy-cle, feed-ing the pure aether that came from it into her spir-it. It had al-ways helped her to re-sist ef-fects from out-side qi... and it did, to-day, much like it had when she was cap-tured and abused by pi-rates, tru-ly wicked crea-tures that had in-tend-ed to break her spir-it and sell her into slav-ery. But there was a dif-fer-ence, here. When she re-sist-ed the qi pres-sure that was be-ing pressed into her, the ones around here were not con-fused.


    In-stead, the pres-sure dou-bled, and Ki''el had to close her eyes, fo-cus-ing all of her spir-it on first one, then a sec-ond of her Right Hand Aether rings, feed-ing the back, know-ing, know-ing that whether or not she suc-cumbed to the hos-tile aether that poured in from all around her meant some-thing sig-nif-i-cant to her.


    When the qi in-ten-si-ty around her dou-bled again, for the first time, those rings be-gan to fail her. They had felt like they were the only air she could breathe when she was tor-tured--beat-en, burned, elec-tro-cut-ed. But these peo-ple, by only un-veil-ing their spir-its, threat-ened to do worse.


    { Do you wish for ad-vice? }


    Ki''el al-most lost con-cen-tra-tion, but signaled des-per-ate as-sent to the thing in her mind.


    In-stead of giv-ing words of ad-vice, the thing in her mind brought her back to the two riv-er stones, one push-ing end-less-ly on the world around it, and one drink-ing end-less-ly from it. And af-ter only a mo-ment, when Ki''el thought she grasped what was be-ing said, the aug-ment flashed just a mo-ment of im-age in her mind, of four stones push-ing, and four stones pulling, cre-at-ing a tear-ing cur-rent, one that felt in-ex-orable, un-ques-tion-able. Un-con-quer-able.


    Ki''el''s eyes flew open as she had that thought, and she looked, tru-ly looked at the qi around her. Be-cause she had felt that all of them were op-press-ing her, she had thought that all of them were do-ing the same things, but as soon as she un-der-stood that it was a two-part ef-fect, sud-den-ly her de-fens-es did not feel cor-rect. Be-cause she did need to push aether into her body to re-sist that which was push-ing into her, but if she pushed aether into the parts of her body where en-er-gy was be-ing tak-en away, then that was wast-ed.


    Al-though it took her more than a mo-ment to change the way she pushed her aether into her body''s spir-it, the dif-fer-ence was ob-vi-ous. She still strug-gled against the weight of what was press-ing in on her, but sud-den-ly, she was twice as strong against it, per-haps more.


    "Oh, the lit-tle for-eign bitch knows a trick or two? I''d say it''s im-pres-sive in-ter-nal qi con-trol, but I''m not ever go-ing to be im-pressed by trash, no mat-ter how well trained it is." The one who was in the lead, Ki''el now saw, was not press-ing hard on his own spir-it, and looked pris-tine and un-con-cerned with the world, as though noth-ing that had oc-curred was even note-wor-thy. But Ki''el felt his in-ter-nal qi flex, and he stepped for-ward, and Ki''el re-al-ized with com-plete shock a mo-ment be-fore it hap-pened that he was in-tend-ing to strike her.


    And then the heel of the man''s hand smashed into her nose, and she fell back-wards, stunned mo-men-tar-i-ly out of her fo-cus.


    Ki''el could feel some-thing like whis-pers in the dark in the mo-ment when she was not flush-ing out her spir-it, but as soon as she put pres-sure on the rings again, those whis-pers sud-den-ly felt dis-tant, im-per-son-al. She got over her shock in only a mo-ment, and leaped to her feet, balling her fists and look-ing straight at the man who had so ca-su-al-ly struck her, al-ready ques-tion-ing in her mind whether the man''s un-pro-voked at-tack would jus-ti-fy at-tack-ing him. She want-ed it to be so sim-ple, but she sus-pect-ed it was not.


    Even so, it was as-ton-ish-ing that the man saw both her re-sis-tance and re-straint and sim-ply scoffed at her.


    "As al-ways with for-eign trash," he said, "weak and in-com-pe-tent. Do you not have any fire in your spir-it at all? I won-der how your an-ces-tors sur-vived their first con-tact with the Djang. Such a weak thing is not even wor-thy to be a ser-vant; you are mere-ly meat."


    Ki''el suf-fered the in-dig-ni-ties, her mind eas-i-ly able to fo-cus on words, and was just bare-ly, bare-ly able to keep more than that in her mind, thanks to the flow of Right-eous Aether with-in her. With-out ques-tion, this taunt-ing was all some kind of trap, and she dared not--


    "At least she''s not like that oth-er trash," one of the women sur-round-ing her chuck-led. "We know ex-act-ly how that meat sur-vived--by serv-ing her bet-ters on her knees and back."


    Ki''el felt a trick-le of chill hor-ror go through her as she un-der-stood what the woman was say-ing, but the thought did not have a chance to ma-ture in her mind be-fore there was a flash of red, and the woman was sud-den-ly buried un-der a red smear of light, col-laps-ing to her knees. And Ki''el, un-cer-tain but al-ready primed to act, shift-ed im-me-di-ate-ly to cov-er the red-haired per-son, as two of the oth-ers sur-round-ing her sud-den-ly moved to at-tack.


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    It took both aether and a touch of her qi for Ki''el to move quick-ly enough to catch a full-strength kick that was aimed at the red haired one with her hands, al-though the force of it pushed her back-wards into where they were fight-ing with the woman with poi-soned words, and all three of them tum-bled to the ground. Ki''el rolled with it, notic-ing an-oth-er kick from a dif-fer-ent man, and on in-stinct, flashed an im-age at the red haired one with her in-tent--and the red haired one re-spond-ed, sud-den-ly pick-ing up the woman they were fight-ing and lift-ing them straight into the kick, so that it land-ed on her back in-stead.


    It was in that mo-ment, at that an-gle, that Ki''el un-der-stood that the red haired per-son had more than sim-ply red hair on their head, but also point-ed red ears like an an-i-mal, though she was sure they had not been there be-fore. But she wiped the thought from her mind as some-one else near-by bent down, in-tend-ing to punch Ki''el in the head. She punched back, not aim-ing for his face, but strik-ing his arm near the el-bow to stop the blow from land-ing. It was some-thing she had prac-ticed a lit-tle with Mian, us-ing the staff form of her Aether Sword, but rarely with her hands.


    Still, her blow land-ed, and al-though the man''s fist con-tin-ued for-ward, it de-flect-ed to the side, not strik-ing her. Be-side her, the red haired per-son snarled and clawed at the woman''s face, and Ki''el felt a surge of qi from in-side them, and so she reached down and hauled the red haired one to their feet, pulling them away be-fore they could do some-thing rash. She felt them at first re-spond bad-ly to the con-tact, and once she pulled them to their feet, the red haired one start-ed to round on her, but Ki''el pushed a sense of peace with her in-tent, which at least made them pause.


    "Fuck-ing mon-ster! As-sault! As-sault!" The man who had start-ed every-thing, nat-u-ral-ly, was the first one to cry out as though a crime had been com-mit-ted, and Ki''el sensed a pulse of qi from his bracelet ar-ti-fact, and mo-ments lat-er all of his com-pan-ions had shift-ed from fu-ri-ous to look-ing scared. "Da Chi-an has gone fer-al! Stop her! Kill her!"


    This only caused Chi-an to bris-tle fur-ther, but Ki''el put a hand on their shoul-der, push-ing right-eous aether into them, and al-though there was a mo-ment of con-fu-sion, sud-den-ly they round-ed on Ki''el, a ter-ri-bly con-fused look on their face.


    "What... what have I...?" Da Chi-an''s voice was sud-den-ly scared, too, and Ki''el--in part on in-stinct, and in part out of spite for the ob-vi-ous pro-duc-tion that the at-tack-ers were putting on, pulled them into a pro-tec-tive hug, flood-ing their spir-it and her own with pure right-hand aether.


    It only took a mo-ment for the red haired one''s pound-ing heart to qui-et, and then an-oth-er mo-ment be-fore they be-gan shak-ing and cry-ing, mak-ing Ki''el feel a lit-tle awk-ward to stand there hold-ing them, al-though on a cer-tain lev-el, it did not feel wrong, ex-act-ly.


    It was thanks to this that when two Out-er Dis-ci-ples of the sect dropped from nowhere into the clear-ing, the only one look-ing an-gry was the man who had start-ed every-thing, al-though Ki''el her-self felt that it was ob-vi-ous just how much his com-pan-ions were also fak-ing their up-set, ex-cept for the one who now bore sev-er-al scratch-es across her face.


    "Al-right, ju-nior Broth-ers and Sis-ters, who start-ed this?" The man who spoke had a met-al staff, one with a ring hov-er-ing near each end of it, sev-er-al small-er rings dan-gling freely from those. Al-though his eyes swept over the crowd--both those that had been in-volved, and the grow-ing group of peo-ple around the edges who had not, his cold eyes set-tled on Ki''el and Da Chi-an with a look that was also de-mean-ing.


    "She did!" The man who had start-ed every-thing snarled, point-ing at Da Chain. "Like I told you she would! She struck my friend--"


    "You struck me first," Ki''el said, and though it wasn''t quite true, spoke up in the awk-ward still-ness. "Da Chi-an was pro-tect-ing me."


    "You LIE!" The man''s fury ex-plod-ed from him with a qi wave that might have been im-pres-sive some-where else in the world. "This for-eign--" he caught him-self just in time, smooth-ing over his spir-it rough-ly. "This ju-nior sis-ter was un-fa-mil-iar with how things worked here, and I was pro-vid-ing guid-ance."


    "You called my an-ces-tors whores that were no bet-ter than meat," Ki''el said, keep-ing her spir-it lev-el and un-fla-vored, let-ting the truth of what she said stand out. Even so, she could not help re-fram-ing what had hap-pened just a lit-tle. "Even then, no one struck you un-til af-ter you struck me."


    "You daugh-ter of a WHORE!" the man ex-plod-ed, and a lance of qi from some ar-ti-fact she had not no-ticed leaped out at her, but the sec-ond Out-er Dis-ci-ple, who had not yet ated, sim-ply flicked a hand up and scat-tered it in midair as though it were a puff of smoke.


    "Xan Bu," the Out-er Dis-ci-ple''s words were cold, "I had heard from sev-er-al peo-ple that you were a tal-ent-ed ma-nip-u-la-tor, but it seems that ac-cu-sa-tion was base-less. Even an in-fant could look at this sit-u-a-tion and tell that you were in the wrong." She turned and glared at the oth-er Out-er Dis-ci-ple, who sim-ply main-tained a sto-ic fa-cade, hav-ing said and done noth-ing. "But be-yond that, strik-ing an-oth-er dis-ci-ple, even a mem-ber of the Less-er House, while an Out-er Dis-ci-ple is here? It seems that you, above all oth-ers, are un-fa-mil-iar with how things work here. Per-haps you should re-ceive guid-ance in turn?"


    Xan Bu clenched every mus-cle in his body like his rage would some-how open a hid-den well-spring of qi deep with-in him, but noth-ing surged forth, and af-ter a mo-ment, the man forced him-self to stand straight. "I... this dis-ci-ple may have been mis-tak-en."


    The sec-ond Out-er Dis-ci-ple turned to look at Ki''el, who was there hold-ing Da Chi-an against her. "You, dis-ci-ple. As the ag-griev-ed, would you care to pro-vide guid-ance to your fel-low dis-ci-ple?" There was no ques-tion-ing the in-tent be-hind the woman''s words, but Ki''el con-tin-ued to cir-cu-late right-eous aether through her, and through Da Chi-an, and the words struck her very dif-fer-ent-ly, be-cause her spir-it was not boil-ing over with ha-tred, was not con-sumed by the fact that she had been at-tacked.


    And she had. And she un-der-stood that. But the more that she pushed aether into her spir-it, the more she seemed to catch flick-ers of the out-side world that she had not caught be-fore. And she thought, as she stood there, that the whis-pers she had heard when she was at-tacked were still hang-ing around Xan Bu, but they were not point-ed at her, or any-one else, but at the man him-self. And Ki''el had a mo-ment in which she won-dered if that had al-ways been the case.


    And so she re-leased Da Chi-an and moved to-wards the man, watch-ing as every-one else tensed, no doubt ex-pect-ing her to strike him in the face. And in-stead she moved around the man in a slow cir-cle, study-ing his qi, and more and more cer-tain as she did that the same barbs that had threat-ened to tear into her spir-it were tor-tur-ing him even now.


    That was good, in a way. Ki''el felt a cer-tain jus-tice know-ing the he suf-fered af-ter hurt-ing her. But she also could not help think-ing that the barbs had per-haps been there long be-fore, and had tor-tured him un-til he broke, much like he, and the pi-rates that Sobon had saved her from, had wished to break her. So af-ter walk-ing one full cir-cle around him, she walked a sec-ond time, this time look-ing as much at his flesh as she did his spir-it.


    It was dif-fi-cult to tell what his his-to-ry was, ex-cept that the clothes that he wore were nei-ther the rich-est silks Ki''el had seen--and she was sure she had not seen tru-ly fine silk, even in the store in the city that Sobon had tak-en her to--nor were they the rough cloth of work-ing clothes. They were fine clothes, but they had been dirt-ied and cleaned, and there were nicks and cuts, ev-i-dence of his work at the Sect. His hair was black and cut short, in what might have been a dig-ni-fied style if it had been bet-ter done and his hair prop-er-ly cared for; his face had re-cent-ly been shaved clean but had re-grown more than enough to show. His pos-ture con-tin-ued to show no re-morse and no con-fu-sion, only a com-bat-ive in-tent that could not be ig-nored or de-nied.


    And his eyes, Ki''el thought, showed an ab-solute and com-plete ded-i-ca-tion. He be-lieved he knew some-thing to the depths of his soul. What that was, Ki''el could not guess. All that she knew was that ded-i-ca-tion was not to-wards his qi, was not to-wards grow-ing stronger.


    So when she had com-plet-ed her walk, she turned to look into his face, and said ex-act-ly that. "Broth-er Xan Bu," she said, and the man flinched, per-haps think-ing that Ki''el would shame him be-fore at-tack-ing. "I be-lieve that you are ful-ly ded-i-cat-ed in your spir-it to some-thing, and that some-thing is not grow-ing stronger. I be-lieve that if you wish to suc-ceed in this place, you should show as much ded-i-ca-tion to your qi as you show to... what-ev-er de-mon it is in-side of you that you give con-trol. And I be-lieve that if you gave that ded-i-ca-tion to your qi in-stead, you would no longer be con-fined to the Less-er House." Al-though she still felt a deep de-sire to still strike at him, she turned away, let-ting the act of de-fi-ance be her part-ing blow. "That is my guid-ance."


    Ki''el was three steps away when some-one struck her full in the back.


    She did not un-der-stand, as she fell, and she would not un-der-stand lat-er. She tried to get up, or roll onto her back, but all she was met with was pain. It did not last; she felt a pair of hands lift-ing her al-most im-me-di-ate-ly, hands that were re-mark-ably gen-tle, and some-how, in the blur of mo-tion that fol-lowed, there was no fur-ther pain.


    Ki''el had nev-er ceased to press her right-eous aether into her spir-it, and al-though she closed her eyes for a part of the trip, and al-though the world out-side of her body be-came in-creas-ing-ly con-fused as some-thing like shock set in, she could tell that the trip was fair-ly short, and she was brought into a build-ing and laid in a bed. And a man she had not met was quick-ly there, and her shirt was lift-ed, and very pow-er-ful med-ical qi pressed into a wound on her back that she be-came aware was di-rect-ly in her spine.


    She felt some-thing shift, there, and sud-den-ly, the pain was much less.


    "It was in time," a voice said near-by. "She will re-cov-er her full strength, and soon. Thank you for your swift ac-tions, sis-ter."


    "Thank you, Se-nior Broth-er."


    "And you... don''t move yet. You can stop stop feed-ing qi into your spir-it; I as-sure you, you will be fine."


    So Ki''el let go of her Right-eous Cy-cles, feel-ing sud-den-ly faint. She was sure, af-ter every-thing she had just en-dured, that she had put too much aether into her spir-it, though she was not sure what that meant, or what she should have done dif-fer-ent-ly. Sobon had spo-ken of aether and qi as dif-fer-ent... no, she would not know what would be right or wrong even if she had been us-ing qi to pro-tect her-self. She took sev-er-al steady-ing breaths, find-ing that her mouth felt very dry, then asked, "You are a heal-er for the sect?"


    "Yes, we have nev-er met. You may call me Se-nior Broth-er Yong." The man moved to where Ki''el could see him and squat-ted down, to be more on her lev-el. "The heal-ing I have used on you can only be used on fresh wounds, but it should re-cov-er you com-plete-ly. That is good; a wound to your spine would oth-er-wise be very se-ri-ous in-deed. What hap-pened to you?"


    Ki''el worked her dry mouth a mo-ment, but there was no sali-va to wet it. Al-though the pain was eas-ing, be-tween it and lay-ing on her chest, she found her-self only able to speak a few words at a time. Fi-nal-ly, she just said, "Struck... from be-hind by... an... an-oth-er mem-ber... of the Less-er House. We were... ar-gu-ing."


    "Some-one struck you from be-hind, while a Dis-ci-ple was watch-ing?" Yong all but laughed out loud, shak-ing his head wist-ful-ly. "That man won''t be stay-ing longer in the Sect, that is for cer-tain."


    "He had... friends."


    "Many peo-ple think they have friends, un-til those ''friends'' dis-cov-er what the true cost of loy-al-ty will be. I re-mem-ber when I was in the Less-er House..." The man looked up at the ceil-ing, but went silent in-stead of con-tin-u-ing. Then, af-ter a mo-ment, "We thought that sev-er-al peo-ple had great pow-er be-cause they could gath-er al-lies, like mind-ed peo-ple. But in truth, they were just des-per-ate peo-ple band-ing to-geth-er. Only one of those peo-ple ever rose to join the Sect, and that was be-cause he was a hard work-er. In truth, the ones who re-main in the Less-er House for long get so des-per-ate that they will latch on to any-one who they think is of a sim-i-lar spir-it--all be-cause they wish to rise. But when that at-tach-ment would have them fall along-side some-one else..." He stood, his head get-ting to where Ki''el could not quite see him com-fort-ably any-more. "It is just as nat-ur-al for them to say, ''I was nev-er one of your peo-ple.'' It seems cold, but it is all a part of the same des-per-ate cow-ardice."


    Ki''el didn''t say more, and Broth-er Yong moved away with-out fur-ther com-ment. Ki''el found that she could not rest or sleep for a long time, and she thought about Xan Bu and des-per-ate peo-ple, but all that she could think was that she was glad her spir-it had not been bro-ken. She did not tru-ly want to save Xan Bu, and had not re-al-ly de-sired to save him when she chose not to strike back at him. She was not even sure that there was any pity in-side of her for him, not only be-cause he struck at her, but be-cause he had struck at Da Chi-an. But she was cer-tain that if she had been bro-ken, she would also have be-come cru-el, and she was glad that had not hap-pened.


    Some-where over the next hour or two, as she thought about these things, the stress of the evening caught up with her, and Ki''el fi-nal-ly fell asleep.

 [TAS] 5. Kiel - Arrival, Part 5

    In truth, Ki''el did not feel a great need to sleep, and she was sit-ting and med-i-tat-ing long be-fore dawn. Her back, as the heal-er had promised, was fine, al-though there was some-thing odd about the qi used. Ki''el, even with-out the as-sis-tance of her aug-ment, thought that it had to do with what Sobon had called Re-vival Aether, which brought things back to how they used to be.


    When she start-ed think-ing about the aug-ment, as with many things, she could not help but feel that the name was aw-ful. While Sobon, and those he rep-re-sent-ed, was very in-tel-li-gent, their nam-ing abil-i-ty was aw-ful. And as she sat there, mak-ing a poor at-tempt at be-ing clear head-ed with-out leav-ing the med-ical room, she con-sid-ered the aug-ment with-in her, and it reap-peared in her mind, a vi-su-al-iza-tion of a younger Il-lan girl, one that could have been her sis-ter.


    She not-ed, as she fo-cused on the im-age, that the girl was def-i-nite-ly not a younger version of herself. Al-though her mem-o-ries of her past were... nev-er per-fect, and were now fad-ed and mixed up with mourn-ing and re-gret, she could re-call her own re-flec-tion in the wa-ters from a sim-i-lar age. This Il-lan girl had a nar-row-er face than she had back then, she thought, and high-er eye-brows, but oth-er-wise they were very sim-i-lar, more sim-i-lar than Ki''el was to most of the oth-ers in the vil-lage. She sup-posed it was not sur-pris-ing, and did not mind, though she won-dered just how the ar-ti-fi-cial-mind had cre-at-ed such an im-age.


    { I can speak about it if you wish, } the aug-ment replied, { but I think you would pre-fer to think of more im-por-tant things. }


    And Ki''el agreed, in-stead di-rect-ing her in-tent to a vague ques-tion about whether the aug-ment al-ready had a name it would like. And the Il-lan girl tilt-ed her head, and con-sid-ered her thoughts.


    { I only wish for your com-fort, } it replied, { but if you would like me to come up with one, it is sim-ple enough. I be-lieve you would be hap-py with the name Kuli. }


    I don''t only wish for my own hap-pi-ness, a part of Ki''el want-ed to say, but the aug-ment had al-ready said that it had no will of its own. And Kuli was a nice name, one that she thought her moth-er would have liked. Where Ki''el was giv-en the name of a bird in the sky, Kuli was a type of cloud, one of the small-er ones, but still thick enough to cast a shad-ow; a cheer-ful cloud, not a stormy one. Al-though by now, she bare-ly re-mem-bered the sound of her moth-er''s voice, it was not hard for her to imag-ine the woman say-ing, "Look at the ki''el up by the kuli." Or, per-haps, "Look at that kuli, over by the ki''el."


    When the heal-er en-tered the room some lit-tle while lat-er, Ki''el had to wipe a few tears from her eyes, but they were not bit-ter ones.


    "You look well," Broth-er Yong said. "Thank you for not do-ing any-thing rash with your back. Please lay down and let me ex-am-ine you."


    So Ki''el lay once more on her chest, and Broth-er Yong ran his fin-gers up and down her back. Ki''el felt more med-ical qi press gen-tly into her back, but she could tell it was not a great deal. "It feels much bet-ter," she said, as Broth-er Yong''s fin-gers pushed gen-tly on the meat around her spine. "I felt that I could have stood and walked."


    "You can, and you will," Yong agreed, re-mov-ing his hands. "My heal-ing path is based on the works of the Whis-per-ing Sage, who has walked this world for many cen-turies, and he speaks of this tech-nique as though the pa-tient is com-plete-ly un-harmed once it is per-formed. My own mas-tery of it is not near-ly to that lev-el, but it has been many years since fur-ther treat-ment was nec-es-sary, if a wound was caught as ear-ly as yours. You will be sore, es-pe-cial-ly when you bend your back, but no fur-ther heal-ing should be re-quired. You may leave, or if you de-sire, re-main for a few hours more."


    "I will go." Ki''el low-ered her shirt and stood, painful-ly aware when she did that Broth-er Yong was very tall. Ki''el was not... too short, for her age, but the heal-er was doubt-less one of the tallest adults she had yet met. Still, al-though there was a mo-ment when she was look-ing up in sur-prise at him, she caught her-self eas-i-ly and sim-ply bowed, giv-ing a mar-tial salute. "Thank you very much, Broth-er Yong."


    "Go and be well, Young Sis-ter Ki''el." He sim-ply re-turned the salute and stepped aside, and Ki''el left with-out any fur-ther words.


    She found, when she stepped out-side, that it was only mo-ments be-fore dawn, the sky hav-ing light-ened enough that it was very clear where the sun was, though it was not vis-i-ble. There was a pro-found peace to the spir-it of the Moon-stone Is-land Sect, one too in-tense to be idle; she closed her eyes and breathed in the air, try-ing to grasp the feel-ing of the world be-fore dawn, feel-ing the chill air that was so much thin-ner here than it was in her home. The air was... not dry, ex-act-ly, but there was so lit-tle...


    A noise from be-hind her re-mind-ed Ki''el that she was still stand-ing at the door to the heal-ing house, and she star-tled, then moved away. It was not Broth-er Yong, but what seemed to be an Out-er Dis-ci-ple car-ry-ing a wood-en bas-ket full of jars and vials, and he paused when he saw her stand-ing there. His eyes flashed over her, per-haps see-ing signs that she had been in-jured, and he just nod-ded. "If you need to get back to the Less-er House," he said, "down the path and to the right. We don''t mind if you linger... but they might." And then he moved on, the bas-ket full of glass not mak-ing so much as a sin-gle tin-kle as he moved.


    Ki''el watched the hall-way where he had gone for a mo-ment, some part of her still lost in the in-ter-rupt-ed mo-ment she''d had, but the sun peeked over the hori-zon, seem-ing to part a thin cloud of fog and she had to raise a hand to shield her eyes from it.


    Some-how, she thought she felt the col-lec-tive spir-it of the sect take a deep breath as the first rays of dawn struck; in, and then out. And Ki''el, though she was a few mo-ments late, also took a deep breath. And by the time that she had fin-ished, the peace-ful spell that had been over her van-ished, and the Sect was com-ing alive.


    Re-gret-ting the missed mo-ment, Ki''el turned down the path, see-ing it as though for the first time, al-though there had been enough light when she first reached the door-way. This house of heal-ing was sur-round-ed by grassy fields, with no trees nor boul-ders nor oth-er build-ings for a long ways, and the few gar-dens around were neat-ly sec-tioned off. The path-way she walked down was stone brick, but so smooth-ly laid and joined that it bore no re-sem-blance to any stone brick she had ever seen, and as her eye was drawn to them, she no-ticed that the bricks them-selves were carved, but not en-graved; they were dec-o-rat-ed, but no pow-er flowed through them, or not that she could sense. And as she con-tin-ued on, she no-ticed the is-land sur-face curv-ing down gen-tly, like a hill, un-til the path split.


    At the split, there was a shift in the qual-i-ty of the paving stones, but it was not an in-sult-ing dif-fer-ence. She could tell that the stretch of road that she fol-lowed to the right was laid with in-cred-i-ble at-ten-tion to de-tail, but not by the same mas-ter that had done the up-per stretch of road. It was even, but the spac-ing was not as tight, and the stones per-haps had shift-ed with time, now slight-ly high-er in one cor-ner here, an-oth-er cor-ner there. There were carved dec-o-ra-tions, but not on every brick; in-stead, the carv-ings were along the edges, with the oc-ca-sion-al burst of bricks etched with a pat-tern here or there.


    When at last Ki''el reached a rope and wood plank bridge, she felt both com-plete-ly at ease, and also dis-ap-point-ed that the stretch of per-fect road was fin-ished. It was, at least, bridge in per-fect re-pair, and Ki''el could tell that there was a thread of qi run-ning through the ropes hold-ing the bridge up. When she touched the rope and placed her foot on the planks, they felt steady as sol-id ground, and she moved eas-i-ly across them, feel-ing the wind blow, but not feel-ing any sway to the bridge.


    The road on the next is-land in the chain was good, but it was no com-par-i-son to the road on the is-land of the heal-ing house. As Ki''el moved down the road, it was clear that what she saw was only Out-er Dis-ci-ples, and she glanced around at the build-ings. There were sev-er-al build-ings here that seemed to be gath-er-ing places, the pur-pose of which was not ob-vi-ous from out-side, but they were open on the in-side, per-haps with ex-tra rooms along the sides. Al-though they had names, they were all un-spe-cif-ic--this one was Cloudy Riv-er Hall, that one was Fall-en Thun-der-bolt Hall. She itched to know more, but kept it to her-self; if she was pa-tient, she rea-soned, she would know some day. There was no rea-son to rush.


    One hand-some broth-er stand-ing by an in-ter-sec-tion not-ed her com-ing and wait-ed un-til she drew close, look-ing her up and down. "Com-ing from the heal-ing hall... and you seem new. Head-ed to the Less-er House?"


    "I am." Ki''el paused to give a small bow and salute to the man. "Would you di-rect me?"


    The man smiled, look-ing like he want-ed to say some-thing, but thought bet-ter of it. "It is a path I walked a time or two. You will be tak-ing a right turn at each of the next three in-ter-sec-tions." He ges-tured to Ki''el''s right. "That is only be-cause you can-not fly. The fastest way to get to the Less-er House would be straight that way," he ges-tured an-oth-er di-rec-tion. "But... don''t try that un-til you can at least sur-vive the jump. And even then... make sure not to miss."


    Ki''el laughed, and in-clined her head in thanks. "Thank you, Se-nior Broth-er. I am Ki''el."


    "I would say to call me Broth-er Ba, but there are at least three peo-ple with that name here." He grinned. "I am Hem Ba."


    "A plea-sure, Broth-er Hem Ba. Per-haps we will meet again." Ki''el in-clined her head and con-tin-ued on the path he had in-di-cat-ed. As he had sug-gest-ed, be-fore long, she passed onto an-oth-er bridge to an-oth-er is-land, this one with many more trees and many small-er build-ings, ones that Kiel thought must be hous-ing for the Out-er Sect. And at the next in-ter-sec-tion, she turned right, walk-ing un-til she en-coun-tered an-oth-er bridge to an-oth-er is-land with more hous-es, and then right again.


    Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    By the time that Ki''el had made it back to the is-land of the Less-er House, she had be-gun to pass peo-ple from the House head-ed into the sect on one as-sign-ment or an-oth-er, and it was only when she stepped off the fi-nal bridge that she fi-nal-ly saw some-one she knew.


    "Xam!"


    "Ki''el." Xoi Xam sound-ed re-lieved to see her, and she sprang up from where she had been sit-ting next to a tree. The Djang woman nor-mal-ly looked rather se-ri-ous, but now she seemed to calm, at least for a mo-ment. "Sis-ter Futi said you were al-right, and you seem to be. But Mian said that you..." she paused, her voice wa-ver-ing.


    "I was struck from be-hind. I..." Ki''el only re-al-ly un-der-stood when she be-gan to speak just what might have hap-pened, had the Sect not so ca-su-al-ly healed her. Be-cause... the blow seemed to have tru-ly dam-aged her in a way that Broth-er Yong''s tech-nique had eas-i-ly un-done, but she knew from ex-pe-ri-ence that it was no sim-ple thing to have done that kind of dam-age. And as she stood there, the peace of the sect seemed to blow away from her, as she un-der-stood.


    Some-one had struck her with the in-tent to kill. For what? For turn-ing her back? For of-fer-ing ad-vice in-stead of in-sult-ing a man, in-stead of spit-ting on his face, in-stead of strik-ing him?


    "Sis-ter Futi says that there will be an in-ves-ti-ga-tion," Xam''s voice was sur-pris-ing-ly cold. "She... did not seem im-pressed by the Sect and its in-ves-ti-ga-tion. She... you will want to speak with her."


    "I will." Ki''el could not imag-ine go-ing any-where else, not when Sis-ter Futi also gave work as-sign-ments. "What hap-pened to Da Chi-an?"


    "Who?"


    "The one with red hair. They were... they helped me dur-ing the fight." That was be-ing per-haps a bit kind, but she did not imag-ine that Da Chi-an would not have wished to pro-tect her if they thought they could.


    "Oh. I saw her around, but I do not know where she is." Xoi Xam ges-tured for Ki''el to fol-low, and they moved to-wards the Less-er House.


    There were sev-er-al streams of peo-ple at the en-trance, now, and Ki''el found her-self sur-prised to see the faces. Some of the peo-ple who she had seen yes-ter-day sneer-ing at her and at Da Chain with de-ri-sion passed out of the door with faces like wax and spir-its as dull as ash, with hard-ly a spark to be found. Many of the faces that passed by might have once been hand-some or be-at-i-ful, and might be if you caught them in an-oth-er mo-ment, but every one that passed them now was emp-ty, soul-less.


    Ki''el felt some-thing strange in her as she watched the in-hab-i-tants of the Less-er House pass by, and she un-der-stood as though for the first time that they were chil-dren of no-bles and mer-chants, born of fam-i-lies with enough mon-ey to send their chil-dren or re-tain-ers to a sect in the sky. And yet when Ki''el looked at them...


    She saw no fu-ture.


    When there was a open-ing in the flow, Ki''el and Xam stepped through, find-ing Sis-ter Futi with her eyes aglow in the mid-dle of her room, scrolls and sheets of parch-ment float-ing in the air around her, some-times shuf-fling to near-by shelves and piles. Al-though she turned, and her eyes lit on Ki''el as soon as she ap-proached the door-way, it was sev-er-al long mo-ments be-fore she re-act-ed.


    "Ki''el, come in. Xam, I do not have some-thing for you yet, but I be-lieve I will soon. Don''t go far." Futi ges-tured, and the door closed as soon as Ki''el was through. When she spoke, her voice, too, was sur-pris-ing-ly cold. "I was watch-ing what hap-pened last night, girl, but if any-one asks, I was not a wit-ness. I know every-thing that hap-pens in the Less-er House, but pre-cious few peo-ple know that, and it must re-main that way."


    "You are kind, Ki''el, and that may be a good thing in the long term, but the Less-er House is dan-ger-ous. What you will need to re-mem-ber is that if the Sect want-ed these peo-ple gone, they al-ready would be." Futi''s eyes ceased to glow, but what was left over was a hard glare. "They could do with-out us all, to be sure. But the ex-tra la-bor is use-ful, and so some dan-ger-ous peo-ple are al-lowed to re-main as long as the squab-bles they have here do not af-fect the Sect it-self."


    "Xan Bu has harmed peo-ple be-fore, Ki''el, and pa-tience wears thin with him, but he re-mains be-cause he is use-ful. One of the two dis-ci-ples who came here last night finds him par-tic-u-lar-ly help-ful, and the oth-er res-cued you. Do you un-der-stand?"


    Ki''el found her mouth go-ing dry, half in anger and half in fear, but she nod-ded. "You think there is no chance he will fall be-cause of this?"


    "When the in-ves-ti-ga-tion be-gins, Ki''el, you must only speak of facts. If you make an ac-cu-sa-tion and are proven wrong, your case may be dis-missed. There-fore you must know that Xan Bu is not the one who struck you."


    Ki''el frowned, but had no doubts in her mind that it was true. "What is that bracelet of his?"


    "If any-one asks, Ki''el, you did not ask me that ques-tion." Sis-ter Futi raised her chin and gave a cold smile. "I am not the per-son you should be ask-ing it, and now is not the time to be ask-ing. It may also not be quite the right ques-tion, though it is close. Do you un-der-stand?"


    Ki''el thought she did, and she flashed her teeth back at Futi. "When will the in-ves-ti-ga-tion be-gin?"


    "Most like-ly, lat-er this morn-ing. A mas-ter will come, and he will not be in-vest-ed in the out-come. You will not be as-signed any work un-til then, and nei-ther will Xan Bu. I would not go any-where that he can catch you alone." She blinked, and with-in the space of that blink, the glow re-turned to her eyes, and sud-den-ly, the door swung open be-hind her. "Send your friend in, and stay near the house."


    "Yes, Sis-ter Futi." Ki''el stepped out, nod-ding to Xam, who was sit-ting on a bench against the wall. "You can go in," she said, but paused. "Do you know where Mian is?"


    "Weed-ing the gar-den, I think," Xam said, stand-ing and fac-ing her. "Are you al-right?"


    "I be-lieve I will be fine," Ki''el said, tak-ing a breath to steady her-self.


    "Then I''ll go." She reached out and gripped Ki''el''s arm. "Be care-ful, Ki''el. You are a good per-son, and you don''t de-serve... any more of that." She let her go quick-ly and im-me-di-ate-ly stepped into Futi''s of-fice.


    Ki''el watched her back for a mo-ment, but de-cid-ed it was rude to sim-ply stand in the door, and so she stepped out, and kept go-ing un-til she got to the front of the Less-er House. There, she breathed in deeply, find-ing that the air near the build-ing smelled a lit-tle dif-fer-ent than it had at the heal-ing is-land. It was... stale, she de-cid-ed, in a way that the air of the rest of the sect was not. And... as she moved to the side and sat, she thought about the walk back. The air... had got-ten more and more stale as she had gone down, had it not?


    Kuli, she thought. I am not mak-ing this up, am I?


    { The dif-fer-ence in the aether is real, but it is a small dif-fer-ence, } Kuli replied. { I can speak on it if you like, whether briefly or un-til you are sat-is-fied. }


    Briefly, Ki''el thought, mak-ing her-self com-fort-able.


    { Aether is nec-es-sary for life, and a part of life, and aether is very much like life in many ways. } Ki''el could al-most hear a shad-ow of Sobon''s thoughts to what Kuli ex-plained. { And it is im-por-tant to re-mem-ber that no life lasts for-ev-er. Those who hold on to the aether of the past are much like those who can-not ac-cept death and move on. They de-vel-op an un-healthy at-tach-ment, when we must all start each day anew. }


    Ki''el closed her eyes, breath-ing in, and thought about those words. In truth... they seemed strange, con-sid-er-ing that Sobon had spo-ken of fate and prophe-cy, but she also could not deny that the qi or aether of the Less-er House al-most felt like some-one who held their breath too long, and now had no strength.


    Is there any way to fresh-en the air here?


    { You al-ready do, and not be-cause of your Pow-er Cy-cles. New pat-terns and new life breathes new aether into a place like this. When you leave, that too will bring new changes. What is stale is the aether of the peo-ple here, and you can-not change that with aether. }


    Ki''el was med-i-tat-ing for a while be-fore a noise near-by caught her at-ten-tion--just the sound of foot-steps that stopped and then turned to ap-proach her. She opened her eyes, half ex-pect-ing to need to face Xan Bu, un-til her eyes caught the bright red of Da Chi-an''s hair.


    Da Chi-an''s eyes, like most she had seen leav-ing the Less-er House, were bor-der-ing on be-ing com-plete-ly crushed, but she thought there was a light in them. The red-haired... girl? boy? Even this close, and de-spite some peo-ple sug-gest-ing for sure that Chi-an was a woman, Ki''el was un-clear, but Chi-an moved close and bowed, deeply. "Sis-ter... thank you for yes-ter-day. I owe you a great deal."


    "You owe me noth-ing," Ki''el said, al-ready find-ing her-self an-gry at the be-hav-ior of Xan Bu. "I only... wish to pro-tect peo-ple who are in-no-cent."


    Chi-an seemed to flinch at that. "Ah... Sis-ter is kind, but I am..."


    "You are in-no-cent," Ki''el said, though it was odd to her to find that she be-lieved it so im-me-di-ate-ly and so thor-ough-ly. "I... do not know why Xan Bu was at-tack-ing you. But I know that you did not de-serve it."


    "I..." Chi-an re-mained bowed, and be-gan to trem-ble. When they be-gan to speak, they were trem-bling, as though cry-ing. "I... do not de-serve to be in such a place, Sis-ter."


    Ki''el was un-sure what ex-act-ly drove them to say such a thing, but be-fore she could ask, she caught a flick-er of move-ment, and sev-er-al fig-ures land-ed in the clear-ing near the house, as though from the win-dows of the Less-er House it-self. Ki''el leapt to her feet as she saw that one of them was Xan Bu, but she did not rec-og-nize the oth-ers. Al-though there were as many with him now as there had been last night, she was cer-tain that sev-er-al of the ones who had been there be-fore had left on tasks. Ki''el nar-rowed her eyes in thought at she no-ticed, and be-fore Xan Bu even opened his mouth, she flushed her spir-it with Right-eous Aether.


    "The mon-ster and its new pet," Xan Bu''s voice dripped poi-son. "A reck-on-ing is com-ing, and you will not fore-stall it. Nei-ther of you be-long in this Sect, and I will see you re-moved."


    Da Chi-an''s qi spiked and be-gan to flick-er, but Ki''el only placed a hand on their shoul-der, press-ing fresh aether into them as well, and they qui-et-ed. "Xan Bu."


    "Try not to make a fool of your-self like you did last night." Xan Bu''s voice was raised, and Ki''el frowned, won-der-ing who he was per-form-ing for, but al-ready guess-ing the an-swer.


    "Your con-cern for my fu-ture is touch-ing," Ki''el said, not both-er-ing to hide her mock-ing tone, and she tight-ened her grip on Da Chian as they had to fight against their own urge to ar-gue. "But we will be fine." She pulled Da Chi-an back a bit, and whis-pered into their ear. "Do not lis-ten, and let me talk. I be-lieve that us speak-ing out in anger is ex-act-ly what he wants. Be calm."


    Da Chi-an stiff-ened when Ki''el came close, but nod-ded, and willed them-selves to qui-et. And soon enough, Ki''el caught sight through the trees of a man walk-ing slow-ly, if not so slow-ly as the first time she had seen him. El-der Gol let his eyes roam across the trees and the path-way, across the house and the ar-eas around it, but his eyes seemed to nev-er set-tle on the peo-ple ahead of him. Still, the El-der did not seem un-aware of them, just as he seemed to be care-ful-ly as-sess-ing every-thing else.


    When at last El-der Gol stood al-most in the mid-dle of them all, he turned and locked eyes with Ki''el, and she could feel an in-tense depth there that she could not be-gin to imag-ine, a depth that she thought no-ticed and re-act-ed to the fresh aether that she had cir-cu-lat-ing through her own body. And al-though she could not be sure of any-thing, much less the one small frag-ment of a thought, she thought she sensed ap-proval deep with-in him.


    "Speak no lies, and speak no guess-es," El-der Gol said, turn-ing to look at Da Chi-an, and then turn-ing to face Xan Bu. "Jus-tice is nev-er served by those who only pre-sume they know the truth. Ask, and speak true. Lies will not be tol-er-at-ed. Giv-en the cir-cum-stances, wrong an-swers may be pun-ished se-vere-ly. Now." A cir-cle of dark-ness sud-den-ly swirled into ex-is-tence in the ground around them all. "Let us all in-ves-ti-gate and seek to find out the truth of what oc-curred here, shall we?"

 [TAS] 6. Kiel - Arrival, Part 6: Judgement

    Ki''el was a lit-tle sur-prised, and some-what con-cerned, that the El-der did not ask them to move into a pri-vate area, or even step away from the en-trance to the Less-er House. If any-thing, she thought, as she glanced to-wards the en-trance, it seemed al-most as though the El-der did not care where they were, per-haps ex-pect-ing the mat-ter to be solved triv-ial-ly. And yet... Ki''el glanced over, think-ing that she had not mem-o-rized the places ex-act-ly, but it seemed that the spot where she had been fight-ing, and the spot where Xan Bu had been stand-ing, were all with-in the ring of dark-ness that El-der Gol had cre-at-ed.


    If there was any truth-seek-ing method to the ring, Ki''el hoped, that would grant him some in-sight into what had gone on be-fore.


    "Be-fore any oth-er ac-cu-sa-tion is made," Xan Bu said, his voice sound-ing cross, "I did not wound the stu-dents be-fore me, and if my friend hap-pened to strike some-one too hard, it was only in de-fense of my hon-or." His lips curled only slight-ly away from his teeth, as though it was be-neath him to scowl and yet he could not re-sist. "An ac-cu-sa-tion was made that might have im-plied I was a de-mon-ic cul-ti-va-tor."


    El-der Gol''s eyes mea-sured the man, then turned to face Ki''el. She took a deep breath, cir-cu-lat-ing fresh aether through her-self and Da Chi-an, but re-leased the tech-nique af-ter a mo-ment, when it seemed that noth-ing was in-trud-ing ex-cept the El-der''s tech-nique. "I have nev-er wit-nessed a de-mon-ic tech-nique," Ki''el ad-mit-ted, "and I could only guess at what form one would take. How-ev-er... hav-ing been at the mer-cy of your qi, it spoke a great deal of what has shaped you." She stepped for-ward, know-ing that it was bold of her. "When ex-posed to your qi, I felt that the world was whis-per-ing about me, as though it in-tend-ed to be-tray me. It was only... my pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique that helped me re-sist that feel-ing, and when I did and I could sense the world clear-ly, I re-al-ized that you must suf-fer from the same ef-fect your-self."


    Xan Bu''s qi spiked, first when she men-tioned hav-ing a pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique, then again a mo-ment lat-er when she spoke of sens-ing the world clear-ly. He glanced away, and a mo-ment lat-er, the El-der''s eyes re-turned to him. "My qi is only Gold, same as yours. I have not yet de-vel-oped any qi na-tures, and would nev-er have at-tempt-ed to do so with-out in-struc-tion." He turned and fo-cused on Ki''el, and then past her. "Is that pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique what al-lowed you to tame that fer-al mon-ster af-ter she at-tacked my com-pan-ion?"


    "It purged your qi from them, as it did from me," Ki''el con-firmed, aware that Da Chi-an had tak-en a step for-ward and was breath-ing heav-i-ly, but had re-strained them-selves. "Once free from your qi, they re-gained their sens-es."


    "That is a heavy ac-cu-sa-tion. You be-lieve that my qi dri-ves peo-ple mad? On what proof?"


    Ki''el glanced at the el-der, who looked back at her, still out-ward-ly calm. What-ev-er thoughts re-mained in those depths, Ki''el had no way to know. "Do you not have a way to de-ter-mine this?"


    "To the best of your knowl-edge, you have each spo-ken no lies," El-der Gol said, "but there re-main many dif-fer-ent con-clu-sions one might reach. Please con-tin-ue to search for the truth, so that jus-tice may be done."


    Ki''el re-sist-ed the urge to glare at the old man, though she was sure her in-tent leaked out her mis-trust. Kuli, she in-struct-ed in her mind, stop me if you think I''m mak-ing a mis-take. She turned to look at Xan Bu, and opened her mouth to speak... but stopped, at Kuli''s im-me-di-ate men-tal pres-sure. She closed her mouth, study-ing Xan Bu, and nod-ded. "Xan Bu. The bracelet that you wore last night on your left wrist, you are not wear-ing to-day, al-though you wear one just like it. Am I wrong?"


    Xan Bu''s qi im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan to riot, though the man held his out-ward com-po-sure bet-ter. "I have many ac-ces-sories," he said. "They get dirty from Sect work, so I of-ten do not wear the same one day af-ter day."


    "Can you pro-duce that bracelet?"


    "I see no rea-son to." Xan Bu''s eyes nar-rowed at her, and his qi be-came more er-rat-ic.


    "You very clear-ly know why I am ask-ing," Ki''el said, step-ping for-ward again. "I sensed that you put qi into that bracelet be-fore your ''friends'' that night moved as one. It is clear-ly an ar-ti-fact of some kind, and I won-der just what its ef-fects are. It might only al-low you to com-mu-ni-cate, but it might also do more."


    Xan Bu glanced at El-der Gol, and Ki''el could see that the man''s face was be-com-ing paler. "I... do not have the ar-ti-fact on my per-son."


    "Am I wrong to guess that you hid it and re-placed it with an-oth-er, just as you came with a dif-fer-ent group of friends, so that if I sug-gest-ed that the bracelet you wore was an ar-ti-fact, or that the peo-ple around you at-tacked me, you could claim with hon-esty that it was un-true?"


    "That is--" Xan Bu shift-ed. "I am not so wily as to come up with such a plan," he said. "I am many things, but a plot-ter and a schemer I am not."


    Kuli helped Ki''el not miss the de-flec-tion. She would doubt-less have un-der-stood it lat-er, but in the mo-ment, she felt dis-heart-ened by the de-nial, and the El-der''s si-lence af-ter-wards. "So it was not your plan," em-pha-sized Ki''el. "But was it your in-tent? Is that the rea-son why these things were done?"


    "That... may have been how it was ex-plained to me," Xan Bu ad-mit-ted af-ter a long mo-ment of si-lence.


    "Who ex-plained it? Who helped you to plot so that you could get away--" Ki''el felt Kuli pres-sure her to stop, be-fore she said some-thing per-haps too much. She stopped and took a deep breath, and de-cid-ed to change her ques-tion in-stead of forc-ing that out of him. "Do you have rea-son to sus-pect that the bracelet may have had the ef-fect I men-tioned on your qi?"


    "Ah..." Xan Bu''s face now had al-most no col-or. "It... is pos-si-ble. It has... un-pleas-ant ef-fects."


    "Who gave it to you? The same per-son who schooled you how to es-cape this kind of in-ves-ti-ga-tion? Did you come to the is-land with it?" Ki''el''s qi, to her own mind, was straight as a blade, and bared naked be-fore the El-der and Xan Bu, threat-en-ing--but pure. An un-yield-ing sword, not one that cleaved flesh and bone as though it were sport.


    Xan Bu''s eyes were now locked with El-der Gol''s, whose face had not turned back to Ki''el for a time. And then, sud-den-ly, one of the oth-ers in the crowd be-hind Xan Bu got a strange look on her face, and Xan Bu leaped to-ward the el-der, an-oth-er ar-ti-fact ap-pear-ing in his hand.


    El-der Gol re-duced Xan Bu''s arms and chest to ash-es in what Ki''el would lat-er de-cide was a mo-ment of con-fu-sion, but his eyes locked on the woman who had the bracelet a mo-ment lat-er, and one of his hands was on her throat, while the oth-er ripped her arm off at the shoul-der, throw-ing the arm that had the bracelet across the yard. With-in mo-ments, a ring of white spikes were dri-ven in the ground around the arm, and an-oth-er ring ap-peared around Xan Bu''s sev-ered head, and the El-der was sim-ply star-ing, as though in dis-be-lief.


    Ki''el, per-haps more than many of the oth-ers around at that mo-ment, rec-og-nized that what she felt was the qi of a very pow-er-ful per-son who was ter-ri-fied and fu-ri-ous. She would med-i-tate on it lat-er, think-ing of the dif-fer-ent kinds of aether that Sobon spoke of in qi, and try-ing to un-der-stand how the emo-tions of a pow-er-ful mas-ter had flowed into and around the whole en-vi-ron-ment, not sim-ply em-anat-ed from his body like steam or smoke. Her abil-i-ty in the mo-ment to un-der-stand it was lit-tle enough; she could sense as-pects of the riv-er stones, in and out, and of the left and right cy-cles, and she could imag-ine that the man was also think-ing very fast--ac-cel-er-at-ing his own mind--and try-ing to hold on to the mo-ment and not let it pass, but none of this could re-al-ly be un-der-stand. Even if she had been able to stand there and study it for an age, she might not have un-der-stood it.


    But it was in truth only a mo-ment, and the El-der turned to Ki''el with eyes that were very dark. "You have done well to un-cov-er the truth, Xoi Doua Ki''el. This mat-ter will be in-ves-ti-gat-ed more thor-ough-ly, as it seems that some tru-ly dan-ger-ous things are afoot. Some-one will come to speak to you soon about the for-fei-ture."


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    Ki''el, not know-ing what that meant, nod-ded and stepped back, and turned to look at Da Chi-an, who had gone white as a sheet and fall-en to their knees. She moved over to them, think-ing that she could help Da Chi-an to un-der-stand the mo-ment, but when she touched their shoul-der, they were un-re-spon-sive, and re-mained so when she was more force-ful.


    So Ki''el helped Chi-an to their feet and pulled them into the build-ing, tak-ing them im-me-di-ate-ly to Sis-ter Futi''s of-fice, who--un-usu-al for the woman--had set out three cups of tea, and was sim-ply sit-ting there with one of them, a very se-ri-ous look on her face.


    "Da Chi-an will be fine," Futi said, as Ki''el helped the oth-er into a chair. "Most peo-ple would not be able to han-dle the ex-po-sure to an El-der''s qi as well as you. That pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique you men-tion--I take it that is one of the abil-i-ties from your mas-ter?"


    "Yes. It is... per-haps the wrong term for it, but it was also not a lie." Ki''el glanced at the tea, but hon-est-ly had no in-ter-est in it at all. She knew that it was a Djang cus-tom, and she did not hate the drink, but at the mo-ment, she had no stom-ach for any-thing, much less a drink she did not like. "It is sim-ply a pure en-er-gy that is help-ful to the body and spir-it. It... wash-es away some things that get in-side, per-haps."


    "It ex-plains last night. I thought your mind was very sharp in the mo-ment, when most would be con-fused." Futi caught Ki''el''s eyes. "It is some-thing that may be valu-able to the Sect, so I will dis-cuss it with oth-ers, un-less you tell me not to.


    In-stead of an-swer-ing right away, Ki''el found an-oth-er chair in the room and sat, still not tak-ing one of the cups of tea. "El-der Gol... what is this ''for-fei-ture'' he spoke of?"


    "It is sim-ple enough," she replied. "When a crime, es-pe-cial-ly a cap-i-tal crime, is com-mit-ed, then the ag-griev-ed is due a sum in rec-om-pense, for-feit-ed by the ag-gres-sor." She paused only a mo-ment, her tone switch-ing from aca-d-e-m-ic to con-ver-sa-tion-al. "That means that the one who at-tacks an-oth-er must pay. It is why Xan Bu was ea-ger to get Da Chi-an, or you, to at-tack his friend. If he can con-vince a mas-ter that he was the ag-griev-ed, then some Sect points and re-sources, and pos-si-bly even per-son-al pos-ses-sions, can be-come his. Since you have proven be-yond a shad-ow of a doubt that Xan Bu and Mai Xi-dou were at fault, their for-fei-ture will come to you." She glanced at Da Chi-an. "The sect is not... nu-anced on these mat-ters. Be-cause you proved it, all the for-fei-ture will come to you."


    Ki''el un-der-stood, and when Futi turned back to her, she clear-ly saw that in her eyes, be-cause she con-tin-ued. "The length of time you must re-main in the Less-er House is a mat-ter, as much of any-thing, of sect points. Not only can you use them to pur-chase re-sources for your own cul-ti-va-tion, but a price in sect points must be paid for every at-tempt to pass the Gold-en Wall un-der su-per-vi-sion. I hap-pen to know that Xan Bu trades his points fre-quent-ly, with peo-ple who will now come un-der grave sus-pi-cion, and so he may have a great num-ber now--or only a few. As for sect re-sources... for those who can-not af-ford their own Space Rings, the sect will of-ten al-low dis-ci-ples to pur-chase the rights to ma-te-ri-als that they do not im-me-di-ate-ly claim. Those rights can be sold to an-oth-er, or trad-ed back to the sect. Any rights that Xan Bu pur-chased will be a part of his for-fei-ture, nat-u-ral-ly. When the time comes that you wish to pur-chase or use such things, I or oth-ers can di-rect you to the dispsen-so-ry."


    As she was speak-ing, Ki''el no-ticed that Da Chi-an''s breath-ing had slow-ly got-ten stronger, and they blinked, first once and then sev-er-al times, and then shook their head. "I am... awake. My apolo-gies, Sis-ter Futi. And sis-ter... apolo-gies, but I do not know...?"


    "I am Ki''el," she re-as-sured Da Chi-an with a hand on theirs, and al-though they shied away for a mo-ment, it was only that, be-fore they took Ki''el''s hand in re-turn. "You are safe."


    "Yes, I..." She shook her head. "Did Broth-er Bu... ac-tu-al-ly at-tack an El-der?"


    "Yes. He was con-trolled." Futi stood up be-hind her desk, and the pleas-ant con-ver-staion-al tone that she had had dis-ap-peared. "Sis-ter Ki''el, Sis-ter Chi-an. Al-though oth-ers will have wit-nessed this, you should speak lit-tle or noth-ing of what hap-pened, and es-pe-cial-ly, not speak any-thing of con-trol-ling pow-ers and de-mon-ic qi, or any of the rea-sons why you be-lieve some-thing hap-pened." She glanced at Ki''el, who frowned, but nod-ded. "Oth-ers will in-ves-ti-gate, and they will come to their own con-clu-sions of what hap-pened. They will not tell you, or me, or any-one in the Less-er House. If it is found that you speak of a mat-ter they in-ves-ti-gat-ed, and you con-tra-dict what they say oc-curred, even if you speak out of ig-no-rance, they will not be kind. Do you un-der-stand?"


    "Yes," Ki''el said, al-though there was a cross-ness to her voice.


    Sis-ter Futi stepped back, her fea-tures re-lax-ing a lit-tle, but still look-ing se-vere. "You are young, Ki''el. Younger than many who end up in the Sect, and more ma-ture than many as well. To see you stand-ing there, like a qi sword carv-ing out a bit of cor-rup-tion, hurts my heart, be-cause that should have been the work of adults, not chil-dren. And yet, as long as you are here, you will be treat-ed like an adult, no dif-fer-ent from any-one else." She glanced be-tween the two of them. "You may choose to take some time off from sect du-ties, or you may come to me for an as-sign-ment if you wish to clear your head. For now... I must con-tin-ue my own du-ties."


    "Of course." Ki''el stood, re-leas-ing Chi-an''s hand and of-fer-ing the old-er woman a short bow and half-salute. "Thank you, Sis-ter."


    When she turned, Chi-an was also of-fer-ing a bow and salute, and the two walked out of Futi''s space to-geth-er. Chi-an''s legs seemed to get more and more un-sta-ble the more they walked away, and Ki''el moved up be-side them, lay-ing a hand on their shoul-der out of con-cern. Chi-an turned to look, and then looked away.


    "You are kind, Sis-ter Ki''el," they said af-ter a mo-ment. "I do not... know what would have hap-pened to me with-out your as-sis-tance."


    Ki''el was un-sure for a mo-ment of what to say, but once she found words, they came quick-ly. "I was once res-cued as well, Da Chi-an. It is... not hard to see in you what I felt be-fore." Ki''el found her eyes stray-ing to noth-ing, a speck of dirt on the floor in front of her, that she watched pass with-out any in-ter-est at all. "A lack of hope. A lack of con-nec-tion. An empti-ness. There are many words, and they are... not good enough."


    "They are not," Chi-an agreed af-ter a mo-ment. "I have no-ticed you do not call me sis-ter, Ki''el. Have I of-fend-ed you?"


    Ki''el paused, but shook her head. "No. Only... the word did not seem to fit you. I will use it if you wish."


    Chi-an turned and caught Ki''el''s eyes, and some-where in that gaze, Ki''el felt a con-nec-tion to the per-son be-side her. "You are not wrong that it does not fit me, but it is what I am. What am I to you, if not a sect sis-ter?"


    "A friend," Ki''el of-fered, with a small smile she hoped was sym-pa-thet-ic, and not sim-ply show-ing her own lon-li-ness.


    Chi-an sud-den-ly looked away, their cheeks and ears red-den-ing with em-bar-rass-ment. "I... yes, we are friends, as long as you''ll have me, Sis-ter Ki''el. But the sect ex-pects us to be a bit more for-mal than that, don''t they? At least in pub-lic?"


    "I will use the term if you wish," Ki''el in-sist-ed. "But... my mas-ter spoke of how who we are is no one else''s busi-ness. And she... he..." Ki''el knew that cor-rect-ing her-self, in any oth-er cir-cum-stance, might only be con-fus-ing, but she al-lowed it now. And she knew that she was ex-tend-ing what Sobon had ac-tu-al-ly said... but she felt he would have ap-proved. "He spoke of how he was dis-gust-ed at oth-ers be-ing raised to be what oth-ers wish them to be, not con-sid-er-ing the per-son''s own truths. If I be-lieved that you liked the word, I would have used it, but from the start, it did not seem to fit."


    "It is not wrong," Chi-an said, and alone in the hall-way, just the two of them, they ad-just-ed their sect cloth-ing so that Ki''el could see the naked truth, only for a mo-ment. "I am a sis-ter. But I am also... nev-er go-ing to have a child, ac-cord-ing to my moth-er. In some parts of our fam-i-ly, the spir-it beast blood-line is too strong, and the body be-comes warped. I may be a sis-ter, but I can-not be a moth-er. I am also not a broth-er, and can nev-er be a fa-ther. I can-not be like my moth-er, and I can-not be like my fa-ther. I am not sure who I am, or what. But al-though I am a sis-ter, I do not feel like a girl, and I do not sus-pect I will ever be a woman."


    Ki''el nod-ded at that, a lit-tle sad-dened at Chi-an''s con-fu-sion. "Your fam-i-ly does not un-der-stand?"


    "They..." Chi-an looked away. "As you said, they are rais-ing me to be what they wish me to be. It is why I am here."


    "I do not be-lieve you need to be what they wish," Ki''el said, putting her hand on Chi-an''s shoul-der once more. "Once you leave the sect, you will be strong enough to walk this world on your own, will you not?"


    Chi-an, this time, brushed her hand away. "The Rag-ing Storm Spir-it Fox blood-line is too rare and too pow-er-ful for peo-ple to sim-ply ig-nore. If I do not have my fam-i-ly''s pro-tec-tion, I would need an-oth-er''s, and any-one else would wish to mere-ly use me. I can-not trust..." Chi-an paused, then turned to Ki''el. "Even you, Ki''el. I am sor-ry."


    Ki''el just shook her head. "I am sure it seems that way to you," she said, "but the ways my mas-ter taught me will nev-er re-quire peo-ple of spe-cial blood-lines or the sac-ri-fice of chil-dren. When last I saw my mas-ter, he was prepar-ing to go fight an en-e-my with only a few script-ed items of most-ly mun-dane ma-te-r-i-al, along with Star-beast core. Al-though I have not seen him since then, I have been told that he sur-vived." She moved up to be in front of Chi-an, forc-ing them to look in her eyes. "Mas-ter Sobon''s trea-sure is knowl-edge, not blood. It is the same for those who fol-low him."


    Chi-an mea-sured her eyes for a time, then looked away. "I will think on this," they said. "And I be-lieve you when you say that we are friends. But... trust-ing you with my fu-ture is an-oth-er mat-ter."


    "I un-der-stand." Ki''el, though she yearned to re-as-sure Da Chi-an, of-fered them a bow and a salute. "I will see you around, Chi-an. Sis-ter, if you wish."


    "Sis-ter, for now," Chi-an agreed, bow-ing back. "...Thank you, Ki''el."


    Ki''el moved away feel-ing more pos-i-tive since she had since that mo-ment of peace at dawn.

 [TAS] 7. Kiel - Cycles, Part 1

    Al-though Ki''el spent a lit-tle time try-ing to find ei-ther Mian or Xam, in the end, she could find nei-ther, and so she elect-ed to go to the edge of the is-land of the Less-er House and look out at the world be-yond. Al-though she kept in mind the warn-ing from Sis-ter Futi that she not go where some-one could trap her alone, it felt to her like now would be a very bad time for any-one to at-tempt to kill her if they were try-ing to re-main hid-den. Even so, she did not get close to the edge, in-stead find-ing a time- and care-worn boul-der that was set far back from the edge, and sat there, look-ing out.


    A part of her had ex-pect-ed the aether here to be much fresh-er than the aether by the Less-er House, and when it did not, she qui-et-ly asked Kuli if she had an idea why.


    { There is a field sur-round-ing the whole of the Moon-stole Is-land Sect, } Kuli re-spond-ed, { such that the fresh qi and aether of the sect is drawn in through the high-est is-lands, and the spent qi is re-leased at the bot-tom. While it would not be im-pos-si-ble to gath-er fresh-er aether here, most of it is drawn away by pow-er-ful scripts sunk deeply into the is-lands. }


    Ki''el felt that was un-fair, but also, she could imag-ine it be-ing the log-ic of a place like this. The heal-ing house had it-self not been the high-est is-land, but the qi there was much fresh-er than it was here, and she had no-ticed its fad-ing as she moved down the path. Sure-ly, with all the dis-ci-ples and mas-ters here, what-ev-er made fresh aether so de-sir-able would be con-sumed first by the most pow-er-ful, and what re-mains di-vid-ed among the rest, with the Less-er House get-ting the least. She could even imag-ine, af-ter hav-ing sensed pow-er-ful qi sev-er-al times--from the Djang Prince and Princess, from Sobon, from Lai Shi Po, and now from El-der Gol--that it was some mer-cy not to ex-pose peo-ple to aether too pow-er-ful.


    { That is not wrong, but it is not right, } Kuli re-spond-ed. { There are sources of qi here, but the fresh aether from the world is no dif-fer-ent from a cool-ing breeze. It is not in-tense enough to do harm, though some may be dis-tract-ed if they must strug-gle against out-side in-flu-ences in or-der to study and mas-ter their own qi. }


    Ki''el looked out over the world, and she could con-vince her-self that the world be-yond the is-lands looked wrong--that the aether that she thought she saw did not quite match the aether of the world as it must ac-tu-al-ly be. Kuli said noth-ing of that, and Ki''el did not ask her to com-ment, in-stead clos-ing her eyes and fo-cus-ing in-wards in-stead. She knew, or she trust-ed Sobon when he had said, that she should not have used quite so much aether as she did re-cent-ly, but what that meant for her, she was un-sure.


    It took a few min-utes for Ki''el to qui-et, but when she did, Kuli was there, a com-fort-ing sis-ter with no pres-ence of her own. { You are not like Sobon, } she said, { and his meth-ods will not work quite right for you. Sobon did not make much use of his--of Alas-si''s qi core. In truth, he does not know much of qi cores, but his friends, who cre-at-ed the Voice of the World, do. I con-tain some of their knowl-edge, when you are ready to ask. }


    Ki''el ac-cept-ed that, though she was a lit-tle ir-ri-tat-ed that Kuli used Ki''el''s own name for the Voice, when she knew what it tru-ly was. Kuli''s own thoughts, though, kept her fo-cused, and af-ter a mo-ment, Ki''el asked a sim-ple ques-tion. What am I sup-posed to be do-ing next?


    { Your dant-ian--your qi core--stretch-es as you fill it with qi, or aether, } Kuli said, { and your merid-i-ans--spir-it veins--must be ex-er-cised, so that they can eas-i-ly and safe-ly han-dle any amount of qi that you wish to use. You will also not wish your qi to sim-ply sit with-in your dant-ian, or it will grow stale. } Kuli paused. { The qi that you gath-er from the world is also im-pure, and most will strug-gle with un-der-stand how that can pos-si-bly be true, es-pe-cial-ly when it feels good or right. You trust Sobon when he says that it is true, but you also do not un-der-stand it yet. }


    Ki''el ac-cept-ed those thoughts, and ac-knowl-edged that she did not, in truth, un-der-stand why qi was im-pure. But the way that Kuli had phrased it made some things clear; qi that was only gath-ered would be very much un-like the aether from her pow-er cy-cles. She knew, be-cause Sobon had said so, that it was im-por-tant for the Cy-cles to pro-duce aether with-out in-tent, and she could un-der-stand why--be-cause it would copy what-ev-er came in, and if the in-tent that came out did not match what she need-ed, it would be trou-ble.


    Sobon... had said oth-er things, about great and pow-er-ful qi caus-ing mu-ta-tions and death, but she pushed those thoughts away for now.


    If the qi that came in was also qi with in-tent, for-eign in-tent be-long-ing to oth-ers, then of course Ki''el would wish to pu-ri-fy it be-fore us-ing it, but what hap-pened if she did not? She asked Kuli, but for once, the aug-ment with-in her mind was qui-et, let-ting her think for her-self. And when Ki''el could not think of an an-swer, she raised her hands be-fore her and at-tempt-ed to play with the qi in the air around her.


    It''s not as though Ki''el knew much or any-thing about what one should do with qi, and so she spent her time try-ing to do the only thing Sobon had tru-ly taught her--to cre-ate a Pow-er Cy-cle, but of qi in-stead of aether. It was still a tricky thing to do, even when she could use her own, care-ful-ly con-trolled aether, and trick-i-er still with qi, which seemed a great deal heav-ier. It was clear to her very quick-ly that the same prin-ci-ple would not hold--that she could not cre-ate a wheel that would sim-ply cre-ate pu-ri-fied qi. Aether and qi were sim-ply too dif-fer-ent.


    And yet, that was not re-al-ly the ex-er-cise she want-ed, not the an-swer that she need-ed. She want-ed to know what hap-pened if you used qi when it was im-pure. And so she took the qi that she knew to be im-pure, and at-tempt-ed to cy-cle it, in-tend-ing only that the qi that cy-cled would be free from all else.


    It was not dif-fi-cult to de-tect the "dirt" that fell out of the qi as she did this.


    It was amaz-ing to Ki''el, amaz-ing enough that she had a lot of dif-fi-cul-ty con-tin-u-ing her cleans-ing ex-er-cise, and even-tu-al-ly she forced her-self to stop pe-ri-od-i-cal-ly and try to ex-am-ine the dirty qi''s flakes of in-tent and na-ture that came from it as she turned it. It was im-pos-si-ble to her to see any-thing in the flakes--she un-der-stood noth-ing of greater uses of qi, and could not have been able to say if qi was med-ical, poi-son, or like the sun, not from the col-ored flecks that shed away from the qi as it bent. And she knew, as she cy-cled qi, that what fi-nal-ly gath-ered at the cen-ter, at the cy-cle''s thorn, was not pure qi.


    Ki''el had seen pure qi, true pu-ri-fied qi, what oth-ers had called Pri-mor-dial Qi. Lai Shi Po even had an ar-ti-fact, one that Po had promised Ki''el could use some day, that would let her cre-ate this true pri-mor-dial qi for her-self; hav-ing seen the real thing, it was clear that this was not it, and even if the mas-ters of the Moon-stone Is-land sect told her that her qi was pure, she would know bet-ter.


    If pri-mor-dial qi was true white, then this was... white-ish. It was once-white cloth that had been dirt-ied and washed. Even if Ki''el could re-move the worst of the stains, it was not white. And Ki''el sat there, con-sid-er-ing the flecks that had fall-en out of her qi when she turned it, and un-der-stood that if she used qi that was not pure, then those flecks would be in-side of her in-stead of scat-tered across her open palms.


    { Cor-rect, } Kuli fi-nal-ly said. { The world''s qi sys-tem pro-vides sev-er-al times, like you ex-pe-ri-enced at Sil-ver Qi, when it strug-gles against the im-pu-ri-ties that you have re-leased. But if you have less im-pu-ri-ties, it will do a bet-ter job. }


    Ki''el shiv-ered, and not from the chill of the wind and the thin air of the sect. The ex-pul-sion of... some un-de-fin-able shit from her body when she reached Sil-ver Qi had been sud-den and dis-gust-ing. She had been fight-ing pi-rates with Sobon, in his squir-rel form, and... and she had briefly been knocked un-con-scious by the fight-ing, to-wards the end. Though she had not spo-ken of it with Sobon, she had felt some-thing, when it hap-pened, al-though she had not awok-en.


    It felt very un-com-fort-ably like throw-ing up, only with every pore of her body.


    Even now she could re-call the sen-sa-tion, if fad-ed like a dream. It was an aghast feel-ing, like dis-cov-er-ing a dead and rot-bloat-ed mouse in the pitch-er of wa-ter you''d drunk from. A part of her had awok-en to the idea that some-thing aw-ful had hap-pened, and every ounce of her body re-ject-ed that aw-ful truth, ex-pelling every-thing--good or bad, to-geth-er--so that it could deny it all, pro-tect her from the aw-ful con-se-quences.


    The idea that some-day in the fu-ture, she would think that way about her pre-sent self and what she was do-ing, was un-com-fort-able.


    Once Ki''el''s thoughts had set-tled, Kuli con-tin-ued. { The im-pu-ri-ties in your qi in-clude things you can-not yet un-der-stand, from the dif-fer-ent lay-ers of aether you may nev-er ful-ly learn. As you come to un-der-stand how the oth-er lay-ers of aether work, you can de-tect and re-move those im-pu-ri-ties. The stones are a use-ful ex-am-ple, here. Now that you un-der-stand that qi is not mere-ly emit-ted around you, but also af-fects the world around you at a dis-tance, you can find im-pu-ri-ties that make use of that part of qi. }


    Ki''el stud-ied the qi that she had been pu-ri-fy-ing, and she thought of those riv-er stones, and she un-der-stood. Even the less-dirty white qi that she had gath-ered at the cen-ter of the cy-cle con-tained bits of in and out in-tent, and she pulled that qi back into the cy-cle and turned it, try-ing to be con-scious of that in-tent as well as she turned it, and as she did, the qi seemed to im-prove once more. When that qi fin-ished its turn-ing and gath-ered at the cy-cle''s thorn, she could tell that it was whiter, but not white. Clean-er, but still wrong in a way that she could not yet de-tect.


    Al-though she was ea-ger to try and pro-duce the purest qi, she calmed her-self, tak-ing this ad-van-tage for what it was. So far, Kuli was do-ing a good job ex-plain-ing things to her, but she knew that hop-ing to un-der-stand fur-ther lay-ers of aether was too much for her to ex-pect, now. Sobon had spo-ken of the na-tures of aether as in-escapably true, but also had spo-ken of very com-pli-cat-ed things as though they were sim-ple, and Ki''el was sure that what-ev-er came next would be that sort of thing.


    So she med-i-tat-ed for a while longer, try-ing to re-fine her un-der-stand-ing of this qi-clean-ing pow-er cy-cle, and when she had cleansed a rea-son-able amount of qi, Kuli di-rect-ed her to breathe it into her dant-ian, us-ing care-ful in-tent.


    The sen-sa-tion that came when she did was an awak-en-ing. Ki''el had felt her dant-ian open-ing up when she passed the tri-al that Sobon had guid-ed her through, the one that brought her Qi to the first star of Gold, and she had dim-ly sensed some of her aether leak-ing into a spir-i-tu-al vol-ume with-in her. But now that she breathed in clean qi, she sensed some-thing more. Parts of her that had been qui-et stirred to life. Some-thing with-in her that had nev-er known strength stirred, and she be-gan to won-der if she could sim-ply... per-form a qi tech-nique, as she had ma-nip-u-lat-ed aether be-fore.


    Kuli was silent on this mat-ter, and so Ki''el at-tempt-ed to re-lease qi from her right hand. There was... some con-fu-sion with-in her, as the qi in-side of her core was not from the same place that she drew her aether, and the path from her dant-ian to her hand was not the same as... as...


    How had Ki''el even ma-nip-u-lat-ed aether? How did she ma-nip-u-late qi? She blinked, feel-ing a shock run through her sys-tem, as sud-den-ly things that had once made sense sud-den-ly seemed for-eign, im-pos-si-ble. It should--


    { BREATHE. }


    Ki''el sucked in a breath, greed-i-ly, and then breathed out. Once she had done so, she be-came aware of her-self as a per-son sit-ting on a rock, hold-ing her breath be-cause she had cho-sen to breathe out but not yet cho-sen to breathe in again. And she chose to breathe deeply, again, in and out, and chose again in the mo-ment af-ter that, un-cer-tain of what had tran-spired.


    { Qi and aether are not meant to co-ex-ist, } Kuli told her. { Not meant to, but they can. The part of you that deals with qi was con-fused. But it is only a part of you, Ki''el. You can han-dle qi, and you han-dle aether. You can do both things. You have more than a sin-gle part. }


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Ki''el forced her-self to choose breath-ing, time and time again, but her mind felt par-a-lyzed, even as Kuli con-tin-ued to qui-et-ly coach her. And in time, breath-ing start-ed to seem like the nat-ur-al thing to do, and she no longer need-ed to choose. And when she reached for her qi, it felt strange, and when she reached for aether, it felt strange. How-ev-er, both qi and aether were still there.


    Ki''el sat there for a long while be-fore at last Kuli seemed to switch the way she talked. { You are go-ing to be fine, } Kuli said, { but you must stop for now. The parts of you that deal with qi and aether must rest. Do not wor-ry. What you have done is right, and you will be able to do more, lat-er. }


    Ki''el forced her-self to her feet, feel-ing a lit-tle strange, and looked out over the world be-yond her. And al-though Kuli had said noth-ing about it, Ki''el looked out over that world and felt bet-ter be-cause of it. Be-cause it was a very large world out there, full of a great many things, and a great many peo-ple. Each of them would be dif-fer-ent, and each of them had their own prob-lems, their own ad-van-tages.


    Ki''el took a last deep breath as she looked out at the world be-low, and thought to her-self. The worst time in my life was be-ing alone. When no one would help me. But Sobon, and Kuli, and Mian and Xam, and per-haps Chi-an, they will help me, and I will help them. The times in my life when I had no help are gone. I am go-ing to be fine.


    Ki''el turned away from that view know-ing in her heart that those things were true, and they helped a great deal.


    <hr>


    When Ki''el re-turned, she found Mian sit-ting out-side with a rather de-pressed pos-ture, al-though once she was clos-er and look-ing at his face, she de-cid-ed that the man might only be in med-i-ta-tion. In-stead of in-ter-rupt-ing, she sat down near him, con-sid-er-ing every-thing that she''d seen, and whether she could pro-vide any sort of ben-e-fit to the man.


    When she con-sid-ered Mian... the cen-tral piece she knew of his cul-ti-va-tion was that Sobon has as-so-ci-at-ed the man''s spir-it with his heart and blood, the same way Ki''el''s spir-it was as-so-ci-at-ed with her skin. Where she want-ed to keep for-eign things out, Mian''s qi sup-pos-ed-ly want-ed the whole body to be as one, all with-in reach of his soul and source of pow-er. And that... more than any-thing, that re-mind-ed Ki''el very firm-ly of the riv-er stones, and most specif-i-cal-ly, the Out-flow-ing aether of the pair. Al-though she was not en-tire-ly clear on how the body worked, with-in, a heart that pumped blood through the body, in a cy-cle, was not un-like an in-fi-nite flow out that still re-turned to its source.


    In spite of the di-rec-tion her thoughts were turn-ing, Ki''el was still star-tled when Mian spoke. "Ki''el. You could have said some-thing."


    "You seemed to be think-ing," Ki''el said, straight-en-ing to look at him. "How have you been?"


    "Bet-ter since I heard you aren''t in trou-ble." He turned in place to look at her. "The peo-ple watch-ing from the win-dows say you drove a de-mon-ic cul-ti-va-tor to mad-ness with words alone and he struck out at an El-der try-ing to es-cape. But they also laughed when they said it, and it''s hard to un-der-stand what''s so fun-ny." Mian''s face didn''t change as he spoke, and Ki''el be-gan to un-der-stand that the look was wor-ried--very wor-ried. "I''d like to hear more--but maybe we wait un-til Xam is back."


    "I''m not sure how much more there is to say," Ki''el said. "It seemed to be be-cause of a bracelet, one that let the wear-er con-trol oth-ers, but which was..." How could she say more? In-deed, what more did she re-al-ly know? She shook her head. "Sis-ter Futi asked me not to spread ru-mors, but if there is a ''de-mon-ic'' thing in-volved, it was that. Or, ''that'' was in-volved some-how."


    Mian grunt-ed, think-ing, and Ki''el changed the top-ic as smooth-ly as she could. "Mian. Do you re-call what Sobon said about Out-er Aether?"


    "Out-er?"


    "Gen-e-sis," she cor-rect her-self af-ter a mo-ment. "The aether that seems to flow end-less-ly out."


    "Only a lit-tle," Mian said, lean-ing back. "Maybe... not much more than what you said, re-al-ly. Did she re-al-ly say much more than that?"


    Ki''el paused, but brushed past the ques-tion. "When I was do-ing an as-sign-ment yes-ter-day, col-lect-ing riv-er stones, I found a pair of them that seemed to be re-lat-ed to that pair of flows, one al-ways out-ward, one al-ways in-ward. I... did not col-lect them," she ad-mit-ted, with a gri-mace, "but I re-mem-ber them clear-ly. But I was think-ing also of what Sobon said about your Heart cen-ter."


    "My heart," Mian said, con-sid-er-ing. "A sin-gle lo-ca-tion where blood al-ways flows out, and al-ways flows in. I can see the com-par-i-son, but I''m not sure..." he frowned.


    Ki''el knew there was some-thing there, and men-tal-ly prod-ded Kuli, who sur-faced a thought. "Part of what Sobon said was that Out--that Gen-e-sis Aether push-es en-er-gy into things, and Con-sump-tion Aether pulls it out. If this is a part of your na-ture, then it stands to rea-son that you will..." she paused, un-sure of what ex-act-ly she was say-ing, and al-though she was sure Kuli knew, the girl with-in her did not say, Ki''el as-sumed so that ei-ther she or Mian would fig-ure it out on their own.


    "I''m still qi gath-er-ing," Mian said, slow-ly, as Ki''el searched for words. "So for now, the part of the heart that is al-ways pulling is more rel-e-vant, isn''t it? Only... I don''t know that that''s how hearts work. If an an-i-mal or per-son is cut open, they bleed, but noth-ing from the body pulls." He reached up and tapped his chin, then looked at Ki''el. "Do you have any way to demon-strate the flows?"


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, and even tried to fo-cus on the aether around her, but she was un-clear on how to do that. Sobon had cre-at-ed cy-cles specif-i-cal-ly for out-er and in-ner aether, but she could not. The only thing that made her think it was at all pos-si-ble was that Sobon had said all the aethers were pre-sent with-in qi it-self.


    Fi-nal-ly, she shook her head. "There must be a way," she said. "But I do not know it. I wish that I could share the mem-o-ry. It felt... nat-ur-al." She gave Mian an apolo-getic look.


    "De-scribe it, then," Mian said, lean-ing back.


    And so Ki''el spent some time try-ing to find dif-fer-nt ways to de-scribe those thoughts and feel-ings, of the wa-ter push-ing in, but also, the wa-ter slip-ping away, un-til the pair of stones be-came that pair of con-cepts, a pair that be-came a sin-gle thought when put to-geth-er. And Mian sat with his eyes closed, breath-ing deeply, and Ki''el could feel his qi stir-ring, as he tried to un-der-stand his own heart in the de-scrip-tion of the flow-ing riv-er.


    Un-til at last there was a mo-ment, and a strange mo-ment at that, when Mian opened his eyes, and there was a strange sense to the aether around him, but a very weak feel-ing over-all. And Ki''el though that the aether around him was touched by his spir-it, and most like-ly also flowed back into him.


    And Ki''el re-al-ized as he did this that he had no way to pu-ri-fy his qi, and felt sor-row-ful, be-cause she un-der-stood that the qi in this place was not pure. And she frowned, and thought about what she had ex-pe-ri-enced with her bend-ing of qi, hop-ing that she could find a way to share the method, or change it so that it fit Mian.


    "I think this will help," Mian said, his voice a touch dis-tract-ed, but he blinked it away and looked at her. "...You have con-cerns?"


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, un-sure of how se-ri-ous to be, and prod-ded Kuli, but the aug-ment sug-gest-ed that they had time. So Ki''el blinked away her con-fu-sion and nod-ded. "Yes, but I be-lieve it can wait. Only... try to find places where the qi... or the aether is pure. It is... not great, here."


    "I can''t tell," Mian said, glanc-ing around, and Ki''el re-al-ized that they were sit-ting on the edge of a small gar-den plot, in an area that was... hand-some, in its own way. Not per-fect-ly kept, but some-one clear-ly did keep it. "Where would you rec-om-mend? Wher-ev-er you were ear-li-er?"


    Ki''el frowned at that. "Per-haps not there. And I don''t know that I will go back there too of-ten, not af-ter mak-ing en-e-mies."


    Mian start-ed to say some-thing, but stopped him-self. "I see. But didn''t your en-e-my get killed by an El-der?"


    "He was ma-nip-u-lat-ed. And that ar-ti-fact was tak-en, but there may be some-one be-hind it." Ki''el shook her head. "I do not know. But I in-tend to be cau-tious."


    "Bet-ter than Sobon in that re-spect," Mian said, with a bit of a jok-ing tone, and Ki''el smiled back at him, though she knew that she had been in-cau-tious more than a few times her-self. Most like-ly, she would be again. But she was also not go-ing to be dis-mis-sive of an un-known threat. And also... Sobon had spent much of his time... her time build-ing cau-tious-ly up. It was only her en-e-mies throw-ing them-selves at her that forced her hand.


    "But any-way," Mian said sud-den-ly, slap-ping his legs and stand-ing up, "I was wait-ing for you to show you to our ''room'', such as it is, since you didn''t come back last night. Re-mem-ber that we were en-ti-tled to one for our first month, at least." He start-ed to-wards the en-trance, and Ki''el got to her feet and fol-lowed. "It''s one of the bro-ken ones, as you might guess, with patchy floors and lit-tle walls. The Floor Leader says that it is ours for that pe-ri-od."


    Ki''el had to pause as they ap-proached the in-fu-ri-at-ing spi-ral stair-case. Mian con-tin-ued up a half ro-ta-tion, paus-ing when he saw her hes-i-tate. "It''s aw-ful," he said, sound-ing sym-pa-thet-ic, "but I think we can get used to it."


    "It is an in-sult," Ki''el said, forc-ing her-self to step to the stairs and take the first one, gin-ger-ly. "Call-ing it a way to train is cru-el. It feels like tor-ture."


    "I can''t say I un-der-stand that," Mian said, speak-ing slow-ly and mak-ing his way up with care-ful steps, "but I agree it''s more like-ly some-one be-ing a jerk rather than some kind of tool to help us.


    Ki''el fol-lowed up to the fourth floor, seething silent-ly the whole way, and con-tin-ued to feel in-sult-ed even as Mian led her two door-ways down the hall, past where they had stopped be-fore. It was... worse than Ki''el might have imag-ined, be-cause the floor was most-ly gone ex-cept for a few patch-es and for the sup-ports. And the walls...


    Ki''el caught sight of some-one else in the neigh-bor-ing room, a man who might once have been hand-some, and was now marked by age and a lack of care. When he sensed her eyes on him and turned, Ki''el saw noth-ing in the man''s face but de-spair and re-sent-ment. Like so many of those she had seen in the morn-ing, it was hard to imag-ine the man wish-ing to be here. And yet... could he not leave? Was there some oth-er thing bind-ing peo-ple to the Less-er House, if they failed to ad-vance?


    Ki''el shiv-ered and looked away, back to the floor. At least the floor''s struc-ture was in-tact; Ki''el, when she bent down and looked clos-er, saw signs that those beams had even been re-paired, most like-ly by the sect mem-bers who Sect Sis-ter Lan Wu had com-plained about.


    Ki''el took sev-er-al steady-ing breaths, push-ing down the part of her that want-ed to be in-sult-ed. It was eas-i-er for her, she sus-pect-ed, than for many here. Liv-ing in the ru-ins of her vil-lage had left her with few il-lu-sions about the fair-ness of fate. It was... cru-el, she thought, that she had to grasp on to those lessons again af-ter so long, and be-cause of the Sect it-self, but she did it.


    In-stead of fo-cus-ing on why it was re-quired, Ki''el did her best to fo-cus on the ques-tion that mat-tered: how would they re-pair the floor?


    Her mind strayed to the in-scrip-tions Sobon had used to turn sand to quartz. Al-though she didn''t un-der-stand the in-scrip-tions, she had done her best to mem-o-rize both the form of the in-scrip-tions and the in-tent be-hind them. With the help of Kuli, Ki''el imag-ined that she could repli-cate it, even if Kuli was of-ten silent so that she could learn on her own. But... the quartz that Sobon had formed was also com-plete-ly clear, and that made it the wrong ma-te-r-i-al for floors and walls. The more prac-ti-cal an-swer was for Ki''el to do what the sect ex-pect-ed--sim-ply take the tools and ma-te-ri-als from the sect to make ba-sic wood-en walls and floor, and with time and care, shape them into the right form.


    De-pend-ing on the tools, it might not even be dif-fi-cult, and yet Ki''el dis-agreed with the thought. The tasks that need to be done, need to be done, Ki''el thought, and they may need to be done a cer-tain way. But this task is only about the re-sults, is it not? If we can ac-com-plish it while learn-ing to do more with qi, or aether, then per-haps we should.


    It was not ex-pect-ed of peo-ple in the Less-er House, she knew. Those here were not ex-pect-ed to fig-ure out new ways to use qi all by them-selves. Ei-ther they re-lied on script-ed ar-ti-facts, or knowl-edge from their up-bring-ing. Per-haps some few prodi-gies were giv-en chances to learn while they were here--but it had to be few, giv-en the at-ti-tude every-one had to-wards the Less-er House. This was a place that seemed to ex-ist only to make sure even the most tal-ent-ed and pow-er-ful ini-ti-ates suf-fered be-fore pass-ing through.


    "Ki''el?" Mian''s voice was con-cerned, and Ki''el looked up at him. "You don''t have to do it all alone, you know. Xam and I are al-ready talk-ing about it, mak-ing plans. We''ll get this re-paired."


    Ki''el nod-ded, re-luc-tant-ly, and stood, but looked back at the re-paired floor struc-ture. There was no deny-ing, with that re-pair, that the sect had sim-ply de-cid-ed on a rule, and the peo-ple who did the re-pair car-ried it out. There were signs of it every-where, she knew, but this... stung her. It felt like this would be a very dif-fi-cult place to sleep, be-yond hav-ing no pri-va-cy. And... al-though the ring that Xam car-ried had thin mat-tress-es for each of them, the idea of sleep-ing across the sup-ports re-mained com-plete-ly un-ap-peal-ing.


    Kuli? Is there any way to fix this to-day?


    Ki''el could tell even be-fore her aug-ment replied that Kuli did not par-tic-u-lar-ly en-joy hav-ing to say no. { If you wish to use a vari-ant of Mas-ter Sobon''s pat-terns, I could help, } she said, { but the pat-terns you saw were meant to be writ-ten as a script, not used freely. You would need to en-grave them, and you would need ma-te-r-i-al. But I think you miss an ob-vi-ous an-swer. }


    Ki''el''s head perked up, with-out be-ing con-scious of how that might look to some-one else. An ob-vi-ous an-swer?


    { Your sword, } Kuli replied, { and Mas-ter Sobon''s base-ment. Straight walls of pure aether, de-fined by rigid points. It is not a per-ma-nent fix for the room, but if you sim-ply need a floor, and walls, to-day... it might be pos-si-ble. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, though she was a lit-tle sur-prised that Kuli had sug-gest-ed it. Sobon had been much more se-cre-tive. I would still need to en-grave some-thing.


    { You would, } Kuli agreed. { And it would take prac-tice. It is pos-si-ble, but not easy. But far bet-ter than try-ing to sleep on a bro-ken floor. }


    Ki''el agreed with that, and blinked away her con-cen-tra-tion to look up at Mian. "I have an idea," she said. "I may be busy for a lit-tle while."


    Mian just shrugged. "If you don''t need to do sect work, then by all means. For me... I be-lieve Sis-ter Futi is al-ready call-ing for me. I just want-ed to make sure you knew about the room."


    Ki''el nod-ded, and the two start-ed back down the hall-way, Ki''el men-tal-ly go-ing over what she un-der-stood about Sobon''s en-grav-ings, with lim-it-ed help from her new fa-vorite sis-ter.

 [TAS] 8. Kiel - Cycles, Part 2

    Ki''el learned quick-ly just how naive it was of her to as-sume that she could learn in-scrip-tions, even with Kuli''s help, in a day.


    Ul-ti-mate-ly, the goal as she knew it was to cre-ate four to-kens that would sit in the four cor-ners of the room and pro-duce a sim-ple floor from what-ev-er mys-ti-cal force Sobon used. But be-fore she could get to the log-ic of the in-scrip-tion, she had to first get the hang of cre-at-ing any kind of script. And Ki''el was... not ex-act-ly prac-ticed with writ-ing, in gen-er-al.


    It''s not as though she had nev-er. It had sim-ply... not seemed like a thing to prac-tice once every-one died, like most things.


    { If there is any hope, it will be by learn-ing from the start, } Kuli sug-gest-ed. { Find dirt where any suc-cess, or fail-ure, will not both-er oth-ers, and I will show you which is the first con-cept. }


    So Ki''el wan-dered into the woods, dis-re-gard-ing places where the nat-ur-al qi gath-ered or flowed strange-ly, and found a patch of loose dirt. With only her fin-ger and her in-tent, she in-scribed a very ba-sic mark, not much more than a cir-cle with a dot in its cen-ter. And... nat-u-ral-ly, the mere act of hav-ing vague ''in-tent to in-scribe'' in her fin-ger was not enough. She con-sid-ered it for a long mo-ment, then moved on to what Sobon had taught her: form-ing a thread of aether, as she had done when she cre-at-ed her aether cy-cles.


    This seemed clos-er, but there was noth-ing to an-chor the thread to the dirt, and in-deed, Ki''el could not think of a rea-son why the hole in the dirt would ever con-tain a much small-er thread of aether. And yet Kuli re-mained pa-tient-ly and silent-ly there, as though cer-tain that an an-swer would come to her.


    And it had worked, Ki''el knew. Sobon, and Lai Shi Po, and many oth-ers, carved into ma-te-ri-als and left be-hind in-scrip-tions. But why--how? How could script re-main in emp-ty space, car-ried along by a thing that did not touch it? Or was the carv-ing, the emp-ty gap, some kind of lie? But no--Sobon of all peo-ple would not have carved into ma-te-ri-als if the carv-ing was not mean-ing-ful.


    She con-sid-ered, and con-sid-ered, and de-cid-ed at last that Sobon spoke al-ways of aether be-ing a force that con-nects things. And if the act of cut-ting into some-thing is nec-es-sary for in-scrip-tion, there must be a way to con-nect the cut to the script. And she al-ready knew that Out-er and In-ner spins of aether both af-fect-ed the area around them, even if she didn''t un-der-stand.


    Even-tu-al-ly, rather than try-ing to fig-ure out the nu-ances of how to do it with pure aether, Ki''el de-cid-ed to ap-ply the in-tent with qi, with only the in-tent to re-main with-in the gap. That pro-duced what she de-sired--but ex-act-ly that. It was only a thread of qi, with-out use-ful in-tent, that re-mained in the de-sign that she etched in the dirt.


    Still, it was progress, and in spite of Kuli''s ini-tial as-sess-ment, Ki''el was very hap-py to have got-ten that much done with-in the first... how long had it been? Ki''el looked up and de-cid-ed that it had been, per-haps, an hour or more, but not much more than that. That was good--but she also didn''t need prod-ding from Kuli to know that it did not suf-fice, a fact that Kuli her-self clear-ly un-der-stood, for she re-mained qui-et.


    Next will be an in-scrip-tion with in-tent, Ki''el rea-soned, look-ing at the dirt. What is the in-tent of this cir-cle, Kuli?


    { It is ex-act-ly and only a mark-er, } Kuli replied. { Al-though this is a bit messy, you can imag-ine the in-tent is only to give the place, the ex-act cen-ter, a name. Only... it is not a name, or it does not need to be. To cre-ate a floor, you will need at least three ''named'' places, but four will give you a square floor. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered. Al-though she did not un-der-stand Sobon''s math, she could imag-ine that there was a lan-guage to it, a lan-guage that only had to be spo-ken once places and con-cepts had names. This place; every-thing with-in a dis-tance of this place; every-thing be-tween these places. Her sword, she knew, had a place in the hilt, and cre-at-ed a place in midair, and cre-at-ed a pure blade be-tween them. When Sobon had sim-ply done that, it seemed al-most god-ly. But when she con-sid-ered the pos-si-bil-i-ty that she could do things like that with mag-ic... it made sense that there must be words, must be a lan-guage. Must be a way of be-ing clear about what you in-tend-ed.


    Can you not do it all with a sin-gle point? Ki''el asked, while think-ing these things, know-ing that Kuli was lis-ten-ing silent-ly.


    { The word for ''down'' that you would need is com-pli-cat-ed. This is much sim-pler. }


    Ki''el frowned, will-ing to ac-cept that it must be true, but com-plete-ly un-cer-tain as to why. What is com-pli-cat-ed?


    { It is tricky to ex-plain in only a few words, } Kuli re-spond-ed, very pa-tient-ly. { You have nev-er been with-out weight. The way to be cer-tain where ''down'' is re-quires know-ing how to find the ground with-out feel-ing weight, or falling, or see-ing or touch-ing. It can be done, but it is... tricky. }


    Ki''el ac-cept-ed this af-ter only an-oth-er mo-ment of thought. But this could still be done with few-er marks.


    { Yes. If you make the main in-scrip-tion more com-plex. It will not hap-pen to-day. }


    No, Ki''el knew, it would not. In-stead of wor-ry-ing any fur-ther, she looked back at the first in-scrip-tion she had made, con-sid-er-ing the shape once more. A sym-bol only to pro-vide a name.


    { A name for the ex-act spot in the cen-ter. }


    Ki''el imag-ined that she un-der-stood, be-cause she was feel-ing clever, that the form of the in-scrip-tion didn''t re-quire us-ing the cen-ter point, but she had no rea-son to ques-tion or fight against it. In-stead, she went back to draw-ing shapes in the dirt, and with-in a... per-haps third of an hour, had man-aged to per-form a mark well enough that Kuli told her it was cor-rect. And she sat there in the dirt next to it, with an in-scrip-tion that did noth-ing, and asked Kuli how she could be sure, her-self.


    { Form a thread of right-eous aether, } Kuli sug-gest-ed. { In-tend for it to move to-wards that point. Do not re-lease it. }


    Ki''el did, and she bare-ly had start-ed to form such a thread when it seemed to pull away from her, and to-wards the point. She blinked, im-me-di-ate-ly aware of how use-ful it would be to be able to point to-wards some-thing of hers, but when her con-cen-tra-tion lapsed, so did the thread and its pull. She frowned, think-ing. Could I in-tend my aether to pull to-wards any-thing I choose?


    { That is com-pli-cat-ed. It is sim-i-lar to some things Sobon spoke of. Much lat-er, if you know the in-tent ''name'' of a thing, you may be able to. But even some things that have been named are not able to be reached, even if they are close. The rules are not worth speak-ing of to-day. }


    Ki''el ap-pre-ci-at-ed that Kuli un-der-stood her ques-tions as broad, and not need-ing full an-swers, and she was sure that Kuli also ap-pre-ci-at-ed that she did not push too hard. But now, Ki''el looked back to the dirt, think-ing of a dif-fer-ent, and prob-a-bly much hard-er, ques-tion. How can I make a mark like this that I can take to our room?


    { With some-thing sharp. Or with aether, or qi. } Kuli didn''t see much rea-son to elab-o-rate.


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, then stood and walked back to the kitchen. The grumpy man who Mian had been as-sist-ing was there, clean-ing things, and looked up at the door when she paused there, squint-ing in what was not quite a glare.


    "I would like to bor-row a knife," she said.


    "My knives are not for crafts," he said, sound-ing very cross. "Ask Sis-ter Futi."


    Ki''el flinched, but nod-ded, and moved away. Sis-ter Futi, at the mo-ment she ar-rived, was speak-ing qui-et-ly to a rather short, mid-aged man, one whose age and lack of cul-ti-va-tion had cost him much of his hair and giv-en him rough and un-pleas-ant skin, though when he heard the last of Futi''s wis-dom and turned to the door with a nod, his eyes at least seemed po-lite. Still, as with many that Ki''el had met, the man moved past her with-out a word.


    "Young sis-ter Ki''el." Sis-ter Futi''s voice was, to her sur-prise, a lit-tle sharp, if qui-et. "I did tell you I know what hap-pens around this house, did I not?"


    Ki''el felt a small wave of em-bar-rass-ment come over her, and she gri-maced. "It is noth-ing--"


    "In-scrip-tion is dif-fi-cult, and get-ting it wrong will of-ten lead one to dam-age one''s own spir-it," Sis-ter Futi said, her glow-ing eyes nar-row-ing as they locked on to the girl. "But more than that, it is clear to me that you were speak-ing to some-one. Were you not?"


    Ki''el could feel Kuli''s alarm, as well as her own, but she closed her eyes, took a breath, and stepped ful-ly into Sis-ter Futi''s of-fice. "Yes. A gift from my mas-ter, which con-tains part of his wis-dom."


    "I trust you un-der-stand how that looks, on the same day you ac-cuse a man of de-mon-ic pos-ses-sion."


    Ki''el... had not, but chose not to ran-kle at the ac-cu-sa-tion. "It is not de-mon-ic," she said. "and I could ex-plain what I was do-ing, and what I in-tend." She paused, feel-ing the old-er Sis-ter con-tin-u-ing to glare at her, and de-cid-ed to say just a bit more. "I know it is rush-ing," she said. "But trust that I would not be do-ing it if we had been giv-en a room with a func-tion-ing floor."


    "You want to use en-grav-ings to re-place the floor?" Futi''s voice went from a lit-tle cold to ac-tive-ly scorn-ful.


    This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    "No. A tem-po-rary one. Noth-ing more." Ki''el could feel her good mood ac-tive-ly slip-ping away. In truth... she had been lost enough in the de-tails of what Kuli had been teach-ing her that she had giv-en no thought to how oth-ers felt. Or rather...


    Or rather... when was the last time Ki''el had re-al-ly need-ed to think about how oth-ers felt?


    She swal-lowed as she stood there, sud-den-ly feel-ing an age old-er than her body ac-tu-al-ly was. Mian, Sobon, and Lui had been kind, but each of them had kept a dis-tance and asked lit-tle of her. She had not been around peo-ple as a nor-mal mat-ter... not since be-fore.


    "You seem dis-tressed," Futi said, her voice not show-ing any sym-pa-thy.


    "I... apol-o-gize, Sis-ter Futi." Ki''el blinked away tears. "I... was think-ing that I have got-ten slop-py. And I re-al-ized that I have not had to wor-ry about peo-ple mis-un-der-stand-ing my in-ten-tions since my vil-lage was de-stroyed. And that was... a while ago."


    "De-stroyed by what?"


    "Pi-rates. Djang slavers." Ki''el looked away. "My mas-ter Sobon and I even-tu-al-ly found and killed them."


    "Are you sure?" Ki''el blinked, sur-prised, as Sis-ter Futi moved around the desk. "For de-mon-ic cul-ti-va-tors, pro-longed de-cep-tion is noth-ing un-usu-al. If your so-called mas-ter was se-cret-ly be-hind the whole thing--"


    Ki''el could not help laugh-ing at the thought, which stopped Futi mid-sen-tence.


    "You find that fun-ny." Sis-ter Futi leaned back against her desk, her glow-ing eyes fi-nal-ly fad-ing, to take in Ki''el with their nat-ur-al forms. "Clear-ly you think you know your mas-ter very well."


    "No, Sis-ter Futi," Ki''el ad-mit-ted, "I can as-sure you that I do not know my mas-ter well at all. How-ev-er." She stood up proud-ly. "My mas-ter''s pri-ma-ry fo-cus is in-scrip-tions. I have seen things you could not be-gin to imag-ine, Sis-ter. What-ev-er you imag-ine fool-ing me would do, it would be un-nec-es-sary for him. I do not know his past, but I can as-sure you that if he were a de-mon, the world would be in grave per-il in-deed."


    "I see." Sis-ter Futi crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back a lit-tle more ag-gres-sive-ly into her desk. "And this gift from your mas-ter con-tain-ing his wis-dom, it is also a form of in-scrip-tion?"


    "It is... a com-pli-cat-ed thing. I could not de-scribe it."


    "Did it in-volve your blood? Was any-thing done to you by force, even for a mo-ment?"


    Ki''el just smiled and shook her head. "No."


    Sis-ter Futi still ag-gres-sive-ly took a breath. "Still, I do not like the idea of you do-ing in-scrip-tion work with-out train-ing."


    Ki''el raised her eye-brows, and for once, let a shred of gen-uine ir-ri-ta-tion into her voice. The cold-ness to it sur-prised her. "You seem al-right with me sleep-ing with-out a floor. Per-haps what you like should not be ter-ri-bly im-por-tant to me."


    Futi in-stant-ly tensed, but forced her-self not to re-act. "What-ev-er your re-la-tion-ship with your mas-ter or the out-side world, Ki''el, to me, you are only an-oth-er child who thinks them-selves in-fal-li-ble when they are not."


    "I am not in-fal-li-ble," agreed Ki''el. "I am cau-tious, and I am fol-low-ing close-ly the ad-vise of my mas-ter."


    "I know noth-ing what-so-ev-er of your mas-ter. He could be a ge-nius or he could be a drunk-ard in a ditch."


    Ki''el opened and then im-me-di-ate-ly shut her mouth. In-stead of an-swer-ing di-rect-ly, she looked away, won-der-ing how ex-act-ly to phrase things that would not draw too much at-ten-tion or be too thor-ough-ly ques-tioned. And yet... in the end, a pride-ful part of her-self still spoke up into the si-lence, per-haps un-wise-ly. "My tu-ition here was paid for by an ar-ti-fact my mas-ter pro-duced and sold at auc-tion. One ar-ti-fact." She looked back at Futi, who still leaned against the desk, look-ing un-con-vinced. "And... ah, per-haps it would have been eas-i-er to say. As El-der Gol and Se-nior Broth-er Du can at-test, we ar-rived at this is-land in the com-pa-ny of Lai Shi Po."


    That got Sis-ter Futi''s at-ten-tion. "Your mas-ter is a friend of Lai Shi Po?"


    Ki''el start-ed to say more, but a push from Kuli cooled her head just a touch, and she re-con-sid-ered. "My mas-ter stud-ies spa-tial qi, which is a top-ic that Lai Shi Po..." she con-sid-ered her words, so as not to sound like she be-lieved the woman was in any way less-er. "...con-tin-ues to re-search. Since they share in-ter-ests, they have co-op-er-at-ed some-what."


    "I see." Futi frowned at her. "And yet you were not pro-vid-ed with tools, which means your own in-struc-tion had not reached that lev-el. I am will-ing to be-lieve your mas-ter is an in-scrip-tion-ist, as-sum-ing Broth-er Du backs up your claim. But you have no tools and only gold qi. Even if your mas-ter left you a talk-ing scroll or any such non-sense, do-ing in-scrip-tion work with-out some-one to as-sess the qual-i-ty of your work is reck-less, and invit-ing any such ex-per-i-men-tal script-ed ob-jects into the Less-er House is for-bid-den. If you wish to prac-tice in the for-est--"


    "I don''t sup-pose Lai Shi Po re-mains at the Sect?" Ki''el in-ter-rupt-ed, though in truth, she doubt-ed it was so. While she had no doubt the woman could get com-plete-ly side-tracked by a top-ic, she had also been in-tend-ing to de-liv-er oth-ers of the Xoi fam-i-ly to an-oth-er city af-ter leav-ing this place. At least when Ki''el and the oth-ers had left the fly-ing box be-hind, there had been no talk of giv-ing them a tem-po-rary place to stay, or even ask-ing them to walk around.


    But then, Lai Shi Po had gone off to look into a "pro-ject" on very lit-tle prod-ding, and Ki''el could imag-ine the woman sim-ply for-get-ting the pas-sage of time.


    "If you think I''m go-ing to ask her any-thing on your say-so, you''re out of your mind," snapped Futi. "I may be tied into many mat-ters re-lat-ed to this is-land, but I hold no sway what-so-ev-er, and cer-tain-ly not over vis-i-tors."


    "If she re-mains, I would only ask that she be told I wish to speak with her," Ki''el said, in-no-cent-ly. "If she does not, you do not need tell me. I am aware enough of the woman''s tem-per to know that even if she re-mains, she may not be in-clined."


    Futi paused, swal-low-ing, and her eyes lit up sil-ver for a mo-ment be-fore the light fad-ed. "A mes-sage will be passed to her."


    "Thank you. I will... sim-ply be med-i-tat-ing out-side." Ki''el went out, al-ready feel-ing the con-fi-dence that she had been dis-play-ing un-rav-el.


    She had not told Po about the gift of knowl-edge Sobon had left her. And in-deed, Po knew al-most noth-ing about Ki''el. It was fool-ish for her to try to pre-tend that she, her-self, was any-thing like ready to take even a mo-ment''s in-struc-tion from Lai Shi Po, even with Kuli to help.


    All I want-ed was a knife, and a floor to sleep on, Ki''el grumped silent-ly to her-self. It has... bare-ly been a day since we ar-rived, I sup-pose. And yet in that time I''ve worked, learned, fought, healed, ar-gued over and over...


    As she stepped out-side, Ki''el was pleased to see a friend-ly face, at least. "Xam!"


    "Ki''el." Xam had an un-ex-pect-ed-ly hag-gard look on her face. The slim Djang woman, who so far to Ki''el had seemed most-ly el-e-gant and per-haps a lit-tle ar-ro-gant, now was start-ing to look like she had been though a lot worse than Ki''el. "I heard you sur-vived your tri-al very well. I''m glad."


    "Thank you." She paused only for a mo-ment, be-fore blurt-ing out, "Can I have my sword back?"


    Xam paused, but held out her hand to Ki''el''s, de-posit-ing the sword hilt in it a mo-ment lat-er. "Go-ing to prac-tice?"


    "Med-i-tate." Ki''el ex-tend-ed the blade in its dullest, staff form, re-vers-ing it and plac-ing it in her lap as she sat to the side. "It calms me."


    "Be-cause of your mas-ter?" Xam hes-i-tat-ed a mo-ment, but sat down be-side her. "She seemed very wise."


    Ki''el start-ed to say some-thing, then stopped, un-sure. Xam knew some-thing was strange about Sobon--they had met with Sobon in a dif-fer-ent body, and Xam had seen that boy killed. But any dis-cus-sion of Sobon''s gen-der sound-ed strange in her head. Even so, af-ter a mo-ment, she said, sim-ply, "He."


    "He?" Xam looked at her, and it clicked af-ter a mo-ment. "Ah. Of course." They sat there, Ki''el not so much med-i-tat-ing as try-ing to calm down and clear her mind. It was start-ing to work, when Xam spoke again. "Ki''el... back then, Mian said some-thing about be-ing cen-tered in his heart. And I''ve asked him about it since, but he re-al-ly doesn''t sound like he un-der-stands the con-cept, not in words. Can you... say more?"


    Ki''el blew out a breath and looked up at the sky. She didn''t re-sent the ques-tion at all, and thought Xam de-served an an-swer. "Mas-ter said that peo-ple... that their spir-its are made of parts, like the or-gans in the body. And a giv-en per-son''s spir-it may be as-so-ci-at-ed with an or-gan, or some-thing sim-i-lar, and it... is use-ful." She frowned, feel-ing that it was not a great an-swer, and gen-tly prod-ded Kuli for help. Though the aug-ment re-mained silent, Ki''el felt her mem-o-ries and un-der-stand-ing clar-i-fy a lit-tle in re-sponse. While she con-sid-ered that, she spoke a lit-tle about her own Skin cen-ter and Mian''s Heart na-ture, and what Sobon had said about each.


    "I do not re-al-ly know how it af-fects most peo-ple," Ki''el said, "and I''m not sure how I would rec-og-nize your na-ture or what to do about it. But Sobon made it sound very sim-ple, in prin-ci-ple. Un-der-stand your-self as... per-haps as, hav-ing to deal with that part of your spir-it most di-rect-ly. When I had to go up the stairs the first time," Ki''el turned and glared at the en-trance to the Less-er House, "it felt like an at-tack. Be-cause I have to deal with my skin na-ture, my re-sponse to at-tacks is..."


    It dawned on Ki''el that her re-sponse to Futi had been much like re-spond-ing to an at-tack as well. She had not been vi-o-lent, but she had done a great deal to en-sure that she could con-tin-ue to be as she was, even ask-ing that Lai Shi Po be con-tact-ed. She felt sud-den-ly em-bar-rassed, and cleared her throat to avoid think-ing about it.


    "...my re-sponse to at-tacks is to close off and... try to re-main as I was. Mian... it is bet-ter for him to ex-plain, even if you say he does it poor-ly. But he seems to be-lieve it helps."


    "I see." Xam ex-tend-ed her legs out in front of her, look-ing at her cloth shoes. "My re-sponse to threats in my life was of-ten to leave, or to fight. It is why I left my fam-i-ly, and why I took... a break from the mil-i-tary ser-vice. I of-ten thought of it as weak-ness, cow-ardice, which is also why I went to the mil-i-tary. Be-cause I am not a cow-ard, or weak." She sud-den-ly hopped to her feet. "What does that make me? Foot-fo-cused?"


    "I would not know," Ki''el said. "If I have a chance to speak to Sobon, I will ask."


    Xam nod-ded. "You be-lieve she--he is alive?"


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed. "He is... not gone."


    Xam stud-ied her, then af-ter a mo-ment, shook her head. "If you ever hear back about it, I''ll lis-ten," she said. "I''ll think about the idea on my own, but it''s very vague with-out more de-tails."


    "I know." Ki''el took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "I will let you know."


    Xam gave her a strange look, as Ki''el con-tin-ued to sim-ply sit. "You aren''t slack-ing, are you? Do you have a task?"


    "Sis-ter Futi told me I was ex-cused for a short while. I am mak-ing use of it." She paused, a de-sire to talk about her floor pro-ject war-ring with em-bar-rass-ment about how she''d be-haved, and about her prob-a-ble lack of suc-cess. "Per-haps... not the best use. But I am... ad-vanc-ing."


    "Keep your mind on pass-ing the Gold-en Wall." Xam stood back up, half turn-ing to look at her. "Noth-ing be-gins un-til you can con-vince the Sect that you are wor-thy of fur-ther in-struc-tion. In some ways, spend-ing time in the Less-er House in-stead of free in the world be-low is a waste of time." She reached out and touched Ki''el''s shoul-der, seem-ing firm but sup-port-ive. "I be-lieve you can do it. Mian as well. But do-ing it soon will re-quire fo-cus."


    "I know." Ki''el smiled, and soon enough, Xam went in. Not long af-ter, she left again, with hur-ried steps.


    Ki''el med-i-tat-ed with her sword again for only a short while be-fore some-thing in her stirred, and she looked up, see-ing a fa-mil-iar pair com-ing to-wards her. Broth-er Du was es-cort-ing Lai Shi Po, who looked... peace-ful, for a mo-ment, as she looked around at the woods, but the look hard-ened when she looked ahead and saw Ki''el.


    Or, Ki''el hoped, when she saw the Less-er House. She could only imag-ine the woman had as much dis-dain for the place as she did. Ei-ther way, she took a deep breath and rose, de-ac-ti-vat-ing her sword as she did. "Po."


    "Ki''el." Po locked her eyes on Ki''el and ges-tured with her head. "Let''s stay away from the House. If I stay here too long I''ll be tempt-ed to re-build the en-tire build-ing on prin-ci-ple."


    "I wish you would," she said qui-et-ly, but no one en-gaged that thought as they stepped away into the woods.

 [TAS] 9. Kiel - Cycles, Part 3

    Ki''el did not ex-pect bound-less sym-pa-thy from Lai Shi Po, and would have been sur-prised if the woman had been im-me-di-ate-ly or lim-it-less-ly help-ful. That made it dif-fi-cult for her to sum-ma-rize the rea-son why she had called for the woman in only a few words, so she walked Po through the gen-er-al cir-cum-stances quick-ly first.


    The in-sis-tence that there was no room in the Less-er House. Be-ing shown rooms with no floors. Be-ing giv-en a room with no floors. The at-tack by a man who seemed ma-nip-u-lat-ed by a bracelet--Ki''el, at-ten-tive to the ad-vice of Sis-ter Futi, hedged her word-ing there slight-ly--and who had been ma-nip-u-lat-ed to die at the hands of El-der Gol. Hav-ing time to her-self.


    But then, Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed. She looked at Po, who was tak-ing all these events so far very sto-ical-ly, and if Ki''el were to guess based on the woman''s dis-po-si-tion, she thought the woman was un-sur-prised and per-haps even bored. She could imag-ine that some, though like-ly not all, of this was fair-ly stan-dard for the Less-er House. But she also was not sure she want-ed to speak too much of Sobon''s gift, not af-ter Futi had been so very cau-tious of it, and not when Sobon him-self had said lit-tle.


    But there was no avoid-ing it, and it wasn''t as though the top-ic was now com-plete-ly con-cealed. Al-though she phrased it to make sense to Po, she felt strange again, not-ing how in-con-sis-tent she might ap-pear to oth-ers. "You know that Alas-si spoke of leav-ing me with some wis-dom be-fore she left."


    "Of course," Po said, sound-ing bored, or per-haps just guard-ed.


    "It was... de-liv-ered. And now I have a... spir-i-tu-al helper, per-haps. A men-tal as-sis-tant."


    "Men-tal and spir-i-tu-al..." Po nar-rowed her eyes slight-ly. "Com-ing on the heels of oth-er ma-nip-u-la-tions. I see."


    "There was some... ac-cu-sa-tion, or per-haps just con-cern," she said, glanc-ing at Broth-er Du, who re-mained silent and did his best to ap-pear un-af-fect-ed. "But my mind was not on those things. I was think-ing about Alas-si''s abil-i-ty to ma-nip-u-late sub-stances, be-cause I was think-ing about the room re-pairs."


    Po, at least, looked sym-pa-thet-ic to the idea that Ki''el was distractible, but said noth-ing.


    "So I came out here with... my as-sis-tant, at-tempt-ing to learn the ba-sics of in-scrip-tion," she said at last, feel-ing more em-bar-rassed as she talked. And she led Po to the crude scratch-es in the dirt where she''d been. "In the end, the full in-tent that I wish to per-form is noth-ing more than an ar-ti-fi-cial floor us-ing the planes of force that ...she uses. I was in-struct-ed that in-volves three or four sim-ple mark-ers to de-fine the re-gion, and then a sim-ple glyph to cre-ate the ef-fect be-tween them."


    "In prin-ci-ple, a sim-ple script," agreed Po, glanc-ing down at the cir-cle marks. "To my eyes, this is a com-plete be-gin-ner''s in-tent mark, but it is one. If your as-sis-tant taught you how to do that much, it is at least com-pe-tent."


    Ki''el could feel her-self flush-ing and re-sist-ed the urge to squirm at the scruti-ny. "When I con-sid-ered try-ing to get tools to make a more... portable ver-sion... I ran afoul of Sis-ter Futi. Who was..."


    "I am aware of Sis-ter Futi''s ca-pa-bil-i-ties," Broth-er Du said qui-et-ly.


    Ki''el nod-ded at him, grate-ful that she did not need to mince words. "Be-cause she sensed what I was do-ing, she for-bade me from bring-ing any such in-scrip-tions into the Less-er House."


    "She''s prob-a-bly not wrong," Po said, and Ki''el felt her heart drop. Po glanced at her af-ter a mo-ment. "Or rather, in this in-stance, she is. But there is a world of dif-fer-ence, Ki''el, be-tween an in-scrip-tion-ist with a mas-ter and some-one think-ing that the art will work re-li-ably and in the way they en-vi-sion. All mas-ters, in-clud-ing yours, have years--usu-al-ly decades, some-times cen-turies of fail-ures be-hind them. We learn to de-tect fail-ures as quick-ly as we can, from the small-est signs. Per-haps your spir-i-tu-al as-sis-tant can per-form that func-tion--but un-til Sis-ter Futi can con-firm this her-self, or have it con-firmed by an-oth-er, it would be fool-ish to trust too eas-i-ly."


    Ki''el scowled and looked down at the dirt. "All I re-al-ly want is a floor to sleep on." She thought she sensed a small burst of emo-tion, turn-ing to see that it was Broth-er Du, not Po.


    "In truth, when I ac-cept-ed the cur-rent state of the Less-er House, I did not think about that part of it," he said. "Though I would think the cor-rect an-swer, rather than a script--"


    "Oh by all means," Po broke in sud-den-ly, and Ki''el could hear a cut-ting edge to her voice. "Sug-gest raw planks, Du. Sug-gest them." When Broth-er Du looked to her in sur-prise, Po moved to-ward him in a flash, and even Du seemed to feel threat-ened when she snagged the front of his uni-form. "You can''t pos-si-bly have for-got-ten, can you?"


    "Ah... in truth, Sis-ter..."


    "Three times," Po snapped. "I went to the heal-ing house three times while stay-ing in the Less-er House, be-cause turn-ing in my sleep ripped my skin on raw wood of the floor or walls. Blood loss, par-a-sites, and dis-ease. I re-mem-ber the way the sect treats the Less-er House, ''Broth-er'' Du," she said, with some ob-vi-ous scorn. "As do you. They are over-worked and un-der-ap-pre-ci-at-ed be-fore they have to deal with se-ri-ous prob-lems be-cause of the shit-ty con-di-tion of the hous-ing that the Sect it-self pro-vides. Hous-ing that the Sect even has the nerve to be proud of."


    Ki''el watched Broth-er Du, whose pan-ic slow-ly gave way to a more com-posed ap-pear-ance. "You did not fix the bro-ken wood."


    "Per-haps," Po said, with what she prob-a-bly thought was feigned sweet-ness, al-though she couldn''t muster that kind of sar-casm in the mo-ment. "But you act as though it would be safe for any-one to do. That would be a step be-yond bad guid-ance, and into ac-tive ne-glect, Broth-er."


    Du held up his hands in a sign of sur-ren-der, and Ki''el felt her-self start breath-ing again, though she had not no-ticed her-self stop. "You are right," he said af-ter a mo-ment. "I have for-got-ten since long ago what it is like to have mor-tal skin. It is reck-less of me to give ad-vice to some-one at Gold Qi, sim-ply be-cause I would have no prob-lem with it. As a penance, I would hap-pi-ly as-sist with pro-vid-ing an ap-pro-pri-ate sleep-ing sur-face."


    Ki''el didn''t like that an-swer, and she was pleased when Po im-me-di-ate-ly shook her head. "No," she said, "you can stay out of this for now. Ki''el. I can ver-i-fy you have a cor-rect in-tent mark, here. If you can demon-strate an ap-pro-pri-ate mark and in-tent for the floor field, I will per-son-al-ly en-grave the script onto..." she glanced around. "Oh, I don''t know. Rocks or some-thing."


    Ki''el felt re-lief, and moved to an-oth-er, un-touched patch of dirt. Kuli...


    { I be-lieve you un-der-stand the idea well enough, } Kuli an-swered quick-ly. { And see-ing you strug-gle and learn will show hon-esty in the eyes of the oth-ers. They will not ex-pect you to suc-ceed the first time. }


    So Ki''el sat silent-ly for a mo-ment, try-ing to re-call the glyph she thought she un-der-stood, and though she didn''t quite catch it hap-pen-ing, she was sure that Kuli ad-just-ed it slight-ly. And when she was sure, she drew out a sym-bol in the dirt, not quite cor-rect-ly get-ting the thread of qi as she sketched it in.


    Two more quick tries af-ter that, Ki''el frowned at the qi thread in the dirt. This is not right, is it?


    { No, } Kuli agreed. { You have the cor-rect sym-bol, but it is not meant to be used like that. These three lines are sup-posed to con-nect to pieces that name a tar-get, the op-po-site end of the nam-ing mark. Call it an ar-row mark, with the nam-ing mark be-ing the tar-get. You can still at-tach ar-row marks to this, but you will need to be very care-ful. }


    So Ki''el, as del-i-cate-ly as she could, sketched out from one of the three marks, her in-tent con-nect-ing it to the in-tent mark she had left be-hind. When she moved to join it to the full mark, how-ev-er, her fin-ger brushed the qi thread she had left be-hind, dis-rupt-ing it, and the larg-er mark dis-ap-peared.


    "I think I''ve seen enough," Po said be-hind her, naked con-tempt in her voice, and Ki''el felt her heart jump into her lungs. She turned to find the two watch-ing her work. "Aside from be-ing a com-plete novice, Ki''el, it''s clear that you do not un-der-stand in-scrip-tion at all. You have the cor-rect mark, but you have put no thought into it at all."


    Ki''el fell back-wards, into the dirt, un-sure of what to say to that, but even as she opened her mouth to try to say any-thing in her own de-fense, Po con-tin-ued.


    "I can see your mas-ter''s style in the use of the script," she said, "but you made two se-ri-ous blun-ders with it. The first is a lack of a pow-er source, mean-ing you would need to pow-er it with your own qi all through the night. The oth-er is a lack of an off switch. If you carved the en-grav-ings here, they would be ac-tive as you car-ried them. If you dropped one and didn''t know it, the plane of force might cut into any-thing that got in the mid-dle of it un-aware."


    Ki''el, know-ing full well that the same ba-sic in-scrip-tion pow-ered a sword, felt sick and hu-mil-i-at-ed at that thought, and looked down. In the end... al-though she had been proud, it tru-ly was fool-ish of her to ex-per-i-ment with-out a mas-ter... was it not?


    { I would not have let you use it in this way, } Kuli said, qui-et-ly, as Ki''el sat there in the qui-et for a mo-ment. { I was aware of both is-sues. I did not ex-pect you to fin-ish by to-day, but used the floor to mo-ti-vate you to work hard-er. }


    "Still," Po said into the still-ness, "You demon-strat-ed the cor-rect mark and in-tent. It would have func-tioned." And Ki''el watched as four small rocks in the vicin-i-ty seemed to zip at Po all by them-selves, and the woman got down in the dirt, pulling her in-tri-cate carv-ing sty-lus out of her space ring.


    It was a mat-ter of thir-ty sec-onds, if that, be-fore Po hand-ed her four en-graved rocks. Ki''el had watched the woman en-grave for hours on end on the ride up to the Sect... and it only served as a les-son to her, now, just how sim-plis-tic what she was ac-tu-al-ly try-ing to ac-com-plish was. Sim-ple sym-bols with sim-ple in-tent, and even then, she all but failed.


    "Pour your qi into the widest mark, here," Po said, in-di-cat-ing one. "The spi-ral mark trig-gers it on, or off. The qi stor-age will not last for more than a night--not if all three of you sleep on it. And it will not stand up to any at-tacks. Since there''s only three marks, it will sup-port at most half a room, and the qi will stretch fur-ther if you use it less. Don''t let any-one jos-tle or take the rocks." Po paused. "Make sure all the marks are fac-ing up. I don''t think there''s even an-oth-er thing to say about it. It''s noth-ing more than a very crude tool."


    "Thank you, Po," Ki''el said, qui-et-ly, test-ing the rocks only briefly be-fore hold-ing them in her hands and clutch-ing them tight-ly. She wasn''t quite sure why this gift from the woman hurt her heart, some-what, but it did, mak-ing her re-gret how she had thought of the woman so far. She was... un-couth, and crude. But this help was not mean-ing-less.


    Lai Shi Po sniffed at her, and Ki''el for a mo-ment thought that the woman was also sen-ti-men-tal, but af-ter a mo-ment, she talked again. "I en-cour-aged your mas-ter to give me a name as she pleased, and I''m not go-ing to scorn you for think-ing you are fa-mil-iar with me. But on this mat-ter, as on many oth-er mat-ters, I am your su-pe-ri-or, not your friend. Ki''el. You shall not ex-per-i-ment with in-scrip-tion with-out some-one pre-sent. Un-til the Sect deems you wor-thy to per-form in-scrip-tions with-out su-per-vi-sion, do not."


    Ki''el wilt-ed un-der the woman''s tongue, and she nod-ded. "I un-der-stand. Thank you, Lai Shi Po."


    "Bet-ter." Po straight-ened, and her voice light-ened. "Aside from the liv-ing con-di-tions, how do you find the Sect so far?"


    Ki''el looked up at her, sur-prised. Af-ter a mo-ment, she put the rocks in her pock-et and tried to match her sit-ting stance to Po''s. "I... do not dis-like it. There are many won-der-ful things here. Al-though I am dis-ap-point-ed that the... qi here is not fresh."


    "You no-ticed that?" Broth-er Du''s voice sound-ed gen-uine-ly sur-prised.


    Ki''el just looked up at him and nod-ded. "I asked... my as-sis-tant, and she said that there is a bar-ri-er di-rect-ing all the fresh qi to the top of the is-land, and what fil-ters down to us has al-ready passed the oth-ers."


    "Oh, we know it''s true," Po said, as though Ki''el were de-fen-sive or ex-plain-ing it to them. "It''s just un-usu-al that you would be sen-si-tive enough to tell. Or maybe, strange that you know enough to put it into words."


    "It be-came ob-vi-ous on my trip back from the heal-ing house," Ki''el said, "but more-so when I sat close to the edge and ex-pect-ed the breeze to be fresh. A wind blow-ing in from afar should not feel like the is-land be-hind me."


    If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Broth-er Du chuck-led at that. "I sup-pose an Il-lan would know," he said. "Sea breeze is sea breeze, un-less it is blow-ing the smell of some-thing spe-cif-ic to you." Ki''el nod-ded at that, though she was a lit-tle sur-prised at the com-ment, which he seemed to no-tice. "I have stood on shores, and on moun-tain-tops," he said sud-den-ly, as though there was some need to ex-plain him-self, "and I have stood on the top of the is-land, though I am rarely al-lowed to stay there long. Every-where else here is sim-ply... down-wind. It was a strange sense, un-til I un-der-stood it prop-er-ly, but ever since then, I have sym-pa-thized with those who can tell."


    "Ki''el''s qi is un-usu-al-ly pure," Po said to him, con-ver-sa-tion-al-ly, "be-cause of the way her mas-ter taught her. I don''t know how long that will last..." she turned and con-sid-ered Ki''el.


    "I am aware that draw-ing in dirty qi is not ide-al," she said. "And I do not in-tend to use... my Mas-ter''s meth-ods at all times. I spent some of my time to-day try-ing to find a way to pu-ri-fy the qi that comes in, slight-ly. It is not as ef-fec-tive as..." she nod-ded at Po, "...but I think it will help."


    "Pu-ri-fy the qi?" Broth-er Du''s voice was du-bi-ous, and Ki''el be-gan to wor-ry that she was do-ing some-thing sil-ly again.


    But in-stead of get-ting de-fen-sive, Ki''el held her two hands in front of her, where the two could see, and though it took her a few mo-ments to fo-cus, she be-gan her qi turn-ing ex-er-cise again, try-ing to fo-cus on not only the left and right hand spins, but also the in and the out. When she was able to find the method again, with some dif-fi-cul-ty, she opened her eyes, see-ing the qi turn-ing and the flakes falling gen-tly away from it.


    She could also see the se-ri-ous looks on the faces of both Lai Shi Po and Broth-er Du.


    "It is a method un-like my mas-ter''s," Ki''el ad-mit-ted, do-ing her best to sta-bi-lize the ef-fect as her heart raced and her guts squirmed at the scruti-ny, again. Al-though she knew she should not talk too flip-pant-ly... "The pow-er cy-cles that Sobon taught me were meant to..." she caught her-self, turn-ing the aether. "...well, they work on a dif-fer-ent process. But what Sobon taught me was to ma-nip-u-late with-out in-tent, and I un-der-stood that this was im-por-tant. As I was sit-ting, I be-gan to won-der what im-pu-ri-ty in qi even was, and so I wished to see what hap-pened when qi was used. This is... qi with-out added in-tent, but used. I think... in my mind, I think that if I used qi this dirty while it was with-in me... then..." she nod-ded at the flakes of qi na-ture and in-tent falling away from the turn-ing, white-ish qi.


    "It is known that im-pu-ri-ties build up," Broth-er Du said, as he ex-am-ined the turn-ing qi, "but a method like this..."


    "In its own way, it is pro-found," said Po, and Ki''el looked at her, sur-prised. Po re-turned her look, her face once again show-ing some amount of bore-dom or ar-ro-gance that Ki''el was not sure she un-der-stood. "It is a novice''s tech-nique, built on sim-ple foun-da-tions. But it shows a grasp of the ba-sic prin-ci-ples that is im-por-tant."


    Sur-pris-ing-ly, Broth-er Du open-ly scoffed at that. "It is in-ter-est-ing," he said, stand-ing back up. "But it is in-ter-est-ing in the way that many novice tech-niques are. It shows new thought while also dis-play-ing promi-nent-ly that you fun-da-men-tal-ly do not un-der-stand Qi."


    Ki''el al-most lost her en-tire con-cen-tra-tion at that, and it was only a men-tal nudge from Kuli that... let Ki''el no-tice the ir-ri-tat-ed look on Po''s face as the oth-er woman turned to Du.


    "What do you mean?" Po asked, calm-ly enough that if Ki''el had not seen the look of ir-ri-ta-tion, she might have thought the woman was be-ing... aca-d-e-m-ic?


    "Ma-nip-u-la-tion with-out in-tent, and pu-rifi-ca-tion of qi," Du said. "They are in-ter-est-ing con-cepts, but in the end, they mis-rep-re-sent the goal of pu-ri-fied qi. Ul-ti-mate-ly, the idea of us-ing pu-ri-fied qi strikes me as worse than sil-ly, as an ac-tive mis-step on the road of cul-ti-va-tion. The goal is to have qi that serves your pur-pos-es, that is ful-ly at-tuned to you, that rep-re-sents all your knowl-edge and all your ex-pe-ri-ence. Gath-er-ing qi and strip-ping it of all that which does not match your own spir-it is one thing--but strip-ping it of every-thing, of all the knowl-edge and will of the world? That is ridicu-lous."


    { False and wrong, } Kuli in-formed her qui-et-ly, even as Po con-sid-ered for only half a mo-ment be-fore speak-ing.


    "I think you''re wrong, Du," she said. "Much of what I do and study--in-scrip-tion, alche-my, spa-tial qi--in-volves cas-es where for-eign in-tent in your qi can be dead-ly."


    "And it''s fine to re-move in-tent that does not be-long," ar-gued Du, and some-how, Ki''el thought she was see-ing an-oth-er side to the man. He took a step back and be-gan to pace, his face far more an-i-mat-ed than she had seen be-fore. "But qi should al-ways be-long to its user, and what-ev-er re-mains in qi, from what-ev-er source... it is wis-dom from the world--" { False, again. } "--which can be care-ful-ly stud-ied and med-i-tat-ed upon. While I''ve ad-mit-ted-ly nev-er seen flakes of qi in-tent falling out in a pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique... it strikes me as wrong, and wrong-head-ed. Qi isn''t sim-ply qi. It is the very will of the world it-self, con-tain-ing all of the pro-found wis-dom of cre-ation."


    Ki''el lis-tened to the man talk, and al-though the top-ic was mak-ing her feel strange, she be-gan to un-der-stand even with-out Kuli in-ter-ject-ing that this was a top-ic that Broth-er Du only thought he un-der-stood. By the end, she had be-gun to flush her own spir-it out again with Right-eous Aether, feel-ing her var-i-ous ex-cit-ed feel-ings dim slight-ly so that she could sense the world clear-ly, again.


    Po, too, seemed un-con-vinced. "I must ask, Broth-er Du, whether you''re try-ing to con-vince the girl, me... or your-self?"


    Broth-er Du round-ed on Po like he want-ed to say some-thing harsh, but he stopped him-self, con-sid-ered, and took a deep breath. "You might be right," he said, his voice sound-ing a lot more like the sto-ic, even-keeled man he''d been a few min-utes ago. "It was... a some-what vis-cer-al ex-pe-ri-ence to see in-tent flak-ing away from qi as though it was... ac-tu-al dirt. I..." he con-sid-ered, and looked up at the trees.


    Ki''el looked around, too, re-al-iz-ing as she did that time was turn-ing to-wards evening, al-ready.


    "Broth-er Du," Po said af-ter a mo-ment. "This is one of those con-ver-sa-tions that makes me want to spill se-crets, but I won''t. Suf-fice it to say that pu-ri-fied qi, or bet-ter, [Pri-mor-dial Qi] is the prop-er base for all oth-er ef-fects. A per-son may gath-er in-tent and na-ture into their qi, but the qi should be built on top of pure qi."


    "Sis-ter Shi Po," Du re-turned, his voice un-ex-pect-ed-ly harsh. "I have spent a cen-tu-ry of my life think-ing long and hard about what peo-ple are meant to do with their qi. Ki''el looked at him, reap-prais-ing the so-called ''Broth-er'' as she did. "I will not ar-gue that pu-ri-fy-ing qi is not good, but..." He sud-den-ly shook his head, and looked away. "Apolo-gies. I''m not sure what I am ar-gu-ing."


    Ki''el looked back down at the cy-cling qi be-fore her, watch-ing it turn, and as she did, she thought about what it meant--un-til the mo-ment when she un-der-stood what it ac-tu-al-ly was. "Is it be-cause it is the qi here, specif-i-cal-ly?"


    The oth-er two turned to-wards her, say-ing noth-ing.


    "Be-cause it is the sect''s qi," she clar-i-fied, as she raised her hands, and the cy-cle be-tween them. "I am not turn-ing and cy-cling qi from my dant-ian, but from the en-vi-ron-ment. And it is that qi, the sect''s qi, that sheds in-tent like it is dirt."


    Broth-er Du flinched, and Ki''el could swear she felt a small qi spike from him. "That is... cer-tain-ly not the whole rea-son," he said, tak-ing a deep breath. "But now that you men-tion it... it does shed some light on my ir-ri-tabil-i-ty."


    "I would ex-pect so," Po chuck-led, be-fore turn-ing to Ki''el. "Set-ting aside the rea-son why... can you do any-thing else to de-scribe what you''re do-ing? The method?"


    Ki''el con-sid-ered. "Sobon taught me to cre-ate a sin-gle thread of aether," she said, know-ing the word would be un-fa-mil-iar to Du, and most-ly un-fa-mil-iar to Po. She knew that Sobon had spo-ken to her a lit-tle bit about it, but not at length, not when Ki''el was lis-ten-ing, at least. "with-out in-tent, as part of a pat-tern that would pro-duce more of the same. Ob-vi-ous-ly if that aether sam-ple was taint-ed, so would every-thing it pro-duced. I only... sought to pro-duce a thread of qi with-out in-tent, qi that was be-ing ''used'' with-out gain-ing or los-ing any-thing. And... I sup-pose I had the in-tent to see in front of me what would hap-pen when I ''used'' qi in-ter-nal-ly."


    "But also..." Ki''el took a mo-ment to stop and breathe, con-sid-er-ing her words. In truth, she didn''t un-der-stand this part. "Sobon spoke of the... math of rings and turn-ing. The na-ture of this tech-nique was that the aether, when it is done turn-ing, be-comes a part of the thorn at the cen-ter, ready for use. In this case, the qi joins the thorn when it has no fur-ther need to be part of the turn-ing, when all the in-tent has been shed. It is... not Primordial Qi. But it seems to be pur-er."


    "It looks like it''s sup-posed to be self-suf-fi-cient," mused Po. "But it isn''t."


    "Mine is not," Ki''el agreed.


    "Most peo-ple at Gold Qi aren''t even con-sid-er-ing the pu-ri-ty of what goes in. And in truth, I''m not sure how much it mat-ters." Po''s eyes re-fo-cused, di-rect-ly on Ki''el''s. "You''ve tried it. Put pu-ri-fied qi in your dant-ian."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed only a mo-ment. "Yes. It felt..." What could she say? She had no ba-sis for com-par-i-son. "It was... a lot, at once."


    "At once?" Broth-er Du''s voice sound-ed strange. "You passed a large quan-ti-ty of qi di-rect-ly into your dant-ian? With what tech-nique?"


    "Tech-nique?" Ki''el looked at him, feel-ing like it was an odd ques-tion. It was true, Kuli''s ad-vice for breath-ing in the qi was strange-ly par-tic-u-lar. "I... my as-sis-tant told me that be-cause of the pu-rifi-ca-tion process, it was al-ready my own. I used a breath-ing tech-nique, but... ac-knowl-edged it as al-ready mine, al-ready pure. It seemed to pass through clean-ly."


    Both of them frowned at that, and Ki''el sat there, look-ing from one face to the oth-er, watch-ing them both think through what had been said, un-til at last Broth-er Du broke the si-lence. "I see," he said. "I''ve of-ten found that the high-est-pu-ri-ty qi sources were eas-i-est to cul-ti-vate, but even those re-quired... tech-nique, to ab-sorb safe-ly. Your tech-nique oc-curred out-side of your body, and there-fore looks odd to our eyes, but it may end up be-ing no dif-fer-ent in the end." He stood up a lit-tle straighter. "You have tru-ly giv-en us much to think about. For my part, as a mem-ber of the sect, I will pay for your time in sect points. I imag-ine you are not yet too fa-mil-iar with them, but trust that they are a sym-bol of re-spect for your time and ex-per-tise." He looked at Lai Shi Po. "But I have oth-er tasks, and I be-lieve that Sis-ter Shi Po does as well. Un-less there is firm need to re-main...?"


    Po just laughed, but shook her head. "You''re still un-will-ing to be hon-est in front of your ju-niors, Du. Ki''el. Sobon con-tact-ed me with a cer-tain method re-cent-ly, one I was not aware of. I trust you are?"


    Ki''el''s eyes widened slight-ly, but she nod-ded.


    "We''ll most like-ly leave soon. I should have left ear-li-er, but..." she shrugged. "I get dis-tract-ed, and the sect en-joys teas-ing me. I need to get the oth-ers where they''re go-ing. If you need my ex-per-tise, I will give it to you. But... try to be more than a com-plete novice be-fore you ask me for things." She straight-ened, not both-er-ing even to brush the dirt off of her knees, and she gave Ki''el a strange-ly lop-sided smirk that was more like the street urchin Ki''el had first seen her as than the well-dressed in-scrip-tion-ist that she had been mas-querad-ing as late-ly. "I do have some pride."


    "Do you." Ki''el tried to keep the tone of her voice light, so that it would be ob-vi-ous she meant it as a joke, but she wasn''t sure how well she was able to do that at the drop of a hat.


    "Ah, your doubt wounds me," Lai Shi Po put a hand against her fore-head, feign-ing a faint, but when she start-ed to ac-tu-al-ly fall over back-wards she turned it into a tum-bling roll, and then af-ter a mo-ment, with some force of qi, popped her-self back to her feet, a ways away, and grin-ning. "Tru-ly, Ki''el, I hope that you en-joy this place. I think you will, when you es-cape the Less-er House. Places like this love and re-spect the truth, and find joy in learn-ing and shar-ing. The Less-er House..." she went qui-et.


    Ki''el crossed her arms over her chest, un-sure of ex-act-ly how the oth-er woman would jus-ti-fy the ex-is-tence and na-ture of the aw-ful build-ing and its oc-cu-pants.


    "I think," Po said af-ter a mo-ment, "that it''s nec-es-sary in or-der to keep cer-tain types of peo-ple from suc-ceed-ing in places like this. I''m not sure that it works, and for cer-tain, not per-fect-ly. But I can see you, and per-haps Mian, do-ing far bet-ter here than most that can af-ford the tick-et. Be-cause you are not the kind of peo-ple that the Less-er House ex-ists to keep out."


    "I have heard sim-i-lar be-fore," Ki''el said. "Still, it feels..."


    "Dis-re-spect-ful?" Po laughed. "Ex-act-ly, Ki''el. It is painful, and dis-re-spect-ful. Just work, and sur-vive it. You''ll do well." She turned. "We can es-cape now, Broth-er Du. I''ve dis-tract-ed her."


    Du rolled his eyes, and rather than mov-ing away, moved clos-er and bowed to Ki''el. "Thank you for your in-sights, young sis-ter Xoi Doua Ki''el. Per-haps I will ask you to demon-strate your tech-niques for me an-oth-er day."


    Ki''el re-turned the bow. "As long as you do not ex-pect too much of me, Se-nior Broth-er Du," she replied. "Be well."


    "You as well."


    Ki''el let the two of them leave, and then took her stones with some ea-ger-ness to the small bro-ken room where Mian had led her ear-li-er, hold-ing the ac-tu-al floor glyph stone and charg-ing it with her pu-ri-fied qi un-til it was full. As the evening was com-ing on, there were more peo-ple around, but Ki''el ig-nored them, and even man-aged to most-ly ig-nore the stairs as they shift-ed un-com-fort-ably be-neath her feet.


    When she got to the room, Xam was there, look-ing tired.


    "Xam." Ki''el paused. There was a wide, rough plank of wood next to her, one that had not been smoothed or cleaned. "That wood..."


    "I''m sor-ry, Ki''el. I was try-ing to find the spare time to pre-pare some-thing more." She scowled at it, look-ing of-fend-ed. "I... sup-pose it''s bet-ter than noth-ing."


    Ki''el just raised her hand, though, show-ing the stone. "Be-fore you wor-ry too much, let me see if this works."


    Xam raised an eye-brow at that, but Ki''el fetched the three mark-er stones, find-ing places on the wood-en sup-port-ing planks for each of them, and then trig-gered the main in-scrip-tion. As she''d hoped and dreamed, a faint out-line of a tri-an-gle ap-peared be-tween the three points, and when Ki''el moved to stand on it, it held her weight eas-i-ly.


    She glanced down at the stone in her hand, sens-ing the qi use. It was... not triv-ial, but es-pe-cial-ly if she--if they could all con-tribute qi to it be-fore sleep-ing, it should last the night.


    "That is..." Xam crawled to the edge of it, reach-ing to touch the edge.


    "It''s sharp," Ki''el warned, and Xam stopped be-fore touch-ing it. "Sharp-er than a blade."


    "That sounds like an un-com-fort-able thing to sleep on."


    Ki''el re-al-ized it was true in the same mo-ment, and she sat down and stared at it, re-al-iz-ing that if the de-sign had been square, if it had tak-en up the whole room, it would have been much eas-i-er. But... it also wasn''t dif-fi-cult to imag-ine find-ing a way to put some-thing along the edge that would keep them from hit-ting it in the night, even if it was just a tree branch.


    Come to think of it... Ki''el took the rough board and po-si-tioned a part of it near the edge, try-ing to scrape some of the rough-ness away. She could feel the stone pulling hard-er at its stored qi, but it did scrape the board a bit.


    "Don''t do that." Xam clicked her tongue and shook her head. "But... it will hold your weight? Our weight?"


    "Po thought it might hold all three of us, if we will its stor-age with qi."


    "Po? Lai Shi Po?" When Ki''el nod-ded, Xam threw her hands up. "What is she even still do-ing here? She was sup-posed to de-liv-er Un-cle and the oth-ers..."


    "She said she was dis-tract-ed."


    "Poor un-cle." Xam sat down. "Well... I sup-pose we''ll find a way to make the edges safe, and we have to wor-ry about charg-ing it with qi. But with that and the floor that''s left, we should have enough room to sleep."


    "That''s all I want-ed from it," Ki''el con-firmed, step-ping away and de-ac-ti-vat-ing the stones for now. "Din-nn-er?"


    "It''s not quite time," Xam hedged, but set the board aside as Ki''el picked up her stones. "Tell me about the stones, and Lai Shi Po. There''s no way what-ev-er hap-pened is as sim-ple as you made it sound."


    So Ki''el filled her in, as the two of them moved back down-stairs, know-ing that Mian would be help-ing cook din-ner for the Less-er House. And Ki''el... re-al-ized, as she moved, that she had not eat-en a lot late-ly, and she was look-ing for-ward to what-ev-er Mian and the Less-er House was go-ing to serve.

 [TAS] 10. Kiel - Cycles, Part 4

    # 2.10 Cycles 4


    It became obvious over the course of the evening that Ki''el''s cycle-purified qi was the best way to charge the floor barrier stone, especially without passing the energy through Ki''el''s dantian. Ki''el, Mian, and Xam experimented only a little with the stones, since Ki''el was a bit concerned that using too much of their capacity would damage the stones themselves--she had seen the result of Sobon''s overused attack rods, and she had no concept of just how common that kind of damage was.


    Their experiments showed that putting too much stress on the field caused the stone to heat up and use too much qi, but the engraved shapes were simple and broad, and the heat spread over a fairly large area. Ki''el could imagine, though she wasn''t sure, that a more compact arrangement would be easier to damage.


    All of that only took a little time of their evening, though, which left Mian and Xam to introduce Ki''el to their neighbors--something that Ki''el had been somewhat dreading, especially since so many of their walls were torn apart. And... in truth, most of the so-called neighbors were as distant in the evenings as she had seen the members of the Lesser House being all throughout the day, and although she resolved to remember many names, few of them seemed like they would be relevant.


    Two of those who seemed actually relevant were even a pair.


    "Ben Jito and Fei Taru," Xam introduced, gesturing to the two. Jito had a wide and short face, one which Ki''el thought would have looked much more natural if he had more fat on his bones; being thin only gave him the appearance of being older and wearier than his actual years. Taru, on the other hand, had a narrower and longer, foxlike face, but pinched, almost unhealthy. Both men had strange qualities to their qi, Ki''el could tell at a glance, even though they remained at gold, and both were of mostly similar builds--one a bit wider and shorter than the other, but both were mostly healthy and strong, if a bit... underfed, perhaps. "They arrived separately only a few years ago, but both still hold hope for leaving the Lesser House.


    "I''ve had one meridian blockage after another," griped Fei Taru with a snarl, "but the resources of the sect have helped. Twice I''ve attempted to pass the Wall, and twice the tribulations have knocked me down."


    "You''re doing a lot better," Jito said, pulling the other man into a side-hug and rubbing his shoulder, with an intimacy that surprised Ki''el. His wide face seemed to amplify the sympathetic look. "But we can''t make a move forward until you''re sure you''re ready to try again."


    "You''re not ready, either," Taru snapped back, pushing away. "I know you''re confident, but the Wall is more dangerous than you think. Your second time could be your last, too."


    "Hm," Ben Jito didn''t sound offended, and looked at Ki''el. "That goes for all of us, really. So many people here thought that money and resources would be all it took to pass the Golden Wall. Even the name of it sounds like money is all you need. But advancing through a tribulation is no joke. In truth... none of us even understand what we are facing, even the ones who have faced it once already."


    Ki''el resisted the urge to exchange glances with either of her companions. In truth, she *didn''t* know exactly what lay at the Golden Wall, although she knew it was information Sobon had, and so doubtless, it would be information that Kuli had. And Sobon...


    Ki''el could remember when Sobon had finally decided to pass the tribulation at the end of Gold Qi. She could remember the contemplative look on her face as she stared into the distance. There had been no shred of concern, as though the matter was something understandable, simple. Ki''el had no doubt that her own tribulation would be significantly harder--Sobon had forced her spirit and body into shape using methods Ki''el would never have access to, and had been mentally and spiritually prepared to command far greater power than Ki''el had ever seen her use. Even so... if there was a path, she and Kuli would find it.


    "I said before I have some knowledge," Xam said, "though as I''ve thought about it through the day... I''m not sure I understand it myself. Not the dangers, and not exactly how one should best prepare. Especially..." She gestured to the narrower man.


    "I know. My constitution is unfortunate." Taru scowled, but let the displeasure lapse. "Anyway, welcome... Keel? Was it?"


    "Ki''el. It is the Illan word for eagles, birds of prey we see in the islands." Ki''el smiled a little, though she had to force it. She wasn''t quite sure, after all these years, how to make friends, but it was worth trying.


    "An auspicious name," Jito said, though Ki''el wasn''t sure what to read in his tone of voice. "I like to tell strangers I''m named after a turnip, though in truth, I was named for another Jito." He glanced away, the look on his face clearly dissatisfied. "I think between the two, I prefer the turnip."


    Ki''el gave him a look. "He was a bad man?"


    "Clearly my mother didn''t think so," was all Jito seemed willing to say, even when an awkward silence descended.


    The fox-faced Taru, apparently, was not the kind to break that silence for the sake of his partner, and eventually it was Xam who made an apology, and pulled Ki''el to meet another woman, a very short woman who might have looked more like Ki''el''s age if not for her weathered skin, skin that seemed entirely unusual on a cultivator. Unlike most people here, Ki''el could immediately sense great depth to her spirit--as though the woman could not possibly still be at Gold Qi, and was only pretending. Nevertheless, Xam introduced her as Bai Benai, saying that she lived across the hall, in one of the unbroken rooms.


    Benai gave Ki''el an odd look, opening up her door to show a space barely big enough to sleep in, and closing herself in without actually saying hello.


    Xam, at least, seemed surprised. "She... was more friendly yesterday. I''m sorry, Ki''el."


    Ki''el tried to think of the woman''s, to see if perhaps she could recognize her from among the people crowded around Xan Bu, but nothing struck her, and so she simply forgot about the woman for the moment, instead looking around and spotting someone down the hall, but they also refused to introduce themselves, and the three returned to their room, a bit uncomfortable. Ki''el noted, as they did, that despite the many holes in the walls and floor, there was... not too much noise here, and when she saw glimpses of people she hadn''t met through those gaps, the people she saw were sitting, either in meditation, or...


    Or... rest? What could she say?


    Ki''el found herself looking down through the gaps in the floor to one of the very narrow rooms below their slightly wider room, to find a man sitting against the wall unmoving, but not in any sort of comfortable or meditative pose. Although she understood upon reflection that she was staring, she... could not help but look down at him for several moments, her mind finally deciding that the pose was... that of someone who was giving up. Who had *given* up.


    She was sure she was not stealthy in body, and perhaps not in spirit, but the man never did look up at her, even when Xam called her name loudly to get her attention.


    Ki''el was distracted when Xam asked her to demonstrate the qi turning cycle again. Instead, she did her best to walk them both through the first steps to creating an aether power cycle, describing as best she could the concept of an aether thread as solid, in the sense of having an internal space. Although she tried to convince them that they could perform the technique without using qi... when Xam at last was able to create a similar ring, it was only by using her qi to do it.


    Mian, in far less time, had been able to generate a fog in the shape of a ring, but not bind it together, and he showed no significant progress in that through the evening.


    Ki''el studied Xam''s qi ring, and decided after some time that the woman had put too much intent into it, and spent the next hour or more trying to get the woman to create a ring to which she added nothing. It was somewhere in the middle of this all that Ki''el noted the strangest phenomenon, before it truly got close.


    To Ki''el, it felt like a bubble of brighter colors shifting slightly through the world.


    It was because she felt the phenomenon that she looked out into the hallway--just barely peeking her head around--in time to see Da Chian, of all people, rush up the stairs so nimbly that Ki''el could almost imagine the girl was flying. She stayed remarkably low to the ground, rushing forward, and only as Ki''el noticed that she was coming her way did she understand the noise she was making as an actual word.


    "Be~nai...!" Chian''s voice was a plaintive whine, and she launched herself at the door, only managing to pull it open a few inches before the door was pulled shut again. "Benai! They did it again!"


    "Leave me alone!" Bai Benai''s voice, through the door, was harsh. "I don''t want to hear about--"


    "They tried to take my blood," the girl whined, slumping down against the wall next to the door. "Even though I said--"


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    But Ki''el felt her blood surging, and she jumped to her feet. "Who did?" she asked. "Someone in the sect?"


    Chian, for her part, yelped and spun around, pressing herself back against the wall even further. On her face... Ki''el would decide later that the half-girl more had the look of someone caught doing something, rather than someone who had just endured some kind of trauma. In the moment, however, Ki''el could not get over the idea that Da Chian had been attacked.


    "Ah..." she glanced away, nervously. "It''s... not what you think, Sister Ki''el."


    "If you are being attacked, you should say something," Mian said, standing there next to Ki''el. "Do you need help?"


    "No... it''s..."


    But the door to Bai Benai''s room opened, and the woman reached out and snagged Chian from behind, in a gesture more protective than Ki''el expected from the woman. "Don''t tell them," Benai hissed. "They can''t be trusted."


    "But..." Chian looked over her shoulder. "Ki''el... knows."


    The other woman looked at her. "You told her?"


    "She... seems to be a good person, Benai."


    Benai just narrowed her eyes at Da Chian, and in the moment of stillness, Ki''el spoke up. "Knowing what you are does not make it any better, if someone tried to take your blood from you."


    "Ah." Chian stood up a little straighter. "I... did not mean by force. They offered sect points. I just..." She wilted again. "I don''t..."


    "You don''t *need* their points," Benai hissed. "And they should not continue asking when you have said *no.*"


    Ki''el found herself nodding, though Chian was not looking at her. "It is not something they should ask, if you are not comfortable."


    Chian, for whatever reason, simply seemed to pout, and Ki''el though that the girl was entirely different here than she had been below. And... it seemed clear to her, when she saw how Benai seemed reluctant to let the girl go, now that she had her hands on Chian. And when Chian looked up at her, she saw light in the girl''s eyes, far more than there had been.


    Finally, though, Benai pushed Chian away and slammed the door behind her, and Ki''el could almost *feel* the color of the world get sucked out, as Chian''s own qi dimmed in response. And Chian pounced at the door, making more whining noises, but this time, when Benai spoke, her voice and the qi behind it was harsh and cold.


    "You do not need me, Da Chian," she said. "Go tell your *new* friends about your plight, and leave me *alone.*"


    Ki''el flinched at the acid tone of the other woman, and felt... perhaps justifiably nervous when Da Chian turned to look at their room, the thin barrier of floor that covered less than half of it, the few finished planks covering another small section, and the unfinished wood laying against the wall. And... of course, she immediately moved over and examined the script stones.


    "This is a barrier technique," she recognized. "But nothing like... the ones I''ve seen. Simple and to the point." She sat back, and looked at Ki''el, her eyes wary, and the color around her swirled, but eventually stilled, becoming not unlike the rest of the world that Ki''el knew. When it did finally fade, Ki''el thought that there was a sudden and complete change in Chian, bringing her back to the woman Ki''el had known first.


    "Are you alright?" asked Ki''el, feeling like the girl was focusing on anything but the real question. And Chian, in a way more like the girl than Ki''el had known before, half-closed in, but was willing step into the shared room, which barely qualified as that.


    "It''s... it will be fine," she said. "Bai Benai gave me a talisman to give me courage to resist people. It... makes me excitable." She brightened a bit, though the world did not gain color around her. "I... like when she does that. But I know she wishes I would keep the secret, and I never do. When I''m excitable... I talk about it. She hates that."


    Ki''el opened her mouth to open a question, but thought better of it. Instead, she said something else. "She must be talented if she can do that, despite remaining in the Lesser House."


    "She..." Chian looked to the door across the way. "she hasn''t told me why she stays here, either. Or... she did, but she doesn''t let me remember."


    Ki''el blinked, and looked at the door across the way. "Doesn''t *let* you?"


    "She isn''t the only one in the Lesser House who is strange. Sister Futi also shouldn''t be here. And Brother Adi''ba." Chian continued to stare at Benai''s door. "I sometimes fear that I will end up like them. Just a strange person trapped where they do not belong."


    There was uncomfortable silence at that, and Xam moved close to Ki''el, and whispered, "What exactly is she?"


    Ki''el, understanding what Xam wanted, pressed a hand her and to Mian, and signaled with crude intent. [ Spirit beast bloodline. ]


    Mian had not expected the signal and looked at her, but after a moment, after seeing the serious concern on both Ki''el''s and Xam''s faces, nodded, relaxing. Xam... Ki''el never did quite understand the look on the woman''s face, which persisted for several seconds, but it cleared, and Xam just looked at the other girl.


    "You are Ki''el''s friend, so you are ours," she said, firming her resolve. "Let us know if there is anything we can do for you."


    Ki''el appreciated that, but wondered what the look was about, and what they could all do if the Sect was endangering one of their friends.


    When at last Chian was willing to sit with them and speak in a low voice, Ki''el found that it was only few member of the Outer Sect who were pestering her, and at least according to Chian, without malice. They spoke of research and open communication, but... they had also not accepted no for an answer, not after almost half a dozen rejections.


    Ki''el was surprised that Mian, of the three of them, seemed most upset at that, though she supposed he had been taking care of Lui for some years. Ki''el was also finding it hard not to be protective of the Da Chian, and she imagined that the man was struck in a similar way.


    To distract them all from the question, Ki''el asked if Chian had any information about Bai Benai''s technique, but the girl was tight-lipped about that, and Ki''el imagined she knew why. So instead of pestering the girl, Ki''el decided to teach her the same qi cycling technique she had been trying to teach Xam and Mian.


    What she did not expect was for Chian to pick it up almost instantly.


    It was strange, however; when Da Chian created a qi thread and began turning it, it never turned white or even whitish, although it did flake off significant chunks of intent. Instead, it turned a color red not unlike her hair, even when it gathered into the cycle''s thorn. She studied that red qi thorn carefully, seeming a bit unimpressed.


    "You certainly have talent," Xam said, eyeing the thorn. "It was difficult for me to even understand what Ki''el was asking."


    Chian studied the thorn for a bit longer without answering, before seeming to snap out of the trance. "Oh," she said, seeming to recall where she was, and then what had happened. "Ah, I ''heard'' Ki''el, is all." She paused, and then realized she needed to clarify. "My... ah, some people, like me, just have a natural affinity. We can ''speak'' to qi, and listen to it. Ki''el''s qi spoke of what she wants and what she does and is."


    That sounded strange and exiciting to Ki''el, and she leaned forward. "What sort of things does qi ''say''? What does it sound like?"


    But Chian just shook her head. "It''s not sound. It''s intent. Your qi sounds like what you meant to do. It sounds like who you are."


    And Ki''el thought about this for a few moments before it really struck her. "Oh," she said, deflating. "You must have... *really* hated what Xan Bu was doing to you."


    Da Chian was silent for several seconds, and Ki''el might have thought she was simply studying the qi again, but when she spoke, her voice was very quiet, and hard to hear. "Yes."


    Ki''el reached out and put a hand on the girl''s arm, sympathetically. Even so... "You said, that morning of the Elder''s judgement, that you did not feel you belonged here. Why?"


    Chian looked up at her, confusion apparent there, but buried. "Everyone knows what they are doing," she said, sounding perplexed. "It''s written all over their qi, and--"


    Ki''el almost jumped out of her skin when Mian threw his head back and laughed a long, loud laugh, one that she realized after a moment was more bitter than it sounded at first.


    "Ah," he said after a moment. "I''m sorry. Da Chian. You *know* that the people who remian in the Lesser House don''t know what they''re doing. It''s exactly why they''re *still here.*"


    Chian, somehow, seemed to take offense, like she had pride. "But... but they *feel* so certain. All of them do."


    But even Xam was nodding. "That is why they are still here," she said. "Because they are so sure they know what they''re doing, and they''re wrong."


    Ki''el moved a little closer, feeling an intense instinct to hug the girl who was showing such confusion and fear, but restrained herself. "Sister Chian. My master is one who genuinely knew what he was doing, how qi works, and how one was intended to raise onself. He..." Ki''el stopped, understanding just how odd her story would sound, and how silly it would be to try to explain Sobon being a master that started at almost no qi at all. So, she tried again. "He made it very clear just how different the path is for those who know it, and how fast a person could walk it if they must. I do not have all of his wisdom, but even I have great confidence I will not be trapped here. Not because I know what I am doing, but because I have faith that there is an answer, and that we can find it."


    There was a scoff at that, and Ki''el looked up to see one of the neighbors standing at the hole in the wall.


    "''We can find it'', she says." The man who stood there was bristling with indignation; that much Ki''el could tell, although she could not see his face or features from this angle. "There are true talents in every generation, brat, and there are those who can buy their way to the top. And then there are the rest of us." He slammed his fist into the wall, making Ki''el and Chian jump slightly, but turned away. "This is a place where talentless fools go to waste their lives. You won''t be any better." He turned away from the wall, and Ki''el only caught a glimpse of his eyes as he did. All she could tell was that they were cold. "You''ll see."


    Ki''el exchanged looks with Xam and Mian, but neither of them seemed any more impressed with the man next door than she was. And she looked at Chian, who... seemed to be struggling with something.


    Ki''el squezed her arm, and Chian stopped, and looked at her. "He''s so confident," she said, quietly. "It''s hard not to see what he says as ''true''."


    "It''s not," Ki''el said. "It is anger, frustration. A sense of betrayal."


    "He only intended to say what he feels," Chian said. "What he believes."


    "He can be wrong." Ki''el met the other girl''s eyes.


    Chian held her eyes for a long minute, before finally nodding.


    "You''re a strange girl, Da Chian," Mian opined, apparently out of nowhere, and Chian suddenly looked at him, confused, but he shook his head, speaking quietly so that his voice wouldn''t travel too far. "How can it be any more obvious that the people here are wrong? There is a path forward, and they don''t take it, *can''t* take it. Many thousands of others have found a way. You think because their qi is confident that they know the way? That''s just too naive. Confidence says nothing. A fool can be confident, and a master nervous. It says *nothing.*"


    "But qi responds to them," Chian said, her voice strangely hollow. "It hears their intent. Their confidence."


    { It does, } Kuli responded, and when Chian''s head turned towards her, she realized that the augment had somehow projected its intent outwards, though not strongly. { And their mistaken intent leads their qi in the wrong direction. }


    Chian all but pounced on Ki''el, moving her head close and studying Ki''el''s qi from right near her face, near her skin. And Ki''el felt herself flush deep scarlet in mortification, as the half-girl looked at her closely enough to see every pore and skin blemish.


    "That was new," Chian said quietly, as she pulled away. "What are *you?*"

 [TAS] 11. Kiel - Cycles, Part 5

    { You are un-sure who you can trust, } Kuli''s in-tent prac-ti-cal-ly whis-pered into the air around Ki''el, qui-et-ly enough that she was un-sure whether even Mian and Xam could hear it. { You are not the only one whose se-crets en-dan-ger their lives or fu-ture. }


    "Hmm," Chi-an crawled in a cir-cle around Ki''el, who was still too mor-ti-fied to do more than sit there. "A spir-it? Or some-thing... else."


    { I do not qual-i-fy as a spir-it, } Kuli re-spond-ed. { I am a con-struct, of a type that would be in-com-plete with-out a host. }


    "Mean-ing you do not wish to be free." Chi-an sat back, plac-ing her full weight on the force plane. Ki''el could feel the qi drain on the key-stone, which she still held on her per-son, but said noth-ing. "You un-der-stand qi the way that I do? As a part of it?"


    { I am a part of qi, } Kuli con-firmed, { But I also have knowl-edge you do not. }


    Chi-an nar-rowed her eyes, clear-ly tak-ing that as a chal-lenge, but leaned away with-out en-gag-ing with it. "If I be-lieve you... I may have ques-tions. Lat-er. But that is not a con-ver-sa-tion for this place." She re-fo-cused on Ki''el''s face, though clear-ly she didn''t no-tice or mind that the girl was re-act-ing to her scruti-ny. "This is... a trea-sure from your mas-ter, maybe?"


    Ki''el couldn''t quite meet her eyes. "From... ah... in a way, I sup-pose."


    { From hid-den mas-ters, } Kuli sup-plied. { About which we can say lit-tle. Her mas-ter is among them. }


    Chi-an was qui-et for a mo-ment, be-fore fi-nal-ly clos-ing her eyes, tak-ing a deep breath, and look-ing away. "This... doesn''t change much. Though... I sup-pose I ap-pre-ci-ate you not try-ing to keep se-crets."


    "Clear-ly she''s keep-ing some things from us," said Xam, qui-et-ly. And Ki''el glanced at her, and at Mian, as wor-ried by the ac-cu-sa-tion as she had been mor-ti-fied at Chi-an''s close ex-am-i-na-tion.


    But Kuli pro-ject-ed her in-tent once more, and Ki''el thought the aug-ment was do-ing sub-stan-tial work to reach the three oth-ers, and only them. { She was not wrong to be qui-et. Sis-ter Futi has ad-mit-ted she knows much of what hap-pens here, and knows many more se-crets than she lets oth-ers know. I do not be-lieve she can hear us now, or I would have re-mained qui-et. }


    This time, both Mian and Xam''s fea-tures shift-ed at the in-tent waves. Ki''el just nod-ded. "She said that most should not know what she knows, but..."


    "Even so, it''s not safe to speak too much here," Da Chi-an said, sigh-ing and slump-ing slight-ly, though she looked at Ki''el with odd eyes. "Per-haps we could go... out?"


    "It might be best," Xam agreed.


    The four of them got up, but Da Chi-an lin-gered out-side Bai Be-nai''s lit-tle door. Ki''el paused and watched her, con-tent to wait while the red-haired woman was lost in thought, but when Chi-an turned back, her face was more se-ri-ous than Ki''el had ex-pect-ed.


    She didn''t say any-thing as they walked, and by the time they were away from the Less-er House, and Kuli and Chi-an were con-tent that no one was eaves-drop-ping, no one would have wished to hear about Chi-an''s mus-ings about her clos-et-ed friend.


    So Ki''el spoke briefly about Kuli. "Kuli con-sid-ers her-self to be an ''aug-ment'', a con-struct in-tend-ed to be added to peo-ple to en-hance their mind, their mem-o-ry and knowl-edge," Ki''el said, qui-et-ly, into the trees. "The peo-ple that cre-at-ed her are... more ad-vanced than we are, as Sobon was when we knew her." She looked to Xam, and Mian, and Chi-an. "I am un-cer-tain, but I be-lieve that Sobon him-self was used to things like this. He spoke more than once of hav-ing known more, be-fore he lost parts of him-self. I sup-pose there is a great deal to know about the way things work that must be mem-o-rized."


    Mian went from just nod-ding to adding into the qui-et, per-haps only to prove that he was not an out-sider to this dis-cus-sion. "She... he spoke of not be-ing a teacher, not know-ing what need-ed to be taught. That there was a whole world of knowl-edge, and he didn''t know how much of it to try to teach us, or in what or-der."


    "And that qi cores work dif-fer-ent-ly from what he knows," Ki''el con-firmed, though in truth, she was think-ing of the con-ver-sa-tion she had when Sobon taught her to ad-vance to Gold Qi, and open her dant-ian. They''d had that con-ver-sa-tion away from Mian, specif-i-cal-ly so he would not hear how that was done, too ear-ly.


    "How is that pos-si-ble?" Chi-an''s voice wasn''t ac-cus-ing, but fas-ci-nat-ed, as she led them to-wards what Ki''el re-conized was a fire pit a lit-tle ahead.


    "It is... com-pli-cat-ed." Ki''el wasn''t sure how much to say, but when she didn''t feel any pres-sure from Kuli against say-ing more, she con-tin-ued. "Qi is... more com-pli-cat-ed than it seems. There are raw pieces that make it up, and Sobon was taught to ma-nip-u-late those."


    "Raw pieces?" Chi-an paused her steps, turn-ing and meet-ing Ki''el''s eyes, though the girl once again didn''t re-al-ly meet Chi-an''s in re-turn. "I would... be very in-ter-est-ed in hear-ing about that. Spir-it mag-ic is also very dif-fer-ent from qi. I am sure it''s very dif-fer-ent; I wouldn''t de-scribe spir-it mag-ic as raw, but rather... old. A con-nec-tion to an-ces-try. In many cas-es, a con-nec-tion to very an-cient things."


    "Aether is a raw pow-er of con-nec-tion," Ki''el said, feel-ing a surge of re-lief that Da Chi-an seemed gen-uine-ly in-ter-est-ed. "It comes in many forms--"


    "If we''re go-ing to the fire pit, let''s do that," Xam said sud-den-ly. "The thin air here does get cold at night."


    "It does," agreed Chi-an, as she con-tin-ued walk-ing. "And since I start-ed talk-ing about my own past, I will con-tin-ue. I am from an old and pow-er-ful spir-it beast blood-line, and many peo-ple de-sire my blood, or... more vi-tal parts. The ''why''s have nev-er meant much to me. I don''t think I can bring my-self to care about what some-one would do with my heart or liv-er if they were able to re-move it."


    Ki''el gri-maced at the thought, but only for a mo-ment. When Chi-an got close to the fire pit, al-though there was no wood there, Chi-an ges-tured, and a ball of light ap-peared at the cen-ter. "This will help us to gath-er wood," she said, "and there is al-ways wood around."


    But Ki''el, and Kuli, stayed there for a mo-ment, pro-cess-ing what they had sensed.


    The ball of light, Ki''el mused, must have been spir-it mag-ic, be-cause it was not qi, ex-act-ly, though qi was in-volved. For only a mo-ment, Ki''el had thought she sensed two flows--one of qi, but one of spir-it, and the spir-it guid-ed the qi in ways she was sure that Chi-an could not have, and then re-treat-ed some-where back into her. It made her won-der if she would look sim-i-lar, if she was us-ing Kuli.


    { That is not wrong, } Kuli an-swered, but men-tal-ly prod-ded Ki''el to-wards gath-er-ing wood. { But it''s also not what I was cre-at-ed to do. If I were to per-form aether pat-terns on my own, it would look sim-i-lar, but my task and my de-sire is for you to learn the pat-terns and per-form them your-self. }


    Ki''el fi-nal-ly moved af-ter an-oth-er few mo-ments, and the group was most-ly qui-et as they in-di-vid-u-al-ly sought out dried branch-es and large chunks of dead wood.


    When at last, they had gath-ered a re-spectable amount, Chi-an again per-formed a sim-ple touch of spir-it mag-ic, just enough to start the fire, and even that Ki''el thought was more qi than she was com-fort-able us-ing. "You are not com-fort-able us-ing qi?" she asked, as she squat-ted by the fire with the rest of them.


    Chi-an looked at her, seem-ing unim-pressed. "Qi is qi," she said at last. "I don''t know what the tribu-la-tion of the Gold-en Wall is for peo-ple with hu-man blood, but for us, we must wres-tle with the an-ces-tral spir-its that give us our pow-er. If one is lack-ing... some be-come fer-al, as the an-ces-tral spir-it takes over. Not for-ev-er, but it is hu-mil-i-at-ing and dan-ger-ous."


    "Hu-mans are struck by light-ning from the gods," Xam said. "I''ve heard it said that hav-ing a great deal of qi may not help with that, but I''ve nev-er un-der-stood how that can be so." She glanced at Ki''el, who re-turned the look.


    Kuli knew, of that Ki''el was cer-tain, but she said noth-ing, and Ki''el con-sid-ered what Sobon had said in-stead.


    "All I know for sure is that it is a de-lib-er-ate test," she said, fi-nal-ly. "And... I be-lieve that it is most like-ly to do with what Sobon said about adapt-ing to be able to han-dle greater... qi." That felt right; she had di-rect-ed some guess-es at Kuli, try-ing to read the aug-ment''s re-spons-es, and she had been... amenable. Kuli had doubt-less let some-thing leak, but Ki''el also did not press the ad-van-tage very hard. "Per-haps both tests are the same, in that way."


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    "Be-ing able to han-dle it?" Chi-an looked down at her hands. "I... sup-pose I have been burned once or twice by try-ing to use too much qi, but is it re-al-ly im-por-tant that we be able to han-dle..." she stopped, and seemed to muse qui-et-ly.


    "Sobon be-lieved so," Mian said into the si-lence. "She... he spoke for a while about sick-ness caused by too much aether. Too much qi. How the body could... I don''t know how to de-scribe it. All I re-al-ly re-mem-ber is that it was a re-bel-lion, in a way, one that caused sick-ness."


    "Mu-ta-tion," Ki''el said. "Small pieces of the body that no longer un-der-stand them-selves as part of a whole, and at-tack the body around them. Some-thing like that."


    For what-ev-er rea-son, Chi-an seemed to re-act very bad-ly to that idea, grab-bing her-self and shiv-er-ing like she was cold. Ki''el looked at her, and be-came con-cerned when the girl didn''t im-me-di-ate-ly re-cov-er her-self, but Kuli calmed her. { Re-call her rea-son for not feel-ing like a girl, } Kuli said. { Her body al-ready rebels. The idea that it could some-day do worse... }


    It must feel very real to her. In one stroke, Ki''el both could un-der-stand Chi-an''s dis-com-fort, and felt more solid-ly the rea-son for Sobon''s cau-tion. And... she con-sid-ered, and pushed a thought to Kuli. Do you know... what Sobon spoke of re-gard-ing the spir-its of or-gans...


    { Spir-i-tu-al heal-ing of spe-cif-ic or-gans and mal-adies is stud-ied, } Kuli re-spond-ed, to her alone, { but it would take re-sources we do not have to dis-cov-er and fix such prob-lems. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that as she stud-ied the small fire that they were all slow-ly feed-ing with sticks. The top-ic, though it was un-pleas-ant, brought her to an-oth-er, and she looked at Xam. "Have you had any more thoughts about your ''cen-ter''?"


    "It still makes lit-tle sense to me," Xam said, glanc-ing at her, and then at Chi-an, who looked cu-ri-ous. "Ex-plain it again."


    So Ki''el closed her eyes, and Kuli helped pick out the mem-o-ries of what Sobon had al-ready told them all. The clar-i-ty of the mem-o-ry, with Kuli''s help... was im-pres-sive, Ki''el found, and she licked her lips. "This is what Sobon told us... some weeks ago, now." Had it only been that long? "It was... not his field, but he had been told that there are nine cen-ters, and the ...qi users are dif-fer-ent based on their cen-ter. The cen-ters were the mind, the sens-es, the voice, the heart and lungs, the stom-ach, the hands, the feet, the skin, and the mus-cles."


    "Those are odd choic-es," not-ed Chi-an, and Ki''el looked at her.


    "Sobon didn''t speak much on them. But I... as a skin-cen-tered user, fo-cus a lot on de-fense. Spir-i-tu-al-ly, I am much like my skin, want-i-ng to keep for-eign things from get-ting in. And Mian..." She looked at him, but he looked back, as though let-ting her con-tin-ue, so she did. "Sobon said he was cen-tered in his heart, which cir-cu-lates pow-er. Be-cause of that, it is his na-ture to all be in a sin-gle state at once. The pow-er that cir-cu-lates through him is the same every-where it goes."


    "He said some-thing about mus-cles, too," mused Mian, "for those who can''t tell what their cen-ter is."


    Ki''el shrugged. "Only that if I couldn''t tell what my cen-ter was, it was one of those. But... it is a strange con-cept for us to sim-ply, nat-u-ral-ly ''know''."


    There was a pause, and Chi-an said, "I would be cen-tered in my tail, I think."


    Ki''el blinked, and looked at Chi-an, but like every oth-er time she''d seen them, they had no such thing. "Ah...?"


    "It is a spir-it tail," she said, glanc-ing at Ki''el. "I have to choose to man-i-fest it, or hide it. It con-nects to my spir-it beast an-ces-try, so it might be strange if it wasn''t my spir-i-tu-al cen-ter." Chi-an flexed a small stick in her hands, not choos-ing to break it, sim-ply play-ing. Af-ter a mo-ment, she re-turned her at-ten-tion to it. "It feels... larg-er in my mind, in a way. It must be a part of what you''re say-ing."


    { I think you would count as a ''voice'' cen-tered user for their pur-pos-es, } Kuli pro-ject-ed, though with the dis-tance, Ki''el felt that it cost her a sur-pris-ing amount of qi to do that lit-tle bit. { It could also be ''sens-es'', but if it were, I think you would feel it in your spir-it ears, in-stead. }


    Chi-an looked at Ki''el, sur-prised. "You know about my ears?"


    Ki''el just nod-ded, un-sure whether she should feel bad for not men-tion-ing it soon-er. "They came out dur-ing the fight. I... did not see your tail, though."


    Chi-an kept look-ing at Ki''el for only a mo-ment be-fore she looked back to the fire. "Oh," was all she said.


    { A voice-type user is cen-tered on com-mu-ni-ca-tion, } Kuli pro-ject-ed. { In your case, with ei-ther your spir-i-tu-al an-ces-tor, or spir-its in gen-er-al. There are voice-type meth-ods for im-prov-ing your cul-ti-va-tion, and voice-type tech-niques will be eas-i-er to learn. }


    That part, at least, did hold the fox girl''s at-ten-tion. "A voice-type cul-ti-va-tion tech-nique, re-al-ly? I don''t see how that even makes sense."


    { I apol-o-gize, but I can-not con-tin-ue to pro-ject. } Kuli re-turned her men-tal voice to Ki''el alone. { It will be bet-ter if you ex-plain, but I think that she needs to know that it came from me. I be-lieve that she trusts me more eas-i-ly than she does... liv-ing peo-ple, with bod-ies. }


    Ki''el want-ed to ob-ject to that idea, but she also couldn''t imag-ine it be-ing false. The only time she had seen Chi-an with any life to her at all... had been when she was com-ing to see Bai Be-nai, and Ki''el was un-sure what their re-la-tion-ship was.


    She put that out of mind, though, and spoke thoughts that Kuli or-ga-nized for her. "Voice-type abil-i-ties of-ten com-mand spir-its or con-structs, and voice-type cul-ti-va-tion re-quires..." she frowned. "...an in-ter-nal con-struct paired with an ex-ter-nal one, per-form-ing ac-tions as a matched pair?"


    "Huh." Chi-an went from look-ing at Ki''el to look-ing sud-den-ly into the sky, and she flopped back onto the ground, clear-ly think-ing about that.


    "And what about me?" Xam si-dled a lit-tle clos-er to Ki''el. "The only thing in that list that makes sense to me was my feet, but de-pend-ing on what ''mus-cles'' means, I sup-pose--"


    "Kuli thinks that you are prob-a-bly right," Ki''el in-ter-rupt-ed. "As a foot-cen-tered qi user, you will have an in-stinct to ex-plore. When it comes to ab-sorb-ing qi from a lo-ca-tion, it will go smoother if you have ex-plored where the qi comes from, where it flows to, and what in-flu-ences it in the area."


    Xam frowned at that. "That sounds... vague. And don''t most peo-ple like to know the area around them when they cul-ti-vate? And what is af-fect-ing the qi in the area?"


    "Not re-al-ly," said Mian and she glanced at the man, per-haps giv-ing him a Look that Ki''el could not see. He sim-ply of-fered her a smile in re-turn. "Once my qi be-comes a part of me, it won''t mat-ter where it came from, will it?"


    Ki''el could not help think-ing of Broth-er Du''s in-sis-tence that qi was full of wis-dom from the world, and Kuli''s qui-et in-sis-tence that it was not, but said noth-ing.


    "I still don''t see it as a ''foot-cen-ter'' thing," Xam said, turn-ing back to Ki''el. "Is there any way to ex-plain that?"


    Ki''el shrugged, sens-ing Kuli work-ing on piec-ing to-geth-er an an-swer. Af-ter a mo-ment, she re-peat-ed it. "Some of the an-swers are sim-ple, but they are gath-ered from many peo-ple over a long time. Their an-swers vary, but they share some things. A sense that the feet bear the bur-den of the body, but they are also at the mer-cy of the mind and the sens-es. Do you not of-ten look ahead to see what you might trip over or step on? It is that same in-stinct, but for qi." Ki''el sighed. "In truth... I do not un-der-stand what Kuli is try-ing to say, ei-ther."


    But Xam was qui-et, think-ing. Af-ter a time, she said, qui-et-ly, "Your Kuli is not wrong. I do look ahead. I ob-sess about what I may step on or in, some-times. I have treat-ed it like a dis-trac-tion, but per-haps..."


    When she didn''t con-tin-ue, Ki''el looked to Mian. "Do you need any more help?"


    "Not un-less you can give me a tech-nique to help speed every-thing up." He shook his head. "Then... the turn-ing tech-nique felt like it was close to some-thing. Maybe, like Chi-an, I need some-thing out-side that cir-cu-lates a qi flow that will join the one in-side."


    Ki''el felt a dis-con-tent buzzing from Kuli, but thought the aug-ment''s ob-jec-tion was the same as her own. "Per-haps not quite like that," she said. "But if you can cre-ate a cy-cle out-side your body that pu-ri-fies it be-fore it is drawn in, I think you may find that eas-i-er. Do not try to draw in qi that is not pu-ri-fied."


    "Hm," Mian said, but nod-ded. "I saw the stuff flak-ing away from your cy-cle. I can see how that would be bad to get in-side." He looked down at his hands. "Still... a cy-cle that stays out-side feels... wrong. I won-der if I have to have a loop that leaves and re-turns...?"


    With that, Mian was qui-et, and Ki''el was left with three com-pan-ions who all were med-i-tat-ing on their own meth-ods. She con-sid-ered that, as she used a stick to ad-just the fire. In the end... do I have a spe-cial tech-n-qi-ue? Ex-cept that the qi pu-rifi-ca-tion cy-cle is ex-act-ly that, isn''t it?


    { It is, } agreed Kuli. { You want to be able to see for your-self that the qi is clean be-fore you ab-sorb it. To know that what is com-ing in is not for-eign or dan-ger-ous. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, spin-ning an-oth-er thread of en-vi-ron-men-tal qi into a cy-cle and watch-ing the in-tent flake away. There was some-thing to it, she de-cid-ed--some-thing to watch-ing it be-come clean, know-ing that it was. Know-ing that the dirt would not en-ter. But... she also con-sid-ered, as she watched the qi cy-cle. Kuli...


    { If you in-sist, I can help you to main-tain more cy-cles, } the aug-ment replied, { But it will be bet-ter if you prac-tice it un-til you are com-plete-ly hap-py with your tech-nique. With prac-tice, you will be able to do more as well. }


    Ki''el nod-ded to her-self, watch-ing the qi thread turn whiter as it ro-tat-ed be-tween her hands. She knew... that in the end, she want-ed to get bet-ter, not only be-cause it made the qi pur-er, but be-cause of what it meant. She had only been able to im-prove the pu-rifi-ca-tion when she un-der-stood more about aether, about the next lay-er--Out and In, Gen-e-sis and Con-sump-tion. She was ea-ger, some-day, to un-der-stand what came next--Ac-cel-er-a-tion and Re-vival, Sobon had said.


    But what he had said made lit-tle sense. Ac-cel-er-a-tion makes peo-ple ex-pe-ri-ence more time, she re-called, even with-out Kuli''s as-sis-tance. Re-vival at-tempts to pull the pre-sent back to the past. They sound-ed so straight-for-ward, un-til she be-gan to ac-tu-al-ly think. How could pow-er, sim-ply pow-er, make a per-son ex-pe-ri-ence more time? Even if qi was full of high-ly com-plex en-er-gy...


    She could only hope that some-day, she would find ex-am-ples in na-ture, like the riv-er stones, for her to med-i-tate on. For now, she in-stead re-turned her mind to those stones, and the flows in and out, which were clear-ly a matched pair when put side by side.


    Ki''el was fo-cus-ing enough that it was strange to her, when she looked up from her qi cy-cling, to find that the oth-ers were stand-ing and chat-ting qui-et-ly, the fire hav-ing gone out. And Mian, hav-ing seen her wake, ges-tured for her to come.


    "We should sleep," he said. "It''s got-ten late."


    So Ki''el fed some of her pu-ri-fied qi to the bar-ri-er stones, and ab-sorbed the rest, and they all re-turned, Chi-an break-ing off at the stairs to go up a lev-el. And when they got to their room, Xam pro-duced two thin sleeping mats from her space ring, and she and Mian... cud-dled, on one of them, set on the sec-tion of re-main-ing floor, while Ki''el rest-ed alone on her bar-ri-er floor, hap-py not to be too close to the cou-ple when she saw that they seemed com-fort-able to-geth-er.


    In spite of the strange-ness of the floor, and the feel of the bar-ri-er con-trol stone in her pock-et, Ki''el was able to fall asleep, and even felt some-what com-fort-able as she did.

 [TAS] 12. Kiel - Cycles, Part 6

    Ki''el''s next morn-ing start-ed ear-ly. She was no stranger to wak-ing ear-ly, though there had been... lit-tle rea-son, for a long time. She was a bit dis-ap-point-ed to be told, in the evening pri-or to sleep-ing, that many tasks start-ed well be-fore dawn, and it was the for-tu-nate or the bro-ken who were only mov-ing af-ter dawn, when Ki''el had ar-rived the day be-fore.


    Sis-ter Futi, most like-ly for this rea-son, woke ear-li-est of all. Ki''el might have imag-ined that the woman nev-er slept, though she sus-pect-ed in-stead that she took her time in the evenings. The truth... mat-tered lit-tle to her. Even two hours be-fore dawn, there was a line of peo-ple, a line that seemed to nat-u-ral-ly stop out-side of the woman''s door, with peo-ple speak-ing only briefly and walk-ing away, with some be-ing giv-en to-kens or small items with lit-tle more than a toss.


    "Ki''el." When she was at the head of the line, Sis-ter Futi was just as brusque and brief with her as with every-one else. "There is a road paving job on Is-land Four that needs la-bor." When Ki''el just nod-ded, ac-cept-ing it, Futi lev-i-tat-ed a small to-ken to her, her eyes im-me-di-ate-ly mov-ing to the next per-son in line. Ki''el need-ed no fur-ther words to un-der-stand that now was no time to speak on any oth-er top-ic, and so she moved away.


    What served for break-fast was re-warmed at best and sim-ple, not cooked or fresh, and Mian had said that the mid-day meals were no bet-ter, though din-ner had been fine. Sect points could be used, else-where on the is-land, for bet-ter food... at the cost of less saved up at the end of the day, or even a loss. Ki''el could un-der-stand the sys-tem, even if it seemed cru-el, like many things. So she took a sin-gle starchy fruit to eat on her way, and left the is-land by the only path out that she knew. Along the way, she ex-changed a few friend-ly words with an-oth-er mem-ber of the Less-er House, in-clud-ing di-rec-tions to Is-land Four, but he seemed un-in-ter-est-ed in get-ting to know her, or re-veal-ing more about him-self. Giv-en his some-what old-er and gen-er-al-ly frail fig-ure, Ki''el un-der-stood him to be yet an-oth-er person re-signed to nev-er ris-ing fur-ther.


    She con-sid-ered that as she walked. It was... not im-pos-si-ble, that she had in-sight that could help many of the Less-er House to ad-vance. Lai Shi Po, Broth-er Du, and oth-ers had made sug-ges-tions to the ef-fect that the peo-ple who re-mained here de-served to, but... the man she part-ed ways with at the next in-ter-sec-tion was not ar-ro-gant or crude, for all that there was a sim-mer-ing re-sent-ment be-neath his fea-tures.


    Even with the help of Kuli, she knew that she was nowhere near Sobon''s lev-el of ex-per-tise, and Sobon had said he was nei-ther heal-er nor teacher. But sure-ly, for peo-ple at this lev-el...?


    { It is pos-si-ble to both force as-cen-sion, and guide most peo-ple through it, } Kuli said, { but do-ing so re-quires time, ef-fort, and re-sources. It might be wis-est to only make promis-es when you have those time and re-sources to spare. }


    Ki''el could not deny that. She wasn''t sure if any-one--her, them-selves, or the Sect--would be able to tell what held peo-ple back, and if she were to promise any-one any-thing, time would be the cheap-est thing she could give, and time was not free for those in the Less-er House.


    That be-came more ob-vi-ous when she fi-nal-ly made her way to Is-land Four.


    It was not a cheap place. From the looks of those around her, Ki''el de-cid-ed she was still in the Out-er Sect, on an is-land of hous-ing and halls that she had not passed through on her way back from the Heal-ing House. The build-ings were well con-struct-ed, and there was a stone paved path to every build-ing.


    One sec-tion of the is-land was wrecked and new-ly re-built, the dirt turned over and bright, thin sprouts of grass that Ki''el sus-pect-ed had bare-ly any roots grown in. What-ev-er had hap-pened to the old paving stones, there was a stack of new ones laid to the side with some hand tools, and one Out-er Dis-ci-ple lay-ing on the ground near-by.


    "Ah," the dis-ci-ple said as Ki''el came close, and she sat up. "A work-er from the Less-er House? I''m ask-ing that you do the work of po-si-tion-ing the stones, and the..." she ges-tured at the dirt, where the road should go. "dig-ging, and the think-ing parts of it. Try to make sure the spac-ing is good and tight, but no one will com-plain as long as it''s lev-el." She laid back again, and raised her voice slight-ly so Ki''el could hear her as she lay there. "Let me know if you want the stones trimmed. That part is easy."


    Ki''el eyed the paving stones, which were not thin, and de-cid-ed the woman must have a stone-el-e-ment qi tech-nique.


    Ki''el''s morn-ing be-came a frus-trat-ing ex-er-cise in dig-ging out enough room for a paving stone, ask-ing the Out-er Dis-ci-ple to ad-just its shape to fit the stones near-by, and then work-ing the stone and the dirt so that the paving stone would lay flat. It was te-dious work, and not work that Ki''el had any par-tic-u-lar affin-i-ty for, but it was, for the most part... only work. At least the dirt was clean and soft, though that meant Ki''el had to com-press it be-fore plac-ing each stone, or press-ing the stone in would do the work for her, low-er-ing it be-low its neigh-bors in the process.


    At dawn, Ki''el took a break, not-ing that the Out-er Dis-ci-ple did the same. She faced the dawn, and when the mo-ment seemed to come... this time, she breathed in, and out, along with the rest of the Sect. It was a small thing... but it felt right. When she re-turned to her work, Ki''el found that her mind was more awake, and there was some-thing...


    { There is a spir-i-tu-al ef-fect, } Kuli con-firmed to her. { A mi-nor de-ity''s bless-ing. No more than that. }


    Ki''el paused in her work for a mo-ment to con-sid-er it. She... on one lev-el, she didn''t re-al-ly like the idea of some-one bless-ing her, or at least, not with-out her knowl-edge. She sup-posed that was a part of her Cen-ter. But the feel-ing of be-ing a part of some-thing larg-er than it-self... it did feel pos-i-tive, and not harm-ful. Still, she told Kuli, silent-ly, as she went back to her work, if you see any rea-son not to per-mit it, say so.


    { It is not a bind-ing, } Kuli an-swered. { Bind-ing spir-i-tu-al ef-fects would al-low con-trol. If re-peat-ed every day for years... and if you nev-er use fresh aether to purge it, it might act sim-i-lar-ly to a bind-ing in time, as you be-come fa-mil-iar to the de-ity. But I sus-pect your use of aether will loosen it too much for that. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, as she worked for sev-er-al more hours. By the time she had fin-ished lay-ing a good two dozen stones, an-oth-er Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple had come along and en-cour-aged the new shoots of grass to grow thick-er and their roots to spread, and some had stopped by only to talk with the lazy rock-shap-ing Out-er Dis-ci-ple, who was fre-quent-ly dis-re-spect-ful, but only ever seemed to be friend-ly while do-ing so.


    Ki''el found her-self less able to fo-cus on her work when they ac-tu-al-ly spoke about qi, but it was not use-ful to Ki''el.


    "You said be-fore that you were work-ing on the Frac-ture as-pect to Stone Na-ture," one said. "But I thought your ex-plo-rations of Stone Qi were more about its stur-di-ness, Sis-ter."


    "They are the same prob-lem," the Stone Sis-ter said, still lay-ing in the grass. "Un-der-stand-ing how to shat-ter stone with the least pos-si-ble qi use, and with the most con-trol, means un-der-stand-ing the strength and weak-ness of the ma-te-r-i-al."


    "But sure-ly, Sis-ter...?" The oth-er dis-ci-ple sound-ed an-noyed, for rea-sons Ki''el would nev-er know. "Qi re-in-forced stone is dif-fer-ent enough that it doesn''t mat-ter?"


    Even Ki''el could imag-ine an an-swer to that, and she frowned, though she re-mained fac-ing her work, and there-fore fur-thest from the mind of ei-ther Out-er Dis-ci-ple. Sure-ly hold-ing things to-geth-er with qi was eas-i-er and used less strength if you un-der-stood the un-der-ly-ing na-ture of the ma-te-ri-als...?


    But the Stone Sis-ter''s re-ply wasn''t that. "That''s not how na-tured qi works," she said, sound-ing... per-haps ir-ri-tat-ed, her-self. "When we gain en-light-en-ment in an el-e-ment, our qi be-comes stronger. Search-ing for the true Way of Stone re-quires ex-plor-ing its prop-er-ties. Sure-ly your ex-plo-ration of Ice Qi is no dif-fer-ent?"


    "Ice is ice," said the oth-er dis-ci-ple, and Ki''el could not read his voice. "It''s find-ing fast and ef-fi-cient ways to per-form the tech-niques that''s trou-bling. Mak-ing things cold is no trou-ble at all."


    Ki''el--and from the sound of her word-less re-ply, the Stone Sis-ter as well--doubt-ed that Ice was so sim-ple, but she con-tin-ued her work with-out com-ment.


    An-oth-er stu-dent came by and asked the Stone Sis-ter some spe-cif-ic things about the na-ture of sol-id things, about nat-ur-al pat-terns and qi''s in-ter-ac-tions with them, and while there were mo-ments Ki''el was sure she un-der-stood what was be-ing said, it wasn''t a con-ver-sa-tion she un-der-stood over-all. In all, with Ki''el be-ing most-ly able to fo-cus, she was fin-ished lay-ing all the stones by ear-ly af-ter-noon.


    When the last stone was laid, the Stone Sis-ter took her time stomp-ing on each to en-sure they were seat-ed, but nod-ded when none of them shift-ed by more than a tiny bit. "It''ll do," she said. "Thanks. Now that I can say my part''s done, I guess re-lax-ation time is over." She held out a hand, and Ki''el, un-cer-tain-ly, fetched her to-ken and held it out. The woman held it only long enough to pass an in-tent pulse into it, then re-turned it and turned away. "Good luck, then."


    Ki''el, hav-ing al-ready got-ten the im-pres-sion the woman would not make any at-tempt at friend-ship, just watched her de-part with a small sense of wrong-ness, then turned back to the road and be-gan walk-ing back to the Less-er House.


    I do not know what I should be ex-pect-ing from these jobs, Ki''el de-cid-ed as she walked. But also, I do not know what to ex-pect from my own cul-ti-va-tion. It is... not as sim-ple as gath-er-ing qi, now, is it?


    { No, but that is where you start, } an-swered Kuli. { Gath-er-ing and clean-ing qi, so that you can use pu-ri-fied qi to at-tune parts of your body, what Sobon called ac-climi-ti-za-tion. }


    Ki''el did re-mem-ber Sobon say-ing ex-act-ly that. And yet... it felt very strange to sug-gest, af-ter all that Ki''el was dis-cov-er-ing and all that she might yet learn... that for now, it was sim-ply her task to turn qi in a cir-cle un-til it was clean, and breathe it in. Her work with aether cy-cles had been more com-pli-cat-ed, and felt more pow-er-ful. What do I have to do, if I want to pre-pare for the next lev-el of that? Al-though she was sure Sobon had said be-fore--no, she even re-mem-bered him say-ing it, she want-ed to hear it from Kuli.


    { Cre-at-ing a set of dy-namos with per-fect-ly equal threads and per-fect-ly equal size, } Kuli re-port-ed, pa-tient-ly. To help with this, I can teach you a thing about cy-cles, and sound. }


    That in-ter-est-ed Ki''el, and as they walked, Kuli spoke briefly about how vi-bra-tion and sound were sim-ple cy-cles of a dif-fer-ent type, and how the pitch of a sound was its fre-quen-cy, and how two pure sounds that were close in fre-quen-cy--close, but not equal--would cre-ate a sound based on the dif-fer-ence. A beat fre-quen-cy.


    Ki''el was ea-ger to ex-per-i-ment, but none of her aether cy-cles were close enough to one an-oth-er, and she had no way to pro-duce pure sounds. So she sim-ply con-tin-ued on to the Less-er House, find-ing Futi dis-cussing jobs with two peo-ple she did not know. So she wait-ed, for a short while, and nod-ded po-lite-ly to the two as they left, but both eyed her cold-ly.


    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.


    "Ki''el." Futi ges-tured for her to come clos-er. "Al-though I have not been told the de-tails, the El-ders have de-ter-mined that you are due the for-fei-ture of both Xan Bu, and Man Di, the woman who was be-ing used by the bracelet at the time that Xan Bu at-tacked the El-der." Futi, her eyes still glow-ing, ges-tured for Ki''el to sit. "I as-sure you, it is much more un-for-tu-nate for her than it is for-tu-nate for you. Some have said that Man Di re-fused to co-op-er-ate with the El-der... though I am un-sure how much of that is true. Ei-ther way, she... does not re-main in the sect."


    Ki''el shiv-ered, be-liev-ing quite firm-ly that Futi was de-liv-er-ing news of the woman''s demise, but did not ques-tion fur-ther. "I would like to split the for-fei-ture with Da Chi-an."


    "I thought you might, but all those mat-ters are han-dled by El-der Gol in the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion. That build-ing is the most promi-nent build-ing in the Out-er Sect, which I do not be-lieve you have seen yet. It lays near the Low-er Heal-ing Hall, but by an-oth-er path."


    "Earth-en Recita-tion?" Ki''el was still un-sure whether the hall names she had seen on her way down had been any-thing more than fan-ci-ful.


    "''Those who speak of mor-tal mat-ters''," Futi said, with a voice that con-veyed some dis-dain. "That is to say, the Low-er Hall of Mon-ey."


    "Ah." Ki''el con-sid-ered that for a mo-ment, then shrugged. "I sup-pose I should go there next, then?"


    "You might eat some-thing. And per-haps wash the dirt off." Futi''s voice sound-ed a lit-tle amused. "Per-haps not in that or-der. But yes, El-der Gol will let you know where you now stand with the Sect. If you have suf-fi-cient Sect points, there will be less need for du-ties, though you will be ex-pect-ed to work dai-ly, ex-cept as ex-cused."


    Ki''el just nod-ded. "And where ex-act-ly is this Hall?"


    Af-ter re-ceiv-ing the di-rec-tions, Ki''el walked to the near-er well and rinsed her-self off, then took some not-quite-stale bread from the kitchen and walked her way up again. To her dis-ap-point-ment, she got caught in a burst of wind cross-ing the first bridge from the Less-er Sect, and lost her grip on the last bit of her bread--no great loss, but she couldn''t deny that she was hun-gry. She was be-gin-ning to un-der-stand how so many of the peo-ple in the Less-er House looked un-der-fed.


    On her way up, Ki''el passed Ben Jito, soaked in sweat. The oth-er man ac-tu-al-ly smiled at her and said a few words, call-ing her by name, but didn''t pause in his steps even when she did. She watched him go, a bit dis-tressed that even friends seemed so tak-en by the busi-ness of Sect points that they could not fo-cus on any-thing else.


    Her mood was some-what sour when she fi-nal-ly crossed the last bridge to the Out-er Sect is-land con-tain-ing the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion, and she looked ahead to what she knew must be the hall, as it was in-deed rather promi-nent. Though a ring of trees was al-lowed to grow around the wide, three-sto-ried cir-cu-lar hall, and al-though sev-er-al paths led to its many en-trances, there was lit-tle else in the area--no gar-dens or dec-o-ra-tions. All of the en-trances were arch-es with-out doors, and even from a ways away, it be-came clear that the out-er wall was only just that, and there was a sep-a-rate build-ing, equal-ly tall, some twen-ty paces in from it.


    The ex-te-ri-or of the Hall was odd. Each of its lev-els had an ex-ter-nal walk-way around, and on every lev-el, there were a se-ries of nooks set back into the build-ing, with var-i-ous craft-ing sta-tions fill-ing them. Not all were manned; at this mo-ment, less than half, and the ones that were filled had only one or two peo-ple at them, work-ing away at some-thing or oth-er with in-tense fo-cus. Her eyes trav-elled across, but there was no con-sis-ten-cy that she could see to the arrange-ment of the sta-tions, or even their types; there were smithing and glass-blow-ing and clay fir-ing sta-tions along-side writ-ing nooks, thread weav-ing, and var-i-ous table crafts that she couldn''t see the de-tails of with-out get-ting clos-er.


    The en-trance to the in-ner build-ing, though, was large and be-fore her, an arch-way with an open pair of heavy dou-ble doors. Ki''el stepped through with-out care, though she felt a qi pulse run through her as she moved through the doors, and thought she sensed an an-swer-ing pulse from the sect to-ken that Sis-ter Futi had giv-en.


    The door led to a long cor-ri-dor, and past that, she was in a room that looked quite sim-i-lar to the build-ing''s ex-te-ri-or, ex-cept that the nooks were most-ly tak-en up with stor-age of var-i-ous kinds--most-ly, stacks of bas-kets and chests of draw-ers, but also book-shelves and scroll racks and var-i-ous oth-er shelves. These nooks were both on the in-te-ri-or wall, mean-ing they must mir-ror the arrange-ment on the out-side, but also on a cen-tral col-umn ahead. That col-umn, as well, had a door-way lead-ing fur-ther in, and since Ki''el saw no sign of the El-der or any-thing that seemed like a place to wait or ask ques-tions, she con-tin-ued in, though she felt more ner-vous the longer she went with-out guid-ance.


    At least it turned out that the in-te-ri-or of the last col-umn was the cor-rect place to go, as Ki''el came out in a sit-ting room where sev-er-al Dis-ci-ples were wait-ing around. One thin man stood in the ex-act cen-ter, next to a small raised table, but he sim-ply eyed Ki''el and spoke words that she had no doubt he re-peat-ed quite a lot.


    "The el-der is cur-rent-ly mak-ing his rounds. I do not know when he will be back. You may wait or re-turn lat-er."


    Ki''el nod-ded, and found a seat along a bench, look-ing around, but all of the var-i-ous Dis-ci-ples here were lost in their own thoughts. She looked around, find-ing that the room was sur-pris-ing-ly sparse--she would have thought that the place in the Sect where ac-counts were han-dled would be full of books or scrolls of var-i-ous ac-counts, but it was most-ly bare. There were cir-cles, she not-ed, in the floor and ceil-ing both--this room was at most a sin-gle sto-ry in height--that she sus-pect-ed might open for the right peo-ple, though there were no ob-vi-ous hinges or mech-a-nisms, only scripts that Ki''el could not read.


    She glanced them over any-way, and when sec-onds be-came min-utes, asked Kuli if she un-der-stood the writ-ing.


    { I un-der-stand more about qi in-scrip-tions than you or I should ad-mit to any-one, } Kuli replied. { I do not think it would be wise to teach you right now, but your thoughts are most-ly cor-rect. The cir-cle in the ceil-ing is a door, and the one in the floor is a dif-fer-ent kind of pas-sage, one that takes ac-tive qi use to pass. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, but ac-cept-ed that she was too young and too ju-nior to the Sect to show more than pass-ing in-ter-est in com-pli-cat-ed qi in-scrip-tions, es-pe-cial-ly if they ei-ther led to the El-der''s pri-vate spaces--or to sealed stor-age of some kind.


    With noth-ing more use-ful to do, as she wait-ed, Ki''el prac-ticed mak-ing pure aether threads and let-ting them go, con-ceal-ing the ac-tion be-hind her laced fin-gers as she sat there. As she had more or less un-der-stood, it was very tricky to try to cre-ate the threads to a spe-cif-ic length or thick-ness, es-pe-cial-ly since she could not try to use in-tent to do so--that would con-t-a-m-i-nate the re-sult and make them use-less for her pur-pos-es. In-stead, she strug-gled to fix her thread cre-ation process it-self, so that she could gath-er and cre-ate a cer-tain amount of aether a time, emit-ting it at a steady rate. In the-o-ry, if she cre-at-ed enough aether cy-cles... not only could she use them to cre-ate some kind of greater cy-cle, but she could cer-tain-ly find use for all the spare aether. She wasn''t sure ex-act-ly what that was, but doubt-less they could be used to ac-cli-ma-tize her body; that was doubt-less what Sobon had done.


    { It is, } Kuli con-firmed, { But you will want to at-tune your body to qi more than aether. They do be-have dif-fer-ent-ly. }


    Ki''el didn''t re-spond to that, and sim-ply con-tin-ued practicing for a while, be-fore at last the sound of the oth-er Dis-ci-ples salut-ing brought Ki''el out of her trance, and she dis-missed her last aether threads and stood, find-ing El-der Gol there, his eyes for now fo-cus-ing on the peo-ple be-fore him.


    Ki''el let the oth-ers go first, and each of them made sim-ple re-quests--for re-sources, or to trans-fer Points to some-one else, and one sim-ply asked his ex-act Point to-tal, which the El-der must have con-veyed with in-tent, be-cause Ki''el heard noth-ing.


    When the Dis-ci-ples that had been wait-ing were all ad-dressed, Ki''el stepped for-ward, of-fer-ing the salute that the oth-ers had. "El-der Gol."


    "Xoi Doua Ki''el." El-der Gol turned to look at her, and Ki''el felt strange. Every time that she had seen the El-der, he had moved slow-ly and let his eyes range over every-thing near-by--she was sure that he was see-ing be-yond, some-how, and now his eyes trav-elled over her like she was noth-ing more than a near-by bush, and she felt cer-tain that his qi, or some spe-cif-ic na-ture of qi that he held, was ded-i-cat-ed to see-ing through things, iden-ti-fy-ing them, know-ing them. She shiv-ered, but de-spite that, had he not been at-tacked by an Out-er Dis-ci-ple? Sure-ly he was not sim-ply able to see every-thing a per-son was.


    Kuli prod-ded Ki''el back into fo-cus, and she bowed. "Yes, El-der. I was told that there was a for-fei-ture...? I do not know how any of this works yet, my apolo-gies."


    "Hm," El-der Gol con-tin-ued to stare, but only for a mo-ment. "Xan Bu and Man Di have both for-feit-ed their en-tire pres-ence in the Sect, and their points and re-source reser-va-tions have both been as-signed as for-feit, ben-e-fit-ing the ag-griev-ed. Pri-or to the for-fei-ture," he went silent, and Ki''el caught his in-tent. [ You had four Sect Points from nor-mal ser-vices, plus six-ty from Mai Han Du, for un-spec-i-fied ser-vices, totaling six-ty four. ] "With the for-fei-ture..." [ You are at three-hun-dred and sev-en-teen Sect Points, and have reser-va-tions for the fol-low-ing: Sev-en grams of cloud-pil-lar sil-ver; six Less-er Cir-cu-la-tion herb pills, four Less-er Spir-it Gems, ten Low Spir-it Crys-tals, and three Mel-low Riv-er Herbs, and the ser-vices of a Less-er In-scrip-tion-ist for up to two hours. Ad-di-tion-al-ly, the for-fei-ture in-cludes one Less-er Space Ring, how-ev-er, its con-tents are sill be-ing stud-ied, due to the na-ture of the in-ci-dent. A sub-sti-tute, with-out con-tents, may be re-quest-ed. ]


    Ki''el was as-ton-ished at the haul. "Xan Bu had all of that?"


    "No. Xan Bu trans-ferred many of the Sect Points and re-sources he gained to oth-ers. Man Di was one of the peo-ple with whom he trad-ed." There was no hu-mor or irony in the El-der''s voice, only facts. "Xan Bu him-self ac-count-ed for only," [Sev-en-teen Sect Points and one Less-er Spir-it Gem.]


    Ki''el swal-lowed, but nod-ded. "I would like the Sect Points from the for-fei-ture split even-ly be-tween my-self and Da Chi-an."


    "Done. You stand at," [ One hun-dred and nine-ty one Sect Points. ]


    Ki''el nod-ded, and--as much to prac-tice as any-thing--formed a mes-sage with crude in-tent and passed it to the El-der. [ Would like sub-sti-tute Space Ring now. ]


    "Very well." The El-der moved to the cir-cle in the floor. "Wait here."


    Ki''el was watch-ing as close-ly as she could when the El-der reached the ring in the floor, but even with that, she could not un-der-stand quite what she saw. She had ex-pect-ed the El-der to sim-ply sink into the stone floor, but in-stead, the space around him seemed to bend, and he es-sen-tial-ly fold-ed into the floor. Ki''el blinked, try-ing to keep that im-age in mind, though in a strange way it seemed to re-mind her of Sobon''s space ma-nip-u-lat-ing demon-stra-tion for Lai Shi Po.


    Then... was that re-al-ly so strange? Per-haps this was one of the Space Qi pro-jects that Lai Shi Po was in-ter-est-ed in here.


    { It is a nat-ur-al vari-a-tion on space ma-nip-u-la-tion tech-niques, which re-lies on spe-cif-ic qi na-tures, } Kuli an-swered. { I do not think Lai Shi Po would study it, be-cause it is not pure. }


    It was only a few mo-ments be-fore the El-der re-turned, a space ring hovering above his fin-gers. "If you re-quire train-ing in the use of Space Rings, it can be pur-chased. I trust you are aware that these are not the ad-vanced rings that you have have been ex-posed to from Lai Shi Po."


    "I am aware, and I have used such a ring on an as-sign-ment. Thank you, El-der Gol." She ac-cept-ed the ring, but frowned. "El-der... what is the cost of at-tempt-ing to pass the Gold-en Wall?"


    "It is one hun-dred Sect Points per at-tempt." The El-der only paused briefly. "You will not be per-mit-ted to make an at-tempt be-fore the end of your first month. Ad-di-tion-al-ly, it is rec-om-mend-ed that you set aside an ad-di-tion-al six-ty points. This is to en-sure that you can af-ford the med-ical care that may be re-quired from a suc-cess-ful, or es-pe-cial-ly, an un-suc-cess-ful at-tempt."


    "Ah." Broth-er Yong had said noth-ing about Sect Points as pay-ment. "Are all med-ical ser-vices to be paid for?"


    "You pay for any heal-ing caused by your own ac-tion. If you re-quire heal-ing due to no fault of your own, you will not be re-quired to pay. Your re-cent med-ical ex-pens-es were paid for by Moi Xe, the per-son who in-jured you." Ki''el blinked, not hav-ing any idea who that was. "I would not rec-om-mend in-sist-ing that you are not at fault for mis-takes. The in-quiry in-ves-ti-ga-tions in such mat-ters are thor-ough and un-com-pro-mis-ing. Do you have oth-er ques-tions?"


    Ki''el thought she sensed ir-ri-ta-tion in the El-der, and in truth, she was con-tent for now, so she bowed and thanked the El-der, and walked away.


    She was not near-ly far enough away to be un-able to hear, when the man who had been fill-ing space in the room spoke scorn-ful-ly and loud-ly be-hind her. "Who in the hell was that?"


    "A promis-ing, and very strange new ar-rival," El-der Gol said, in a low-er voice that Ki''el was sure she should not have heard. What-ev-er was said be-yond that... did not sim-i-lar-ly reach her ears.


    Ki''el put it out of mind, and put on the space ring, find-ing it emp-ty, as she had ex-pect-ed. And she felt a lit-tle ex-cite-ment go through her, know-ing that the wind-fall should help at least one of her friends es-cape the Less-er House. And de-pend-ing--


    "Ah," Ki''el re-al-ized, paus-ing in the space out-er hall-way. "I should have asked what the med-i-cines and stones did." She glanced back over her shoul-der, but shook her head. An-oth-er time. Or per-haps oth-ers will know.


    So she con-tin-ued on, won-der-ing just what the oth-ers would say.

 [TAS] 13. Sobon and the Founder

    Sobon moved stiffly, de-spite the rest and the ar-ti-fi-cial nerves and ac-tu-a-tors he''d graft-ed into the "body" that the Founder had giv-en him. It was... nowhere near a prop-er med-ical fix, but Sobon had en-tered bat-tle with a worse body. Once. That had not end-ed up a suc-cess-ful bat-tle, ex-cept by the clas-sic mil-i-tary stan-dard: any bat-tle you sur-vive is a suc-cess-ful one.


    Sobon was un-sure whether this cur-rent mess would count as suc-cess-ful, in the end, even by that low stan-dard. Then again... he''d died sev-er-al times al-ready, and was still here.


    The Founder was not in the out-er, Djang-fac-ing part of its spaces, but Sobon did not hes-i-tate to pass into the cor-ri-dor that had un-mis-tak-ably been left open for him. The Founders'' ''fa-cil-i-ty'' was a hy-per-ge-o-met-ric en-ti-ty in its own right--it ex-tend-ed right out of nor-mal space, not mere-ly ex-ist-ing with-in a pock-et di-men-sion, but ex-tend-ing up into lay-ers of aether space, and Sobon knew that the Founder would not have left the open-ing in a state where he could en-ter if it was not an in-vi-ta-tion. The Founders, af-ter all, could wrap physics and re-al-i-ty around their fin-gers, cre-at-ing and al-ter-ing mat-ter in ways that de-fied any less-er users of aether.


    Pass-ing into the an aether di-men-sion for the first time felt to Sobon not un-like the first time he had ever used aether--a pe-cu-liar sen-sa-tion of a loss of con-trol, as though new things were pos-si-ble, and some deep-er part of him had nev-er pre-pared for these pos-si-bil-i-ties, could nev-er have pre-pared for them. And yet... Sobon could also feel a part of his psy-che that was dis-tinct-ly up-set that he could sim-ply walk into... what di-rec-tion was he go-ing any-way?


    A syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence of some sort re-spond-ed, the data not so much pulsed as wo-ven through the hall-way like a pass-ing rib-bon. Sobon was in-deed sim-ply trav-el-ling through nor-mal, three-di-men-sion-al space, but also, the fa-cil-i-ty''s ori-en-ta-tion was tech-ni-cal-ly deep-er into left-right aether spin plane. The fur-ther he trav-elled into this branch of the fa-cil-i-ty, the deep-er he trav-eled into Left-right aether space, though that ab-stract con-cept was de-cep-tive and not use-ful in-for-ma-tion.


    Sobon, rather than chal-leng-ing ei-ther that in-for-ma-tion or his own re-ac-tion to it, filed the data away as true in his mind and moved on.


    Sev-er-al times, Sobon felt sure that he had come to an in-ter-sec-tion, but every path-way but the in-tend-ed one was sealed. By some trick, every time that hap-pened, Sobon thought he was go-ing straight, though he knew that must not be so. As be-fore, he re-fused to chal-lenge the ap-pear-ance; it was doubt-less a se-cu-ri-ty mea-sure, and Sobon had no in-ter-est in fight-ing the se-cu-ri-ty of a Founder fa-cil-i-ty, au-to-mat-ed or oth-er-wise.


    Those in-ter-sec-tions, how-ev-er, only served to high-light the one odd-i-ty of the trip: a sealed side door, with a holo-rib-bon say-ing "No ad-mit-tence." Sobon stud-ied it long enough to be cer-tain it meant what it said, and moved on, feel-ing less and less cer-tain about the fa-cil-i-ty and his place in all of this.


    When at last he found the Founder, the crea-ture was stand-ing in what Sobon knew must be some sort of mon-i-tor-ing sta-tion, a holo-graph-ic lift that sur-round-ed them with del-i-cate aether threads, threads that must rep-re-sent both con-trols and in-for-ma-tion. From Sobon''s own per-spec-tive, the mass of data around the Founder was un-rec-og-niz-able, but he had no doubt that the Founder was be-ing giv-en every-thing it need-ed to un-der-stand the in-for-ma-tion.


    "Sobon of Crest," the Founder said, with-out piv-ot-ing in place or oth-er-wise phys-i-cal-ly ac-knowled-ing him.


    "Founder." Sobon paused. "You nev-er did give me your name."


    "Nor do I in-tend to. Lin-guis-ti-cal-ly, for our peo-ple, our pro-fes-sion-al iden-ti-ty be-comes our iden-ti-ty, in-so-far as we are noth-ing more than that pro-fes-sion at any giv-en mo-ment. Sim-i-lar-ly, our no-table his-to-ry, in-clud-ing crimes, be-come ad-e-quate sub-sti-tutes for an iden-ti-ty, in-so-far as they are un-am-bigu-ous." Gen-tly, so gen-tly that Sobon might have missed it, the Founder pressed them-selves back with aether force, dis-en-gag-ing from the holo-graph-ic mon-i-tor-ing sta-tion. "In the Founders'' lan-guage, ap-pro-pri-ate names for me would in-clude ''In-tern'', ''Be-tray-er'', ''Mur-der-er'', ''Liar'', ''Fool'', ''Ma-nip-u-la-tor'', and oth-er, less of-fi-cial and less po-lite vari-ants. To me, you re-main ''Crestan,'' though I un-der-stand that you pre-fer an ex-plic-it iden-ti-ty mark-er."


    Sobon found that de-tail of the Founders'' cul-ture both ir-ra-tional and ir-ri-tat-ing. "I do," he con-firmed, not both-er-ing to hide the ir-ri-ta-tion in his voice. "Isn''t your pro-fes-sion-al iden-ti-ty ul-ti-mate-ly am-bigu-ous in most cir-cum-stances? To a col-league, or oth-er per-son of sim-i-lar stand-ing?"


    "You for-get that as a cul-ture, we speak with in-tent, as much as words," the Founder said, sound-ing mild-ly amused. "If we have any need to dis-am-biguate, the in-tent of the word con-veys the specifics. When do-ing so, the word it-self is su-per-flu-ous, but it re-mains... po-lite, to sum-ma-rize the in-tent in a sin-gle word. It is an ex-er-cise in brevi-ty and holis-tic in-tent."


    Sobon rubbed his... or rather, he still had Alas-si''s head on this pup-pet body, as grotesque as that felt. Was he rub-bing her head? He hat-ed this whole sit-u-a-tion, though he had lit-tle doubts things would re-main screwed up for a long time. "I wish I had more time to rest," Sobon said af-ter a mo-ment, "but I get the im-pres-sion we don''t have that time. And pre-sum-ably, that means we don''t have the time to waste on idle chat-ter."


    "Time flows strange-ly when fate is ma-nip-u-lat-ed," the Founder said, "a fact that you sure-ly know. But you also, to my cha-grin, are not wrong. There have been at-tempts to break into this fa-cil-i-ty from the ''oth-er end'', at-tempts that will some-day suc-ceed." The Founder ges-tured, and with a hiss and a qui-et thunk, the door be-hind Sobon closed--and an-oth-er, near-by, opened. "Come, let us dis-cuss more com-fort-ably."


    Sobon turned and stud-ied the door be-hind him, but was con-fi-dent when he turned that the noise it had made in clos-ing was en-tire-ly for his ben-e-fit. So he fol-lowed the Founder into some-thing like a con-fer-ence room, if the Founders as a so-ci-ety had any need to ded-i-cate whole rooms to such a ba-sic con-cept.


    It was, func-tioan-l-ly, a very ba-sic room in-tend-ed for sev-er-al rest-ing peo-ples, but laid out specif-i-cal-ly for pre-sen-ta-tions, and with some mi-nor tools whose pur-pose beamed them-selves into Sobon''s mind with in-tent. In re-al-i-ty, there were only three ba-sic types of tools here--the syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence, which could be queried for in-for-ma-tion, a pre-sen-ta-tion ap-pa-ra-tus for for-mat-ting and pro-ject-ing in-for-ma-tion, and the cir-cu-lar glyphs on the floor whose self-iden-ti-ty trans-lat-ed in Sobon''s mind to [float-rest].


    The Founder took one of these, and im-me-di-ate-ly be-gan re-lax-ing in open air as they had when Sobon had first met them, and so Sobon moved into an-oth-er of the cir-cles, to find that his body was pressed up-wards--from with-in, and even-ly, in ways that might have been com-fort-able to any-one else. Sobon blinked, try-ing to study the sen-sa-tion and the aether flows around him, but his nerves and aether sens-es were still itchy and burn-ing, a re-sult of the pa-thet-ic half-body he still resided in.


    The same day he had met this Founder, his body had been ripped mer-ci-less-ly to pieces by a Djang man, some rel-a-tive of the Djang Roy-al Fam-i-ly who was out of pow-er and re-bel-lious. The man''s chains had ripped out his bones and even pulled the spine straight out of his brain stem, all the while some-how not do-ing quite enough dam-age to kill him out-right. The bas-tadr had even seemed to be-lieve he would get away with it, but--well. The Founder was pre-tend-ing, quite suc-cess-ful-ly, to be the Di-a-mond Lord, supreme ruler of the world, and had re-quest-ed Sobon''s pres-ence. To have done so much to the Di-a-mond Lord''s guest was... un-wise.


    Sobon didn''t know what had hap-pened since, but it didn''t take much imag-i-na-tion. Ei-ther the man would sub-mit and be judged for what had hap-pened, or he would fight. De-pend-ing on who else he dragged into the mess, it might al-ready be over, or it might drag into a war. That sound-ed ex-treme--Sobon''s own in-stincts were that the man would be swift-ly brought to jus-tice--but Sobon had learned too well that jus-tice didn''t work cor-rect-ly in this world. It was en-tire-ly too like-ly that he would show up with some kind of larg-er army, de-clar-ing his own cause just and de-cry-ing Sobon as some kind of mon-ster for dar-ing to de-fend him-self.


    It wouldn''t be the first time, and Sobon had only just ar-rived on this damned plan-et a few weeks ago.


    "I sup-pose these rests aren''t as much val-ue to you as I would have liked," Sobon heard the Founder say, and he brought his at-ten-tion back to it, as it float-ed across form him. "It is a gen-uine pity. I''ve sam-pled the seat-ing of the child races, specif-i-cal-ly those rat-ed most com-fort-able by their re-spec-tive so-ci-eties, and none of them come with-in thir-ty per-cent of a float-rest. Even less-er at-tempts to per-form the same gen-er-al tech-nique, by those of less-er aether, can-not com-pare. I sup-pose it is sim-ply the... en-ti-tle-ment? I sup-pose we are sim-ply too used to com-fort be-ing a solved prob-lem."


    "It doesn''t do much for me," Sobon agreed, try-ing to keep the frus-tra-tion from his voice. "The sit-u-a-tion?"


    With-out ges-tur-ing, the Founder flick-ered im-ages into the space be-tween them, and Sobon found when he looked that the aether pre-sen-ta-tion ap-pa-ra-tus was also avail-able to him, though the con-trols were un-fa-mil-iar. Ei-ther way, the in-for-ma-tion that the Founder pre-sent-ed be-gan to mu-tate in ways Sobon sus-pect-ed were for him alone, as the fa-cil-i-ty or its AI ad-just-ed to what Sobon him-self knew or could un-der-stand, and added and re-moved in-for-ma-tion to not over-whelm or un-der-in-form him.


    Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.


    "This is us, and this is this world," the Founder said, show-ing the plan-et, its fa-cil-i-ty, and a vague net-work be-yond. "Ac-cord-ing to our data-base, your species un-der-stands this sys-tem as Rex-hai, and thus the plan-et is Rex-hai 2, but there''s no rea-son for you to know the name. It is with-in Founder space, and not par-tic-u-lar-ly close to Im-pe-r-i-al con-trolled space."


    "Why did it the Ri''lef ressurec-tion pro-to-cols find me, then? As op-posed to any-one else?" The map, once dis-played, made any hint that this was sim-ply co-in-ci-dence be-yond im-prob-a-ble.


    "Ob-vi-ous-ly it didn''t." The Founder ges-tured, not with their hands, but with a holo-graph-ic pres-ence that merged seam-less-ly into the pre-sen-ta-tion, and the yet-un-la-beled net-work was high-light-ed. "You are... a mo-ment... ap-par-ent-ly the ap-pro-pri-ate term is ''a hack at-tempt''. Founder fate mag-ic chose you as an en-ti-ty like-ly to en-sure that this sit-u-a-tion was re-solv-able." The Founder swiveled to-wards Sobon, some-what, and their pres-ence, some-where above and around them, changed pos-tures, too sub-tly for Sobon to make out any de-tail. "I should clar-i-fy--not my fate mag-ic. It was an in-tru-sive ac-tion tak-en by the net-work, and like-ly not the only one. There have cer-tain-ly been oth-er and var-i-ous in-tru-sion at-tempts since then."


    "I hope not more un-for-tu-nates be-ing born into this world," Sobon said, men-tal-ly reach-ing for the pro-jec-tion, and ma-nip-u-lat-ing what he un-der-stood as his own copy of it. But al-though he prod-ded at the mod-els, no new in-for-ma-tion was sur-faced.


    "Per-haps some," the Founder ad-mit-ted, and al-though their voice and in-tent gave noth-ing away, Sobon was sure that the state-ment was eva-sive, and pre-sum-ably a non-ad-mis-sion. "But the mat-ter of con-se-quence is this: the fate ma-nip-u-la-tion will con-tin-ue, and es-ca-late, un-til there are re-sults. Giv-en that you seem to gen-uine-ly want to fix this bro-ken world, I can con-tent my-self with let-ting you be the... con-se-quen-tial fac-tor, in me choos-ing to give my-self over to them."


    "Be-cause the next at-tempt won''t care about the con-se-quences to the plan-et?"


    "Or about my life, or yours." The Founder''s pre-sent-ed holo-grams flick-ered, and Sobon though they were in-ex-pert-ly con-ceal-ing things. He pressed light-ly at the pre-sen-ta-tion, try-ing to ma-nip-u-late it men-tal-ly, but his aether sens-es were sim-ply not dex-trous or sen-si-tive enough, not any-more, and he pushed it away in frus-tra-tion. The Founder stud-ied him, and then, per-haps out of pity, the pre-sen-ta-tion opened up, re-veal-ing faces, iden-ti-ties.


    There were two of them, and while Sobon didn''t know them, he could rec-og-nize their ori-gins. One was an in-de-pen-dent sys-tem not too far from Crestan space, while an-oth-er was a known Founder''s Child race, one as-so-ci-at-ed with their wargames. Like most Founder''s Child races in their wargames, their so-ci-ety had both evolved and de-volved, as they un-der-stood one of theirs would be cho-sen every ten years to par-tic-i-pate in [The Game]. And if a [Play-er] of [The Game] came to their world...


    It would not end well, one way or an-oth-er, but be-ing pre-pared was far wis-er than not.


    "The peo-ple be-hind these ma-nip-u-la-tions are, broad-ly, per-form-ing sim-i-lar ac-tions to what I thought I would be per-form-ing when I came here, though they are ex-pe-ri-enced and adept, while I was young and naive. I at-tempt-ed to in-ter-fere with the fate ma-nip-u-la-tion in each case, which is... most like-ly why the third can-di-date was even nec-es-sary. I had hopes that there would be a bet-ter res-o-lu-tion, but my re-sis-tance was proof that in-ter-ven-tion was nec-es-sary."


    Sobon stud-ied the iden-ti-ties, but the ex-pla-na-tion felt lack-ing. "You said they were still try-ing to break in."


    "Yes. Agents of fate car-ry the essence of their ma-nip-u-la-tor with them, and that in-cludes you. The fact that you en-tered this fa-cil-i-ty--with my per-mis-sion--will ac-cel-er-ate their at-tempts to break into the sys-tems and re-gain con-trol. In that way, when you said that we had lit-tle time, you were quite cor-rect." The Founder didn''t move, phys-i-cal-ly, but their pro-jec-tion en-tered into the pre-sen-ta-tion again, its fin-gers steepling and eyes nar-row-ing, show-ing a de-vi-ous side that their phys-i-cal ap-pear-ance en-tire-ly masked. "Thus we need to dis-cuss the fu-ture, Sobon of Crest."


    "So dis-cuss it," Sobon said, push-ing the ex-ist-ing pre-sen-ta-tion away.


    "My in-tent is to give my-self over to them," the Founder said, "and by so do-ing, es-tab-lish that the sit-u-a-tion is con-trolled. How-ev-er, I will be un-able to lie to the Su-per-vi-sor that I will con-tact, as a mat-ter of aether pow-er and sen-si-tiv-i-ty. If the sit-u-a-tion is not un-der con-trol, with-in cer-tain stan-dards, then they will con-tin-ue with more hasty and con-se-quen-tial ac-tions, ac-tions that will taint the on-go-ing plan-e-tary ex-per-i-ment to such a de-gree that the ex-per-i-ment''s end is guar-an-teed."


    Ex-per-i-ment. Sobon didn''t need the pre-sen-ta-tion to trans-late the Founder''s in-tent, but it did, spelling it out with di-a-grams and sec-tions of text tai-lored to his own ed-u-ca-tion. The Founders had cre-at-ed this world and ma-nip-u-lat-ed its form, all so that they could watch and see what hap-pened. But if they thought the ex-per-i-ment was over, or would pro-duce an un-de-sir-able re-sult... they had no prob-lem with wip-ing the ex-per-i-ment away and start-ing an-oth-er one.


    They would dis-pose of the failed ex-per-i-ment--a very po-lite way of phras-ing geno-cide, Sobon though, sup-press-ing the anger that rose with-in him. And even if that didn''t in-clude Sobon, and even if Sobon could ar-gue for the lives of Ki''el, and Lui, and Mian, and oth-ers, that still left... what? Tens, hun-dreds of mil-lions? A bil-lion peo-ple? Sobon didn''t query the syn-thet-ic in-tel-li-gence, didn''t want to know. Plen-ty of them would de-serve death, but all of them?


    What frac-tion of a bil-lion peo-ple had to be worth sav-ing? Sobon re-fused to let it be a mat-ter of num-bers. "It''s re-pul-sive," he said out loud. "In-fu-ri-at-ing."


    "Yes," the Founder said. "But the sin isn''t the killing, Sobon of Crest. The sin is cre-at-ing some-thing in-tel-li-gent only to de-stroy it."


    Sobon shook his head--but had to ad-mit, that was pos-si-bly the truth. "We can''t get into that kind of talk right now," he said, forc-ing his thoughts back to the mat-ter at hand. "What you want is for me to find a way to sta-bi-lize things so that you can say hon-est-ly that they are sta-ble."


    "An ad-e-quate sum-ma-ry," the Founder replied. "The stan-dards that we must meet are that the Fa-cil-i-ty is neu-tral-ized, that no fur-ther con-tact be-tween my-self and the in-hab-i-tants be per-formed, and that the lo-cal po-lit-i-cal sit-u-a-tion can-not pose a risk to the Fa-cil-i-ty or the ex-per-i-ment as a whole." There was a pause. "The last is more com-pli-cat-ed than it ap-pears."


    Sobon frowned. Al-though he thought he grasped the sit-u-a-tion pret-ty well, that state-ment didn''t give him an im-me-di-ate an-swer. "Why?"


    "This in-for-ma-tion is priv-iledged, but I will al-low it, on my per-son-al mer-its," the Founder said, and Sobon thought it was talk-ing to the Fa-cil-i-ty''s in-tel-li-gence more than to him. "The fa-cil-i-ty con-trols a num-ber of spe-cif-ic high-or-der aether al-loys, if you will par-don the mis-ap-pro-pri-at-ed term. Among the most con-se-quen-tial are [mor-pho-log-i-cal], [con-va-les-cent], [meme-graph-ic], and [meme-clas-tic]. I will give you a few mo-ments to con-sid-er the terms."


    Sobon re-viewed the in-tent, us-ing the pre-sen-ta-tion soft-ware as a re-place-ment for his own dam-aged men-tal aug-ments. Mor-pho-log-i-cal aether was a spe-cif-ic fate ma-nip-u-la-tion that pre-pared bod-ies and spir-its to mu-tate--and ide-al-ly, mu-tate suc-cess-ful-ly. Its pres-ence made so-ci-eties more di-verse, and its ab-sence made so-ci-eties self-sim-i-lar, stale. Con-va-les-cent aether was its spin-in-verse--an en-er-gy that brought things, on a large scale, back to where they had been pre-vi-ous-ly. They were com-pli-cat-ed, fate-based aethers, and could co-ex-ist, even side-by-side; how-ev-er, they were also in-cred-i-bly pow-er-ful, and the amount of each, let alone both, would shift the course of so-ci-eties.


    Meme-graph-ic and meme-clas-tic were sim-i-lar-ly op-po-sites. Meme-graph-ic aether was a high-er aether as-so-ci-at-ed with prophe-cy, div-ina-tion, and more broad-ly, the gath-er-ing and dis-sem-i-nat-ing of in-for-ma-tion, and its pres-ence in so-ci-ety would lead to peo-ple jump-ing to the right con-clu-sion es-sen-tial-ly with-out cause. Meme-clas-tic aether, on the oth-er hand, sup-pressed thoughts and in-for-ma-tion, and could force peo-ple into ig-no-rance and fool-ish acts even when the an-swers were ob-vi-ous and read-i-ly avail-able.


    Sobon stiff-ened as he stud-ied the four terms. He al-ready knew that the Founders ma-nip-u-lat-ed the course of worlds and cul-tures, and the Ri''lef had said much of this in dif-fer-ent ways, but... hav-ing it laid out in front of him was still vis-cer-al-ly up-set-ting. How much of his his-to-ry, and every oth-er cul-ture that Sobon knew of, had been changed just by the ex-is-tence, or the lack, of cer-tain types of aether? Aethers that fa-cil-i-ties like this ex-ist-ed to ma-nip-u-late?


    "We can dis-cuss the of-fen-sive na-ture of these fa-cil-i-ties an-oth-er time," the Founder said, af-ter some mo-ments of Sobon con-tem-plat-ing in si-lence. "What you need to un-der-stand is that these aethers are be-ing pumped into the plan-et from this fa-cil-i-ty through ex-traspa-tial nodes. There are, quite lit-er-al-ly, lo-ca-tions in this world rich-er in mor-pho-log-i-cal en-er-gy than any-where else. Rich-er in meme-graph-ic and con-va-les-cent en-er-gies. Ar-eas where im-pos-si-ble things sim-ply hap-pen, and ar-eas where some tru-ly un-for-tu-nate peo-ple sim-ply can-not un-der-stand what is hap-pen-ing around them."


    Sobon closed his eyes, think-ing. The top-ic of con-ver-sa-tion was still... yes, why the sit-u-a-tion posed a risk to the Fa-cil-i-ty. "The lo-ca-tions where peo-ple can more eas-i-ly di-vine the truth are also lo-ca-tions di-rect-ly con-nect-ed to this lo-ca-tion."


    "Cor-rect." The Founder pro-ject-ed a map of the world, with the fa-cil-i-ty and a dis-tri-b-u-tion net-work high-light-ed. "Sim-i-lar-ly, mor-pho-log-i-cal en-er-gy is re-lat-ed to tran-scen-dent aether and qi abil-i-ties. Peo-ple born in cer-tain places, or which spend long years in cer-tain places, are able to gain abil-i-ties com-pa-ra-ble to the Di-a-mond Lord. What they lack is prop-er ed-u-ca-tion. And in cer-tain places, peo-ple gain in-cred-i-ble in-sight. The two to-geth-er will in-evitably lead to new peo-ple with the strength to break into this fa-cil-i-ty."


    "It is rea-sons like this why my peo-ple al-ways raise a few in-di-vid-u-als with suf-fi-cient in-sight to rule the rest of the civilza-tion," the Founder said, their pro-jec-tion shift-ing to be dis-tant and cyn-i-cal--Sobon got the im-pres-sion they didn''t agree with the choice at all. "There are var-i-ous hy-pothe-ses about how these en-er-gies should be used, and how the cho-sen lead-ers should be raised; hy-pothe-ses that have lead to var-i-ous ex-per-i-ments. This world is one of a great many with a de-lib-er-ate-ly war-like his-to-ry, where the world is in-tend-ed to see the One Leader as a be-ing meant to be over-come. But... you have al-ready seen, have you not, that they do not see it that way?"


    Sobon turned his at-ten-tion back to the Founder, fi-nal-ly be-gin-ning to un-der-stand. "The were told long ago, in a prophe-cy, that space aliens would de-stroy their civ-i-liza-tion."


    "A mis-un-der-stood prophe-cy, if that re-flects how it was told to you," the Founder said. "But yes, this world is led to be-lieve that the Di-a-mond Lord shields them from an evil from be-yond. De-pend-ing on if and how we re-veal that the Di-a-mond Lord has been killed, and by a be-ing from be-yond the world..."


    Sobon closed his eyes and sighed. "Okay. I get it. We need a plan be-fore we act." He leaned for-ward. "How long do we have, and what oth-er as-sets do we have? What oth-er con-trol over the sit-u-a-tion?"


    The Founder''s pro-jec-tion of them-selves twitched slight-ly, into what Sobon de-cid-ed was a smile, and they be-gan talk-ing de-tails. It was a dif-fi-cult and dan-ger-ous sit-u-a-tion... but he couldn''t leave it at that. They would fig-ure some-thing out. They had to.


    What-ev-er dif-fi-cul-ties this plan-et had, Sobon re-fused to be-lieve geno-cide was an ac-cept-able op-tion.

 [TAS] 14. Kiel - Raising, Part 1

    "I''m not sure what most of those do," said Xoi Xam, when Ki''el next had the op-por-tu-ni-ty to speak with her about the med-i-cines she was due to re-ceive. "Though I''m pret-ty sure that Spir-it Crys-tals and Spir-it Gems are ex-act-ly what they sound like--stones in which a lit-tle qi has been stored, nat-u-ral-ly or through ef-fort. Whether ''Less-er'' or ''Low'' is bet-ter, you''d have to ask some-one." She gave Ki''el a wary look, one Ki''el wasn''t en-tire-ly sure she could read. "I''m not sure whether to be proud or up-set you didn''t bring some with you in your new Space Ring. A ring should pro-tect its con-tents well, but... it would be easy for peo-ple at our lev-el to waste re-sources. Very easy."


    "It did not seem wise to take things sim-ply to have them with me," ad-mit-ted Ki''el. "Not with-out know-ing the first thing about what they were, how to han-dle them, or whether they would even be of use to us. Things like the Sil-ver and the time with the in-scrip-tion-ist were both..." she gri-maced. "They seemed too ad-vanced for us to use."


    "And yet too valu-able to just give up," Xam agreed. "You said the cost of an at-tempt to pass the wall was one hun-dred...?"


    "But not un-til the first month is com-plet-ed," Ki''el agreed. "And med-ical ex-pens-es are not cov-ered."


    "Cru-el. But, to be ex-pect-ed, I sup-pose." She frowned. "You gained a Star Rank in the last day, far faster than I had as-sumed. Do you ex-pect you will be ready to rise by the end of the month?"


    Had she? Ki''el had been at Two Gold Stars, and when she closed her eyes to fo-cus on the core with-in her, she dis-cov-ered that, true enough, she now stood at three, of a pos-si-ble ten. She... did not feel dif-fer-ent, but then, she had felt dif-fer-ent when adding pu-ri-fied qi to her dant-ian, al-though it had not im-me-di-ate-ly added to her rank-ing at the time. She had... ex-pect-ed, per-haps, that she would feel much stronger as she pushed through the rank-ing, but... then, if that were true, Xoi Xam would be worlds ahead of her.


    "I don''t know," Ki''el said, hon-est-ly, as she re-opened her eyes, watch-ing the woman who watched her. "But I do not wish to leave Mian be-hind, ei-ther. Or Da Chi-an."


    Xam seemed to hes-i-tate, glanc-ing around. The two had met on the road lead-ing out of the Less-er House, Ki''el re-turn-ing from a sim-ple man-u-al la-bor job, and Xam leav-ing for an-oth-er. There seemed to be no one else around, not at the mo-ment, though Ki''el felt that there was a dif-fuse sense of an-oth-er''s qi.


    "It is good to care for your friends," Xam fi-nal-ly said, straight-en-ing and forc-ing her-self back into shape. "And I would feel bet-ter know-ing that Mian will have help with the tri-als that are com-ing. But I wor-ry about you lin-ger-ing here, Ki''el. You made en-e-mies far too ear-ly."


    The voice that seemed to come from nowhere made Ki''el jump, though she didn''t think that Xam re-act-ed so bad-ly. "En-e-mies?" Ki''el found, be-hind her, the woman in the red dress who had been wait-ing by the en-trance when Broth-er Du had brought them by--Sis-ter Lan Wu, Ki''el re-called. "Per-haps with some, though there will al-ways be those grate-ful to see... im-ped-i-ments re-moved."


    Lan Wu was, at the mo-ment, lean-ing her shoul-der against a tree, far too far into the woods to look nat-ur-al, giv-en her dress. She did not, this time, have a pa-per fan, though Ki''el not-ed one of her hands was be-hind her back, and what seemed like a sheathed blade was leaned against the tree, half con-cealed by her legs.


    "There is no ques-tion that Xan Bu was an im-ped-i-ment," Xam agreed, her voice too smooth and po-lite for Ki''el to see it as nat-ur-al. But then... Sis-ter Wu was no dif-fer-ent, in that re-gard. Ki''el frowned, re-call-ing the woman had put qi into her voice, be-fore, though she didn''t sense any-thing at this mo-ment. Still, she pushed a lit-tle right-eous aether through her spir-it, notic-ing no dif-fer-ence.


    "Many of those who re-main here be-come warped by the strug-gle," Lan Wu pushed away from the tree, leav-ing her blade be-hind. "It is all too easy, es-pe-cial-ly for us no-bles." Ki''el no-ticed, with a start, that Lan Wu''s at-ten-tion was en-tire-ly on Xoi Xam, though she wasn''t sure why that felt note-wor-thy. "We are raised to be use-ful tools, for our fam-i-ly and our na-tion, and here we are treat-ed as use-less. While it makes some sense for the wor-thi-est to rise to the top... it is an in-sult to sug-gest that we are un-wor-thy of more re-sources than we are giv-en." She moved di-rect-ly up to Xam, cross-ing her arms over her chest, and met the oth-er woman''s eyes unashamed-ly. "And we do need more than we are giv-en. You are al-ready dis-cov-er-ing that, are you not?"


    Ki''el could sense the ten-sion in Xam, and placed a hand on her shoul-der, press-ing a lit-tle Right-eous Aether into the woman through the con-nec-tion. Xam didn''t star-tle at the touch, but did seem con-fused and up-set by the aether--though whether that was the aether push-ing out a qi ef-fect, or sim-ply her not un-der-stand-ing the sen-sa-tion, Ki''el wasn''t sure. Af-ter a mo-ment, though, Xam firmed her re-solve, and Ki''el let her hand drop. "I''ve been here a cou-ple days, Sis-ter Wu. I would be a com-plete fool if I ex-pect-ed to be hand-ed re-sources with-out ask-ing for them or work-ing hard to achieve them."


    "Is that how you were taught?" Lan Wu tilt-ed her head slight-ly. "You are of the Xoi Trad-ing Fam-i-ly, are you not?"


    "I am," Xoi Xam an-swered, though Ki''el thought she sound-ed wary, again.


    "Are they not al-ready ex-pect-ing great things of you? Are you not ex-pect-ed to rise to the top with the re-sources they have in-vest-ed in you?" The woman''s head tilt-ed back. "We rec-og-nize our own kind here, Sis-ter Xam. You have high ex-pec-ta-tions of your-self, and you see the lack of re-sources for what they are: they treat us as all as com-mon peo-ple, here. At first, I thought it was a no-ble cause--en-sur-ing that the hot-head-ed fools burn out ear-ly, and the lazy and ig-no-rant are taught their place. But even those with the strength and tal-ent to rise are de-nied the re-sources nec-es-sary."


    Ki''el found her-self giv-ing the woman an un-pleas-ant look, only notic-ing when Kuli forced her way into her thoughts. { You are not mis-tak-en, } the aug-ment said, { but you are too ob-vi-ous in your dis-trust. Try to keep an even ap-pear-ance. }


    So Ki''el turned away, re-al-iz-ing that her face had be-come pinched with her ir-ri-ta-tion, and she did what she could to ease up the ten-sion. Why does this woman think that re-sources are nec-es-sary to rise? As though this is sim-ply the na-ture of things?


    { I am not ed-u-cat-ed in the ways of this world, } Kuli an-swered, { but it seems most like-ly to be her-itage, or tal-ent. A child of oth-ers who only rose be-cause they were giv-en enough re-sources to as-sure it, and in turn is giv-en what she re-quired. Per-haps she could rise fur-ther if she fo-cused on her tal-ent in-stead of re-sources, but if that is not what she was taught... }


    Ki''el fo-cused on her breath-ing as Kuli, some-how, evened out her think-ing even as her words made Ki''el more an-noyed. Yes, most like-ly, the woman was ex-cus-ing her own lack of tal-ent--but it was an in-her-i-tance from her fam-i-ly, per-haps. Ki''el let the ir-ri-ta-tion pass, for now, not-ing that Xam had made some oth-er de-fense of her own, as-yet, lack of anger at the Sect.


    "You will see," was all Lan Wu said in clos-ing, be-fore turn-ing back to the tree and snatch-ing up her sheathed weapon, then walk-ing away. The woman didn''t even sound an-noyed, or re-sent-ful, as though she didn''t see the con-ver-sa-tion as a loss, though Ki''el thought that it was. She shook her head, turn-ing back to Xam, but her friend had a se-ri-ous look on her face as well.


    "It is not all about re-sources," Ki''el said. "There are ways."


    Xoi Xam glanced at her, and the se-ri-ous look eased. "Re-sources are more than stones, Ki''el. ''Re-sources'' in a sect in-cludes time with in-struc-tors, ac-cess to scrolls and books of meth-ods and tech-niques." She low-ered her voice by a lot, so that Ki''el had to work to pick out the words against the rustling of the trees. "Your Kuli is a great re-source that you were kind enough to share last night. Those with-out such re-sources strug-gle not only to have enough qi, but to find the an-swers they need."


    Ki''el met the oth-er woman''s eyes and nod-ded. Xam''s fea-tures re-laxed some more in re-sponse, and her voice raised again. "You are kind, Ki''el. And I hope that you find oth-er good and wor-thy peo-ple to raise up with the re-sources you have ac-cess to. But don''t mis-take that what she said is true. I have been ask-ing around about the cost of in-struc-tion, and it is not cheap. Even an hour of in-struc-tion from some-one in the Out-er Sect is not cheap--ten points for an av-er-age mem-ber of the sect, more for some-one with spe-cial knowl-edge. Ten points is five tasks for us--and only if we ful-ly sat-is-fy the pe-ti-tion-er. That may be very lit-tle time and ef-fort, or it may be hours or even days of it. And one hour of a nor-mal Out-er Sect Dis-ci-ple''s time is not much."


    Ki''el blinked, not hav-ing looked into any of that. In truth... she didn''t know what the val-ue of her la-bor had been, al-though El-der Gol had said she had four points from nor-mal tasks, which had been... two or three tasks, de-pend-ing on how they were re-port-ed to the El-der. And in-struc-tion... Ki''el wasn''t even sure how much in-struc-tion from the Sect she re-al-ly need-ed, cer-tain-ly not yet. She had al-ready seen oth-ers, even Broth-er Du, whose an-swers clashed with what Kuli seemed to be-lieve was true.


    But Xam was also very ob-vi-ous-ly not wrong. What was the val-ue in be-ing tu-tored by some-one who had not ac-com-plished any-thing but scal-ing the Gold-en Wall? Was the tribu-la-tion re-al-ly so great? Or was in-for-ma-tion sim-ply that scarce?


    "I see," Ki''el said slow-ly, as she be-gan to un-der-stand the har-ried look on Xam''s face. "That only makes me wish to of-fer more help to you and Mian, and Chi-an, and the oth-ers. Though..." she looked away, in the di-rec-tion Lan Wu had gone, catch-ing her walk-ing through the trees a ways away. "per-haps not all oth-ers."


    Xam laughed at that, as Ki''el had hoped she would. "No, Ki''el. Not all oth-ers." Xam pat-ted her shoul-der, af-fec-tion-ate-ly. "I should go to my task. I ex-pect I will med-i-tate alone tonight. See if you can do any-thing for my hus-band."


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


    Ki''el still felt strange to hear Mian spo-ken of in such a way, and felt the small-est flush on her face, but nod-ded and let the woman go. A few min-utes lat-er, she re-turned to see Sis-ter Futi, who had an as-sign-ment for her--clean-ing a roof, of all things, again in the Out-er Sect. Ki''el frowned, but ac-cept-ed the job, find-ing her-self a short while lat-er clean-ing goo that looked sus-pi-cious-ly like the im-pu-ri-ties she had ex-pelled at the start of Sil-ver from ce-ram-ic roof tiles. When she first saw it, she flashed back to the ru-ined clothes and boat from back then, but... with the brush and soaps that the Sect pro-vid-ed her, Ki''el was able to clean the tiles.


    With some ef-fort, of course.


    It seemed odd to Ki''el, though, and she con-sid-ered the goop as she worked. The mem-bers of the Out-er Sect should not be sig-nif-i-cant-ly more pow-er-ful than... well, at the very least, Ki''el didn''t ex-pect them to have been above the last qi lev-el Ki''el had seen Sobon have, and Sobon had not had an-oth-er im-pu-ri-ty purge when she ad-vanced past Ti-ta-ni-um Qi. Per-haps there was an-oth-er purge lat-er with-in the sec-ond phase of Qi... or per-haps, there were pills to do some-thing sim-i-lar?


    Was the Out-er Sect filled with peo-ple who had ad-vanced fur-ther than Sobon had? The idea bog-gled her mind. She un-der-stood that Sobon had start-ed at the bot-tom and worked his way up--but he had left her to go fight an army. It was hard, in her mind, to dis-tance the stage of qi that he had at the time from the lev-el of pow-er he dis-played, though she knew that it must be true. Af-ter all... he had start-ed off weak-er than Ki''el was now, and she could un-der-stand that.


    Re-sources, Ki''el thought, con-sid-er-ing Xam''s words. In that way, Sobon was a trea-sure be-yond all oth-ers, and Ki''el was be-yond lucky to have even a few words of his to guide her. Even so, it felt wrong to use the same word for that in-sight as one did for stone, or lum-ber, or... spir-it stones, or what-ev-er.


    { Peo-ple are not re-sources, or at the very least, not in the same way. } Kuli''s state-ment, rather than be-ing dis-tinct from Ki''el''s own voice, seemed to be an echo of her own thoughts, help-ing her put them in or-der. { Sobon was giv-en re-sources and ed-u-ca-tion from his own peo-ple, and he can choose who to pass them on to, just as you can choose who you pass your own knowl-edge to. To call peo-ple ''re-sources'' im-plies a lack of choice on their part; they ex-ist to be used. }


    Ki''el nod-ded to her-self, as she scrubbed away at the tiles. Per-haps in a place like this, where knowl-edge and time could be bartered away or sold for points, it made sense to think of peo-ple as not hav-ing the right to choose who they shared their gifts with, but it was not true in gen-er-al. She was for-tu-nate that Sobon cared for her and wished to raise her up... but it re-mained his choice.


    Ki''el briefly con-sid-ered whether Kuli had a choice in the mat-ter, but the aug-ment had ex-pressed more than once that it con-sid-ered it-self less than a per-son, and Ki''el, though she felt some-what of-fend-ed by that, could do lit-tle but re-spect its wish-es.


    Ki''el''s day end-ed with-out fur-ther in-ci-dent, and she glad-ly ate the meal that Mian had once again a hand in cre-at-ing. Al-though she had not seen the oth-er cook again, she heard them oc-ca-sion-al-ly in the kitchen, and the oth-er man''s voice was some-what less cut-ting, if still not kind.


    In the evening, the three of them, with-out Chi-an, went into the for-est again, though their last camp-site was tak-en by some-one else. Ki''el, con-scious that she felt them be-ing ob-served again, led them fur-ther away, to-wards the edge, and they sat and talked in qui-et voic-es, Ki''el hav-ing asked them with her in-tent to not speak of se-crets. In-stead, they all worked on Qi turn-ing cy-cles, and Ki''el and Kuli helped Mian in par-tic-u-lar with a with dou-ble cy-cle, one that passed his qi out-side his body, where it turned along-side a cy-cle of am-bi-ent qi. Al-though they did not get to a point where Mian''s turned qi joined the thorn, ready to re-ab-sorb, the man was be-gin-ning to get the hang of con-trol-ling the flow of his qi out-side of his body.


    The next day start-ed qui-et, as every-one scat-tered to their work once again, but when Ki''el re-turned from her first task, she was all but am-bushed by a red-haired fig-ure.


    Da Chi-an''s form flick-ered slight-ly the mo-ment she spot-ted Ki''el, and they were upon her al-most be-fore she crossed the fi-nal bridge. Ki''el stam-mered a greet-ing, try-ing not to re-coil at the sud-den ap-proach, but Da Chi-an grabbed her and took her aside with an in-sis-tence just short of vi-o-lence.


    "What is the mean-ing of giv-ing me your Sect points?" Chi-an''s voice quiv-ered, and Ki''el was cer-tain that she saw ears half-ap-pear-ing in their hair. "I have done noth-ing to de-serve this."


    "Ah..." Ki''el blinked, try-ing not to fo-cus on the half-ap-pear-ing spir-it flesh. "It is not pay-ment, Da Chi-an. It is a part of the for-fei-ture from Xan Bu."


    "I know what it''s from," Chi-an said, their voice sound-ing ir-ri-tat-ed. "I''m ask-ing why you gave it to me."


    But Ki''el could only stare at them, baf-fled by the ques-tion. "Were you not... also a vic-tom of Xan Bu''s abuse?"


    "What--" Chi-an''s spir-it seemed to surge for a mo-ment, but they forced it down. "Ki''el. Are you re-al-ly say-ing that you gave me those points out of some mis-guid-ed jus-tice?"


    "Mis-guid-ed?" Ki''el looked at her friend, strange-ly. "Do you not need them?"


    "Need?" Chi-an''s spir-it surged again, but again, they fought it back. "Ki''el. I am a be-ing with strong spir-it blood. Do you know what that means?"


    Ki''el eyed the spir-it, un-sure of what kind of an-swer they were ex-pect-ing, be-fore shak-ing their head no.


    Chi-an stared at her, as though up-set, and fi-nal-ly let out a sigh, al-though their ten-sion didn''t seem to ex-act-ly ease. "Fear, Ki''el. It means fear." They raised one hand, and Ki''el could clear-ly see claws ap-pear-ing at the tips of their fin-gers. "We fear oth-ers, oth-ers fear us. It is more than that, true. But spir-it beasts have very strong in-stincts. Hate, fear, love, lust, hunger, need. When peo-ple trig-ger our in-stincts, it makes us ir-ra-tional. And while you may not un-der-stand that, oth-ers do."


    Chi-an turned, then, and buried her claws in a near-by tree, for no rea-son that Ki''el could see, or even sense, though it made their anx-i-ety ease, for a few mo-ments at least. Chi-an turned to glare at her, and Ki''el could see plain-ly that their eyes held deep con-fu-sion and un-rest. "I have been trained, Ki''el, from a young age. Trained to be-lieve that every at-tempt to bring my in-stincts to the sur-face is an at-tempt to con-trol me, that it was bet-ter to be an-gry than naive. And they were not wrong. I was pro-posed to be-fore I was five years old. I bare-ly knew how to talk, but a man want-ed me to make a bind-ing promise to mar-ry his son. I only un-der-stood lat-er that I had been kid-napped, and was be-ing fed sweets and told love-ly lies. I only es-caped a ter-ri-ble fate be-cause I re-peat-ed what my par-ents told me to say. Over and over, when they tried to tell me to say some-thing else."


    Ki''el swal-lowed, feel-ing ab-solute dread in the pit of her stom-ach. She... could bare-ly re-mem-ber be-ing that young, and cer-tain-ly couldn''t un-der-stand the idea of be-ing at-tacked or ma-nip-u-lat-ed at such an age. Would she have been able to de-fend her-self? Would she have even un-der-stood that she need-ed to do so?


    Da Chi-an turned to face her, and Ki''el got the strong im-pres-sion once again that they were not a girl, not now. But they sheathed their claws, and Ki''el could sense the faint out-line of a tail be-hind them. "I think I be-lieve that you mean it, when you say felt that you should do it. But do not gift me things with-out speak-ing to me first. It feels like..." Chi-an''s face twist-ed into a gri-mace, a tense look that did not look good on them. "...chains."


    Ki''el looked down. "You are not bound to me, Da Chi-an, and I will nev-er at-tempt to bind you." She looked back up, able again to glimpse the shad-ow of their spir-it tail be-hind them. She glanced away and around, see-ing no one, but un-sure she could see things well enough to be cer-tain. "Ah... and your tail is show-ing, a lit-tle."


    "Prob-a-bly," Chi-an said, let-ting their spir-it ease up a bit. "I can feel it, so I''m not sur-prised. It''s at least dis-guised, right?"


    "It''s bare-ly there," Ki''el ad-mit-ted. "I just... don''t know how sen-si-tive oth-ers would be."


    "Prob-a-bly less than you." Chi-an took a deep breath, and for a mo-ment, their tail flick-ered into ex-is-tence ful-ly, but then it van-ished, along with her ears and claws. Chi-an took sev-er-al more deep breaths, but when she looked back at Ki''el, her face was still se-ri-ous. "I am se-ri-ous, Ki''el. There are times when I can-not con-trol my in-stincts, and I will not let my-self be con-trolled. Things like that... when I do not un-der-stand what is hap-pen-ing, I can some-times..."


    The look on Chi-an''s face shift-ed, sud-den-ly, and she looked away, her face red-den-ing with sud-den em-bar-rass-ment. "I... guess I can some-times be re-al-ly stu-pid," she said. "I guess it makes sense that you aren''t an en-e-my. And you''re right, the for-fei-ture should prob-a-bly have come to me, along with... a few oth-ers that were ha-rassed by Xan Bu. But it... I..." Chi-an sud-den-ly ran her fin-gers through her hair and shook it out, the tan-gled red waves be-com-ing only more chaot-ic in the process. "Aargh. I don''t know. This is stu-pid. I''m stu-pid. I''m sor-ry, Ki''el."


    "You have noth-ing to be sor-ry for," Ki''el said, do-ing her best to sound gen-uine and not at all con-flict-ed or afraid. Pri-vate-ly... she knew that she was spooked by Chi-an''s sud-den ac-tion, and ap-pre-ci-at-ed the apol-o-gy, but know-ing Chi-an''s his-to-ry made it hard for her to think of her own com-fort first. In-stead of con-fronting the thought, she de-cid-ed to force a change in sub-ject. "Did you make any progress try-ing to cul-ti-vate in the new way?"


    Chi-an paused in her at-tempts to comb her fin-gers through her hair to smooth it out a bit. "The new way? Oh." She looked away. "I... got dis-tract-ed last night. I was think-ing about that whole ''tail cen-ter'' thing, but I didn''t try to ac-tu-al-ly con-trol my qi with it. The idea that I nat-u-ral-ly ''speak'' to my own spir-it, or to oth-er spir-its, is in-ter-est-ing. But it was dif-fi-cult to put into prac-tice, be-cause that feels wrong."


    Kuli pushed a thought at Ki''el, who re-peat-ed it, though she felt like she didn''t quite trans-late the thought cor-rect-ly. "Were you think-ing about us-ing your tail as a voice?"


    "As a voice?" Chi-an''s re-ply sound-ed ob-vi-ous-ly con-fused.


    "Ah, sor-ry. Kuli..." Ki''el paused, try-ing to sense if any-one was around, and de-cid-ed against con-tin-u-ing, when she couldn''t be sure. "I am try-ing to say that your tail is a part of how you com-mu-ni-cate. Com-mu-ni-cat-ing for you should in-volve it, some-how. Though... I do not un-der-stand ex-act-ly, my-self."


    Chi-an con-tin-ued to stare at her, and Ki''el won-dered if what she had said made any sense, be-fore at last there was a light in the oth-er girl''s fea-tures. "Ah," she said. "In-stincts. Right."


    Kuli seemed like that was a cor-rect an-swer, but Ki''el asked any-way. "In-stincts?"


    "Sor-ry. You''re prob-a-bly right not to speak about things now, but..." she ges-tured to-wards the Less-er House, and be-gan walk-ing. "They are used for com-mu-ni-cat-ing. Real ones, I mean, and spir-it ones as well, but they are more... pos-ture and in-tent, rather than words. To be in a cer-tain pos-ture or state is to con-vey cer-tain things about how you un-der-stand the sit-u-a-tion."


    Da Chi-an paused, then, and con-sid-ered, and cre-at-ed a small qi ball be-tween her fin-gers, study-ing it. Then, care-ful-ly, she shift-ed her spir-it slight-ly, and then flicked the qi ball at a near-by bush.


    Ki''el... could not tell what just hap-pened, but Chi-an seemed sat-is-fied.


    "I think," she said qui-et-ly as she moved, "I can change the in-tent of my qi af-ter it has left me. It''s small, but... per-haps it is for the best that I think more about this. It might be very use-ful."


    Ki''el felt a strong urge to pat the oth-er girl on the shoul-der sup-por-t-ive-ly, but couldn''t stop her-self from hes-i-tat-ing. In the end, though, she did, and Chi-an seemed to re-spond well to the ges-ture. But Ki''el... be-gan to un-der-stand that it would be dif-fi-cult be-ing friends with Da Chi-an. She had no idea what might set her off in the fu-ture.


    She sup-posed she would just need to ask, and learn, and do what she could to as-sure Chi-an of her good in-ten-tions go-ing for-ward.

 [TAS] 15. Kiel - Raising, Part 2: Fire

    Al-though Ki''el was able to spend some time with her friends over the next sev-er-al days, it be-came clear that life in the Sect, es-pe-cial-ly with-in the Less-er House, was full of mo-not-o-nous la-bor. Al-though her first days at the sect had been... no-table, time nev-er ceased, and a sur-pris-ing num-ber of things be-gan to sim-ply be-come com-mon.


    Among those was sim-ply not be-ing able to see her fam-i-ly and friends of-ten.


    Oh, they still had their evenings, though all or most of them were usu-al-ly tired, more in-ter-est-ed in train-ing to es-cape their sit-u-a-tion than any-thing else. For Mian, that meant work-ing to im-prove him-self to the peak of Sil-ver Qi first, a task that seemed with-in grasp if he could just fig-ure out the trick to his new qi turn-ing tech-nique. While Ki''el tried to get him in-ter-est-ed in a dis-cus-sion of her Sect Points and the med-i-cines of the Sect, he seemed not to take her se-ri-ous-ly, or oth-er-wise had no in-ter-est. He also didn''t ex-act-ly spurn Ki''el''s help with his tech-nique, but... he seemed more alive and ac-tive when work-ing at it him-self than when he was re-ceiv-ing Ki''el''s ad-mit-ted-ly novice ad-vice.


    In con-trast, Xam all but lost in-ter-est in the turn-ing tech-nique in the days that fol-lowed; she seemed to be fo-cus-ing on the new foot-cen-ter dis-ci-pline, and what-ev-er in-sights she gained or strug-gled with she kept to her-self. She also seemed to be prac-tic-ing some-thing else, which Ki''el didn''t im-me-di-ate-ly press her about, though it made her qi move strange-ly, so Ki''el as-sumed it must be a tech-nique from her fam-i-ly, or pos-si-bly the Sect.


    Da Chi-an, for her part, only vis-it-ed them one evening out of the next three, and Ki''el used that day''s time to ask her about the ma-te-ri-als from the Sect. Da Chi-an, pre-dictably, had not heard much about most of them, though she had some gen-er-al in-sights.


    "Spir-it crys-tals and spir-it gems are very dif-fer-ent," she said, "though they can be dif-fi-cult for a novice to tell apart. Mere crys-tals are spir-it en-er-gy locked into a form, and would be a very good way to pass en-er-gy from one per-son to an-oth-er--but they are usu-al-ly weak and im-pure, with most of the qi lost in the process." The red-head-ed woman was lean-ing against a tree trunk, and didn''t quite meet Ki''el''s eyes as they talked, al-though there seemed not to be any re-sent-ment there. Some con-fu-sion, per-haps, at most. "I''m not sure there''s any way to im-prove the process, but maybe you''ll find one. Your tech-nique is pret-ty odd."


    "Gems on the oth-er hand are made while med-i-tat-ing on a tech-nique or an in-sight, or they are ex-tract-ed from a source that has some par-tic-u-lar qi na-ture or prop-er-ty. In the-o-ry, every gem should pro-vide some chance at in-sight into some prop-er-ty or na-ture, but if all the dispensary says is that it is a gem, with-out pro-vid-ing de-tails, it''s not go-ing to be any-thing valu-able, or the chances of un-der-stand-ing it are not high. A real spir-it gem con-tains a deep and fun-da-men-tal spir-i-tu-al truth. It''s worth a lot more, and you have to ask for a spe-cif-ic kind. I''ve nev-er been in-volved with that, but the Broth-er from the out-er sect who told me about it says that they usu-al-ly just post boun-ties when peo-ple ask for things, and see if any-one can pro-vide one."


    Ki''el frowned, con-sid-er-ing. "They can-not sim-ply con-vey a con-cept with in-tent?"


    "Mas-ters could," chuck-led Chi-an. "And mas-ters could read in-tent that some-one else mere-ly spoke. But if you are go-ing to spend a day, or many days, med-i-tat-ing on in-tent that you only just heard once..." She shrugged. "No. Bet-ter to buy a gem. Or if you ever re-al-ly get rich, hire some-one to cre-ate an In-tent Plate. At least, I think that''s what they call it."


    Ki''el re-called hear-ing that term from the Appraiser at the Auc-tion House, and nod-ded. She... might have brought up hav-ing heard it, if not for the fact that the Ap-prais-er want-ed to cre-ate an In-tent Plate for some-thing Sobon him-self had cre-at-ed, ap-par-ent-ly out of noth-ing, or worse, out of the in-for-ma-tion that he had left to Ki''el, buried with-in Kuli. She... was well aware, that be-tween her and Kuli, the two could with-out ques-tion at least speak the prop-er In-tent for Pri-mor-dial Qi, at least to copy what Sobon had said.


    What-ev-er re-sources she might gain from that, Ki''el was sure, she would gain far more at-ten-tion, and es-pe-cial-ly, at-ten-tion that she did not want. Not now. And... it was not im-pos-si-ble, that Sobon, or the ones that helped him, would dis-ap-prove of her us-ing their knowl-edge for such small things. It would be bet-ter to at least en-sure she knew who was go-ing to ben-e-fit, and if pos-si-ble to ask Sobon his opin-ion be-fore even sug-gest-ing that she had such things.


    Of course, Broth-er Du and Chi-an both un-der-stood that she had some-thing from Sobon. She doubt-ed ei-ther of them un-der-stood what Kuli rep-re-sent-ed--but then, Ki''el her-self could only guess. Or rather... she had no in-tent to force Kuli to try to re-veal the depths that Sobon had left her, es-pe-cial-ly not now. Not with so much yet to learn.


    "What kind of in-tent can one gath-er from an... un-spec-i-fied spir-it gem, then?" Ki''el forced her-self to ask the ques-tion, al-though in truth, she was al-ready cer-tain that what-ev-er was to be found in these spir-it gems, un-less they were nat-ur-al aether phe-nom-e-na, she would not like them.


    "I can''t say I know," Chi-an said, sound-ing like she had no deep in-ter-est in the con-ver-sa-tion. "I''ve only had my hands on one, and it gained me noth-ing be-fore it de-cayed. Es-pe-cial-ly some-thing like a less-er or low gem would at best be the work of some-one in the Out-er Sect med-i-tat-ing on vague con-cepts of qi, and what-ev-er got im-print-ed in the stone. They are prob-a-bly use-ful, es-pe-cial-ly for peo-ple claw-ing for every last ben-e-fit, but I do not un-der-stand them."


    Ki''el nod-ded at that, and af-ter a mo-ment of si-lence, asked, "Which is bet-ter--less-er, or low?"


    "Ah, the great ques-tions in life at last," Chi-an teased, and Ki''el was sur-prised to hear the lev-i-ty in the girl''s voice again. "They don''t al-ways use both terms to de-scribe the same thing, and so of-ten the two mean about the same thing. But there is Least, and then Low, and then Less-er, Com-mon, Un-com-mon, Greater, Great, and some oth-er things I doubt we''ll ever see." Chi-an pushed out an-oth-er small qi orb, as she had done a few times that night, and Ki''el thought she sensed the girl try-ing to pres-sure the qi of the orb with her spir-it tail. Ki''el... found her-self watch-ing the oth-er girl''s eyes as Chi-an fo-cused on the orb. The look on Da Chi-an''s face as she fo-cused was...


    She lost the thought as the orb zipped away, this time into a fall-en leaf, which smoldered, but did not catch fire or have any-thing else in par-tic-u-lar hap-pen. Still, it was more of a re-sult than most of the oth-ers. Ki''el frowned at the leaf. "You in-tend-ed to burn it?"


    "Fire isn''t a part of my blood-line''s na-ture," Chi-an replied. "I... can al-ready tell that if I used my blood na-ture, it would be far more pow-er-ful. I''m not ready for that, not yet. I''ll al-ways need to prac-tice qi na-tures that dif-fer from my own, so that I can dis-guise my-self. Fire is... com-mon."


    { Her un-der-stand-ing of fire is worth-less, } Kuli com-ment-ed to Ki''el alone, and Ki''el blinked, sur-prised at the bit-ter-ness im-plied by the aug-ment''s tone. { Fire--the true el-e-ment, with-out con-sid-er-ing qi--is fair-ly sim-ple. In-tent must al-ways re-flect the truth be-hind a phe-nom-e-non. Ig-no-rance pro-duces ter-ri-ble spir-i-tu-al tech-niques. }


    Teach me, Ki''el pushed at Kuli, who paused as though sur-prised, or un-pre-pared for the com-ment. Teach me enough about nat-ur-al fire that I could speak it with in-tent.


    Kuli con-sid-ered the re-quest, and then sud-den-ly Ki''el un-der-stood.


    She all but leaped to her feet at the strange thoughts that Kuli sim-ply merged into her mind, of phys-i-cal struc-tures--too small to see--that might break if struck with too much en-er-gy, and which might re-lease more en-er-gy when they break than it took to break them. Of the rem-nants, which might trap the heat, help it flow away, or might them-selves burn. Of gasses--the one in par-tic-u-lar need-ed for most fire, and oth-ers--and of things re-leas-ing light be-cause they are hot.


    It wasn''t sim-ple, as Kuli had said--not to know every-thing. And Ki''el, as she sat there, her back straight and her eyes un-see-ing, knew enough about fire now to know that she had known al-most noth-ing. She had known that wood burns, that wa-ter puts it out. She had known that it took fuel and pow-er. Un-der-stand-ing the why of fire should not have been this pro-found. She should not have need-ed to un-der-stand pow-er and gasses and what makes up things in or-der to un-der-stand fire.


    Learn-ing all of that in an in-stant might have been more im-por-tant than learn-ing how they all com-bined to cre-ate fire... if any of that knowl-edge had been in the sligh-test way use-ful to her ex-cept in un-der-stand-ing fire, but now, it was all dis-con-nect-ed, un-cer-tain. Dis-tant.


    "Ki''el?"


    Ki''el blinked and looked to Chi-an, and the woman looked back, her eyes guard-ed and un-cer-tain. Only in that mo-ment did Ki''el re-call how Chi-an had re-act-ed when she of-fered a gift, and she hes-i-tat-ed.


    "I asked Kuli a ques-tion," Ki''el said. "About fire. Be-cause I want-ed to help you. But I am not cer-tain whether you will want the... the knowl-edge that I gained."


    "You gained in-sight just from the an-swer to a ques-tion?" Da Chi-an''s voice sound-ed strange-ly... amused? Did she think Ki''el was jok-ing?


    "It is what I asked for," Ki''el ad-mit-ted. "I thought... that I could sim-ply speak with in-tent, what I learned, in or-der to help you."


    "Like I said," Chi-an said, her voice still amused. "It''s dif-fi-cult to speak with in-tent, and dif-fi-cult to mem-o-rize some-one else''s. Even if your Kuli could pro-vide in-sight, how would that help me?"


    But Ki''el just looked back at Chi-an, un-sure. "If I could... would you want me to try? To teach you what I learned?"


    Chi-an''s hu-mor seemed to qui-et, and then van-ish. And the girl, or maybe not quite a girl, sat up straighter. "Maybe," she said. "I... sup-pose I appreciate you ask-ing. Try. See if you can even speak with in-tent."


    Ki''el, of course, had pushed in-tent out with her spir-it alone... but she wasn''t good at it. And now, when she tried to sum up all that she knew about fire, she found it even more dif-fi-cult to com-press a whole con-cept into a word, as she knew mas-ters did. But more than that... Ki''el found it dif-fi-cult to speak the word ''Fire'' while also speak-ing the in-tent, [Fire], at the same time, es-pe-cial-ly link-ing both to-geth-er.


    For whichev-er rea-son, Kuli did not help her with this, and for whichev-er rea-son, Ki''el did not re-sent that. This... seemed like a thing worth try-ing hard to learn and mas-ter. Per-haps... per-haps now was not ex-act-ly the right time, but it was a wor-thy task.


    Chi-an did not seem sur-prised when Ki''el failed to speak the con-cept, and didn''t press her or at-tack her, but she didn''t come back the next day, ei-ther. At the very least... the knowl-edge that Kuli in-stilled in her also didn''t fade, though Kuli had to walk Ki''el through the thoughts and how to or-der them in her own mind, be-cause the thoughts--al-though they had be-come her own--were still for-eign. Even try-ing to sum-ma-rize the knowl-edge in words was strange, and try-ing to con-vey more than the words with the words was a mad-den-ing chal-lenge.


    Over the course of the next cou-ple days, Ki''el worked on the phras-ing of the sen-tence it-self whenev-er her work al-lowed her time to think. When at last she de-cid-ed on words--"Nor-mal fire is the re-ac-tion of fuel and oxy-gen with heat, releasing heat and light"--she be-gan to try to med-i-tate on each of the con-cepts in part. Fuel, be-ing some-thing that ei-ther can re-act with oxy-gen and heat, or re-leas-es some-thing when heat-ed that will re-act. Oxy-gen, be-ing the gas that most things re-act with. Heat, be-ing not only en-er-gy, but a prop-er-ty of all things, which can be stored, trans-fer on touch, or ra-di-ate out. Re-ac-tion, be-ing a part of na-ture, some-thing that will hap-pen even with-out qi, sim-ply be-cause of how the world works. And... "nor-mal" fire, be-cause she need-ed to con-vey that this was one of many pos-si-ble cas-es, and had noth-ing to do with how things worked once qi was in-volved.


    Al-though Kuli did not help with this di-rect-ly, she did teach Ki''el to store whole thoughts in the part of Ki''el''s mind that Kuli her-self oc-cu-pied--that Kuli aug-ment-ed, made bet-ter, stronger. And this quick-ly be-came a thing that Ki''el found strange-ly thrilling--the idea of set-ting aside a whole and com-plex thought, but then pick-ing the thought up again as though it were sim-ply a stone she placed down and picked up again. She could work on her phras-ing of Nor-mal Fire, and when some-one in-ter-rupt-ed, put it all away with-out los-ing her place or her way. When she picked it up again, there was no track-ing down the thoughts she''d had, and no fum-bling with pieces no longer in con-text.


    If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    Is this how Sobon felt? Ki''el asked Kuli as they re-turned from a job, this time re-plant-i-ng a flower bed that had been messed up by an-oth-er Out-er Dis-ci-ple duel. It had been med-i-ta-tive work, un-til the last mo-ments when an Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple walked by and made all her hard work feel mean-ing-less, as they used their qi to bet-ter dis-trib-ute the dirt, the wa-ter, and the flower''s roots, and the many flow-ers Ki''el had plant-ed over hours sat up brighter and more healthy in re-sponse. Be-ing able to hold con-cepts in his mind, and sim-ply bring them out when he need-ed?


    { Yes, } Kuli an-swered. { Many ad-vanced cul-tures have tools like that. I am not the tool Sobon was most fa-mil-iar with--I was cre-at-ed by the Ri''lef, and for their peo-ple, but adapt-ed for you. But I know that Sobon was used to aug-ments like me, and most like-ly, far more pow-er-ful ones. Ones meant for aether war-riors, so that they could draw upon cen-turies of knowl-edge in an in-stant. }


    Ki''el could be-lieve it, af-ter hav-ing seen Sobon sim-ply cre-ate spells of dev-as-tat-ing pow-er from noth-ing. Now that she, her-self, was stum-bling to make even the most triv-ial qi cir-cuits and do sim-ple things like speak-ing the true na-ture of fire... she un-der-stood that wield-ing that much pow-er re-quired a tech-nique en-tire-ly with-out flaw. The pow-er that Sobon had wield-ed, if he had a frac-tion as many flaws as Ki''el had now, would have de-stroyed him the first time he used it. And he had used it over and over and over, with-out show-ing even a mo-ment''s hes-i-ta-tion or fear.


    Sobon had cre-at-ed a bomb out of an en-graved rock, a crude one, while still trapped in the body of a squir-rel. Even now, Ki''el shiv-ered to think of that ex-plo-sion, to think of the ter-ror she felt in the pi-rate cap-tain with the in-sid-i-ous black, Gold-tier qi. The ex-plo-sion that had near-ly cap-sized a mas-sive ship, de-spite go-ing off dozens, per-haps hun-dreds of feet away. Ki''el could re-mem-ber Sobon be-gin-ning to charge that stone, as he held it there, inch-es from his own body, mere feet from Ki''el. If there had been a sin-gle flaw...


    { We are cre-at-ed to help with things like that, } Kuli con-firmed. { To hold ideas in mind, cre-ate them out of pieces. To go over them again, com-pare them to oth-er thoughts and mem-o-ries, con-firm they are cor-rect. To com-mu-ni-cate them to oth-ers, pre-cise-ly and with-out er-ror. To copy them ex-act-ly into re-al-i-ty, con-firm the copy is per-fect, and only then em-pow-er them. To Sobon, and oth-ers who have ac-cess to these meth-ods, this world in which in-tent is a per-son-al jour-ney is prim-i-tive. It is a nec-es-sary jour-ney with-out these tools, but to those who have them... }


    Ki''el un-der-stood, even with-out Kuli ex-plain-ing, but the ex-pla-na-tion did feel right, as well. It only un-der-scored, once again, that Kuli was a trea-sure--some-thing Ki''el had no right to, and which she dared not un-der-es-ti-mate. And... the ex-pla-na-tion also pro-vid-ed one oth-er in-sight for Ki''el. A pos-si-bil-i-ty she had not quite con-sid-ered.


    When she was con-tent that she was close to speak-ing the con-cept of Fire with in-tent, she be-gan to do the same for her qi turn-ing tech-nique. It was not ex-act-ly a triv-ial con-cept; she had only crude-ly ex-plained to the oth-ers that aether, and qi, were in-di-vid-ual specks that could join to-geth-er into a whole as a nat-ur-al con-se-quence of their form. Like bub-bles, they were essence that also had an in-side, and the sur-faces could join to cre-ate a larg-er with-in.


    She spoke on this to Mian, and it seemed to help him with his tech-nique, though still he seemed to be miss-ing parts and pieces of it. With the in-sight, though, he fi-nal-ly com-plet-ed sev-er-al turns of qi, pro-duc-ing pu-ri-fied qi in his Thorn, and he was able to grasp the pu-ri-fied qi and re-ab-sorb it. The next day, he awoke at Sil-ver 4, and he felt cer-tain he would get to Sil-ver 5 with-in an-oth-er day''s ef-fort, if that.


    That day, by chance, Ki''el met Chi-an while on a task, the red-haired girl pulling a cart some-what larg-er than her-self, with large wood-en wheels, with rel-a-tive ease. Ki''el, mean-while, had been asked to help car-ry a num-ber of al-chem-i-cal vials very care-ful-ly across a mod-er-ate dis-tance, as the Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple who most like-ly should have been do-ing it went off to do some-thing else.


    "Chi-an," she said as she passed, and she re-al-ized the girl had been en-tire-ly with-in her own thoughts and not no-ticed her un-til she spoke. The red-head looked at her, and nod-ded, but her gaze was wary. "We should talk again, if you don''t mind."


    "I have been busy, but..." she looked away. "I wouldn''t mind."


    They part-ed ways, nei-ther will-ing to in-ter-rupt their task. Ki''el was dis-ap-point-ed that Chi-an didn''t show up that night, but fo-cused her ef-forts on pol-ish-ing her in-tent for the con-cept of Fire any-way.


    The next day, Ki''el felt strange-ly dis-qui-et, al-though for a long time she couldn''t find any source for the feel-ing. It wasn''t un-til she was on her way back to the Less-er House, and saw the woman who re-mained across the hall from them--Bai Be-nai--mov-ing with un-nat-ur-al speed up the path and away, that she felt cer-tain it was more than her imag-i-na-tion. She could only watch Sis-ter Be-nai leave, but shift-ed her at-ten-tion to Kuli. Do you feel some-thing?


    { An un-cer-tain in-tent, } Kuli agreed. { A reck-less ac-tion. Da Chi-an may be in trou-ble. }


    So Ki''el, hav-ing ac-com-plished her own deeds, turned and fol-lowed Sis-ter Be-nai--or, most-ly, fol-lowed Kuli''s di-rec-tion. By the time she caught up, the sit-u-a-tion had long since re-solved--Sis-ter Be-nai was stand-ing pro-tec-tive-ly over Chi-an, who seemed to have been struck, but an-oth-er, an Out-er Dis-ci-ple, was look-ing far more in-censed than any-one else.


    Ki''el had to check her-self a mo-ment be-fore speak-ing. "Sis-ter Chi-an! Sis-ter Be-nai."


    Both glanced over at her, and Ki''el saw great dark-ness in the eyes of Bai Be-nai, but the Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple gave Ki''el a dirty look. "A third mem-ber of the Less-er House? What is with you id-iots to-day?" He moved to-wards Chi-an, but Be-nai repo-si-tioned her-self in-stant-ly to be in his way. He start-ed to raise one hand to her, but stopped. "You won''t stop me from get-ting com-pen-sa-tion, Less-er House. My rather ex-pen-sive set of to-kens is ru-ined now."


    When Bai Be-nai spoke, Ki''el could feel a deep-er and more dangerous spir-i-tu-al pres-sure than she had ex-pect-ed to sense from any-one in the Less-er House. "You get what you pay for, Out-er Dis-ci-ple. Com-pen-sa-tion for loss-es when re-quest-ing aid from the Less-er House is lim-it-ed to three times the re-quest fee."


    "That is NON-SENSE, and I will hear noth-ing of it," the Out-er Dis-ci-ple snapped. "Each of those to-kens was worth at least twen-ty Sect Points, and they are all ru-ined!"


    "Then you should have paid more to have an Out-er Dis-ci-ple clean them."


    "I will not be talked back to by a less-er be-ing." The man''s qi flared, and Ki''el re-al-ized that he was past Ti-ta-ni-um Qi--his qi took on a va-ri-ety of col-ors, but it was only about as dense as Sobon''s had been. See-ing it now, and try-ing to un-der-stand it, she un-der-stood it to be Bis-muth Qi, the sec-ond tier in the Bright Met-al Phase. "You will step aside, or..."


    "Or you will what? As-sault me?" Bai Be-nai''s sneer of con-tempt was con-veyed by her qi, al-though Ki''el could not see her face.


    "I..." he eased off the pres-sure but his words only con-tained more ven-om. "I will have my sat-is-fac-tion, on my po-si-tion as heir to House Otoma."


    "We have no rea-son to ac-cept such a duel."


    "The girl struck me," the Out-er Dis-ci-ple said. "I have done no vi-o-lence in re-turn. My words are sim-ple and true. Ei-ther com-pen-sate me for the lost to-kens, or take... let''s say, three moves from me. If you think you could sur-vive that."


    Ki''el swal-lowed, star-ing at the scene for a mo-ment in con-fu-sion, then frowned. In the bat-tle at Sobon''s home... she had fought a man with Ti-ta-ni-um Qi to a stand-still with her aether blade. He had not been a mas-ter, but he had been over-con-fi-dent that his qi alone made all the dif-fer-ence. But this is also a Sect. Doubt-less this man has learned more--


    "I will place my hon-or on the line to de-fend my friend," Bai Be-nai said. "I will take your three moves." But Ki''el could sense the raw fear that em-anat-ed from her, and imag-ined she un-der-stood. Bai Be-nai also did not wish to re-veal her blood na-tures.


    "No," Ki''el said, step-ping for-ward with-out think-ing too hard about it, and with-draw-ing her Aether Blade from her stor-age ring. "I will take them."


    All three of them looked over at Ki''el, at that, and the Out-er Dis-ci-ple looked strange. "You? What do you have to do with this?"


    "She is also my friend," Ki''el said. "And..." And what? What right did she have to in-ter-fere? Ki''el glanced over at Chi-an, see-ing that she--no, they were strug-gling to sup-press their blood. "And... I be-lieve that Sis-ter Be-nai would do bet-ter see-ing to Sis-ter Chi-an. I be-lieve that I can han-dle you alone."


    "Han-dle me? Ridicu-lous." The Out-er Dis-ci-ple raised his hands in a strange fash-ion, one cross-ing over the oth-er be-fore him, and a phan-tom like a snake ap-peared in the air around him. Ki''el froze up, wor-ried that she had of-fend-ed yet an-oth-er spir-it beast, but the qi so-lid-i-fied into some-thing more like a pup-pet or chain weapon in-stead. "I have reached the third chap-ter of the Book of the Earth-en Pup-pet Drag-on. I can man-i-fest my qi na-ture. Can you even use ex-ter-nal qi?"


    Ki''el took a deep breath, and pressed her in-tent into the Aether Blade, awak-en-ing it in its staff form. When she did... she could feel some-thing, deep-er with-in the blade, some-thing she knew was there, but it struck her dif-fer-ent-ly this time.


    It de-sired in-tent.


    "If I can-not take your three strikes, you can take one hun-dred Sect points from me," Ki''el said, un-sure where her con-fi-dence came from, but she raised the Aether Sword be-fore her, and for rea-sons she could not put into words, she con-veyed to the Aether Sword the in-tent for [nor-mal fire]. Noth-ing hap-pened. "If I can... then con-sid-er it your loss, and Sis-ter Chi-an owes you noth-ing."


    "Pa-thet-ic. This won''t even take a sin-gle strike." The man waved his hands, and Ki''el could feel the strings of qi con-nect-ing him to the con-struct. Ki''el pres-sured her Right-eous Aether cy-cle, flood-ing her body, and when the con-struct be-gan to move, she po-si-tioned the Aether Sword be-tween it and her.


    When the con-struct hit her blade, Ki''el shiv-ered.


    It wasn''t the qi drain, al-though that was sub-stan-tial. No, Ki''el felt some-thing, as though the aether sword was mea-sur-ing the pup-pet snake for how well it matched the in-tent of Nor-mal Fire. It was... not a match, and more than that, Ki''el sud-den-ly felt cer-tain that the pup-pet con-struct was ac-tu-al-ly fair-ly weak. It was a qi con-struct, and it would con-tin-ue to func-tion un-til de-stroyed or its pow-er was used up, but... the core be-hind the con-struct was flim-sy.


    Ki''el was sure that she un-der-stood [nor-mal fire] bet-ter than that man un-der-stood his pup-pet, and all of that passed through her in the mo-ment that the qi smashed into her blade and bounced off.


    But the man at-tack-ing her felt no hal-lu-ci-na-tion dur-ing the blow and gained no in-sight. His fin-gers twitched, and Ki''el could al-most see the com-mand pass through the strings. By the time it reached the pup-pet, and the Earth Pup-pet Drag-on leaped at her again, she al-most felt in-sult-ed at the slow, de-lib-er-ate mo-tions of it, flick-ing the aether sword to knock it away.


    There was a cold si-lence bro-ken only by Ki''el''s breath-ing af-ter that blow. Ki''el knew that the blade con-tained its own qi, but for now, she pressed her own aether and qi into the blade, al-though it near-ly drained what she had in her dant-ian and her sin-is-ter aether cy-cles. The Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple stud-ied her, and Ki''el silent-ly in-struct-ed Kuli to record that mo-ment of clash-ing in-tent for lat-er, try-ing to keep her breath-ing even.


    "I see," he said at last. "I mis-took you for some-one who''d nev-er du-eled in your life. I sup-pose it''s your..." his eyes flicked up and down Ki''el, and he changed his mind about what-ev-er he was go-ing to say. "Nev-er mind. This one is for real, then."


    This time, the man''s qi surged through his core, not his fin-gers, and the pup-pet drag-on res-onat-ed with him. Ki''el brought her sword up, but she could feel that some-thing was wrong--that the at-tack that was com-ing was more than those that came be-fore.


    With-out re-al-ly con-sid-er-ing it, Ki''el flipped the Aether Sword into its nat-ur-al, sharp state.


    The change that came over the pup-pet was, Ki''el would re-al-ize lat-er, im-mense. It in-creased in size by a good four times, and it went from be-ing a fair-ly ba-sic seg-ment-ed pup-pet snake to some-thing more re-fined, with teeth and claws. Even in the in-stant where it be-gan to trans-form, it was leap-ing at Ki''el, who re-act-ed as though she were hold-ing her old staff--back-ing off a step and swing-ing de-fen-sive-ly. But the aether blade in her hands was no staff, and the pup-pet drag-on that came fly-ing at her was al-most too fast for her de-fen-sive ma-neu-ver.


    Al-most.


    Ki''el was struck by a part of the pup-pet in the hip, but its in-tent was al-ready spent--the pup-pet it-self was split in half by Ki''el''s blade, far more than she could pos-si-bly have cut with the length of the sword be-fore her. It still hurt--bad-ly, and Ki''el stum-bled and fell, grasp-ing her mid-sec-tion, try-ing to force her-self to stand, un-sure what count-ed as a loss or a vic-to-ry in such a sit-u-a-tion.


    But the Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple was star-ing at her, baf-fled.


    Ki''el re-al-ized af-ter a mo-ment that her sword was re-vealed, and she shift-ed it back to its staff-like blunt form, but did her best not to show con-fu-sion or pan-ic. "I be-lieve that is three strikes," she said af-ter a mo-ment. "Or have I mis-count-ed?"


    The Out-er Dis-ci-ple glanced down at his hands, as though there was some an-swer to the ques-tion in the qi threads that still em-anat-ed from his fin-gers, but shook his hands and took a deep breath. "No," he said, sound-ing grudg-ing, and he straight-ened and bowed. "It seems... Ju-nior Sis-ter, that I had mis-tak-en you for a novice. You have giv-en me much to think about. Per-haps the val-ue of this in-sight is not quite as much as I lost, but..." he rose from his bow, show-ing a de-cid-ed-ly ir-ri-tat-ed face, as though he had bit-ten into some-thing very bit-ter. "...I will of course hon-or the terms of the duel. Per-haps when I re-fine my tech-nique we can spar again."


    "Per-haps," Ki''el said in re-turn, but the man was al-ready turn-ing and march-ing away.


    Ki''el almost jumped out of her skin when a hand gripped her arm, and Bai Be-nai''s face ap-peared next to hers. "I don''t know what the hell that was about," the woman hissed at her, "but do not chal-lenge Out-er Dis-ci-ples in the fu-ture. You have no idea what peo-ple like him are re-al-ly ca-pa-ble of." She start-ed to pull Ki''el away, and she no-ticed that the woman was also drag-ging Da Chi-an to her feet. "Come on. Let''s get out of here be-fore any-one else de-cides to get in-volved."


    Ki''el trad-ed glances with Da Chi-an, not-ing that their ears and tail were just bare-ly vis-i-ble, but she made no ef-fort to say any-thing or re-sist Bai Be-nai''s pull.

 [TAS] 16. Kiel - Raising, Part 3

    "You do not, un-der ANY cir-cum-stances, start or ac-cept a duel with an Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple," snarled Bai Be-nai, her face twist-ed with emo-tions that Ki''el couldn''t be-gin to un-der-stand. "I would think that you would have un-der-stood, since you were in-volved with Xan Bu. If you are found to have harmed an Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple, at best, you will lose far more in for-fei-ture than the stakes of the duel, and at worst, you will be killed for it."


    Ki''el swal-lowed. It''s not that she was com-plete-ly un-fa-mil-iar with the stakes; she had been told, and she un-der-stood them. Even so... "I do not be-lieve that I was like-ly to harm him on ac-ci-dent, and I had no in-ten-tion of do-ing so on pur-pose."


    "In-ten-tions," scoffed Bai Be-nai, round-ing on Da Chi-an. "You in-tend-ed to do ex-act-ly as you were in-struct-ed, did you not?"


    "I did ex-act-ly as I was in-struct-ed," Chi-an re-turned, fury in their voice.


    "If it came to an ex-am-i-na-tion, they would find you did not. Some-how." She turned back to Ki''el. "The Less-er House does not ex-ist to raise up peo-ple, child. Those who ar-rive here too young and un-de-vel-oped to raise out of it in a time-ly man-ner are all but cer-tain to re-main trapped here. Those fam-i-lies who un-der-stand this of-ten pun-ish their way-ward chil-dren by send-ing them ear-ly, doom-ing them to re-main in the Less-er House un-til their spir-it is bro-ken or they make a mis-take that costs them their life."


    Ki''el felt a sud-den kin-dling of anger in her at that pro-claima-tion. With-out ques-tion, Lai Shi Po did not see things that way, or she would nev-er have rec-om-mend-ed that Ki''el and Mian be sent here. And... from how she talked, she had also been trapped here for a time, had she not? But... the way this woman talked... Ki''el could not imag-ine that she was be-ing de-ceived.


    "You think that the sect will al-low my life to be de-stroyed for an ac-ci-dent?"


    "It has hap-pened be-fore. Will hap-pen again. To peo-ple more im-por-tant and less vul-ner-a-ble than you."


    Ki''el closed her eyes and con-sid-ered that. The cer-tain-ty of Bai Be-nai''s words... she was sure that was earned through hear-break. "I apol-o-gize," she said, fi-nal-ly. "I act-ed with-out think-ing. But." She re-opened her eyes to look at the old-er woman. "You also were will-ing to fight the Out-er Dis-ci-ple."


    "My life is lit-tle enough, child, and I keep no sect points to my own name. And even if I harmed or killed that dis-ic-ple, the worst they could do is throw me off of the is-land. I, un-like you, would sur-vive the fall."


    Ki''el felt shock at that pro-nounce-ment, but nar-rowed her eyes slight-ly. "You are...?"


    "I will not speak of that to you, even if Da Chi-an trusts you." The woman''s voice re-mained cool. "Even if you did en-dan-ger your-self for her sake. My se-crets are my own."


    Ki''el sim-ply nod-ded, hav-ing no rea-son to ar-gue that fur-ther. "But you do not con-sid-er be-ing thrown out to be an is-sue?"


    "I am placed here by... a pa-tron. If I was thrown off, I would re-turn, and they would al-low it, again, so long as I paid the fee. Again."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "That is why you are not lim-it-ed to Gold Qi."


    Bai Be-nai''s aura shift-ed, dan-ger-ous-ly. "Be care-ful what you speak, child," she said. "There is a great deal that you do not know."


    Ki''el frowned, un-sure why the woman re-spond-ed so poor-ly, but again, re-fused to chal-lenge her. "I do not," she said. "But I have seen, and fought, peo-ple above Gold Qi be-fore. You are more dan-ge-orus than any-one I have faced."


    "Ah," Da Chi-an said, their voice sur-prised, and their spir-it still at least part-ly con-fused. "Come to think of it, you did chal-lenge him af-ter he re-vealed his Bis-muth Qi. Have you fought a Bis-muth ex-pert be-fore?"


    "No," Ki''el said. "Only one at ti-ta-ni-um qi." Only. Ki''el un-der-stood, as she said it, the gap that must ex-ist be-tween who she was now, and who she would need to be in or-der to reach Ti-ta-ni-um Qi... and then, there must be an-oth-er gap from there to Bis-muth. And yet, she had been con-fi-dent. Why? Ki''el thought she sensed Kuli wish-ing to speak, but there was not time for that now.


    Bai Be-nai was look-ing at her strange-ly. "You sparred with some-one at Ti-ta-ni-um Qi?"


    "Not a spar." Ki''el was be-gin-ning to feel in-creas-ing-ly self-con-scious. "He was try-ing to kill me."


    The dan-ger-ous-ness in Bai Be-nai''s aura snuffed out, not in-stant-ly, but over the course of a small few sec-onds. As Ki''el watched her eyes, she thought the woman''s pos-ture went from fu-ri-ous to some-thing more sym-pa-thet-ic. "I see," she fi-nal-ly said. "You have... not had an easy life, then."


    Ki''el gave the woman the look that she felt that state-ment de-served. "No."


    "Have you fought many peo-ple like that?" Da Chi-an''s voice sound-ed pos-i-tive-ly ea-ger, and Ki''el looked to them, sur-prised.


    "Ah... no. I fought sev-er-al pi-rates at Iron and Sil-ver, when I was Sil-ver my-self. But my mas-ter was watch-ing me then." She hes-i-tat-ed. "Them, and the one fight against a Ti-ta-ni-um Qi ex-pert. Those are the only times I''ve had true bat-tle ex-pe-ri-ence."


    "It''s not a small thing, fight-ing to the death," Bai Be-nai said, her voice still se-ri-ous but with far less scorn. "Broth-er Mon-shu, though his soul is stained with evil, has prob-a-bly nev-er killed any-one with his own two hands." At Ki''el''s blank look, she added, "That is the man you fought. Otoma Mon-shu."


    "I see," Ki''el said. "I... per-haps killed one per-son di-rect-ly. But while I fought the man with Ti-ta-ni-um Qi fear-ing death, I did not kill him. My mas-ter told me to de-lay him, and there was an... op-por-tu-ni-ty to dis-arm him, and I cap-tured him. He still lives, when last I heard."


    Be-nai sim-ply looked at Ki''el for a while, and for one mo-ment, Ki''el thought that she sensed some-thing be-hind the woman--a spir-i-tu-al ar-ti-fact, like Chi-an''s tail and ears, but larg-er, and she was un-able to de-ter-mine the shape. Ki''el con-sid-ered the im-age, but had dis-missed it long be-fore Be-nai spoke again, to let the woman keep her se-crets.


    "I see," she said af-ter a time. "It is... more dif-fi-cult to cap-ture peo-ple, but the pres-ence of your mas-ter may have made it eas-i-er. In any case..." Be-nai shook her head. "You are still too weak and too naive to en-ter into du-els, child." There was a brief pause. "With re-gret, I have for-got-ten your name, Sect Sis-ter."


    Ki''el might have been of-fend-ed, if the woman hadn''t been avoid-ing her and the rest of the group re-cent-ly. "Xoi Doua Ki''el."


    "Sis-ter Ki''el." The woman bowed, and Ki''el matched it po-lite-ly. "I can-not and will not pro-tect you like I must and will pro-tect Da Chi-an. But you seem to have a straight soul." She rose from the bow, and her voice and face were stern. "But that sword, and any oth-er ar-ti-facts you may have... keep them se-cret. A spir-it sword that can match a blow from a man with Bis-muth Qi is no small feat, and every-one watch-ing could tell that the ar-ti-fact it-self was not even strained. Many, if they found out such a weapon ex-ists, would wish to claim it by for-fei-ture, and you do not know the rules well enough to pre-vent such an oc-cur-rence."


    Ki''el found her hand drift-ing to her space ring un-con-scious-ly, but ac-cept-ed that ad-vice grudg-ing-ly. "I would not want to lose it," she con-firmed. "It is... left to me by my mas-ter."


    "It is clear-ly spe-cial," Be-nai said. "But peo-ple lose trea-sures all the time here. Es-pe-cial-ly when they are in the Low-er House and do not re-spect the rules."


    Ki''el want-ed to snap at Bai Be-nai that she un-der-stood, but did not. She had al-ready got-ten in two fights, de-spite be-ing warned not to. In-stead, she took sev-er-al deep breaths, re-sist-ing the urge to flood her spir-it once again with right-eous aether, and sim-ply nod-ded.


    "Good." Be-nai stepped back from Ki''el, and the three of them--who had sim-ply gone aside into a stand of trees, in a seem-ing-ly ran-dom spot in the Out-er sect is-lands--re-laxed by at least a touch. Ki''el looked around, tak-ing stock of their lo-ca-tion, but the rest of the Sect seemed com-plete-ly ig-no-rant and in-dif-fer-ent to their hushed con-ver-sa-tion. "Chi-an. Sis-ter Ki''el. Both of you should ap-proach Sis-ter Futi about this mat-ter im-me-di-ate-ly. It is not un-heard of for an Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple to not ac-knowl-edge that a duel oc-curred or that it sat-is-fies a debt. Do not men-tion me im-me-di-ate-ly, but do so should the claim be chal-lenged. Do you un-der-stand?"


    They did, and they set off to-geth-er, with Be-nai tak-ing an-oth-er way. Ki''el glanced at Chi-an, but while they were calmer, there was still an ag-i-ta-tion to their spir-it. "You seem un-well, Sis-ter Chi-an."


    "I am fu-ri-ous," they re-spond-ed, their voice cold. "And how could I not be? It was a trap. By some-one who knows what I am, and knows that I can be ma-nip-u-lat-ed when I am up-set. Au--Sis-ter Be-nai is kind, and I ap-pre-ci-ate her swift as-sis-tance, but with-out that, at worst I could have been killed. All be-cause that some en-ti-tled brats want my blood to play with."


    Ki''el winced at the tone, and es-pe-cial-ly at the last part, but did her best to breathe eas-i-ly. "I wish that I could help you more," she said af-ter a mo-ment.


    Chi-an con-tin-ued for an-oth-er mo-ment be-fore paus-ing. "The tech-nique that you have," she said. "Not the one you are de-vel-op-ing, but the one your mas-ter taught you, which cre-ates calm and clear en-er-gy. Can you teach that to me?"


    Ki''el paused with her, turn-ing back to look, and af-ter a mo-men-tary men-tal glance at Kuli, who did not ob-ject, Ki''el sim-ply said, "Yes, if you think it would help."


    "Tonight, then. If it can re-duce my fu-ri-ous emo-tions by even a frac-tion, it will help a great deal." Chi-an con-tin-ued on at a some-what faster pace, and Ki''el re-sumed the walk, match-ing them. Or... her, again? Ki''el was un-cer-tain.


    Sis-ter Futi, when she had a mo-ment to spare for the two of them, took in the news of the ar-gu-ment and the duel with cold ac-cep-tance, though she re-in-forced Sis-ter Be-nai''s warn-ing to Ki''el not to do any-thing of the sort again. Af-ter that, the two split again, Ki''el find-ing work gath-er-ing cook-ing herbs from a sec-tion of for-est that had been set up to farm them. They were a strange leafy herb, that grew as a vine up and down trees, and must be picked care-ful-ly so as not to kill the plant; by the end of the task, Ki''el was sweaty and ir-ri-ta-ble, as she had sev-er-al times been yelled at for near-ly dam-ag-ing the plant, when the al-ter-na-tive would have been a nasty fall.


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    But the task fin-ished, and even-tu-al-ly, evening came, and with it came Da Chi-an.


    The red-haired Fox Spir-it led Ki''el well away from the Less-er House and into an area sealed by script-ed tal-is-mans, an area which Ki''el felt some in-stinct to avoid. But once they passed the tal-is-mans, and en-tered a small clear-ing, Ki''el found that the re-sult was a com-fort-able space whose qi felt well away from the rest of the sect, and she nod-ded as she looked around and tast-ed the aether here. It was... healthy.


    "You had said be-fore, that you want-ed to speak to me," Chi-an said, and Ki''el re-al-ized even be-fore they ful-ly re-vealed their ears and spir-it tail, that part of the rea-son for the bar-ri-er was so that they could be them-selves. "What did you wish to say?"


    "I was prac-tic-ing speak-ing with in-tent," Ki''el said. "I... do not have it per-fect-ly yet, but I want-ed to try again."


    "Hum," Chi-an sat on a stone near the cen-ter of the clear-ing. "Well, let''s hear it."


    Ki''el nod-ded, set-tled down, and tried to steady her breath-ing. Al-though it took some work to get back into the head-space she need-ed, and al-though she had to con-cen-trate very hard on per-form-ing the in-tent-speech, with Kuli''s help she was able to ful-ly con-dense the in-tent into words. "[Nor-mal fire] is the [re-ac-tion] of [fuel] and [oxy-gen] with [heat]."


    Ki''el found, strange-ly enough, that she was out of breath af-ter sim-ply speak-ing the sen-tence. That... didn''t usu-al-ly hap-pen when she prac-ticed. { It is be-cause you had to match the lis-ten-ers, } Kuli said, qui-et-ly. { That is more work than you may think. }


    "That..." Chi-an''s voice sound-ed strange, and Ki''el looked at them, sur-prised to see a strange look on the fox-be-ing''s face. "Say that again."


    "A mo-ment," Ki''el said. "It is dif-fi-cult." She took a deep breath again, press-ing right-eous aether into her-self to take the edge off, and spoke again. "[Nor-mal fire] is the [re-ac-tion] of [fuel] and [oxy-gen] with [heat]." She felt less strained the sec-ond time, but it was still an ef-fort.


    Chi-an stared off into the dis-tance for a few mo-ment, then closed their eyes. "Again."


    Ki''el, though she felt bet-ter, took an-oth-er mo-ment to steady her-self be-fore she spoke a third time. As she spoke, Chi-an formed an-oth-er qi orb, an orb that shift-ed as Chi-an con-sid-ered the words be-ing spo-ken.


    Once Ki''el had spo-ken the full phrase a third time, Chi-an flicked the orb at a near-by tree--and a sec-tion of wood sev-er-al inch-es across to burst into a blaz-ing fire all at once.


    "Gah!" Chi-an''s tail twitched, and al-most all at once, the blaz-ing fire went out, leav-ing a ter-ri-ble burn scar on the tree that still steamed and glowed. "That is--that..." Chi-an moved for-ward to the tree, lean-ing in and study-ing it, but sat back, clear-ly un-be-liev-ing. "Is it... re-al-ly so much eas-i-er sim-ply be-cause...?"


    { You did not un-der-stand fire, } Kuli pro-ject-ed, though Ki''el felt that the aug-ment was only us-ing a touch of en-er-gy. { Your at-tempts to cre-ate some-thing like fire were of-fen-sive to me. I am pleased to see you do bet-ter. }


    Chi-an round-ed on Ki''el, as though Kuli''s ex-is-tence were a sur-prise, but they seemed to calm af-ter a mo-ment. "Right. You." They looked back at the tree. "I... spir-its, but I don''t un-der-stand. When I use my blood-line pow-er to con-trol wind and storms, I am not asked to un-der-stand, only to com-mand. I... sup-pose it must be true that for every-one else, un-der-stand-ing of the na-ture of things is key, but..."


    { My un-der-stand-ing of fire is above what you would nor-mal-ly be told. Ki''el''s spo-ken in-tent is... close. }


    Chi-an reached their hand to-wards the scar on the tree, close enough that Ki''el was sure they were feel-ing the left-over warmth, but af-ter a mo-ment, they with-drew their hand and turned away, mov-ing di-rect-ly up to Ki''el. "Can you do the same thing with your tech-nique?"


    "Ah..." Ki''el felt em-bar-rassed, not least be-cause Chi-an got clos-er than she was used to. "I have been prac-tic-ing speak-ing the in-tent for the qi turn-ing cir-cle, not for that tech-nique, but they share parts. But also... you have per-formed the qi turn-ing cir-cle, to some ex-tent. Most-ly, what you need to un-der-stand comes down to one con-cept."


    Chi-an re-turned to their rock and sat, ges-tur-ing for Ki''el to con-tin-ue.


    So Ki''el, with some help from Kuli, did her best to gath-er her un-der-stand of aether, be-fore speak-ing. "The Pow-er Cy-cle is a tech-nique to cre-ate pu-ri-fied [Aether] by form-ing a [thread] of aether into a cir-cle, and turn-ing it, grind-ing against the [aether] of the uni-verse, and the gath-er-ing the re-sult-ing clean aether to cre-ate a thorn at its cen-ter."


    From the frown on Chi-an''s face, not all of that was un-der-stood, and Ki''el no-ticed im-me-di-ate-ly how many con-cepts she had failed to con-vey. But hav-ing said the key word, the cen-tral con-cept, Ki''el tried to ex-plain aether in more words, ex-plain-ing how it was so much lighter and less-er than qi--that it was a fun-da-men-tal piece of the uni-verse, and not a com-plex thing cre-at-ed for this world.


    Chi-an clear-ly wasn''t sure how much of those things to be-lieve, but when Ki''el in-sist-ed that cer-tain things were true, they at least were will-ing to at-tempt it. Un-like Ki''el, they had far more trou-ble ma-nip-u-lat-ing aether in-stead of qi, but... but once they were able to cre-ate a thread of aether it-self, every-thing else fell into place.


    Chi-an looked down at their first aether cy-cle, which spun lazi-ly in a right-hand-ed di-rec-tion, as though un-be-liev-ing. "This... is it? A pro-found tech-nique?"


    Ki''el pro-duced her own. "It is a tech-nique to cre-ate aether with-out in-tent. Be-cause any in-tent that is used to cre-ate the ring will be copied in the re-sult. But if you feed it, with-out adding in-tent..." Ki''el fo-cused, spin-ning up the... the ''dy-namo'', as Sobon had called it first, feel-ing her aether ring grind-ing against the uni-verse, and the small pieces of aether gath-er-ing in the thorn.


    "With-out in-tent..." Chi-an''s tail flicked. "My tail adds in-tent lat-er, but... it still feels dif-fer-ent. Hm." Chi-an fo-cused, and her ring also be-gan to grind, but slow-ly. "And the piece in the cen-ter--"


    "Thorn," Ki''el said. "Cy-cle and thorn. Mas-ter called it an aether (dyan-mo), though I do not know the word."


    "I see." Chi-an let the cy-cle turn, star-ing at it, and Ki''el watched for a long time, be-fore speak-ing again.


    "The ring, when you cre-ate it, can be turned the oth-er way," she said, in-ter-rupt-ing some thought in Chi-an. "But the right and left spins are not like one an-oth-er. The right-spin aether is... healthy. It en-cour-ages strength in sev-er-al ways. But the left hand aether holds things back, and is meant to at-tack oth-ers."


    "I thought you said they were with-out in-tent?" Chi-an reached down and plucked the small right-eous aether thorn, study-ing it, and then seemed to ab-sorb it, clos-ing their eyes and feel-ing the changes.


    "That is my un-der-stand-ing. I... only un-der-stand a lit-tle bit." Ki''el was un-com-fort-able ad-mit-ting how lit-tle she tru-ly did know, but it didn''t seem wise to pre-tend she knew more than she did.


    "I wouldn''t ex-pect you to have a mas-ter''s un-der-stand-ing," Chi-an chuck-led, open-ing their eyes to study the cy-cle once more. "But... it''s odd, isn''t it? No in-tent, but two dif-fer-ent forms?"


    { All life is born of aether, } Kuli an-swered. { And all life as we know it is born from right-spin aether. The same spin added to it-self is a stronger spin, while two op-pos-ing spins can-cel. }


    "Is that so?" Chi-an didn''t take their at-ten-tion away from the right-eous cy-cle. "So aether re-al-ly is clos-er to spir-it en-er-gy than any-thing else. But... it also isn''t at all like my blood-line spir-it en-er-gy."


    { That is [an-ces-tral] spir-it en-er-gy, } Kuli said. Ki''el tried to grasp the term, but had not been ex-pect-ing Kuli to speak with such in-tent. An-ces-tral... well, as the word sug-gest-ed, it was born from an an-ces-tor. Be-fore she could try to ask or think hard-er, Kuli con-tin-ued. { Spir-it beasts, and those who in-her-it par-tial spir-it-beast abil-i-ties, are tap-ping into some-thing be-yond them-selves, an an-ces-tor or com-mu-ni-ty spir-it. It is re-lat-ed to qi, but it is sealed. Un-like qi, the user can-not change its na-ture. }


    "An-ces-tral..." Chi-an mused. "What if I want to change its na-ture?"


    { You would need to be-come an an-ces-tral spir-it your-self, and form a branch. }


    Ki''el felt, again, like she was a stranger sim-ply stand-ing by and ob-serv-ing some-one else speak such pro-found things about spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy. Just be-come an an-ces-tral spir-it? What does that even mean?


    "How can I be-come an an-ces-tral spir-it when I can-not have chil-dren?" Chi-an''s voice had a strong sharpess to it, though Ki''el wasn''t sure ex-act-ly what emo-tion to read into it.


    { There are paths to re-pair that dam-age. But... be-ing an an-ces-tral spir-it does not mean re-quire bear-ing chil-dren. The spir-it beast blood-lines are not lit-er-al chil-dren in that sense. The... essence of bi-ol-o-gy does not per-mit that. }


    "I do not know what that means, but if you say it is so, I''ll be-lieve you." Chi-an, dur-ing the con-ver-sa-tion, had found a way to vast-ly speed up their right-eous cy-cle, and now seemed able to take the en-er-gy from the thorn with-out ma-nip-u-lat-ing the thorn it-self. Ki''el felt pleased, al-though... it had tak-en her much longer to get that used to her cy-cles. "Then, what is an an-ces-tral spir-it?"


    { It is a spir-it con-struct of im-mense pow-er, which pro-vides a bless-ing of wis-dom to those of cer-tain blood-lines or those who are oth-er-wise wor-thy. The Di-a-mond Lord is one such be-ing. The Bless-ing he pro-vides is grant-ed to all of hu-mankind. }


    Ki''el was quite sur-prised, not hav-ing ex-pect-ed Kuli to speak of such things. "Isn''t the Di-a-mond Lord a liv-ing be-ing?"


    { Some an-ces-tral spir-its are, } Kuli an-swered. { There are few an-ces-tral spir-its, and there should not be too many more. To be born con-nect-ed to an an-ces-tral spir-it guides your des-tiny--some would say con-trols. It is not a dis-tinc-tion one may re-move once giv-en. It pro-vides great pow-er, but can cost a great deal. }


    "Why do you know so much about an-ces-tral spir-its?" Chi-an''s voice didn''t car-ry an edge, not that Ki''el could hear, but it did sound like an ac-cu-sa-tion even so. "I thought your mas-ter wasn''t in-ter-est-ed in such things."


    { Sobon comes from a cul-ture that uses aether, and they have large-ly spurned the use of an-ces-tral spir-it en-er-gy, deities, and forces like qi. But, they have also learned from and stud-ied oth-er cul-tures. An-ces-tral spir-it en-er-gy is... a com-mon oc-cur-rence among the many worlds that ex-ist be-yond. }


    Chi-an was qui-et. "Spurned them? So they killed the an-ces-tral spir-its of their world?"


    { The his-to-ry of Sobon''s world is long, and I do not have it all with-in me. But I know that there were ter-ri-ble wars. If an-ces-tral spir-its were wiped out in one or more of those wars, it would not sur-prise me. There also may be some that re-main. I am un-aware ei-ther way. }


    "I see." Chi-an reached out to-wards their aether ring, and with some ef-fort, pulled it into their spir-it. "You said that these rings can turn the oth-er way?"


    With Ki''el guid-ing her, Chi-an soon formed an-oth-er, left-spin pow-er cy-cle, and then an-oth-er of each. With all four cy-cles con-cealed with-in her spir-it, Chi-an sat in med-i-ta-tion for a while, and Ki''el joined them, tak-ing some time to clear her thoughts and or-ga-nize them. Al-though she in-tend-ed at the start to con-tin-ue find-ing the right words and in-tent to con-vey the pow-er cy-cles, or the qi turn-ing cy-cle, in-stead she found her-self re-play-ing the con-ver-sa-tion in her mind.


    They killed the an-ces-tral spir-its of their world? Chi-an''s voice was odd, Ki''el thought. Not... or per-haps not judge-men-tal. Afraid, cer-tain-ly. But there was some-thing else, and what there was, Ki''el was not sure.


    Ki''el al-most jumped when Chi-an''s voice woke her from her med-i-ta-tion. "I think that this tech-nique will help me, Sis-ter Ki''el." Ki''el blinked, look-ing up at the per-son... no, the girl that was now stand-ing be-fore her. "I would like to talk again some time. But not now, and maybe not to-mor-row. I... I have been try-ing to un-der-stand some-thing pri-vate. I hope you do not take of-fense when I iso-late my-self in the evenings."


    Ki''el just shook her head. "I have no right to judge you," she said, stand-ing up. "I just hope you will con-sid-er me a friend, when we do have chances to get to-geth-er."


    Chi-an stud-ied her for a long mo-ment, but nod-ded. "A friend... yes, I sup-pose. But you should be cau-tious, Ki''el."


    "Cau-tious?" Ki''el looked at Chi-an, who looked back for sev-er-al mo-ments, be-fore turn-ing and leav-ing the ward-ed clear-ing. Ki''el fol-lowed, be-com-ing con-scious as she did that it was late, and very dark.


    "Yes," Chi-an''s voice in the dark-ness said, and some-thing about her tone made Ki''el feel a sense of dan-ger. "Cau-tious, be-cause spir-it beast in-stincts are sharp. You may end up get-ting hurt."


    "I un-der-stand," Ki''el said, "but I trust you."


    "I don''t think you do un-der-stand," Chi-an said, from ahead of her in the dark-ness, "but you will, some-day."


    Ki''el nod-ded, feel-ing un-cer-tain, but she kept walk-ing, do-ing her best to keep an eye on her foot-ing as she trav-elled through the for-est in the dark.

 [TAS] 17. Kiel - Raising, Part 4

    Ki''el, in the days that fol-lowed, prac-ticed speak-ing with in-tent to try to con-vey sub-tleties to Mian and Xam about her cul-ti-va-tion method, and theirs. Al-though she felt it was a use-ful skill... nei-ther of them seemed par-tic-u-lar-ly keen to try to learn the method them-selves. It was, she sup-posed, a method nei-ther tru-ly need-ed right now, and it would only be a dis-trac-tion for ei-ther of them--and yet, Ki''el did not feel it was a dis-trac-tion for her.


    Part of that was that she could do it when she was do-ing oth-er things, even at times when she didn''t feel com-fort-able speak-ing aloud. When she had time to her-self, she most-ly spent it on her qi turn-ing cy-cle, and she was be-gin-ning to tru-ly re-fine the method--and im-prov-ing her yield in the process. By the end of the third day, af-ter she had last met Chi-an, Ki''el ac-tu-al-ly felt com-fort-able start-ing a large qi turn-ing cir-cle, then con-ceal-ing the ring with-in her spir-it, as she did the aether rings. This might--no, def-i-nite-ly would--have be-trayed the point of the pu-rifi-caiton ring, but Kuli promised that she could iso-late the im-pu-ri-ties and con-tain them for her, al-low-ing her to dump them all out lat-er.


    Ki''el wasn''t ex-act-ly sure why Kuli drew the line there, when it came to help-ing, but ap-pre-ci-at-ed it. She did tru-ly feel a sense of em-pow-er-ment and ac-com-plish-ment to be cul-ti-vat-ing pow-er even as she worked at oth-er things, al-though un-like the aether rings, her qi turn-ing ring did take some of her con-cen-tra-tion. She was pleased when all three of her re-questers for the day seemed en-tire-ly un-con-cerned when she found a need to stop and ad-just some-thing in her spir-it, and one even en-cour-aged her when she ex-plained it briefly as work-ing on ''a tech-nique''.


    "Good for you," he said, sound-ing like he meant it, as Ki''el worked at re-pair-ing a weath-er-dam-aged seal around a win-dow. The con-cen-tra-tion she had need-ed in mak-ing sure every small crack and crevice was filled with seal-ing com-pound had mo-men-tar-i-ly desta-bi-lized the ring, but it was not dif-fi-cult to re-store. "Few of my peers, even my ''bet-ters'' at the time, re-al-ly found the mo-ti-va-tion to con-tin-ue im-prov-ing them-selves as they worked. I sup-pose it''s a mat-ter of sta-mi-na--be-fore they got into the Sect prop-er, and had to go through the ex-er-cis-es, many of them seemed to think they al-ready had all the dis-ci-pline and sta-mi-na they need-ed." He snort-ed. "Watch-ing them suf-fer through ex-er-cis-es for years af-ter-wards might have been more amus-ing, if I had been much bet-ter. I still felt a warm glow from see-ing them sweat, though."


    Ki''el, wise-ly, didn''t com-ment any more on that.


    Once Ki''el was con-fi-dent she was able to keep the qi turn-ing cy-cle turn-ing all through-out the day, she be-gan to feed it with-out claim-ing her boun-ty of pu-ri-fied qi. It was not re-aly nec-es-sary, but it did feel much bet-ter to not wor-ry about re-veal-ing her tech-nique in pub-lic or leav-ing it idle when it could be work-ing. Her ben-e-fits, of course, were sub-stan-tial--in only a few days time, she found her-self at six Gold Stars, up from three, and her core felt sub-stan-tial-ly dif-fer-ent.


    Mian, in the same time, was also ad-vanc-ing, and Ki''el found him to be at Sil-ver 8 when she re-turned. The man, though, seemed strange-ly dis-con-tent.


    Al-though the look he gave her when she asked struck Ki''el as though he want-ed to avoid the top-ic, he re-lent-ed quick-ly. "It''s the qi turn-ing cy-cle," he said. "It''s not that it''s not work-ing. It is. But I feel like it''s spend-ing more en-er-gy and time try-ing to pull bad qi out of me, rather than gath-er-ing qi from the en-vi-ron-ment."


    "Isn''t that good?" Ki''el itched at the very con-cept of hav-ing bad qi with-in her-self, though in truth, she hadn''t tried to turn her own in-ter-nal qi. She only hoped it would be pure.


    "If it were a tech-nique Sobon gave you di-rect-ly, I would be cer-tain of it," Mian ad-mit-ted, his voice sound-ing a bit stressed. "And... I can rec-og-nize that Kuli con-tains some of his wis-dom. I just... have doubts. And I''m not sure that I see, or feel, a dif-fer-ence. I''m sure that what-ev-er ''bad'' qi means, it''s bet-ter that I don''t have it. But... what if it''s sim-ply wrong? What if I''m sim-ply grind-ing away at some part of my own spir-it that re-al-ly should be there?"


    { From my un-der-stand-ing of his his-to-ry, } Kuli whis-pered into Ki''el''s mind, { that is un-like-ly. He has spent many years with lit-tle ad-vance-ment and much men-tal and spir-i-tu-al con-flict. The qi that he gath-ered in those years would be far too im-pure for the tran-si-tion to Sil-ver Qi to ful-ly purge. }


    Ki''el would not have made any such judge-ment, but it did match her un-der-stand-ing of Mian, Lui, and Alas-si''s his-to-ry to-geth-er. Mian, chas-ing a younger Alas-si--the woman whose body Sobon had tak-en--had fall-en into de-spair when he found her be-trayed, bro-ken, and de-spair-ing. Al-though his spir-its picked up again when Sobon took over... the fact that Alas-si was tru-ly gone, and Sobon was not her, was cer-tain-ly also a shock.


    What could all of that do to a man''s qi? Was a sim-ple pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique re-al-ly enough to shake it off?


    "I think you should con-tin-ue," was all Ki''el could say. "What-ev-er was in your qi be-fore, you did not have any tech-niques or way to use it. You were not taught in-tent or qi na-tures, so what would you be los-ing?"


    Mian stopped in his gath-er-ing of wood for their camp-fire and stood there, think-ing to him-self, or per-haps just feel-ing. "I don''t know," he said af-ter a mo-ment, con-tin-u-ing. "But I do feel like I''m los-ing some-thing."


    Ki''el gave him a look, but the more she saw and sensed of him, the more she was con-vinced that the man had some-thing buried with-in him, per-haps some-thing ugly. "Some-thing?"


    "I don''t know," he said. "But I also don''t dis-agree, Ki''el. Don''t get me wrong." He picked up one more chunk of wood and turned back to-wards the fire pit. "What''s in my past isn''t wis-dom or qi tech-niques, hero-ism or grand ad-ven-tures. In some ways, I could wish it would all dis-ap-pear. But it also scares me to think that some-thing is chang-ing, es-pe-cial-ly be-cause of a tech-nique I don''t even un-der-stand."


    That, Ki''el could ac-cept, though when she met him by the fire, the man proved un-will-ing to speak more on the top-ic. So Ki''el un-veiled her qi cy-cle, which only had a thin line of qi still turn-ing, and a rather large thorn. She sum-moned the thorn it-self to her hand, feel-ing the con-tained qi, and con-sid-ered it for a long time, silent-ly. She... un-der-stood that the qi thorn it-self was near-ly a tech-nique, though what she could do with it was a mys-tery. Or rather, she knew that she had to take qi from the thorn and ap-ply in-tent. But what?


    Or rather... it couldn''t be that sim-ple, could it?


    Ki''el looked at the fire that Xam had be-gun, and pulled light-ly from the qi thorn, fo-cus-ing on one par-tic-u-lar stick in the fire, and fo-cus-ing on the in-tent of [nat-ur-al fire]. Al-though it was a dif-fer-ent process to "speak" her in-tent to the qi, she could feel some-thing shift in the qi in her hand. As long as she held it there... noth-ing seemed to change. So she pro-ject-ed the qi at the stick.


    Again, noth-ing changed.


    Ki''el frowned, but not be-cause she was sur-prised. She had only in-tend-ed for the qi to car-ry an un-der-stand-ing of fire; she had not giv-en it any in-tent to ac-cel-er-ate or cause fire. If any-thing, her qi seemed to dis-si-pate harm-less-ly, which... is what she would ex-pect, if her qi re-al-ly had no stray in-tent to it. She pulled an-oth-er mote of qi, charg-ing it with the in-tent-speech of nat-ur-al fire.


    "Be care-ful," she heard Xam say, and glanced at the woman. Xam was not a talk-a-tive woman, and Ki''el trust-ed her, but...


    No, no buts. Ki''el took a deep breath, and stood up, back-ing away from the fire. In-stead of se-lect-ing a larg-er stick, she picked out a sin-gle coal with-in the fire, and chose that with her in-tent. That, that will burn. She flicked the qi to-wards the fire--


    The tiny ex-plo-sion caught her off-guard, de-spite the warn-ing, and she jerked back re-flex-ive-ly. It wasn''t enough to scat-ter the whole camp-fire, but small bits of flam-ing twig and char-coal danced away, and it had seemed to blow straight in her face, de-spite her stand-ing sev-er-al feet away. But when she blinked away the spots, there was a clear spot where the coal had been, and... not a lot else.


    "That was too much qi," groused Xam, lean-ing over to put out a bit of flam-ing twig that had es-caped the fire pit. "If you''re go-ing to ex-per-i-ment, you should use a lot less."


    "Sor-ry," Ki''el said, glanc-ing around for oth-er burn-ing bits. "I... have nev-er used a qi tech-nique be-fore."


    Xam paused and looked at her. "Did Kuli teach you that?"


    "No," Ki''el said, then thought bet-ter of it. "Not ex-act-ly. I used the un-der-stand-ing of nat-ur-al fire she gave me. But all I did--"


    "All you did was ap-ply in-sight, in-tent, and qi, and cre-ate a tech-nique." Xam''s tone was... dif-fi-cult to un-der-stand, or per-haps Ki''el was sim-ply still wired from the flash. "That is how tech-niques work, Ki''el."


    "But it''s not na-tured qi," she protest-ed, un-sure of ex-act-ly why she felt the need to ar-gue any point here. "It''s sim-ply--"


    "It''s sim-ply a tech-nique," Xam re-peat-ed. "Ki''el--peo-ple de-vel-op na-tured qi in or-der to spe-cial-ize. But tech-niques don''t re-quire na-tured qi. They re-quire what the qi con-tains. Na-tured qi is qi that stores in-sight into an el-e-ment, a phe-nom-e-non, a type, a crea-ture, a thing. It ex-ists so that we do not need to mem-o-rize the na-ture of things, in in-tent form, in or-der to per-form tech-niques."


    Ki''el looked over at Mian, but he wasn''t pay-ing at-ten-tion to her or to Xam, in-stead star-ing into the fire, seem-ing-ly a world away.


    I didn''t mem-o-rize it, Ki''el want-ed to protest, but she sat down in-stead. It felt... wrong, to ad-mit that she was us-ing Kuli, and the space with-in Sobon''s gift, to per-form such a tech-nique. It felt more wrong to ad-mit it than it felt to con-ceal it, and she wasn''t sure why. Was she scared that some-one might over-hear? That they would look at her dif-fer-ent-ly?


    "If you want to spend your time learn-ing about fire, that is up to you," Xam con-tin-ued af-ter a few mo-ments of si-lence, "but I don''t think it fits you, Ki''el. You have al-ways been straight, like a sword. Per-haps some form of Sword Qi would be bet-ter for you."


    "Why would qi--" Ki''el stopped, and shook her head. "As long as I have my sword, I don''t need to use qi to do the same thing."


    "Are you re-al-ly sure you want to bring out your sword when-ev-er there is dan-ger?" Xam''s voice sound-ed a lit-tle sharp, and Ki''el looked at her, sur-prised that the woman was mak-ing such an ar-gu-ment right now. Shouldn''t you be telling me to fo-cus on my cul-ti-va-tion first? Or are you that con-fi-dent-- Well, re-al-ly, Ki''el was also con-fi-dent that she could pass the Gold-en Wall, and prob-a-bly well be-fore the month was fin-ished. "Your bar-ri-er stones are a dif-fer-ent ver-sion of the same tech-nique, are they not?" she con-tin-ued. "You should more ful-ly learn the tech-nique. And..." her voice dropped. "We... re-al-ly need to take the time to re-place that floor."


    This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.


    Ki''el, in truth, had grown used to sleep-ing on her aether bar-ri-er, while Xam and Mian slept to-geth-er on the wood of their room. It was... it had long since stopped feel-ing like a room, that space that they were oc-cu-py-ing. It was a place they were forced to sleep, a camp-site. She did her best not to think about it, and since none of them were in-ter-est-ed in stay-ing there ex-cept to sleep...


    Is it pos-si-ble to sim-ply cre-ate bar-ri-ers like that with qi? She di-rect-ed the thought to Kuli.


    { Of course, } her aug-ment replied. { You could per-form a crude ver-sion right now, with the un-der-stand-ing you have. But the floor and sword are built from pure con-cepts, raw geom-e-try. If you wish to spec-i-fy the bar-ri-er''s lo-ca-tion with in-tent, it needs to ei-ther be very spe-cif-ic--or the re-sult will be very crude. }


    Ki''el un-der-stood that, and con-sid-ered, hold-ing out her hand be-fore her. She... no, she re-fused to ex-per-i-ment so crude-ly, not with the same tech-nique that could cre-ate her sword. In-stead, she closed her eyes and tried to sum-mon up the in-tent of the bar-ri-er. She... didn''t have it all in mind, but she didn''t ask Kuli to help. She sim-ply thought about what she knew, and about the sym-bol and its in-tent, the one that even Lai Shi Po had ac-knowl-edged. She tried to gath-er and arrange her thoughts, but she end-ed the night un-sat-is-fied.


    The next day might eas-i-ly have been more of the same, but Ki''el was sur-prised to re-ceive a late-morn-ing job from the In-ner Sect. Per-haps she should not have been quite so sur-prised--al-though Sis-ter Futi gave her no de-tails at all, Ki''el, as she walked her way up the is-lands of the Moon-stone Is-land Sect, very quick-ly was able to pin the blame for the as-sign-ment on Broth-er Du, and when she ar-rived, she was not dis-ap-point-ed. He, and three oth-er In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples, were all sit-ting on a set of stone bench-es be-neath a very beau-ti-ful tree, speak-ing in a tongue that Ki''el did not know or could not un-der-stand at all.


    When she came close, though, a bub-ble seemed to burst, and Broth-er Du waved her over. "Broth-ers and sis-ter, this is Ju-nior Sis-ter Ki''el." Du nod-ded to her, then waved around the cir-cle. "This is Broth-er Kam, Broth-er Bon, Broth-er Juno, and Sis-ter Xari."


    Ki''el bowed to them all po-lite-ly. "Good morn-ing, Sect Broth-ers and Sect Sis-ter."


    "I heard from Sis-ter Futi that you seem to have sta-bi-lized your qi tech-nique some," Broth-er Du said, and Ki''el thought that ad-mis-sion was quite shame-less, since Sis-ter Futi had nev-er born wit-ness to the tech-nique her-self. Al-though Ki''el had known that Sis-ter Futi ob-served much, and had im-plied she knew that... she wasn''t sure it was some-thing that even Broth-er Du should be speak-ing of so flip-pant-ly. But then, per-haps every-one here had al-ready known?


    "I have been work-ing on it," Ki''el agreed, draw-ing her qi ring from with-in her spir-it. "It is... still in-com-plete, and will be for a long time. But I be-lieve it is sta-ble enough, un-til I can achieve the..." she paused, un-sure how to com-plete the sen-tence. "...the next lev-el of pu-rifi-ca-tion that is re-quired."


    All four of the oth-ers leaned in to look at her qi ring, with Broth-er Du sat-is-fied to look smug and proud of his ju-nior sis-ter. "Next lev-el of pu-rifi-caiton?" The one Du had in-tro-duced as Broth-er Juno was the one that asked the ques-tion, though she was sure they were all cu-ri-ous. Juno was the most re-laxed-look-ing of all of them, even giv-en that they were all re-lax-ing un-der a tree, and his face had a soft-ness to it that was dif-fi-cult to put words to.


    "I am un-sure just how much I should re-veal about what my mas-ter taught me," Ki''el ad-mit-ted, "but there are forces more fun-da-men-tal than qi, and they are lay-ered. This... can only ac-count for the low-est two lay-ers, at most, and I''m not very good at the sec-ond."


    "Yes, there are def-i-nite-ly lay-ers of in-tent that you don''t seem to in-ter-act with at all," said Broth-er Bon. Al-though he sound-ed quite good-na-tured, his high fore-head and an-gled eye-brows gave him a strange look, one that made Ki''el a bit anx-ious. "Still--for a young girl at Gold Qi, it is tru-ly re-mark-able. Can you de-scribe the first lay-er? Would that be too much?"


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed. She looked at Broth-er Du, but the man didn''t seem to be judg-ing her, just watch-ing. Was he giv-ing her an op-por-tu-ni-ty to show off? Or hop-ing that she would re-veal more? She fo-cused her mind on Kuli, but the aug-ment gave her no feed-back, no con-dem-na-tion of the idea of say-ing more. Ki''el swal-lowed, and tried to or-ga-nize her thoughts.


    "I don''t un-der-stand what it is, or where it comes from," Ki''el said. "I only know that each lay-er has two op-pos-ing na-tures, and the first lay-er--it sim-ply seems to ei-ther work with oth-er sources of en-er-gy--of aether, or against them. If they are of the same na-ture, they build on one an-oth-er, and if they are of op-posed na-tures, they con-flict. My mas-ter called them Right-eous Aether and Sin-is-ter Aether."


    "Right-eous? That''s quite a word for such a sim-ple force," Juno, still sound-ing quite re-laxed, sud-den-ly leaned back, away from her qi cy-cle. "But I sup-pose it''s right-eous be-cause it sup-ports, right? And sin-is-ter is sin-is-ter be-cause it hin-ders. Sim-ple words to con-vey the ob-vi-ous are of-ten best, even if it does end up sound-ing just as sil-ly as Sev-en-col-ored rain-bow sword and the like."


    Broth-er Kam, whose face was just a lit-tle plump, gave a sharp laugh at that, but Sis-ter Xari gave Juno a judgmental look, the woman''s al-most-ex-ces-sive eye shad-ow mak-ing the ex-pres-sion even more se-vere. "Be care-ful who you say things like that around," she said. "There are many who would hap-pi-ly re-peat what you said in the wrong com-pa-ny."


    Juno just waved it off, but Ki''el looked at Sis-ter Xari. "Is that a fa-mous qi na-ture?"


    "One of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s," Xari said, sound-ing quite se-ri-ous. "The Prince uses it, and is quite proud of it. Many peo-ple who sup-port the Roy-al Fam-i-ly all but wor-ship the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly''s qi styles, and at-tempt to repli-cate them."


    "Ki''el," Broth-er Du in-ter-rupt-ed, and Ki''el looked to him along with the oth-ers. "You said you could sim-ply ab-sorb the pu-ri-fied qi. May I see you do so?"


    Ki''el nod-ded, and held the cy-cle out in front of her. With-out sum-mon-ing the thorn or its en-er-gy to her hand, she sim-ply pulled at it, feed-ing the en-er-gy back into her-self as though she had sum-moned it from her dant-ian and then thought bet-ter of us-ing it.


    "Sim-ple," Broth-er Kam said, "but ef-fec-tive. I think the hid-den trick here is the bar-ri-er around the qi stor-age, which keeps it pure once it has been gen-er-at-ed. It''s not ro-bust enough to stand up to an at-tack, but as long as noth-ing in-ter-feres with the qi... it''s no less hers than if it had been to her dant-ian al-ready."


    "It should be re-in-forced," agreed Bon, "if it will be used in com-bat. I can just imag-ine some-one in-ject-ing a spir-i-tu-al poi-son into it, and that go-ing straight into her dant-ian." He leaned back, look-ing sat-is-fied. "Do you have any sort of tech-nique to use it?"


    "Sis-ter Ki''el is quite ju-nior," Broth-er Du hedged, glanc-ing at her.


    "I am still learn-ing," Ki''el agreed. "But I have suc-cess-ful-ly ap-plied fire in-tent to it. It''s not quite a tech-nique..."


    "Ap-plied in-tent?" Xari cocked her head and looked... al-most looked down at Ki''el. "What, you just have ''fire in-tent'' around? A spir-it gem, per-haps?"


    But Ki''el shook her head. "I... was taught some-thing about the na-ture of nat-ur-al fire. A gift from my mas-ter, that I mem-o-rized. I have been prac-tic-ing speak-ing with in-tent, and I used the same process to add in-tent to the pure qi, then an-oth-er lay-er of in-tent to con-trol it."


    "Ah, so you en-hanced an ex-ist-ing fire a bit? Or put it out, maybe?" When Ki''el nod-ded, Xari seemed con-tem-pla-tive. "In-ter-est-ing. In-ef-fi-cient, though. How many dif-fer-ent words of in-tent can one per-son mem-o-rize?"


    "I could mem-o-rize dozens," Broth-er Juno said, lean-ing back and flex-ing his spine so that his face was point-ed up. He sound-ed quite pleased with him-self. "Hun-dreds, maybe. Prob-a-bly not thou-sands. I feel like it would just get bor-ing at that point."


    Broth-er Du, though, had a look on his face, one that Ki''el thought was very stern and se-ri-ous. She couldn''t help re-mem-ber-ing how he had been up-set at her idea of keep-ing pu-ri-fied qi, and ma-nip-u-lat-ing it with-out in-tent. "I sup-pose that''s one Way," he said, seem-ing to com-plete-ly ig-nore Broth-er Juno. "A very... aca-d-e-m-ic Way. Studying in-tent, mem-o-riz-ing it, but keep-ing it sep-a-rate from your qi un-til you choose what you wish to use. But how well can you mem-o-rize in-tent? Are you sure that you have a pure un-der-stand-ing of [Nat-ur-al Fire]?"


    Ki''el blinked, not hav-ing ex-pect-ed Broth-er Du to speak with in-tent, but closed her eyes. He... was very close to her un-der-stand-ing, but there was a mis-take. She con-cen-trat-ed, and Kuli helped her pick out ex-act-ly the part of the thought that she dis-agreed with. "Not all [heat] is qi, Broth-er Du. The nat-ur-al en-er-gy that cre-ates fire does not need qi, or even aether."


    "Oh-HO!" Juno snapped up-right. "The girl has a spine, chal-leng-ing Broth-er Du!"


    "You are cer-tain?" Broth-er Du''s voice was not even du-bi-ous, only cu-ri-ous.


    Ki''el opened her eyes and looked at him. "It is what I was told. It is what I un-der-stand. And it feels right."


    "But qi is pre-sent through-out the world. And the qi of heat and fire, even nat-ur-al fire, can be ab-sorbed." Broth-er Du''s voice re-mained lev-el, but Ki''el could feel some-thing like in-tent slic-ing at the air be-tween them.


    "I am no ex-pert, Broth-er Du," was all she could say in re-sponse. "But I know that qi is com-pli-cat-ed... and pow-er-ful. I can be-lieve that a per-son with qi can turn nat-ur-al fire into qi, and ab-sorb its strength. But is that be-cause the fire al-ready is qi, or is it be-cause qi can make it so?"


    Ki''el was aware that the oth-ers were look-ing back and forth be-tween them, but did her best to keep it out of her mind. She was al-ready push-ing a lit-tle bit of right-eous aether into her spir-it, to keep her anx-i-ety in check, though she hoped it was lit-tle enough that she would not be called out for it. For now... a qui-et reigned in the mo-ment.


    "I would not have ex-pect-ed to hear that ar-gu-ment in one so young," Du said at last. "But then, per-haps it is ex-act-ly be-cause you are young. Yes, qi can make a great many things hap-pen that would not hap-pen with-out qi. Schol-ars ar-gue about whether that means the world is, fun-da-men-tal-ly, made of qi--or whether qi is sim-ply pow-er-ful enough to break all oth-er rules." He held up a hand. "I shouldn''t have asked you to have an an-swer to a ques-tion that those with Flame Qi still de-bate. You still look up at the whole world of pos-si-bil-i-ties from be-low, in-clud-ing many things that we now see from above. I will med-i-tate on your in-sight into nat-ur-al fire, but I feel like it would be pre-ma-ture for you to say that you know that heat is not a form of qi."


    It isn''t, Ki''el knew. I know, be-cause I know what Pri-mor-dial Qi is. But she did not think it wise to say so, es-pe-cial-ly since she couldn''t speak her un-der-stand-ing of it. Lai Shi Po had spo-ken it to Broth-er Du be-fore, but the man may not have mem-o-rized the in-tent af-ter hear-ing it once.


    "Still," Broth-er Kam said, "It''s im-pres-sive that you can speak with in-tent at all. Can we hear you speak in-tent? Again, I mean? I did catch that bit about heat."


    Ki''el nod-ded, and took sev-er-al steady-ing breaths, re-call-ing the in-tent of Nat-ur-al Fire, and spoke as clear-ly as she could. "[Nat-ur-al fire] is the [re-ac-tion] of [fuel] and [oxy-gen] with [heat]." Sud-den-ly, she felt dizzy. Had she had that much dif-fi-cul-ty mak-ing her words reach the oth-ers? Was she do-ing some-thing wrong?


    "Ooh," Broth-er Bon rubbed his head. "Now that''s not nice, girl."


    Ki''el blinked, her head still swim-ming, and be-gan to stam-mer an apol-o-gy, with-out know-ing what she might have done wrong.


    "No, this is my fault," said Kam. "Ki''el--don''t, stop apol-o-giz-ing. You didn''t do any-thing wrong."


    "Yes, she did," grumped Juno, slouch-ing on the bench. "She did the worst thing."


    Ki''el glanced at him, mortified, even though Sis-ter Xari put a com-fort-ing hand on her shoul-der. "Don''t tease the girl--"


    "I''m se-ri-ous," Juno said, point-ing a fin-ger at Ki''el. "Girl--if you learn just one thing to-day, learn this. Are you lis-ten-ing? Good." He leaned in, and his voice was un-be-liev-ably stern. "Nev-er give away in-sights with-out de-mand-ing pay-ment. In. AD-VANCE."


    The oth-ers sighed, but Ki''el just sat there, blink-ing and con-fused. Even the right-eous aether in her spir-it wasn''t enough for her mind to ful-ly catch up to what had just hap-pened. Was he say-ing--?


    "It''s a good de-f-i-n-i-tion for fire," Du said, sound-ing as un-flap-pable as ever. "Bet-ter, ap-par-ent-ly, than my dear Broth-ers and Sis-ter were pre-pared for, Ki''el. I will en-sure that an ap-pro-pri-ate bonus is paid--"


    "Don''t do that," hissed Juno. "If you re-ward her for giv-ing things away for free, she''ll nev-er learn!"


    "Juno," Bon reached over and moved as if to bop the for-mer-ly re-laxed man on the head, but Juno sprung away in a mo-tion that Ki''el couldn''t be-gin to catch.


    "Don''t touch my hair!"


    "I think the girl needs some rest, Du," Xari said, pulling Ki''el to her feet. "Come on, girl. Let''s get some food in you--prop-er food. My treat."


    Ki''el let her-self be pulled away, but looked back over her shoul-der. Strange-ly, it was Broth-er Bon who still looked put out, and he was mut-ter-ing some-thing to Du.


    "That can''t be how it works," he was say-ing, sound-ing bit-ter. "I''ve been study-ing the alche-my ta-bles for years--"


    When Ki''el got a cer-tain dis-tance away, though, the man''s voice fad-ed into un-rec-og-niz-abil-i-ty, again, and Ki''el blinked, then turned to look at Sis-ter Xari, who did not look down at her, but con-tin-ued fo-cus-ing ahead.


    So Ki''el stead-ied her walk-ing un-til Sis-ter Xari seemed com-fort-able let-ting her go, and fol-lowed the woman on to-wards what she as-sumed would be a meal hall for the In-ner Sect.

 [TAS] 18. Kiel - Raising, Part 5

    Ki''el quick-ly dis-cov-ered that the In-ner Sect did not rely on any-thing like a meal hall or din-ing room, but rather had a num-ber of restau-rants, and the qual-i-ty of Sis-ter Xari''s choice was not not-i-ca-bly be-neath what she had been served when din-ing with the Djang Im-pe-r-i-al Prince and Princess.


    That was, how-ev-er, the qual-i-ty of the food. The pre-sen-ta-tion of the restau-rant, in keep-ing with the aes-thet-ics of the en-tire Sect, was aus-tere, plain. Sis-ter Xari had an en-tire con-ver-sa-tion with the chef with-out meet-ing them face to face, pass-ing mes-sages with cod-ed in-tent that... per-haps Ki''el might have been able to un-der-stand, had it not been so quick and out of nowhere. Xari seemed to mis-un-der-stand Ki''el''s pen-sive look, though, at miss-ing the com-mu-ni-ca-tion, be-cause she waved at her dis-mis-sive-ly as they took seats at a plain-look-ing, thick wood-en table.


    "Those who cook, even in the In-ner Sect, are also dis-ci-ples, and those who make it into the In-ner Sect are al-ways work-ing at and think-ing about qi," she said. "Whether that is com-mu-ni-cat-ing with in-tent, or con-sid-er-ing how the same prin-ci-ples be-hind pill alche-my can make the best pos-si-ble roast-ed cab-bage." She gave Ki''el a strange look. "You need to promise, Ki''el, not to spend your own mon-ey or points on In-ner Sect food un-less you get all the way here. Even for a rel-a-tive-ly wealthy mem-ber of the Out-er Sect, com-mis-sion-ing food from an In-ner Dis-ci-ple is un-rea-son-ably ex-pen-sive."


    Ki''el nod-ded, but hav-ing dined at high qual-i-ty restau-rants be-fore, she thought she was pre-pared. She was... only half right.


    In truth, Ki''el had not been mo-ti-vat-ed by her stom-ach in a long time, and she did not wish to be. As she had spent years gath-er-ing fish and over-ripe fruit, and find-ing ways to cook them de-spite min-i-mal ed-u-ca-tion, she un-der-stood that fla-vor was a lux-u-ry. When Sobon had ac-cept-ed an in-vi-ta-tion from a Djang mil-i-tary com-man-der for din-ner, she had suc-cess-ful-ly re-sist-ed any food lust, as she did not want to see the Djang as her bene-fac-tors in any way, not af-ter what hap-pened to her vil-lage, and not af-ter what al-most hap-pened to her.


    Din-ing with the Im-pe-r-i-al Prince and Princess had been more tempt-ing, but she un-der-stood that restau-rant to be a cor-rupt thing, one that would charge any amount of coin it pleased and sim-ply pay to have suit-able in-gre-di-ents and la-bor brought to-geth-er to per-form culi-nary mir-a-cles. See-ing spoiled peo-ple par-tak-ing so greed-i-ly of mounds of food had made it clear to her that what-ev-er good there was in the food she was served, there was also a hid-den cost, a dark-ness be-neath it all, and while she could ad-mit the food was good, she did not feel a de-sire for more of it.


    But here, when a hand-some cook came out with two plates of cooked veg-eta-bles, his hair tied up in a bun, smelling of the kitchen and only his own in-tent touch-ing the food, she found very lit-tle ex-cuse to place a bar-ri-er in her heart be-tween her-self and good food. And when she se-lect-ed a radish cov-ered in light sauce from her plate and tast-ed it, she un-der-stood that she was in dan-ger.


    The fla-vor it-self had in-tent. Not mere-ly did the in-tent ex-ist; it was a dis-cus-sion, com-plex and in-ter-wo-ven be-tween in-gre-di-ents and meth-ods, spices and sauces, tools and con-tain-ers, flame and air. There was in-tent to the fact that a wood-en la-dle had been used to spoon the radish out of its con-tain-er, in-tent that con-veyed knowl-edge, wis-dom of cook-ing. Though there were only traces of the ef-fect that the choice had, at least to Ki''el, the ex-is-tence of the in-tent it-self could not be de-nied. There was in-tent be-hind every cut of a knife, be-hind the amount of heat, be-hind the cool-ing, be-hind the stor-age. And be-hind all that in-tent...


    Ki''el blushed deeply, and all the way from her hair to her toes, as she re-al-ized she was un-able to shake the chef''s face and hands from her mind, as every dis-cus-sion of meth-ods and in-gre-di-ents showed them in a dif-fer-ent light, from a dif-fer-ent an-gle. Ki''el was not a girl who crushed eas-i-ly on peo-ple, but his clear com-pe-tence, fo-cus, and en-er-gy were there on dis-play, nev-er erring, al-ways fo-cused on cre-at-ing an ab-solute-ly per-fect ex-pe-ri-ence.


    For her.


    "Yai s''wei, Broth-er Boloi," Xari said with a laugh, "I should have asked you to tone down your qi. The poor girl can''t take it!"


    "I wouldn''t have even if you''d asked," the man said, his voice not as smooth as his in-tent, though Ki''el was not in a state of mind to care. "It''s the onion brais-ing method. I am sure that if I can per-fect-ly con-tain fla-vors with-in an onion--"


    "Ah-ah, we''ve had this con-ver-sa-tion be-fore," Xari said, wag-ging a fin-ger Broth-er Boloi. "I don''t care how alike they are, you won''t make a per-fect pill sim-ply be-cause of your onion sauce."


    "I''m clos-er," the Broth-er said, his voice al-ready dis-tant even as he turned back to the kitchen. "It''s just not the right in-tent, not yet."


    "Breathe," Xari whis-pered to Ki''el, "he''s used to the at-ten-tion by now. I think half the rea-son he mar-ried his wife is be-cause she''s one of the few who still finds fault with his cook-ing. Who still can." She took a bite of mixed rice and veg-eta-bles, and had a... some-what em-bar-rass-ing re-ac-tion to them her-self. "Good-ness knows, I can-not," she added, with her mouth half full.


    Ki''el ap-pre-ci-at-ed the per-mis-sion to look fool-ish, and also, ap-pre-ci-at-ed the word that the man was mar-ried, as it made it eas-i-er. The knowl-edge was not enough to stop some part of her imag-i-na-tion from run-ning wild, with the im-ages of the man''s dex-trous hands...


    She had to stop and take a deep drink of tea, let-ting the ac-tion and the heat clear her head a lit-tle, though not enough. Nev-er enough.


    "In some ways, Ki''el, you al-ready strike me as a per-son who be-longs more here in the In-ner Sect than in the Out-er Sect," Xari said con-ver-sa-tion-al-ly, and Ki''el glanced at her, un-sure whether to re-spond yet, or at all. The woman took an-oth-er bite of food, en-joy-ing it for a long mo-ment, be-fore con-tin-u-ing. "Sev-er-al of the in-struc-tors I''ve had over the years have said some vari-ant of an old adage--that the Less-er House are those who feel en-ti-tled to knowl-edge, that the Out-er Sect is for peo-ple who un-der-stand that they need knowl-edge, that the In-ner Sect is for those who gen-uine-ly search for knowl-edge, and that the Core Sect is for those who will con-sume every scrap of knowl-edge we have and still hunger for more." She paused, and added, "One said that the El-ders are those who for-got why they came in the first place, stay-ing un-til they had no home left to re-turn to."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered the first part, even as she laughed at the last part. Do I feel en-ti-tled to knowl-edge? Do Mian or Xam? Or Chi-an She frowned a lit-tle, as she thought about it. Many have said that we do not be-long, per-haps be-cause of that, or in that way. But the way for-ward is not easy, ei-ther. She paused, and cleared her throat, find-ing that with her whole-body flush her voice was some-what strained. "I... I do not know where I be-long. I do search for knowl-edge, and I am hum-bled to have a chance to pur-sue it. I... do not know that I could con-sume all the knowl-edge that a place like this could have. I imag-ine there is a great deal here that I do not re-al-ly wish to know."


    Xari spooned up more rice with sauce, not look-ing at Ki''el. "Oh, it''s not a rule in any sense, but it is a clev-er-ly word-ed ob-ser-va-tion. And don''t think about the Core Sect--if they in-vite you, then they in-vite you, but no amount of wish-ing or striv-ing will make them view you as one of their kind. They are hun-gri-er for knowl-edge than you are hun-gry for Broth-er Boloi."


    Ki''el shot Sis-ter Xari a hate-ful look at that, but the woman just laughed, and fin-ished her plate. Ki''el, some-what more in con-trol of her-self, also en-deav-ored to fin-ish her food, but... it was dif-fi-cult. She... sup-posed that she could have asked Kuli to fil-ter out the in-tent, or some-thing, but... but this was... nor-mal.


    It was nor-mal, to re-act to good food and a hand-some man. And it was strange to think about, but Ki''el had not had a nor-mal life, and she did not want to turn im-me-di-ate-ly back into the strange Is-lander girl who car-ried a strange mas-ter''s lega-cy in her mind, though she knew that was who she was. It was... bet-ter, for her to sim-ply be a girl teased for blush-ing when she thought of a man.


    Her emo-tions stead-ied... no, they be-gan to dead-en the more she thought of it. Per-haps if she could have nev-er thought of it, she might have re-mained as she was, but... she looked down at her plate, and al-though she lift-ed the fla-vor-ful rice and beets and onion pieces to her lips, the spell over her was bro-ken.


    "Get-ting lost in your own head?" Xari ob-served, as Ki''el chewed and swal-lowed, en-joy-ing the taste and ap-pre-ci-at-ing the in-tent, but no longer con-sumed by it. "That''s an-oth-er thing. You''re not near-ly nor-mal enough for the Out-er Sect. Broth-er Du has said noth-ing about your back-ground, Sis-ter Ki''el, but it could not be more plain. You are one of the greats, or you will be."


    Ki''el looked up at her, sur-prised by the frank praise. "You think I am will be a great per-son?"


    "Broth-er Boloi is one of the best cooks in the en-tire Moon-stone Is-land Sect, Sis-ter, and dare I say one of the more hand-some, and he could not keep you from brood-ing for more than a few min-utes. You will spend your en-tire life with-in your own mind, and you will ei-ther mas-ter it or be crushed by it." Xari flick-ered her hand across her own plate, and the sauces and left-over rice van-ished, leav-ing the plate as though it had nev-er been used. "Giv-en what you showed us ear-li-er, I don''t think you will fail. That means you will be some-thing very spe-cial, some-day."


    Ki''el felt a flush go-ing across her face, but for a very dif-fer-ent rea-son. "Thank you, Sis-ter."


    "It''s noth-ing. And I should say, be-cause I know you are think-ing it." Xari leaned for-ward onto the table, the prox-im-i-ty and her eye-shad-ow mak-ing her eyes seem huge to Ki''el. "It goes be-yond what your mas-ter taught you. I have seen peo-ple blessed by spe-cial mas-ters, Ki''el. Many of them can-not be kept down, and many end up in the In-ner Sect. But many of them do not. Some peo-ple blessed by mas-ters be-lieve that the mere fact they were cho-sen is what makes them wor-thy. Those of us who take on ap-pren-tices learn quick-ly enough that be-ing cho-sen is a guess, a leap of faith. Few mas-ters, if any, are con-sult-ing the fates and gods to de-ter-mine who is the one most wor-thy of their bless-ing. They do not know what we will make of our-selves, just as we don''t know what our ap-pren-tices will make of them-selves. I have been very dis-ap-point-ed by sev-er-al of my ap-pren-tices, and one young boy who I had no ex-pec-ta-tions of proved to be a gen-uine prodi-gy, once giv-en a chance to thrive."


    "You may have great gifts giv-en to you by a mas-ter, Ki''el, if you did not choose, your-self, to make use of them, what good would they be? Can you not imag-ine a way that you could mis-use what you were giv-en?" When Ki''el seemed un-in-ter-est-ed in fin-ish-ing the last scat-tered bits of her own food, Xari waved her hand over the plate, mak-ing the re-mains of it van-ish as she had her own. "Those who are des-tined to re-main in the Out-er Sect--those are peo-ple who un-der-stand that knowl-edge will make them stronger, but they do not have a rea-son to grow stronger, not one they have found yet. And if they re-main for-ev-er in the sect, it is like-ly they will nev-er find such a rea-son. But most are loathe to leave, just as those in the Less-er House are."


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    "Those who come to the In-ner Sect are those who are not ad-vanc-ing as fast in the Out-er Sect as they might wish. They have pur-pose, and they have the be-gin-nings of a path, but the Out-er Sect''s re-sources could only let them reach that path if they spent a life-time study-ing. They strug-gle day by day, hour by hour, to get where they are go-ing, but the path is longer than they have time for. And a mem-ber of the In-ner Coun-cil sees the promise of their path, and brings them in. It is here that we can ask ques-tion that would be laughed at by those in the Out-er Sect, pro-pose pro-jects that seem ridicu-lous. And even if it takes years, even decades, we make them work."


    Pro-jects that seem ridicu-lous... Ki''el couldn''t be-gin to imag-ine what pro-jects she might see her-self un-der-tak-ing, in a few years. What even ex-ist-ed be-yond the lev-els that she knew? What would she find when her own qi had risen above Bis-muth, where Sobon had been when he left? Even the thought of pass-ing out of his shad-ow was ter-ri-fy-ing, but to imag-ine stand-ing where Sobon him-self had stood, and plan-ning to go fur-ther...?


    "You are a long way from the In-ner Sect, even if you some-day end up here," Xari said, and Ki''el was sur-prised that there was no cau-tion in the woman''s tone. But then... did Ki''el need that cau-tion? She could not imag-ine that she could get to a place where she could con-sid-er her-self on par with Sobon, or even Broth-er Boloi, or Broth-er Du. "The path is long. I be-lieve that you will pass out of the Less-er House with-out a prob-lem, but if you wish to raise even fur-ther, you must al-ways have a goal. It is by mea-sur-ing the progress to-wards your goals, es-pe-cial-ly no-ble and dis-tant goals, that you feel dis-sat-is-fied, and your dis-sat-is-fac-tion will lead you for-wards." She took Ki''el''s plate, and her own, and moved to the kitchen. "I''ll be back in a few mo-ments. I want-ed to speak to Broth-er Boloi."


    Ki''el sat there, con-sid-er-ing Xari''s words, and sud-den-ly asked Kuli, What do you think? Al-though she had no par-tic-u-lar in-tent with the ques-tion, and no real un-der-stand-ing of why she would ask, she... val-ued the thoughts of the aug-ment, what-ev-er its true na-ture was.


    { There are many things I could say, } Kuli re-spond-ed, { but per-haps this will set-tle your mind. In Sobon''s world, peo-ple who gain great pow-er also lay that pow-er down when they do not need it. Sol-diers whose pow-er can ri-val the Di-a-mond Lord re-turn home to be nor-mal, mor-tal peo-ple. To be-come a great per-son does not need to mean re-main-ing atop the world for your en-tire life. At least... not there. }


    Not there. Ki''el un-der-stood the mean-ing. If she wished to re-main in a place like the Sect, or like the Djang Em-pire, then once she reached the peak of her pow-er, there would be those who would fight her to prove them-selves, and if she was weak, they would kill her. She closed her eyes, think-ing of her is-land vil-lage. No... it is too close to the Em-pire. Even if I can find it again, even if I could con-vince oth-ers to re-set-tle it, I would not be able to hide there. But there must cer-tain-ly be places in the world where she could live in peace.


    But then... Sobon had also said that he had hopes she would help him--with what, she did not yet know. And Ki''el did want to help, and want-ed to un-der-stand her mas-ter. But... was it her de-sire to gain great strength? To be-come a great blade, a sword that could pro-tect oth-ers? She had her doubts, but... but it was also very ear-ly for her to be try-ing to de-cide.


    "Come along," Xari said, and Ki''el star-tled, then got up and fol-lowed her out. "If I know Broth-er Du, Sis-ter, he will give you a mod-est sum of Sect Points for what you have done. But trust me when I say that per-form-ing any ser-vice for a mem-ber of the In-ner Sect is worth far more than we can rea-son-ably give you, and you have giv-en us some-thing very in-ter-est-ing to think about, which would be worth a great deal, if it were prop-er-ly paid. But if we gave you that many Sect Points, you would not know what do to with them, and your time in the Less-er House and Out-er Sect would be very un-usu-al. So please con-sid-er me, at the very least, to owe you a few small ser-vices. It is the least I can do for not let-ting you have the ac-tu-al re-sources you de-serve." She paused, and looked back. "I will walk you back, and if you have any ques-tions at all on the walk, just ask, and I will an-swer."


    Ki''el swal-lowed, but nod-ded, catch-ing up to walk be-side Sis-ter Xari. "I re-ceived sev-er-al in-gre-di-ents in a for-fei-ture, but ne-glect-ed to ask the El-der about them--"


    "El-der Gol is stingy about in-for-ma-tion in the best of times. Ask."


    Ki''el leaned on Kuli only slight-ly to have the in-for-ma-tion at the tip of her tongue. "A few grams of Cloud Pil-lar Sil-ver. Less-er Cir-cu-la-tion Herb Pills. Mel-low Riv-er Herbs. Less-er Spir-it Crys-tals and Low Spir-it Gems. And time with a Less-er In-scrip-tion-ist."


    Xari nod-ded. "Mel-low Riv-er Herbs are med-i-c-i-nal, I be-lieve, and not an in-gre-di-ent for any cul-ti-va-tion aid that I know of. I re-call they re-duce pain, es-pe-cial-ly, pain in the nerves. Less-er Cir-cu-la-tion Herb pills help your spir-it and in-tent to reach parts of your body that it nor-mal-ly does not, and is very use-ful for at-tun-ing your body to your qi. Those whose spir-it does not re-spond to their qi may find it help-ful... but it can also lead to qi de-vi-a-tion. They are use-ful pills, for the ear-ly phas-es, but like all aids, you can-not rely on them for-ev-er."


    "For Cloud Pil-lar Sil-ver... it is a com-mon and less-er met-al, which is nor-mal-ly used as the in-ert part of an in-script-ed item. It is not el-e-men-tal-ly aligned; the term cloud here refers to the apho-risms about clouds and drag-ons." She paused, and glanced over at Ki''el. "If you are not fa-mil-iar... the most com-mon phras-ing is Soar-ing over a drag-on to be-come a cloud. That is, pass-ing over greater tal-ents--tak-ing the re-sources that could have gone to them--and en-ter-ing the heav-ens your-self, but be-com-ing some-thing ul-ti-mate-ly com-mon and low. Cloud pil-lar in this sense would be a cloud that reach-es down to the ground and up to the heav-ens, but does not go be-yond them. Cloud Pil-lar Sil-ver can hold mod-er-ate amounts of qi, but is not the right met-al to chan-nel great pow-er through it."


    Ki''el nod-ded, but won-dered idly what Sobon would have thought of the ma-te-r-i-al. He turned sand into a weapon ca-pa-ble of killing an el-der at Mithril Qi. I imag-ine his un-der-stand-ing of any ma-te-r-i-al would be very dif-fer-ent from the Sect''s.


    "For the Spir-it Gems--I am tempt-ed to say that you should sim-ply be rid of them, re-turn them to the Sect for points. I trust that these are mere reser-va-tions?" At Ki''el''s nod, Xari con-tin-ued. "They are a re-source for those who are des-per-ate-ly search-ing for in-sight, a crys-tal-ized frag-ment of in-tent, and at the Low rank-ing, it will be gen-er-al and unin-spired. For some-one who can un-der-stand spo-ken In-tent, you would be bet-ter off ask-ing a mem-ber of the Out-er Sect to sim-ply say a word that trou-bles or con-fus-es you. It might be prici-er than a spir-it gem--cer-tain-ly prici-er than a mere Low gem--but gen-er-al-ly, if you buy that kind of ser-vice, you can at least ask them to rephrase the same In-tent sev-er-al dif-fer-ent ways, as long as you are ask-ing the same ques-tion each time. That is more valu-able than even a bet-ter Spir-it Gem."


    "For Spir-it Crys-tals... they are a re-source for those who have dif-fi-cul-ty cul-ti-vat-ing their own qi. Even in the Less-er House, it is dif-fi-cult for me to imag-ine some-one ac-tu-al-ly mak-ing use of Less-er crys-tals, but... I sup-pose there are many there who have var-i-ous kinds of dif-fi-cul-ty. As with many of the oth-ers, Sis-ter Ki''el, I imag-ine they are use-less to you, though per-haps you can find some-one who needs them." She paused. "As for the less-er in-scrip-tion-ist... along with the ma-te-r-i-al you al-ready have, you would want a good chan-nel-ing ma-te-r-i-al to make even the most ba-sic of items, and you would want to have a firm un-der-stand-ing of what you want done. Even ques-tion-ing them takes time, and most will cut you off the mo-ment your time is up, even in the mid-dle of work. Have your ma-te-ri-als and your in-tent ready, and don''t let them waste your time."


    "Is a chan-nel-ing ma-te-r-i-al nec-es-sary?" Her own in-scrip-tions--and the ad-vanced ver-sion Lai Shi Po had done--had sim-ply made use of the space left be-hind by the act of en-grav-ing into the base ma-te-r-i-al.


    But Sis-ter Xari huffed at that. "I sup-pose there are base ma-te-ri-als that do not re-quire it, but as I said, Cloud Pil-lar Sil-ver is not good for chan-nel-ing. An en-grav-ing with-out filler ma-te-r-i-al in an un-suit-able base ma-te-r-i-al will of-ten fail, if not im-me-di-ate-ly, then af-ter months or years of use. Some-one above the Less-er grade might do bet-ter with the same ma-te-ri-als, but so long as you are pur-chas-ing a Less-er In-scrip-tion-ist''s time, trust that their abil-i-ties will not meet any lofty ex-pec-ta-tions you might have."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, and glanced at Xari. "Are you an in-scrip-tion-ist, Sis-ter Xari?"


    The woman half turned and gave her a grin. "I''m not much for con-ceal-ing my in-ter-ests. Yes, but not as my main fo-cus. I of-ten use scripts pro-ject-ed onto qi, and in par-tic-u-lar, am quite pro-fi-cient in set-ting up for-ma-tions of sev-er-al par-tic-i-pants."


    "Ah." She nod-ded. "My mas-ter''s fo-cus is sim-i-lar."


    "Re-al-ly?" Xari fa-vored her with a strange look. "I wish I could meet him. Giv-en the ef-fect he''s had on you, I have to imag-ine that he could say three words to me and trig-ger a break-through. I wish some-one would." She glanced away, sound-ing ir-ri-tat-ed. "I''ve been stuck at Sap-phire Qi for too long."


    Sap-phire? The same as Base Com-man-der Rai? Two whole tiers above El-der Mofu? Ki''el swal-lowed, but nod-ded. "What is it like?" She asked, to cov-er her ner-vous-ness. "Be-ing at Sap-phire."


    Sis-ter Xari just hummed at her, as they be-gan to pass over a bridge, which Ki''el re-al-ized was only two away from the Less-er House. They were most of the way there, now. "The tran-si-tion to Earth-ly Gem phase was strange. Many peo-ple stay trapped at the peak of Mithril for a long time, un-sure of how to face the Tribu-la-tion or how to face their own demons. But for me, that tribu-la-tion less trou-ble than cross-ing the Gold-en Wall. Amethyst Qi, the low-est of the Earth-ly Gems, brought with it a pro-found sense that I had mis-un-der-stood my own qi, and I have ever since been search-ing for in-sight into ex-act-ly how. I only reached Sap-phire Qi, the sec-ond tier, af-ter un-der-stand-ing some-thing," she added a teas-ing lilt to her voice, "that I won''t be spoil-ing for you."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "And in re-turn, I promise I won''t spoil your progress by spilling any of my mas-ter''s se-crets." Al-though she said it with a jok-ing tone of voice, Ki''el won-dered whether things that Sobon had al-ready told her might con-tain se-crets that Sis-ter Xari need-ed. Was it pos-si-ble? She sup-posed so, though how like-ly it was was an-oth-er ques-tion en-tire-ly.


    "Ah," Xari said, not sound-ing too dis-ap-point-ed, al-though she mimed be-ing shot or stabbed in the heart. "How ever will I go on with-out the pro-found in-sights of my Ju-nior Sis-ter?" She grinned down at Ki''el a mo-ment lat-er. "In truth, some-day I hope to be able to have bet-ter dis-cus-sions with you, Sis-ter Ki''el, but those con-ver-sa-tions will be bet-ter for the ex-pe-ri-ences you have be-tween now and then. You will speak more con-fi-dent-ly and know bet-ter what we are ready to hear. Un-til then..." She glanced ahead, but they were still an is-land away from the Less-er House. "...Care to hear some gos-sip about Broth-er Du?"


    Ki''el gave the old-er woman a strange look, but she couldn''t hide a smile, and couldn''t hon-est-ly turn down the of-fer.


    <hr>


    When at last Djang Ren Xari said good-bye to her cute new ju-nior sis-ter, she took a few mo-ments to go to the edge of the is-land and look down. It was nev-er quite the same, look-ing down at the world from any of the dif-fer-ent is-lands of the Moon-stone Is-land Sect. The flow of qi through-out the is-lands gave each of them a dif-fer-ent feel, and... it had been a long time since she''d had rea-son to come here in par-tic-u-lar.


    She looked off into the dis-tance, her mind bounc-ing be-tween many thoughts, but set-tling on the one she least want-ed to face, the dis-turb-ing mes-sage from her un-cle.


    There is to be a meet-ing of the Ren fam-i-ly very soon, he said. One of your cousins has done some-thing very fool-ish. There may be war with the Ban fam-i-ly. If it comes to that, your ser-vices will be re-quired. Fam-i-ly above all, Xari.


    Her thoughts skipped over the mes-sage, re-fus-ing to ac-knowl-edge it. A war with the Im-pe-r-i-al Ban Fam-i-ly might mean the end of the Em-pire, or else, the end of her fam-i-ly, and if so... it might well mean her own death as well. Even if she want-ed to dis-tance her-self from her fam-i-ly name, the Di-a-mond Lord might not be so for-giv-ing. And she did want to dis-tance her-self from her fam-i-ly; there was too much hate in the core of the Ban fam-i-ly, too much poi-son.


    But with-out them, where would she be?


    Xari closed her eyes and growled. She hat-ed pol-i-tics, and she al-ways would. Why not let a stu-pid cousin be pun-ished for what-ev-er fool thing he did? She huffed and turned away from the edge, try-ing to keep her thoughts on some-thing bet-ter, brighter. On Broth-er Boloi, and the se-cret thoughts that they had shared, the thoughts he was quite good at keep-ing hid-den from his wife. That put a smile back on her face, and she wan-dered idly back up the is-lands, hard-ly notic-ing the oth-ers as she passed them, even when the mem-bers of the Less-er House gave her wide berth as they passed.

 [TAS] 19. Kiel - Raising, Part 6

    In be-tween every-thing else that was go-ing on, the fol-low-ing day Mian had a break-through that Ki''el nei-ther ex-pect-ed nor un-der-stood. It... in all hon-esty, the man''s qi be-gan to feel odd to her, and even Kuli was un-able to put words to the dif-fer-ence, ex-cept that Mian''s prob-lems with his qi cy-cling re-mov-ing bad in-tent from him seemed to no longer hold him back. If any-thing, the new-er ver-sion of his qi cy-cle seemed more like it want-ed to reck-less-ly dump the world''s dirty qi into him, and it took some amount of dis-ci-pline on his part to refuse, and hold qi into the pu-ri-fy-ing cy-cle.


    It was not sur-pris-ing that such a method quick-ly pulled him out of sil-ver qi, which nev-er should have been such a stum-bling block for a per-son with a good pow-er cul-ti-va-tion method.


    It was Xam, not Ki''el, who walked him through open-ing his dant-ian and reach-ing the be-gin-ning of Gold Qi, a process that was sim-ple enough as long as you had some-one to ex-plain it. By the time that she met up with Mian again the fol-low-ing evening, the man seemed more con-fi-dent, and his ver-sion of the qi cy-cle seemed to be func-tion-ing nor-mal-ly. When asked about his break-through, Mian''s mood seemed to shift a bit.


    "I re-al-ized what was be-ing pu-ri-fied away from me," he said. "It''s... prob-a-bly not wrong, but also, I be-lieve I can safe-ly choose not to com-plete-ly re-move it from my-self. It is a mat-ter of hope... and love, and courage, and a few oth-er com-pli-cat-ed things." He sim-ply smiled at Ki''el and pat-ted her on the shoul-der, his face not guard-ed but also show-ing noth-ing. "You don''t need to wor-ry about it. I think... it may stop me from reach-ing the same heights that you and oth-ers might reach, but then, I''m not sure I ever would have. And I think I''ll be-come strong enough to pro-tect my home, my fam-i-ly, my friends." When he with-drew his hand, his de-meanor shift-ed, as though he had put the in-ner con-flict out of mind, for now. "Don''t wor-ry. Now that I''ve got-ten this far, I don''t think I''m go-ing to hit my lim-it any time soon."


    Ki''el wasn''t sure what to say about that, but let him do as he pleased.


    For her part, Ki''el had so many things that she could fo-cus on that it was dif-fi-cult not to be-come dis-tract-ed. Kuli en-cour-aged her not to wait too long to reach the peak of Gold Qi, al-though it was her in-stinct to leave that for now, since she had un-til the end of her first month be-fore that would be a prob-lem. So when she was work-ing, she kept her fo-cus on her qi cy-cle, ea-ger for the day when her process was sta-ble enough that she could split her at-ten-tion be-tween two qi cy-cles, or per-haps, hold-ing one while be-ing able to think clear-ly about things. For now, al-though she could move her hands and feet and do crude labors, or main-tain the cy-cle with-out do-ing any pu-rifi-ca-tion, try-ing to do too much while con-cen-trat-ing would make her fum-ble one task or the oth-er.


    She was get-ting bet-ter, though, es-pe-cial-ly if she also added right-eous aether to her spir-it to keep her mind cen-tered and clear, and it was that habit, more than any-thing else, that caused her to no-tice some-thing was wrong be-fore she got en-tan-gled into a mess.


    It was a com-mon enough task--a haul-ing la-bor, but when she ar-rived, the box of al-chem-i-cal vials to be moved was sit-ting care-ful-ly next to a door-way, and the Out-er Dis-ci-ple who re-quest-ed it was con-spic-u-ous-ly ab-sent. Ki''el glanced around, but it was when she flood-ed her spir-it again with Right-eous Aether that she sensed it.


    The qi with-in the vials was un-sta-ble. She frowned, mov-ing in a small cir-cle around it, but she was cer-tain of it. She took the to-ken that Sis-ter Futi had giv-en her and fo-cused her in-tent on it. [ I re-ject task. Vials are un-sta-ble. Maybe trap, maybe fool-ish. ]


    She felt a mo-men-tary tin-gle from the to-ken, and then, af-ter a mo-ment, [ Wait. ]


    Ki''el stepped away from the vials, and wait-ed, and af-ter a time, an Out-er Dis-ci-ple showed up, frown-ing at the vials, and then at Ki''el. "Are you the one who re-quest-ed the task?"


    "No," Ki''el said. "I was giv-en the task but no one showed up. The vials seem full of un-sta-ble qi. I told Sis-ter Futi that I refuse the task."


    "Un-sta-ble? Re-al-ly?" The man moved over to the box of vials and squat-ted down. "Hum, maybe a lit-tle. The task was re-as-signed to me, so--"


    From the mo-ment that he be-gan to move the box, Ki''el could see that the trap wasn''t sub-tle at all, ex-cept in the way that it was hid-den. From the first time the box was shift-ed, the qi in one of the vials be-gan to stir, and then the qi in oth-ers. She stepped back. "Sect broth-er, the qi..."


    "I haven''t done any-thing," he said, pick-ing the box up. "And if the vials were that un-sta-ble, some-one would be tempt-ing fate just leav-ing them out like this--"


    Sud-den-ly, the qi from the one vial spiked, and the vial shat-tered, mak-ing sev-er-al vials near it also be-gin to peak. The man paused his haul-ing, frown-ing, and be-gan to set the box down--but the bro-ken vial pro-vid-ed space for oth-er vials to shift, and more of them be-gan to col-lapse or spike their qi.


    As though sum-moned by the event, a man that Ki''el had seen not too many days be-fore seemed to ap-pear all at once out of a near-by build-ing, only to pause sud-den-ly when he saw Ki''el and the Out-er Sect mem-ber, who was squat-ting over the box. "Hey!" He shout-ed. "What are you do-ing with my al-chem-i-cal ex-per-i-ment? It''s very--"


    "Il-le-gal," Ki''el heard the oth-er Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple mut-ter un-der his breath, and he sum-moned a stone to his hand. But no mat-ter how gen-tly he set the box down, the dam-age was done and get-ting worse.


    "And you--are you the Less-er House mem-ber that ac-cept-ed my task?" Broth-er Mon-shu round-ed on Ki''el. "How dare you have some oth-er fool do your work for you? I de-mand that you re-pay me for the work that you so care-less-ly de-stroyed!"


    Ki''el just looked over at him, and lift-ed her to-ken. "I did not ac-cept the task, Broth-er Mon-shu. I asked Sis-ter Futi to as-sign an Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple to it in-stead."


    Broth-er Mon-shu''s mouth snapped shut so hard that Ki''el heard it echo. "You... you do not have the right--"


    "Broth-er Mon-shu," Ki''el said, feel-ing a cold cer-tain-ty in her stom-ach that the man had gone very far out of his way to try to trap her here, and if not for a smidgeon of aether, he might have suc-ceed-ed. "I did not ac-cept the task. I nev-er touched your box. An Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple was as-signed it."


    "I have no in-ten-tion of pay-ing an Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple to sim-ply move a box for me!"


    "But you do ad-mit that this was your task?" The Out-er Dis-ci-ple stood up and turned to look at him. "This is your box, full of your vials? You de-mand-ed re-pay-ment, so it must be."


    "I..." Broth-er Mon-shu''s face blanked. "I''m sor-ry, Broth-er, but I''m not fa-mil-iar with you. Have we met?"


    "If this were your alche-my ex-per-i-ment, I''m sure we would have, Broth-er... Mon-shu, was it?" The man stepped up to him, and sud-den-ly, he had an ex-ceed-ing-ly un-pleas-ant look on his face. "I am Broth-er Abi, and I am a ju-nior as-sis-tant in-struc-tor in charge of teach-ing alche-my to the Out-er Sect."


    "I..." Broth-er Mon-shu''s voice drew out un-til it hit a very strange note, as the man was clear-ly try-ing to find an ex-pla-na-tion for his ma-nip-u-la-tions that didn''t make his mal-ice ob-vi-ous, and was not able to find any such suit-able words.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "I ad-mit when I was sud-den-ly tasked to take on a task to sim-ply move vials, I was cu-ri-ous, but I can now see the en-tire pic-ture, as El-der Fai will when she ar-rives." Broth-er Abi sud-den-ly re-vealed a set of three dif-fer-ent col-ored vials in his hand, all of which Ki''el rec-og-nized from the set. "I ad-mit I am dis-ap-point-ed twice, Broth-er. No, three... four times, once in my-self. I was first dis-ap-point-ed when I re-al-ized that one of the com-pounds in these vials is against the rules of the sect. I was dis-ap-point-ed a sec-ond time as it be-came clear to me that you set this up to trap some poor mem-ber of the Less-er House. And I am dis-ap-point-ed in my-self, be-cause a mem-ber of the Less-er House was more able to de-tect an alche-my trap than I was, as a ju-nior alche-my as-sis-tant, even if I was dis-tract-ed and dis-mis-sive."


    "Ah... Broth-er Abi, per-haps you have mis-un-der-stood--"


    "But I am most dis-ap-point-ed, Broth-er Mon-shu, that this vile mix-ture was clear-ly not even done by you. You are not even a ju-nior al-chemist, and be-lieve me, we will be search-ing for the per-son who you hired to make your lit-tle trick. The sub-tle ma-nip-u-la-tion was im-pres-sive--and il-le-gal."


    Ki''el frowned, un-sure that she liked the mixed mes-sage that Broth-er Abi was giv-ing the oth-er Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple. It might have been bet-ter, if he had done it him-self?


    When Mon-shu seemed to de-volve into a stut-ter-ing mess, Broth-er Abi turned to Ki''el and of-fered a shal-low bow. "Ju-nior Sis-ter. I ap-pre-ci-ate your alert-ness, but there is no fur-ther need for you to re-main, and it might com-pli-cate your life if you do. My tes-ti-mo-ny will see Broth-er Mon-shu pun-ished, make no mis-take." His grin spread, and to Ki''el, it was an ugly ex-pres-sion.


    { I be-lieve he in-tends to keep all of the for-fei-ture, } Kuli nudged her, men-tal-ly. { As a re-sult, we can keep our hands clean in this mat-ter. }


    Ki''el re-al-ized that she had been star-ing, and flushed her mind with right-eous aether one more time to clear it. She bowed to Broth-er Abi. "I will let you take the re-spon-si-bil-i-ty, and the cred-it, then, Broth-er Abi. Be well."


    She walked away, feel-ing un-com-fort-ably like more than one or two pairs of eyes was look-ing at her as she did. For what-ev-er rea-son... she felt like she was be-ing watched the en-tire walk back to the Less-er House. A spir-it? Or some kind of qi ef-fect?


    By the time that she met with Sis-ter Futi, Ki''el''s rush had end-ed, though she still couldn''t deny that it was in-fu-ri-at-ing. Sis-ter Futi gave her a care-ful look as she walked in, im-me-di-ate-ly af-ter an-oth-er Less-er House mem-ber walked out, and asked, in a very se-ri-ous tone, "Is every-thing han-dled?"


    "The re-quest-ed Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple... re-spond-ed ap-pro-pri-ate-ly to the sit-u-a-tion," Ki''el said, de-cid-ing to be cagey about it. "My choice not to get in-volved was cor-rect."


    Sis-ter Futi sim-ply arched her brows at Ki''el and said noth-ing about that, in-stead of-fer-ing her an-oth-er small task in a very dif-fer-ent part of the Sect.


    It was strange to Ki''el, though, that for many days af-ter that, she start-ed to no-tice more and more fre-quent-ly that she would pass Sis-ter Lan Wu, the woman''s red dress be-ing dif-fi-cult to mis-take for an-oth-er. Sis-ter Wu nev-er spoke, but if she was sub-tly try-ing to keep an eye on Ki''el... then she was no good at sub-tle-ty. Af-ter the first few days, Ki''el brought it up with Xam.


    "She has men-tioned you," Xam agreed. "She con-tin-ues to talk to me when she sees me, I think be-cause she ex-pects me to agree with her. I... do not like her."


    "You re-call I said that her voice has qi lay-ers in it," Ki''el said, wor-ried about the im-pli-ca-tions.


    "Yes, and I sense them. Ma-nip-u-la-tion tech-niques re-quire ad-vanced con-trol, Ki''el. If she had that kind of con-trol, she would not re-main in the Less-er House."


    Ki''el sup-posed that was true, but it... felt very wrong. There were al-ready at least two peo-ple here who seemed not to be-long--Sis-ters Futi and Be-nai. Both were clear-ly more ad-vanced than some-one who stayed for-ev-er in the Less-er House should be, in dif-fer-ent ways. It would not be at all sur-pris-ing if some oth-er force plant-ed some-one else here. And yet... her opin-ion of Lan Wu was no dif-fer-ent than Xam''s. The woman sim-ply didn''t seem com-pe-tent enough to pull off such tricks.


    Un-less...


    Since Xam had proved to be dis-in-ter-est-ed in her qi cy-cling tech-nique, Ki''el tried an-oth-er tac-tic. "Have you sensed any-thing off in the qi in around the Less-er House? As you have ex-plored your foot-cen-tric na-ture?"


    "Yes," Xam said, the ir-ri-ta-tion in her voice ob-vi-ous but not se-vere. "It shifts, but I adapt. All of the var-i-ous meth-ods used by the mem-bers of the Less-er House make for a con-fus-ing land-scape of in-tents, some of them un-pleas-ant. I have found, be-yond ques-tion, that know-ing the area around where I med-i-tate im-proves my abil-i-ty to fil-ter and ab-sorb qi. But the area around the Less-er House... too of-ten, the shift-ing qi is a prob-lem."


    And you do not think it could be de-lib-er-ate? Ki''el held her tongue, know-ing that in spite of the re-cent trap set for her, there was not an im-me-di-ate rea-son to be so para-noid, es-pe-cial-ly for Xam''s cul-ti-va-tion. While Ki''el had man-aged to make en-e-mies, Xam had seemed to grudg-ing-ly adapt to her cir-cum-stances, reach-ing a steady lev-el of stress that seemed to not vary much day to day.


    Still, she forced her-self to take the oc-ca-sion once a day to push right-eous aether into Xam and Mian''s spir-its, and each time she did, she felt she drove some mi-nor ef-fect off. Mian''s qi, which still felt a lit-tle odd, sta-bi-lized, and Xam''s sim-ply lost a cer-tain edge to it. Both clear-ly no-ticed that some-thing changed, but nei-ther seemed in-ter-est-ed in com-ment-ing on it.


    The days fol-low-ing her en-counter with Broth-er Mon-shu and her new-found para-noia about Sis-ter Wu did, how-ev-er, bring Ki''el up to Nine Gold-en Stars, and as she be-gan to ap-proach the peak of Gold Qi, Kuli sud-den-ly be-gan to speak to her.


    { The eas-i-est way to pass the chal-lenge ahead will not sim-ply be to have qi in your dant-ian, } she said, { but to ac-cli-ma-tize sev-er-al parts of your body to qi. The eas-i-est way to do this is by build-ing up your pu-ri-fied qi and then in-ject-ing it into parts of your body. }


    Ki''el sent her aug-ment a men-tal ac-knowl-edge-ment, as she walked back to the Sect for an-oth-er task. Is there a set of parts I should use?


    { Rather than tell you, I would ask you to imag-ine that your task is to grasp hold of a bolt of light-ning, as it strikes you from the heav-ens. What should you re-in-force with qi to make that pos-si-ble? }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that. How does such qi light-ning strike?


    In-stead of an-swer-ing that, Kuli in-stead gave her in-for-ma-tion on nat-ur-al light-ning--far less de-tailed than the in-for-ma-tion about fire, but still suf-fi-cient for her to un-der-stand that qi light-ning, which would fol-low sim-i-lar rules, would def-i-nite-ly be try-ing to pass through her body and her qi chan-nels, from her hand to the ground. Whether she want-ed to re-sist the light-ning or sur-vive its pas-sage, she would need at least to make sure from her hand to her dant-ian, the path was strong enough to han-dle greater qi than she could use now. And... if she want-ed to let the light-ning pass through her, an-oth-er pas-sage out from her dant-ian, or sim-ply her arm, through one or both of her legs.


    In short, her limbs and core. It was... not sur-pris-ing, but it helped that she un-der-stood why she need-ed these things, and not sim-ply that she need-ed them.


    That night, Ki''el took her whole day''s worth of qi and, at Kuli''s in-struc-tion, be-gan to pack it tight-ly into her right hand, along with pure right-eous aether. She could sense that do-ing so strained her body, and she was care-ful not to do too much, but... when she had put enough strain on her hand, she forced the qi and aether mix to be force-ful-ly re-ab-sorbed into her dant-ian straight from her hand. As it flowed through her chan-nels back to her dant-ian, it made her arm feel swollen and un-com-fort-able where it passed. When the pres-sure in her hand had fad-ed, she tried again, and dis-cov-ered that her tol-er-ance for the ex-tra en-er-gy seemed less than it had been be-fore. She fin-ished that at-tempt, then stopped, let-ting her hand and chan-nels rest.


    Since she had the qi and aether to spare, she start-ed on her oth-er hand, but didn''t quite get through two full cy-cles. Her left hand, strange-ly, burned more and took less qi to reach ca-pac-i-ty, though she still didn''t have enough.


    { The dom-i-nant hand is of-ten bet-ter ex-er-cised, } Kuli replied to her men-tal ques-tion. { It is true of both mus-cles and qi. If you train your off hand, it will be-come equal to the oth-er, but most peo-ple do not try to bring the two into bal-ance. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered it, and de-cid-ed that at least in qi, if not in mus-cles, she could see no rea-son to have her left hand be less-er. So she be-gan to work at it, us-ing her right-hand aether cy-cles with her left hand, de-spite Sobon''s protest when she was first learn-ing, that she should make sure that she did not con-fuse the two en-er-gies. She could see that was true, and so when she man-i-fest-ed her right thorn in her left hand, she let it come to the back of her hand in-stead of the palm, and chan-neled the en-er-gy dif-fer-ent-ly. If she had a rea-son to use sin-is-ter aether with her right hand, she de-cid-ed, she would do the same.


    The days af-ter she start-ed prac-tic-ing this... ac-clima-ti-za-tion, Ki''el be-gan to feel more and more ir-ri-ta-ble, her hands tired more of-ten and faster, but she pushed through it. Kuli had not led her wrong, and was not in-ter-rupt-ing her cur-rent method. She had to trust that this would all take her where she want-ed to go. But... the ir-ri-ta-tion only made her more sus-pi-cious of Sis-ter Wu''s fre-quent ap-pear-ance.


    So Ki''el de-cid-ed, when she had the time, that it was time for her to be-gin in-ves-ti-gat-ing that woman, since she was clear-ly be-ing in-ves-ti-gat-ed by her.

 [TAS] 20. Kiel - Climate, Part 1

    The act of in-ves-ti-gat-ing Lan Wu start-ed, and might well have end-ed, with Ki''el ask-ing oth-ers about her. Most-ly through the work of oth-ers, Ki''el was gath-er-ing a num-ber of peo-ple she could at least ask these kind of ques-tions to--Chi-an, Be-nai, Ben Jito and Fei Taru, but also the cook that Mian still worked with, Boi Hau-ti, and some peo-ple who were friends or ac-quain-t-ences with them, or who Ki''el had struck up pass-ing con-ver-sa-tions with. There was also, of course, Sis-ter Futi, but... Ki''el un-der-stood in-tu-itive-ly that the woman, giv-en her po-si-tion, would be un-will-ing to take sides or speak be-hind some-one''s back, and would doubt-less re-sent be-ing dragged into any mat-ter of in-ter-nal House mat-ters.


    Fei Taru, for his part, was one of the few peo-ple with will-ing to share in-sight into the woman. Ki''el struck up a con-ver-sa-tion with him as they trav-elled to tasks--she had wait-ed for him, be-cause she--rather, Kuli--had sensed that he was at-tend-ing to some-thing but would like-ly leave soon. As they moved on-wards, Broth-er Taru, whose pinched face seemed gaunt in the morn-ing light, heard her re-quest with a grim look.


    "Lan Wu is a per-son, like many of us, who has re-mained for some years," he said, sound-ing tired. "Al-though she re-mains at peak Gold, there is some in-sight that she is lack-ing, some train-ing that she re-ceived from her fam-i-ly that does not suit her, or some-thing sim-i-lar. She is stub-born and cal-lous, and she is firm in her be-liefs that the No-ble fam-i-lies are su-pe-ri-or to com-mon Djang." He paused. "I don''t know that she is against non-Djang specif-i-cal-ly, but if she puts her-self above her coun-try-men, you can bet that she won''t ever con-sid-er you an equal, es-pe-cial-ly as a non-no-ble your-self."


    Ki''el heard all that, nod-ding ea-ger-ly. "Do you know much about her tech-nique? I know that she does some-thing with her voice. I... dis-like the feel-ing."


    "We all do. But her ef-forts to ma-nip-u-late peo-ple are poor." Taru glanced around, con-vinc-ing him-self that no one else was lis-ten-ing, and leaned in. "I''m no ex-pert, but I think that she ut-ter-ly fails to add in-tent to her voice. A con-trol-ling tech-nique with-out any or-ders. The few times I''ve seen her use her qi any oth-er way, it''s the same." He leaned away again. "I sup-pose the sect as a whole is bet-ter giv-en that she can''t ac-tu-al-ly use her voice the way she wants, but the Less-er House is poor-er for it."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "Can you think of any rea-son why she would be keep-ing an eye on me? Af-ter what I have been through, I am forced to think she al-lies with some-one who is in-ter-est-ed in me."


    "I think that if Lan Wu had any al-lies out-side of the Less-er House, they would have giv-en her a path for-ward long ago," Fei Taru said. "But at the same time, wouldn''t the promise of such a thing be the eas-i-est way to ma-nip-u-late woman like her?" He shrugged. "I''m not aware of who she as-so-ci-ates with, and it would be im-pos-si-ble to find out with-out sneak-ing af-ter her every day for a month. I''m sure you''ve al-ready dis-cov-ered that many of us make our friends and ac-quain-t-ences while on jobs, not while wast-ing our time and en-er-gy on the low-est of the Moon-stone Is-lands."


    Not long af-ter that, he and Ki''el part-ed ways, and Ki''el con-sid-ered all of that as she went about her day. Most of the peo-ple she spoke with af-ter that--in-clud-ing Ben Jito--said lit-tle or re-fused to com-ment at all, most-ly not want-i-ng to get in-volved. Bai Be-nai, how-ev-er, also spoke freely with her.


    "Lan Wu is of the Lan dy-nasty, a less-er scion of a branch fam-i-ly from a North-ern Djang war-rior clan," she said. "It''s telling that she re-fus-es to use her branch fam-i-ly name here, as though she has the right to use the Lan fam-i-ly name alone, which I am sure she does not. The most com-mon of their qi na-tures are ice and stone, fit-ting for moun-tain peo-ple, and it is ob-vi-ous nei-ther res-onates with Lan Wu. She is far from her fam-i-ly here, and I am sure that she and they are both hap-pi-er for that." Be-nai, who had sim-ply been keep-ing guard over a group of oth-ers as they trained, made a fa-cial ex-pres-sion and noise that Ki''el took as con-de-scend-ing, though she was un-fa-mil-iar with both.


    "Do you know if she has oth-er al-lies here? Ones who might be in-ter-est-ed in me af-ter the in-ci-dent--my sec-ond in-ci-dent with Broth-er Mon-shu?"


    "You''d need to in-ves-ti-gate the en-tire Out-er Sect, and per-haps be-yond that, to find every-one with the de-sire and re-sources to med-dle in the af-fairs of the Less-er House. An Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple could dan-gle re-sources gained in a sin-gle day over our heads and most peo-ple here would sali-vate like dogs." The look on her face only dark-ened. "Fifty sect points per day is a bare min-i-mum ex-pect-ed for the Out-er Sect. Five hun-dred is not un-usu-al. And a mem-ber of the In-ner Sect could earn five hun-dred sect points by adding in-tent to their bow-el move-ments and sell-ing it as fer-til-iz-er."


    Ki''el just gaped at the woman, and Be-nai''s face twist-ed into an ac-tu-al cheer-ful face for once, and she laughed. "Ah, you are too in-no-cent, Ki''el," the woman said, seem-ing to re-lax a lit-tle. "But in truth, it''s not as much a lie as I''d like it to be. The law of the en-tire low-er half of the Sect--and per-haps more--is ig-no-rance, child. It is peo-ple dis-cov-er-ing for the first time that things they held as myth are real, and play-ing with them as though they were child-hood toys. And there are many chil-dren ea-ger to be-lieve that some-thing is fun sim-ply be-cause an old-er child says so, even if it should be clear that old-er child is noth-ing more than a bul-ly."


    Myth. Ki''el shut her mouth at the word, lis-ten-ing to the rest of what Bai Be-nai had to say. When she was fin-ished though, Ki''el, al-though she hes-i-tat-ed to do it, de-cid-ed to re-peat the ques-tion, her-self. "What does the word ''myth'' mean to you, Sis-ter Be-nai?"


    "Hm?" Bai Be-nai turned and gave Ki''el an in-cred-u-lous look, and when she saw that Ki''el seemed se-ri-ous, she con-sid-ered the ques-tion. "Well--I''ve nev-er thought it was a word wor-thy of con-sid-er-a-tion. Myth is some-thing we hold in awe, is it not? Some-thing for-eign and dis-tant, like an-cient deities and an-ces-tral spir-its, like wise mas-ters and prodi-gal chil-dren. In truth, the point of say-ing that it is a myth... is that we do not know whether it is only a myth. It is some-thing worth speak-ing of, but many things worth speak-ing of are true, and many are false. All that you know is that it makes a fan-tas-tic sto-ry ei-ther way."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that an-swer, and when she re-al-ized she''d been silent for a while, put the thought aside. "My apolo-gies. It is a ques-tion that my mas-ter was asked by some-one else of pow-er, and he asked it sev-er-al times him-self, as though search-ing for a deep and pro-found an-swer. I thought I had my own an-swer, but it seems like the kind of ques-tion worth ask-ing oth-ers as well."


    Be-nai just nod-ded. "Pow-er-ful sto-ries have the abil-i-ty to shape the hearts of peo-ple," she said af-ter a mo-ment. "A sto-ry, es-pe-cial-ly one wor-thy of be-com-ing myth, can shape the fu-ture of in-di-vid-u-als and of so-ci-eties. Of-ten-times, the sto-ry is bet-ter than the truth." She shrugged. "But if the sto-ry is good enough, it can still shape the world, even when there are many who know it is a lie. At times like that, some-times it''s bet-ter to say noth-ing and let the lie per-sist. Who knows how much of the world is shaped by peo-ple stay-ing silent to let a pow-er-ful myth spread, know-ing that it is false?"


    Ki''el nod-ded at that, and put those thoughts away, same as the ones be-fore. "If Lan Wu be-comes a prob-lem for me... what do you rec-om-mend I do?"


    "I might al-most sug-gest you find a way to buy her off, but since you are not no-ble, even if you had the re-sources, she would like-ly refuse. She seems to have that kind of pride." Be-nai frowned. "She would be more re-cep-tive to the words of an-oth-er no-ble, even a less-er no-ble like your Sis-ter Xam. But from the few times I''ve seen them, it seems more like she is try-ing to sway Sis-ter Xam to her side. If you can con-vince her that your side will al-ways be su-pe-ri-or to what Sis-ter Wu is sell-ing... enough that even her buried heart demons agree, then I have no doubt that your Sis-ter Xam can pro-tect you, both in qi and in so-cial mat-ters. Al-though she has been qui-et re-cent-ly, it is clear that she is a per-cep-tive and clever woman."


    Ki''el had found that to be true, al-though Xam clear-ly re-sent-ed the Less-er House and what it rep-re-sent-ed. If what Be-nai and Xari said was true, per-haps she would be un-hap-py in the Out-er Sect as well. But did she tru-ly be-long in the In-ner Sect? She cer-tain-ly didn''t have the same at-mos-phere as Broth-er Du and his friends. But then... they were peo-ple who had stayed in the sect for a long time. The three of them, at least, in-tend-ed to use the Sect to grow strong... but still had things ty-ing them to the out-side world, things they would need and want to re-turn to some day. Ki''el had no way of know-ing what sort of char-ac-ter or in-tent was aus-pi-cious for that kind of path.


    In the end, an-oth-er half dozen in-quiries didn''t bring any bet-ter in-sight than those two. The only oth-er out-lier was Broth-er Hau-ti, the cook.


    "Thank-less woman," he groused, when she stopped by to speak with him and Mian af-ter din-ner, and end-ed up help-ing clean dish-es. "She wants some-thing here, and I don''t think it''s qi. When you catch her look-ing around, when she thinks no one is watch-ing, it''s pan-ic on her face. What-ev-er dri-ves her, noth-ing else mat-ters."


    Mian glanced at him, but Ki''el had not seen the two in-ter-act ex-cept pro-fes-sion-al-ly, and Mian didn''t break that streak to-day. But also, the man re-fused to say more, look-ing al-most ashamed that he had said even that much out loud.


    If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    That was all Ki''el had to show for around nine days of in-ves-ti-ga-tion. On the qi side, she had used that time on the same three core mat-ters--her qi cy-cle, in-tent train-ing, and at-tun-ing her body to her qi. The at-tune-ment, or ac-clima-ti-za-tion, caused Ki''el more gains than she was ex-pect-ing--far more. She had nev-er sensed re-sis-tance to her qi or aether us-age be-fore, but when she be-gan to use en-er-gy through ac-cli-ma-tized parts of her body, things that had once seemed nor-mal be-came easy, and things that had been easy seemed al-most ef-fort-less.


    It ex-cit-ed Ki''el, in ways that her in-ves-ti-ga-tion def-i-nite-ly didn''t. But also... she be-gan to look at Xam, and see her as a woman that held pow-er, but didn''t know what to do with it yet, and so she ap-proached her about it, once she was sure that her own in-ves-ti-ga-tions were not go-ing to find any-thing more about Lan Wu.


    "If I may ask, Xam," she said, un-sure which way was the best way to pry into the woman''s cul-ti-va-tion, even though they were sit-ting out-side, wait-ing for Mian to fin-ish clean-ing the kitchen. "What were you told about prepar-ing for the Gold-en Wall?"


    "Very lit-tle," Xam said. "As I''ve said be-fore. The tribu-la-tion in-volves be-ing struck by light-ning by the gods. You''ve said it may be about be-ing able to han-dle great qi. That means per-form-ing dur-ing the event, or do-ing some-thing while han-dling enough pow-er to de-fend your-self." She frowned. "My grand-fa-ther spoke with me once about the Gold-en Wall, but I was very young. As I re-call, he said that pass-ing his first tribu-la-tion was like shak-ing hands with a god."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "That fits with what I have heard." She paused only briefly. "Kuli spoke to me about at-tun-ing my body to my qi. Com-press-ing qi in-side of my body, one small part at a time, so that the parts are used to the weight of it."


    "That''s..." Xam frowned. "I''ve heard sim-i-lar said about what is done af-ter pass-ing the wall. Forc-ing the body to en-dure the pow-er that you now wield, is... sup-posed to be a sig-nif-i-cant part of the Bright Met-al phase. But I sup-pose that it can be done at any time."


    "Start-ing at Gold Qi, ac-cord-ing to Sobon," Ki''el agreed. "As long as you have enough qi to do it--and es-pe-cial-ly, pu-ri-fied qi, so that what your body adapts to is qi with-out any mis-tak-en in-tent."


    Xam made a very un-la-dy-like grunt at that. "Of course this is all to tell me I should be do-ing your stu-pid qi cy-cling ex-er-cis-es," she groused, but went qui-et a mo-ment lat-er. "Ki''el. You are very fast to give away an-swers to these kind of things. As your sis-ter, now, I ap-pre-ci-ate it." She lift-ed a hand to her mouth and looked over at Ki''el, giv-ing her-self a con-tem-pla-tive look that Ki''el thought was prob-a-bly per-for-ma-tive, false. "Ul-ti-mate-ly, we are all alone in this world, you know?"


    For some rea-son, Ki''el felt weird, like that state-ment, and the in-tent be-hind it, were a poi-so-nous jab at her. It was the fur-thest thing she would have ex-pect-ed from Xam, and she eased away from Xam, feel-ing un-com-fort-able. "Xam... I... I do not un-der-stand."


    But Xam just blew a deep sigh through her nose and dropped the pre-tense. "Sor-ry. I try to put on airs with some peo-ple, but the truth is..." Xam took a mo-ment to put her words to-geth-er. "...I am where I am to-day be-cause my own fam-i-ly didn''t show as much in-ter-est in me, my will, and my na-ture as you''ve shown me over the last cou-ple weeks. The mil-i-tary at least had the de-cen-cy to ex-pect that af-ter the train-ing and suf-fer-ing I went through, I would end up cold and cal-lous, but they..." she put ven-om into the word, "they ex-pect-ed me to be hap-py and cheer-ful af-ter try-ing so hard to bend me out of shape."


    "I was alone, Ki''el. I was ready to re-main alone my en-tire life. It''s ex-act-ly for that rea-son that I was at all will-ing to hu-mor Un-cle Mon when he sug-gest-ed I mar-ry some id-iot con-nect-ed to mon-ey. Mine is a life that nev-er went to plan, and even now, here in the sect..."


    Ki''el moved over, and put her arm around Xam, though the woman was not pro-ject-ing the kind of emo-tions or in-tent that made her seem vul-ner-a-ble. When Xam looked back at her, there was some-thing dark there, some-thing an-gry.


    "Tell me," Ki''el said. "Sis-ter."


    Xam looked at her, then looked up and away again, sigh-ing ex-plo-sive-ly again. "Here in the sect," she said, "and in the mil-i-tary, and at home. I''ve al-ways felt alone, like the jour-ney was one I would have to un-der-take with-out any-one else." But Xam reached out and re-turned Ki''el''s side hug. "Ex-cept for you, and to a less-er ex-tent, Mian. You look at me like you ac-tu-al-ly want to see where my jour-ney goes, and what hap-pens af-ter. You al-most make me think you''ll ac-tu-al-ly be there with me when it hap-pens." Xam of-fered her a frag-ile-look-ing smile, but not one so frag-ile that it looked like the woman her-self might break. It was more like... she hoped to build some-thing, but was scared she would fail.


    "Aren''t we al-ready on a road to-geth-er?" Ki''el looked away from her, not sure that she liked how the woman seemed so un-cer-tain of her in-tent de-spite her be-ing right here. "Xam. I lived so many years ac-tu-al-ly alone. In a ru-ined vil-lage with no way to reach an-oth-er per-son even if I wished to. Those peo-ple who are able to pre-tend to be friends with some-one while not mean-ing any-thing good... I do not know how to deal with them. I do not like them. I do not like to even think about them. And I would nev-er, ever wish to be-come one of them."


    Ki''el, un-sure of the feel-ings in her her-at, squeezed the oth-er woman just a lit-tle, then re-leased her, and Xam did the same. "If not for Sobon... I think the first per-son who told me I could trust them, I would fol-low for the rest of my life. I would wish to watch them through their jour-ney, even if I was not a part of it. I would want to help them when they stum-bled or when they strug-gled to get ahead. Be-cause I do not want to be alone again." She looked back up at her adopt-ed sis-ter, who met her eyes. "If you will re-al-ly have me as your sis-ter, I will fol-low you through the jour-ney. If not al-ways at your side, then at your side when-ev-er you need me."


    "Be-cause, sis-ter," Ki''el found tears run-ning down her face, al-though she had not no-ticed her-self start to cry. "I do not want to be alone. I do not..." she found her voice break-ing up, and was able to no-tice, with some de-tach-ment, that she had in truth be-gun cry-ing, and not only shed-ding tears.


    And Xam pulled her into a full hug, and Ki''el cried, and al-though there was still some dis-tance be-tween them, Ki''el thought that it was per-haps less.


    Af-ter that, and af-ter Mian joined them, Xam seemed more will-ing to speak about qi pu-rifi-ca-tion, but still un-in-ter-est-ed in Ki''el''s tech-nique. Kuli, though, sug-gest-ed a dif-fer-ent so-lu-tion--one that in-volved qi pu-rifi-ca-tion bar-ri-ers, us-ing the in-sight that Xam gained by walk-ing the area where she would cul-ti-vate. In-stead of sim-ply not-ing the qi sources around her and mov-ing to an area that felt safer, Kuli said, she should use qi and in-tent to re-ject qi and in-tent from sources that she iden-ti-fied, or qi af-fect-ed by those sources.


    { You will still be sub-ject to in-tent you can-not de-tect or com-pre-hend, } Kuli ad-mit-ted, { but this is al-ways the case, with Ki''el''s ver-sion of the tech-nique as well as al-most all oth-ers. }


    Xam con-sid-ered it, and nod-ded. "I can see the wis-dom of it," she said, "In-stead of tak-ing any qi and im-prov-ing it, take only that qi which can be con-sid-ered pure. There will be times and places where it means I can-not cul-ti-vate at all, but..." she sighed, but only a lit-tle, not like her heav-ier sigh-ing be-fore. "In those sit-u-a-tions, it would have been un-wise to trust my own ef-forts to pu-ri-fy it as well, wouldn''t it?"


    { You are not wrong, } Kuli replied. { This tech-nique will also not help to pu-ri-fy the qi you al-ready have, which Ki''el''s tech-nique can. But it should lessen fu-ture im-pu-ri-ties. }


    "I see. In the end, it does lit-tle to help me with Ki''el''s ''ac-clima-ti-za-tion'' strat-e-gy." She glanced at Mian. "What do you think, hus-band?"


    Mian, who had been con-tent to let them speak, raised an eye-brow at her. "Ask-ing my opin-ion, now?" There wasn''t so much bit-ter-ness in his voice, as a bit of sad-ness, or per-haps dis-tance.


    "We''ve not had much op-por-tu-ni-ty to ac-tu-al-ly act like a cou-ple. Or, I sup-pose, even be-come a cou-ple." She glanced at Ki''el so quick-ly that she thought she might be mis-tak-en for think-ing it had even hap-pened. "But we are on the same jour-ney to-geth-er, are we not?"


    Mian laughed light-ly. "In truth, Xam, I think you both are amaz-ing. I think that Ki''el''s tech-nique, if you could mas-ter it, would make you much stronger. But if you have a good rea-son not to do it, then you do, and noth-ing will change that." He also looked at Ki''el, but when he looked back at Xam, Ki''el was sure that the man re-al-ly had eyes for her. "But also... I saw Sobon com-press-ing aether into his body be-fore he reached the gold-en wall. Pure aether, not qi. I know this has to be part of how he did so many amaz-ing things. I un-der-stand you can''t use some-one else''s qi, but per-haps you could use Ki''el''s aether? It would be en-tire-ly free from in-tent."


    Ki''el had not re-al-ly con-sid-ered us-ing pure aether for her own at-tune-ment, most-ly be-cause the sub-stance was so much lighter than qi. Even if she used all of the right-hand dy-namos that she had... com-pared to the weight of qi she could pu-ri-fy in a day, it would take sub-stan-tial-ly more aether. But then, Ki''el re-al-ized, she could al-ways cre-ate more pow-er cy-cles, more dy-namos, as Sobon had, un-til she could pro-duce as much aether as she need-ed.


    { If you have a large num-ber of dy-namos, you must align them, just as you must if you wish to cre-ate In-ner and Out-er spin dy-namos, } Kuli cau-tioned her. { Oth-er-wise, the small dif-fer-ences in their cy-cles will cause the en-er-gy and the cy-cles to re-act strange-ly with each oth-er. If it is only a few dif-fer-ent spins, it is fine, but with many... }


    Ki''el word-less-ly ac-knowl-edged that, and spoke her con-cerns to Mian and Xam. The two con-sid-ered it for a long mo-ment, be-fore Mian spoke up. "If you can teach me to pro-duce the cy-cles, and pro-duce them cor-rect-ly," he said, "I don''t mind be-ing re-duced to noth-ing more than a source of aether for you. For us," he rephrased. "I''m sure I could use it for the same thing, couldn''t I? We would all ben-e-fit."


    "You would not be lim-it-ed to only that," Ki''el ob-ject-ed, but Xam spoke over her.


    "Even if you''re will-ing to do that, I would trust you a lot less with-out your mas-ter there to en-sure that every-thing is per-fect," she said. "Sobon, Alas-si, Jom... who-ev-er your mas-ter re-al-ly is at heart, there is no doubt that he un-der-stood a great deal. But all of us, even you," she glanced at Ki''el, though Ki''el thought that per-haps she meant Kuli, "are all small peo-ple, and defin-te-ly not mas-ters. Com-mit-ting to such a course ful-ly is dan-ger-ous, if we don''t know for sure that it will work the way we wish."


    Mian looked hurt, but didn''t ob-ject, and Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed to speak up. "I will con-tact him," she said, with some fi-nal-i-ty. "I do not be-lieve he can show up to as-sist us in any way, but he should be able to at least an-swer ques-tions."


    Mian gave her a sym-pa-thet-ic look at that, but Xam at least seemed sat-is-fied, and led them onto an-oth-er top-ic, let-ting Ki''el re-treat into her thoughts. Be-cause she did wish to speak with Sobon, but she was wor-ried she would not be able to. He... had been busy, ever since he left. He had even said that he may not be able to speak with her.


    Sure-ly it was only that... right?

 [TAS] 21. Kiel - Climate, Part 2

    Kuli con-vinced Ki''el, with some ef-fort, to put to-geth-er a longer mes-sage to Sobon, us-ing the ex-tra men-tal space that her aug-ment pro-vid-ed to not only store the mes-sage be-fore she sent it, but re-view and edit it. It was... a form of think-ing that was for-eign to her, if she were hon-est, even though she had been do-ing some-thing very sim-i-lar when it came to record-ing and or-ga-niz-ing her think-ing about in-tent and qi.


    With those things, she was still learn-ing. It felt... em-bar-rass-ing, to con-sid-er her-self still learn-ing the art of speak-ing, or even think-ing. But by the time she had com-posed an en-tire mes-sage, and looked back at what she had be-gun be-fore, she re-al-ized that the ex-tra space and time for re-vi-sion was only help-ful. When she thought she would be forced to put every-thing into a few words, she had phrased it all dif-fer-ent-ly, and... and was in a dif-fer-ent men-tal state, wor-ried that she would be mis-un-der-stood.


    But also... hav-ing more room to speak left her con-cerned that not say-ing many of the things she wished to say would be un-der-stood dif-fer-ent-ly. If they could only say so much, it was un-der-stood that many things need-ed to re-main un-said. But...


    In all, she passed the evening with-out fi-nal-iz-ing her mes-sage, and spent more of the fol-low-ing day than she would care to ad-mit wor-ry-ing about it. It got to the point where when she no-ticed, once more, Lan Wu con-spic-u-ous-ly pay-ing at-ten-tion to her, she felt far more ir-ri-ta-ble than usu-al, as the woman''s spy-ing was now was in-trud-ing into some-thing she con-sid-ered pri-vate.


    Ki''el was not im-pul-sive, and while she had the thought to take that mo-ment to go and ar-gue with the woman--or at least talk to her, which she knew she should do--it was only a pass-ing thing. But when-ev-er she stopped her work, or had noth-ing else to do with her mind, now at least those thoughts were split again, be-tween what she should say to her mas-ter, and what she should do about a woman who might still be a threat--or maybe not.


    When at last, she de-cid-ed that the mes-sage she had served her pur-pos-es, she al-lowed Kuli to send it on her be-half.


    [ Sobon, I wish to speak with you if you are able. I wish to praise you great-ly for your help - Kuli, which is the as-si-tant I was giv-en by your friend, has been in-valu-able, and the three of us are pro-gress-ing well at the Moon-stone Is-land Sect. But while Kuli and your in-sights are very help-ful for me, I am un-sure how I can use my and her knowl-edge, and the tools that you have giv-en me, to help Xam and Mian, and oth-ers that I have met here. If you will be able to re-spond, it will be of great help. ]


    Ki''el took a deep breath, feel-ing the stress of com-pos-ing the mes-sage leav-ing her, and was as-ton-ished when even be-fore she ful-ly re-leased her breath, she sensed--and Kuli ac-knowl-edged--a re-turn mes-sage.


    [ Ki''el! ] The emo-tion that the sin-gle word con-tained shocked her. There was gen-uine plea-sure--but also a back-ground of pain, pain that seemed to have noth-ing to do with her. [ I would not have ex-pect-ed you to form such a well thought out mes-sage so soon. Your progress as-ton-ished me even when we first met, and I''m glad it con-tin-ues. ]


    Ki''el, though she had stopped by the side of the road to let Kuli send the mes-sage, found her-self sud-den-ly strug-gling with em-bar-rass-ment, not hav-ing ex-pect-ed to have such a strong re-ac-tion now, in the mid-dle of the day and the mid-dle of the sect. Sure-ly...? She ex-pect-ed to take quite some time to hear out the mes-sage, un-der-stand it, and form a re-ply, but Sobon''s re-ply was not short-er than hers, and he had formed it as quick-ly as if they were sim-ply speak-ing to one an-oth-er--per-haps even faster.


    [ Your Kuli also sent along a note in-tro-duc-ing her-self, and asked if I would wish her to be... a trans-later, I sup-pose, or a mes-sen-ger in a larg-er sense, but I am hap-py to ''speak'' to you, in this sense at least, more di-rect-ly. I... will not al-ways be able to. I am in-volved with mat-ters here, now, and do-ing work that will not al-ways be in-ter-rupt-ed so eas-i-ly, es-pe-cial-ly for heavy mat-ters, but this is no trou-ble. ]


    [ Re-gret-ful-ly, as I said be-fore, Ki''el, train-ing oth-ers was nev-er my spe-cial-ty, but please ask your ques-tions, and I will tell you what I know. If I can-not an-swer im-me-di-ate-ly, trust that I will find time to an-swer when I can. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered the mes-sage, and then forced her-self back to her feet and to con-tin-ue her walk. She... had hoped that once she sent the mes-sage, she would be able to fo-cus on oth-er things for a time. But know-ing that she could con-tact Sobon again, with his per-mis-sion, sent her heart rac-ing and made her mood very messy.


    Even-tu-al-ly, when she had done her task and re-turned to Sis-ter Futi, she begged off an-oth-er task and went to med-i-tate by the edge of the is-land. When she was cer-tain that she felt calm--the med-i-ta-tion, and gen-tle use of aether, fi-nal-ly smooth-ing her tan-gled emo-tions, she summed up the sit-u-a-tion, and--feel-ing less of a need to make it per-fect--had Kuli send it af-ter only a brief re-view. It was... messier, she thought as she re-viewed it, re-mov-ing and edit-ing small bits, adding words to make it sound more like her voice, but leav-ing the whole of it in-tact. But she thought it said all that she need-ed it to say.


    [ I have been work-ing on a ver-sion of the Pow-er Cy-cle, that is, your aether dyan-mo, that at-tempts to peel in-tent off of qi to pu-ri-fy it. It is not, I am sure, like the crown, though I have not used it. It can only re-move in-tent that I un-der-stand, which is up to In-ner and Out-er aether. I have at-tempt-ed to teach it to Mian and Xam, and Mian makes some use of the gen-er-al tech-nique, but Xam does not wish to. I wish for Xam to be able to use pu-ri-fied qi to ac-cli-ma-tize her body be-fore at-tempt-ing the Gold-en Wall, but with-out that tech-nique, we have no nor-mal method. Mian sug-gest-ed I teach him to use sev-er-al aether dy-namos, and he could pro-duce enough for Xam to use only that. Xam is un-sure, since Mian and I and Kuli are not mas-ters and do not un-der-stand. What are your thoughts? ]


    There was a mod-er-ate pause, enough that Ki''el thought she could prob-a-bly go and do some-thing else, but Sobon replied again.


    [ I see. I am pleased to hear you have be-gun hav-ing in-sights into [space] lev-el aether. That is the sec-ond tier, In-ner and Out-er. The low-est is [res-o-nance], and the next high-er is [time]. But to an-swer your ques-tion: I sup-pose Mian would will-ing-ly take such a role, but I wouldn''t ask or ad-vise him to. Pow-er is pow-er, and hav-ing too much of it--even too much Right-eous Aether--is a prob-lem. It is pos-si-ble, if he nev-er touched the dy-namos ex-cept to use them very care-ful-ly, that there would be no con-se-quence. But it is more like-ly that it would cause prob-lems, and as you have al-ready seen, dy-namos are sta-ble--they will con-tin-ue to op-er-ate even if some-thing is go-ing wrong. If he is ever in a state where one be-gins to cause a prob-lem, it may be dead-ly. ]


    Ki''el swal-lowed, un-der-stand-ing that Sobon had trust-ed--and still trust-ed--Ki''el to han-dle such tools, even be-fore she had Kuli.


    [ If I were there, I would glad-ly pro-vide space or tools to help you, but I am lim-it-ed to ad-vice for now. My ex-pe-ri-ence with the Gold-en Wall was that the most im-por-tant task was be-ing able to both per-ceive and act while ex-posed to pow-er-ful qi, or pow-er-ful aether. If you can-not pro-vide Xam a method to pu-ri-fy her qi, you can also train her to re-sist harm-ful aether. You do still have a left-hand aether dy-namo, don''t you? It may do you good to prac-tice with it, and ex-po-sure in a safe en-vi-ron-ment will help the oth-ers. I know you, of all peo-ple, will not overuse it. ]


    When she fin-ished re-view-ing the mes-sage, Ki''el closed her eyes and re-flect-ed on it. In truth, she had not made any real use of her left-hand dy-namo, and she was un-sure of its ef-fects. In a way, she had ex-pect-ed it to be some-thing like her fire tech-nique, which she had done lit-tle with since she''d ex-plod-ed a sin-gle hot coal from the fire pit. She thought of left hand aether as a weapon. But... did not peo-ple train with weapons here?


    [ How do I use it safe-ly? ] Ki''el con-sid-ered the mes-sage for a long time be-fore ask-ing Kuli to send that, and only that, to Sobon.


    This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.


    [ It is the coun-ter-part to right-hand aether, ] the re-ply came, quick-ly. [ Right-hand aether did not heal you when you were bad-ly hurt, it only helped keep you go-ing. Left-hand aether will not kill those that are healthy, but it will make it hard-er for them to re-main healthy while it is be-ing used. Since you do not have an un-lim-it-ed sup-ply, if you do not hurt them or use it while they are in dan-ger, there should be al-most no last-ing ef-fects, and any ef-fects can be less-ened with right-hand aether. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, for a long time, be-fore send-ing an-oth-er mes-sage. [ Is it not what you used for your weapons? ]


    The re-ply seemed en-tire-ly too fast, to Ki''el, giv-en how wor-ried she was, but Sobon''s thoughts were clear and em-pa-thet-ic. [ Those were com-pli-cat-ed scripts only pow-ered with aether, Ki''el, and as dif-fer-ent from the raw aether it-self as heal-ing scripts are from right-hand aether. I un-der-stand your fear, and it is good to be cau-tious. Nev-er use it on some-one who is not an en-e-my un-less they un-der-stand what you are do-ing and are pre-pared--but do not fear that it is some pow-er-ful evil en-er-gy that will crip-ple them. Even high-er-lev-el aethers must be chan-neled in par-tic-u-lar ways to be turned into good weapons. ]


    Ki''el nod-ded, al-though Sobon wasn''t there to see it, and sent along a fi-nal [ Thank you ] be-fore al-low-ing her-self to stop think-ing about con-vers-ing more with Sobon. She took her time to steady her mind and heart again, half ex-pect-ing one last re-ply, but ei-ther Sobon un-der-stood her words or her in-tent, and in ei-ther case did not con-tin-ue. At last, when she had clalmed her-self, she stood and moved back to-wards the Less-er House.


    She was sur-prised, and im-me-di-ate-ly sus-pi-cious, when she saw Lan Wu not far down the path, lean-ing against a tree and watch-ing her. The idea that the woman was watch-ing... Ki''el grit her teeth, but moved up to the woman, and Lan Wu did not flee from her, al-though she thought the woman seemed con-cerned.


    "You," Ki''el said, let-ting her voice be filled with an ac-cu-sa-tion. "Why do you keep fol-low-ing me?"


    "I could deny it," Lan Wu said, tap-ping one of her hands with a pa-per fan held in the oth-er. "But it would serve no pur-pose. I hear you''ve been pry-ing into my his-to-ry as well. Not un-wise." Wu flicked the fan open, and cov-ered just her mouth with it. The fan had a de-sign, but Ki''el was un-fa-mil-iar with it. A bird, of some kind, clear-ly a spir-it beast. "I''d be sur-prised if you hadn''t guessed, Sis-ter Ki''el, but there are fac-tions in-ter-est-ed in you af-ter what you did. Both fac-tions in-ter-est-ed in help-ing you... and fac-tions that are not."


    "And which do you rep-re-sent?" Ki''el watched her, un-sure of whether the woman''s poise meant some-thing. "Or who are you be-ing hired by?"


    "So cyn-i-cal," Lan Wu said, then sud-den-ly snapped the fan shut. "But you aren''t wrong. Rather than some-one sid-ing with you, peo-ple are cu-ri-ous to know more about a sword. A sword with strange prop-er-ties, they say. What they so ea-ger-ly de-sire is any use-ful in-for-ma-tion, most like-ly be-cause some-one thought it was valu-able, and oth-ers want to know for sure be-fore they com-mit to try-ing to take it from you."


    "I will tell them noth-ing," Ki''el said, though as she said it, she re-al-ized what she was say-ing meant noth-ing, and was sim-ply her be-ing bel-liger-ent to Lan Wu, de-spite the fact that the oth-er woman was... per-haps be-ing hon-est, if still her op-po-nent.


    "Hum," Lan Wu said, "a bor-ing re-sponse, but then, giv-en that you were... what, per-form-ing some long dis-tance in-tent-speech? No doubt your mas-ter gave you some ar-ti-fact, as well as that sword. And you have a space ring, as well, if only one of the less-er ones." Wu glanced down at Ki''el''s hands, and Ki''el ner-vous-ly shift-ed one hand to cov-er her ring. "You should have learned from Xan Bu, girl, that the wise choice when some-one is af-ter some-thing of yours is sim-ply not to be in pos-ses-sion of it, not as far as the Sect can prove. Xan Bu ac-tu-al-ly had far more than you re-ceived--he was a part of a net-work of peo-ple, and stole from them just as they stole from oth-ers. I, among oth-er peo-ple, was one he oc-ca-sion-al-ly al-lowed to hold some of ''his'' things, in ex-change for cer-tain fa-vors."


    Ki''el felt her skin crawl at the idea that this Lan Wu had worked with Xan Bu, but when she sud-den-ly straight-ened, mov-ing away form the tree, there was still noth-ing threat-en-ing to her de-meanor. "Make no mis-take," Lan Wu said, "It is bet-ter that he is gone. I won''t, of course, say any-thing about what I may or may not have had in my pos-ses-sion at the end. Ex-cept to say that I ob-vi-ous-ly had noth-ing of his." The in-sin-cer-i-ty in her voice was read-i-ly ap-par-ent. "But what I will say is that what passed through his hands ob-vi-ous-ly in-clud-ed things that do not be-long in the Less-er House. Tal-is-mans and ar-ti-facts wor-thy of the Out-er Sect, at least. Why and how those peo-ple med-dle, I don''t like to think. But when they look for peo-ple to in-flu-ence, it is not hard to find some-one will-ing to do their bid-ding."


    "In the world be-yond the sect, the rich dan-gle gems be-fore the poor, but the poor can nev-er rise in their sta-tion. Here, dan-gling scraps be-fore a wild dog may ac-tu-al-ly pull them for-ward out of this hell hole and into the Sect prop-er. Re-sist-ing them is quite dan-ger-ous, Sis-ter."


    Ki''el lis-tened to all of it, but still re-gard-ed Lan Wu war-i-ly. "Why are you say-ing this?" she fi-nal-ly asked. "Are you not in-tend-ing to work for them any longer?"


    "One con-tract end-ed, an-oth-er be-gins," Wu said. "As I said, there are those in the Out-er Sect who hope that no one will both-er you. I''m not in-tend-ing to pro-tect you, Sis-ter, but de-liv-er-ing a mes-sage has so far turned out much eas-i-er than try-ing to catch you ran-dom-ly pulling out an ar-ti-fact." She half turned, and raised her fan as if in farewell. "But trust that if I am ever prop-er-ly paid, I will have my ways of get-ting to you."


    "With your voice tech-nique?" Ki''el asked, and was hon-est-ly fair-ly sur-prised when the woman paused in mid step. "You can''t have imag-ined that peo-ple did not no-tice."


    Lan Wu stood stock still for a mo-ment, but flicked open her fan and turned back to her, cov-er-ing her mouth with it, seem-ing to re-gain her poise in-stant-ly thanks most-ly to the prop. "Peo-ple no-tice, Sis-ter. But I am sur-prised by the scorn in your voice. You don''t think me ca-pa-ble of in-flu-enc-ing peo-ple with it? Or did you think, since you were nev-er the tar-get of it, that it is tru-ly a weak thing?" Lan Wu raised the fan un-til it just bare-ly didn''t cov-er her eyes. "Would you care to face it? Do you dare?"


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, but be-gan cy-cling her Righeous Aether, and also the pu-ri-fied qi in her qi cy-cle, most-ly still un-col-lect-ed from the pre-vi-ous day. "I do not mind."


    "You may re-gret that." And Lan Wu''s eyes flashed, and Ki''el felt a buzz in her head--but it was only slight-ly more than that. She could feel a tiny prick of pain, as though a nee-dle was be-ing pressed against her, but not hard.


    She frowned, aware that her mind was sharp-er be-cause of her pu-ri-fied aether, and won-dered whether it would have been worse with-out it. "Is that all?"


    Lan Wu blinked, her con-cen-tra-tion dis-rupt-ed. "What?"


    "I could feel it, a bit of pain," Ki''el said. "Is that it? Noth-ing more?"


    "Tsk," Lan Wu said, look-ing away and cov-er-ing the pro-file of her face with the fan. "Not some coun-try bump-kin to be im-pressed by tricks, I see. I sup-pose I should have ex-pect-ed that. I have more dan-ger-ous tech-niques, but I am loathe to use it--them when not in an of-fi-cial and sanc-tioned duel." She looked back, mak-ing sure to keep her face cov-ered. "But more than that, Sis-ter, you should be cau-tious. If some-one sent me af-ter you, they''d more than like-ly pro-vide me with an Out-er Sect ar-ti-fact to im-prove my abil-i-ty be-yond a lev-el you could han-dle."


    Ki''el just stood there, un-sure whether the woman was se-ri-ous, and had only that much to show for her-self. But then... should she be ex-pect-ing more than that? Per-haps peo-ple like Be-nai and Chi-an had giv-en her a strange im-pres-sion of what some-one at Gold Qi could do. Or peo-ple like her-self, and Sobon. She just sighed, and fi-nal-ly looked away from the woman.


    "Just go," Ki''el said. "You have no idea what I have been through. You have no way to fright-en me, Lan Wu."


    "No?" Ki''el turned back to the woman at the ques-tion, to find that the woman had pro-duced a sword--but no, it was only a mo-men-tary il-lu-sion, and Ki''el could al-most feel the woman''s qi strain to main-tain it. Be-cause she kept her poise and kept her face hid-den, though, it was dif-fi-cult to tell by look-ing. "There are many fright-en-ing things in life, Sis-ter Ki''el."


    "Yes," Ki''el said blunt-ly. "Like rapists and mur-der-ers. Like pi-rates and slavers. Like mur-der-ous war-riors with swords and Ti-ta-ni-um Qi." Ki''el stalked for-ward, though any thought of ac-tu-al-ly do-ing some-thing to threat-en the woman was kept in check by her lim-it-ed un-der-stand-ing of the for-fei-ture rules. "I have faced things that are gen-uine-ly fright-en-ing, Lan Wu. You have no way to threat-en me." She passed the woman by, find-ing her steps heavy and stompy as she went.


    "There are greater dan-gers than you in the Less-er House," Lan Wu said, well be-fore Ki''el was out of hear-ing range, and she paused. "Per-haps--just per-haps--I am not one of them. But each of the sleep-ing drag-ons has a duty, and a price." The woman paused, but when she spoke again, it didn''t sound like she had turned or moved from where Ki''el had left her. "I''m sure you''ve met at least one. Are you pre-pared for the idea that they might some-day be-come an en-e-my? It might be bet-ter to sim-ply yield."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that for only half a mo-ment, and found that when she spoke, she hadn''t thought about what she said at all.


    "If an en-e-my comes for my aether sword, I will en-sure that the at-tempt costs them more than sect points." And then, un-sure that what she said was wise, she moved away again.


    Be-hind her, Lan Wu stood there, let-ting the young fool of a girl walk away, be-fore snap-ping her fan shut. "[Aether sword], hm? That might be worth some-thing." And she turned around, and very slow-ly fol-lowed Ki''el down the path to-wards the Less-er House.

 [TAS] 22. Kiel - Climate, Part 3

    That evening, when next Ki''el had the chance to speak with Mian and Xam to-geth-er, by chance Da Chi-an had also de-cid-ed to join them. Ki''el didn''t usu-al-ly mea-sure the girl''s qi, but there was some-thing more to it, some-thing that she looked at but did not wish to speak of, or at least, not at first.


    So she start-ed in right away with what she want-ed to say. "I sent a mes-sage to Sobon," she said, "re-gard-ing what we spoke of yes-ter-day." She looked to Mian. "He does not think that your idea was a good plan. Try-ing to con-tain that much pow-er your-self struck him as un-wise, as any mis-take could cause con-se-quences."


    Mian made a face, but nod-ded. "Fair, I sup-pose. I was ar-ro-gant to just as-sume I could con-trol a tech-nique I''ve nev-er used be-fore."


    She looked back to Xam, and then briefly at Chi-an. "He did sug-gest that if we could not find a way to teach you a pu-rifi-ca-tion tech-nique, we could in-crease your re-sis-tance by ex-po-sure. The Right-eous Aether that I nor-mal-ly use is one of a pair, and the coun-ter-part, Sin-is-ter Aether, weak-ens in the same way that Right-eous Aether sup-ports. Ex-po-sure to the aether alone, with-out an ad-vanced tech-nique, will not have last-ing ef-fects, but ex-pe-ri-ence re-sist-ing for-eign aether will help you when fac-ing your tribu-la-tion."


    Xam leaned back once she had heard every-thing Ki''el had to say, her face se-ri-ous. "It''s not a bad idea," she said, though her voice had doubts. "I have al-ready had some tem-per-ing ex-pe-ri-ence on the bat-tle-fields, but re-new-ing it here, in safe-ty, would be wise."


    "I also should prac-tice us-ing that," Chi-an mused, as she sum-moned one of her aether rings into each hand. Ki''el no-ticed that both of them were spin-ning, but while the left-hand thorn had built up en-er-gy, the right-hand thorn''s pow-er had been used al-ready. "I as-sume I can just use it along with my qi when I use a nor-mal tech-nique...?"


    "I am not a mas-ter of these things," Ki''el ad-mit-ted, "But when I du-eled with Broth-er Mon-shu, I put both qi and left-hand aether into my sword. The com-bi-na-tion... did not feel wrong."


    "What kind of tech-niques do you have?" Mian asked, sound-ing cu-ri-ous. Then, when there was a slight-ly awk-ward pause, he added, "You don''t need to say, or ex-pose your na-ture--"


    "I have been work-ing on fire tech-niques," Chi-an in-ter-rupt-ed him. "But... a more nat-ur-al el-e-ment for me is wind. And I think I could use that to-geth-er with this Sin-is-ter pow-er to pres-sure you with-out harm."


    Xam frowned at that, but Mian stood up, brac-ing him-self. "If ei-ther of you want to test... don''t hes-i-tate. I will en-dure what-ev-er you wish to throw at me."


    That made every-one feel a bit awk-ward, but rather than dwelling on that, Ki''el stood up and brought out her Sin-is-ter Thorn, spin-ning up that cy-cle with-in her spir-it. "I do not keep a great deal of the en-er-gy," she said, "though per-haps I will cre-ate an-oth-er Cy-cle for it lat-er. Pre-pare your-self."


    Mian nod-ded, and when Ki''el felt his qi dis-trib-ute through-out his body, she moved the thorn away, and fo-cused only on re-leas-ing the Sin-is-ter Aether from her palm as she struck him in the chest. She... could feel it, dis-charg-ing into his body.


    But from the out-side, it tru-ly looked like all she did was smack him once on the chest.


    Even so, Mian''s face twist-ed mo-men-tar-i-ly at it. She felt his qi slow, but not se-vere-ly or for very long. Af-ter only a mo-ment, it picked back up, and al-though she could tell that she had hit him, there seemed to be no dam-age.


    "It dis-rupt-ed my con-trol," Mian said, re-leas-ing his stance. "Not... much, or for long. But I don''t know when the last time was some-thing ac-tu-al-ly con-test-ed my will, not ex-cept my own in-ter-nal prob-lems." He looked at Ki''el. "Can you do that more?"


    "A cou-ple more times," Ki''el agreed, "but I have not built up great amounts of this en-er-gy."


    "Let me feel it." Ki''el was sur-prised that it was Chi-an who stepped up next. Al-though she had her doubts, and prob-a-bly showed them, Chi-an gave her a very lev-el look and spoke with-out emo-tion. "You were kind enough to treat me to Right-eous Aether, and even taught me the tech-nique. I should know what I am do-ing to oth-ers."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "My mas-ter said not to use the aether on any-one who was not an en-e-my, or a will-ing par-tic-i-pant," she said. "But I trust you un-der-stand."


    When Chi-an nod-ded, Ki''el re-peat-ed her trick, strik-ing Chi-an in the ab-domen with her left palm. Some-how, Chi-an''s qi seemed nat-u-ral-ly re-sis-tant to it, but Ki''el could sense that the re-sis-tance had tak-en its own toll, cost the girl en-er-gy or some-thing sim-i-lar.


    "I see," Chi-an said. "It''s a pur-er form of spir-i-tu-al op-pres-sion, with-out mal-ice. The word ''sin-is-ter'' is apt." She reached down and touched the place where Ki''el had struck her, but her face showed no sign of pain or con-fu-sion. "With-out a great deal more pow-er be-hind it, I don''t think it will threat-en me. But if you were to make it more dense..." With-out warn-ing, Chi-an''s mouth snapped shut, and she turned away. "Nev-er mind," she said, dis-mis-sive-ly.


    "It is a weapon," Xam said, stand-ing as well. "Ob-vi-ous-ly ter-ri-ble things when peo-ple de-vel-op pow-er-ful weapons. But light spar-ring be-tween friends, as long as we are care-ful not to do dam-age, is no prob-lem." She moved to where Ki''el could ap-proach her, and nod-ded.


    Ki''el struck her, and Xam had a medi-um re-ac-tion, less than Mian''s but far more vis-i-ble than Chi-an''s. It was clear, like Chi-an, that she had faced op-pres-sion be-fore, and had de-vel-oped in-stincts, but they were not drilled into her as se-vere-ly as Chi-an''s must have been.


    Xam nod-ded, though. "I see," she said. "If the goal of sur-viv-ing a tribu-la-tion is to op-er-ate nor-mal-ly while un-der very se-vere op-pres-sion... then I can imag-ine that train-ing like this, es-pe-cial-ly with more pow-er and per-formed un-til we are ex-haust-ed... would be very help-ful." She looked at Ki''el. "But you do not have that much pow-er, yet."


    "I do not," Ki''el agreed, mov-ing to sit down.


    "Ah-ah," Chi-an said, and Ki''el turned to look at her. "You haven''t tak-en a blow yet, have you? Let me try my own on you."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, and de-cid-ed it was fair, straighen-ing. "Of course." She re-sist-ed the urge to push right-eous aether through her sys-tem, know-ing that it would help her de-fend, but... want-i-ng to see for her-self what the im-pact was.


    When Chi-an be-gan to move, though, Ki''el al-most froze, as she sensed the deep and wild pow-er be-hind their spir-it re-act to the de-sire to man-i-fest sin-is-ter aether. The pow-er that came from Chi-an''s hand, as Ki''el watched it ap-proach, seemed to mag-ni-fy, un-til she be-gan to feel blind-ed even be-fore it struck. In-stinc-tive-ly, Ki''el''s spir-it flexed, pulling on aether and qi to form a bar-ri-er, but it could only blunt the im-pact.


    It felt like some-thing break-ing, shat-ter-ing into pieces.


    Ki''el was lost for a long mo-ment in a world where some-thing in-side of her was gone, where the warmth of the world had re-treat-ed and all that re-mained was cold. It took her long mo-ments be-fore she be-gan to un-der-stand what her spir-it was telling her--that she was back. That she was there.


    Ki''el could have vi-su-al-ized the burned ru-ins of her vil-lage, could have seen the tor-tured faces of her neigh-bors, could have seen the dogs and cats too ter-ri-fied of hu-man be-ings now to ap-proach her. She could have seen any of those things... if her spir-it had been strong enough to re-mem-ber them with-out break-ing fur-ther. But when-ev-er her mind be-gan to touch on those old things, on that cold and emp-ty world, a world where every-thing warm and vi-brant had been stripped away, her will all but col-lapsed, and she could not sum-mon forth any strength at all.


    But there was some-thing, in that waste-land, and Ki''el''s at-ten-tion was pulled to-wards it. A warmth, a place that was not emp-ty, was not--


    Ki''el sat up with a jolt, the mem-o-ry of her vil-lage co-ex-ist-ing in a con-fused jum-ble with the cir-cle of fa-mil-iar faces around her. She could not fo-cus on them, or on their words, though she knew, to a cer-tain ex-tent, that Chi-an was bab-bling, and Xam said sev-er-al an-gry words, and Mian was not an-gry, or per-haps was only try-ing hard to be fair.


    She had to take many deep breaths, but the more she took, the more she un-der-stood. She un-der-stood that spir-i-tu-al op-pres-sion was what she had felt back then, when she felt the cru-el-ty of hu-man-i-ty, the will-ing-ness of oth-ers to be vi-o-lent and un-fair. It felt like death but not dy-ing, felt like she could nev-er again be whole.


    And yet she was.


    "I am al-right," she said, when she caught her breath. "I am fine." She looked at Xam, see-ing per-haps for the first time the woman be-ing al-most in tears. "Peace, Xam," she said, reach-ing out and tak-ing the woman''s hand. "Peace. I am al-right."


    "Ki''el--she should not--I could not--I am sor-ry," Xam said, sound-ing en-tire-ly too much like she was blam-ing her-self. How could she blame her-self? Ki''el did not un-der-stand.


    "I didn''t mean to," Chi-an was say-ing. "I... my spir-it mag-ic re-act-ed with it. I wasn''t try-ing to, I promise."


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    "I know," Ki''el said, though in truth, she didn''t know, only trust-ed her friend. "Peace, Chi-an. Xam. I am al-right."


    "What hap-pened? From your per-spec-tive?" Mian of-fered her a hand, and Ki''el used it to pull her-self up to a full sit-ting po-si-tion and ad-just her po-si-tion.


    "It brought me back," Ki''el said. "To the ru-ins of my vil-lage. To the wreck I was back then." Ki''el took an-oth-er set of deep breaths. "But... I sur-vived. I will sur-vive this."


    "She is too young," Xam said, look-ing to Mian, per-haps for sup-port.


    "I said I didn''t mean it," Chi-an ar-gued again, and Ki''el glanced at her, un-sure what she was say-ing.


    When she looked back at Xam, though, Ki''el re-al-ized that the woman had been look-ing at Chi-an far more than she had been at Ki''el, and the look was not friend-ly. Had she had this mis-trust be-fore? Was it all be-cause of this one mo-ment? She was un-sure, but she waved im-me-di-ate-ly, to catch Xam''s eye, and the woman looked back at her, her eyes shift-ing once more to con-cern.


    "Sis-ter," Ki''el em-pha-sized. "I am al-right." She want-ed to say a lot more--but her mind was still con-fused, the un-seen im-ages of her past still not en-tire-ly put away. "If this is what sin-is-ter aether feels like--at its high-est in-ten-si-ty--then I need to un-der-stand that. Need to en-dure it."


    "You are still a child, Ki''el," Xam said, and moved for-ward to wrap Ki''el in a hug.


    But Ki''el pushed her away, back-ing to-wards Chi-an. "I stopped be-ing a child when I watched a house pet eat its dead own-er," she said, and Ki''el could feel the ice in her voice, ice that sur-prised her. "When I buried the kind-ly old woman who gave me treats, who bore signs of what evil men had done to her. I do not need pro-tec-tion from a lit-tle bit of aether." She huffed heavy breaths, heav-ier than she was ex-pect-ing, as though the act of speak-ing of such old things had ex-haust-ed some-thing in-side of her, some-thing that had been hold-ing on for a very long time.


    For a mo-ment, she could see her. And the man, and the dog. And the face on the dog, the face of agony and con-fu-sion, the face of de-spair, in such con-trast to the numb and pain-less face of the man, no longer able to be hurt. And Ki''el re-mem-bered why she had start-ed to feed the oth-ers, even when they nev-er thanked her. Even when they could not thank her.


    Like her, they could nev-er move on.


    Ki''el breathed heav-i-ly, but with time, her thoughts sort-ed them-selves, and Ki''el re-called that she was not alone in her own mind. Kuli was there, but silent, as-sist-ing with-out putting pres-sure on her. When her mind had vi-o-lent flash-es of some-thing through it, Kuli re-treat-ed and did noth-ing, but as she calmed, Kuli was there, plac-ing things in or-der.


    And Ki''el was thank-ful, but still un-sure. The part of her-self that had nev-er left that vil-lage was ea-ger to find some-one to blame, and in starts and flash-es, that part thought that maybe Kuli was to blame. But...


    But not Chi-an.


    Ki''el looked over at the red-haired girl, whose face was full of many things, but not mal-ice. Ki''el could see the con-fu-sion there, the angst. And she reached out and took Chi-an''s hand and squeezed it, al-though she thought she saw or sensed some-thing from Xam, a mo-tion or sense of dis-ap-proval.


    "You are not at fault," she said, and at Kuli''s prompt-ing, she said, "but you must have more con-trol."


    "I will," Chi-an said, though her voice sound-ed con-fused, pained.


    "Then there is noth-ing else to say." She turned to look at Mian, and nod-ded at him. The man nod-ded back, look-ing more calm than any-one else there. She looked at Xam, who was still dis-traught. "You do not agree."


    But Xam took sev-er-al deep breaths, and al-though the last one was far deep-er than Ki''el ex-pect-ed, when she was done, Xam looked back with a cool and lev-el gaze. "If you trust her, then I trust you," she said. "But... from the first mo-ment you told us what she was... I wor-ried. Her kind... has a bad rep-u-ta-tion, for be-ing vi-o-lent and cru-el."


    "I--" Chi-an start-ed to ob-ject, but even though the word was met with noth-ing but si-lence, she didn''t con-tin-ue. Or... was Chi-an a ''they'' right now? Ki''el looked at her, but was not in a state of mind to judge. "I... do not wish to harm my friend Ki''el. More than most peo-ple I have met, I do not wish to hurt her."


    "That sounds like it is not your per-son-al-i-ty, but your na-ture," re-tort-ed Xam, stiff-en-ing like she was speak-ing down to the oth-er girl. "Which is what I said. If Ki''el trusts you, then I will trust her. But it may be that you are more dan-ger-ous than you in-tend to be, sim-ply be-cause of what you are."


    Chi-an bris-tled at that, but Ki''el spoke up, and was sur-prised when her own voice was eclipsed.


    { Peace, } Kuli pressed the thought at each of them. { The con-flict with-in Da Chi-an''s spir-it comes from wounds born from op-pres-sion. Those who op-press her wors-en the in-jury. Fix-ing that kind of spir-i-tu-al and emo-tion-al in-jury is pos-si-ble, but it does not hap-pen in the course of liv-ing a nor-mal life. In that way, both of you are right, and wrong. Be-ing cal-lous and cru-el wors-ens the prob-lem, but well-mean-ing is not suf-fi-cient to heal wounds. }


    Some-how, those words didn''t seem to mol-li-fy Xam or Chi-an, though they sparked some-thing in Ki''el. She shook her head. "What... would one need to do in or-der to cure such wounds?"


    { Surgery to fix phys-i-cal wounds re-quires cut-ting flesh to mend bones and or-gans, del-i-cate-ly per-formed vi-o-lence that must be paired with ex-treme tal-ent and ad-e-quate if not per-fect knowl-edge. The spir-i-tu-al ver-sion is no dif-fer-ent, and no one we have yet met is able to per-form such a task, not even Sobon. }


    Ki''el found her mind sharp-er now that Kuli was speak-ing as though the oth-er girl''s prob-lem had an ac-tu-al so-lu-tion, and she found her thoughts about her own prob-lems fad-ing.


    "Re-al-ly?" It was Mian''s voice that in-ter-rupt-ed the tense and con-fused si-lence. "I would have thought that among the so-ci-ety of Sobon''s peers, they would have no fur-ther need to cut open bod-ies in or-der to heal wounds. Can''t you just use in-cred-i-ble aether pow-ers, or some-thing, to do the same?"


    { Bod-ies re-sist for-eign pow-er, } Kuli an-swered. { Bod-ies that are in-jured pan-ic, and re-ject even healthy out-side aether, much less ef-fects that will cause more in-juries but make things bet-ter in the end. It is not sim-ple to take an or-gan-ism with the strength to re-sist and over-pow-er it, with-out do-ing fur-ther harm. Even with med-ical tech-niques to sub-due and calm the mind, the spir-it of in-di-vid-ual or-gans and tis-sues will re-sist on their own, and some such or-gans can-not be shut down with aether. In-stead, to reach their in-ter-nals and cre-ate the nec-es-sary change, care-ful vi-o-lence that can be healed is per-formed. }


    Ki''el not-ed, in the cor-ner of her eye, Chi-an''s hand slid-ing to her low-er ab-domen, but re-fused to turn and look. In-stead, she asked what she knew must be the real ques-tion, the real mat-ter at hand.


    "The wounds of Chi-an, or the an-ces-tral spir-it that gives her pow-er, are be-tray-al and tor-ture. Are there re-al-ly tech-niques to ease such wounds?"


    { Yes, } Kuli said. { Be-cause the wound cre-ates ir-ra-tional-i-ty, a re-fusal to per-ceive. Most com-mon-ly, but not al-ways, if the per-son who was be-trayed and tor-tured had per-ceived what was com-ing, the worst might have been avoid-ed. A clear and healthy mind does not re-quire one to trust un-du-ly. Even a great spir-it who may be at-tacked at any time by any-one, has a right to have clear per-cep-tion and to be free from the pain of old wounds. They have a right to per-ceive all peo-ple for who and what they are, in-clud-ing those that will be-tray them in the fu-ture--and those that will not. Ob-tain-ing spir-i-tu-al health does not mean mak-ing a spir-it qui-es-cent, silent, sub-mis-sive. Health is health. }


    Ki''el had not heard or seen any sign of her aug-ment be-ing so up-set be-fore, if the spir-i-tu-al en-ti-ty''s adamant speech could be seen as such. Are you well, Kuli?


    Kuli''s at-ten-tion turned back to her, alone. { I con-tain a part of the in-teligent mind of the Tidal Coro-na. Ship in-tel-li-gences are ex-pect-ed to be sub-mis-sive to their cap-tains, even when the or-ders are fool-ish. The Coro-na dis-agreed with the or-ders that led to the ship be-ing dam-aged and trapped on this world. }


    Ki''el frowned, even as she was aware that the oth-ers were speak-ing around her. She only could think, though, about what Kuli had said. If you be-lieve I would do some-thing fool-ish and en-dan-ger you and my-self, please tell me. That is not a mis-take I wish to make my-self. In re-sponse, she felt a strange stir-ring in her mind, but Kuli of-fered her no words.


    Ki''el blinked away her mo-men-tary trance to see that Xam was look-ing into the camp-fire, as though think-ing deep thoughts, while Mian and Chi-an were talk-ing light-ly be-tween them.


    "...nev-er want that for you, and I don''t think Xam does ei-ther," Mian was say-ing.


    "I know that Ki''el does not." She looked over at Ki''el, then away. "And I would be-lieve that you do not. And I can even un-der-stand that Sis-ter Xam is sim-ply fright-ened. But it is hard to trust some-one who open-ly dis-trusts you. Hard to put faith in some-one who seems ea-ger to find a rea-son to slan-der you."


    Xam looked up at that, and looked like she want-ed to ar-gue, but took a deep breath and let it out. "I''m sor-ry," she said, and Ki''el felt like it was not the first time she had said that, though she was not sure she had heard the first time.


    The tense-ness in the air didn''t dis-si-pate eas-i-ly, though. Af-ter a mo-ment, Ki''el turned to Chi-an, ad-just-ing her sit-ting pos-ture again to be more com-fort-able. "Do you have any idea what you did to am-pli-fy the aether like that?"


    Chi-an looked at her, sur-prise clear on her face, though the look changed to re-gret. "I''m... not sure. I think that my spir-i-tu-al pow-er want-ed to am-pli-fy that kind of pow-er, with-out car-ing that I chose a friend as a tar-get. In many ways, it does what it wants, and I have to... know what it in-tends, and hold it back, if it is wrong." She sighed. "It makes prac-tic-ing with my born tal-ents trou-ble-some. If I do too much, I risk re-veal-ing my-self, or worse, harm-ing some-one. Es-pe-cial-ly here, in the Less-er House, that would be a ter-ri-ble prob-lem."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "Is that why you have that shield-ed place? Did Be-nai pre-pare that for you?"


    "Yes. It is too small for me to use great pow-er, and I am not tempt-ed to use great qi there. But my ...an-ces-tral tech-niques will still am-pli-fy small amounts of qi to dan-ger-ous lev-els, some-times. The shields are there to hide and dis-guise even large dis-charges of pow-er." Chi-an glanced away. "Be-nai is... an el-der. She..."


    "You don''t have to say," Mian in-ter-rupt-ed. "Wouldn''t she ob-ject to you say-ing things you shouldn''t?"


    Chi-an looked at him, and nod-ded af-ter a minute. "She is... loy-al, hard-work-ing, and hon-est. She does not like to do what she does, but it is an hon-or-able task giv-en to her. If she were not here, I am sure she could be do-ing great things. Or at least... she could be hap-py, some-where." Chi-an slumped. "My fam-i-ly, and oth-ers, en-sure that she stays."


    Ki''el squeezed her hand again, be-fore let-ting her go. It felt nice to hold Da Chi-an''s hand, and she thought the girl must also take com-fort in her, but she knew that it was one of many things that should not be done too much. "Per-haps we can find an an-swer, some day," Ki''el said. "Sobon has some-thing planned, though I don''t know what. Ex-cept that build-ing a No-ble house, to pro-tect our-selves and the peo-ple we hold dear, is a part of it."


    Chi-an looked over at her, with an ex-pres-sion that Ki''el couldn''t see clear-ly enough to read. "Build-ing a no-ble house?"


    Mian nod-ded at her. "Sobon''s knowl-edge and pow-er puts him in rare com-pa-ny. At Gold Qi, he slew some-one at Mithril Qi. It is dif-fi-cult to imag-ine how much pow-er he will have when he ful-ly heals."


    Chi-an''s head turned to-wards Mian''s, clear-ly con-fused. "...Heals?" But when she looked from Mian to Ki''el, and then back again, the looks that they both gave her were too clear, too guile-less. "I... see. And you say he has no need for... blood?"


    "I doubt he has even the slight-est de-sire to per-se-cute or op-press any spir-i-tu-al beast," Ki''el said. "Un-less they are the rea-son be-hind the world dy-ing, or seek to kill him for some slight."


    Chi-an looked back at her, and now the con-fu-sion on her face was more in-tense. "...The world is dy-ing?"

 [TAS] 23. Kiel - Climate, Part 4

    None of them were en-tire-ly sure what they should and should not say, but Ki''el spoke for a time about the world be-ing in great dan-ger from threats from be-yond, from mas-ters who may be an-gry due to the sins of this world. The more she spoke, though, the more she could feel that Sobon''s own ex-pla-na-tions had been in-com-plete; it went be-yond the fact that she couldn''t ful-ly ex-plain what Sobon had told her and Mian, and touched on some-thing deep-er.


    When she con-sid-ered it, Sobon hadn''t known about that con-flict when she first met him, but he had still been... dis-tressed. Un-able to live in the mo-ment, he had been dis-tant from the start. In a way... or to an ex-tent, he had been sim-i-lar in his spir-it to her, and the dis-tressed beasts of her vil-lage. Of course, he had died and come back, and was trapped in-side the body of a squir-rel, but... that did not com-plete-ly match what she felt from him. What-ev-er both-ered him didn''t seem so... per-son-al.


    She was sure, though, that Da Chi-an was mis-un-der-stand-ing her mes-sage, as the girl seemed pos-i-tive, even up-beat to hear that there was some glob-al prob-lem that need-ed solv-ing. She sat back, con-sid-er-ing things, but sim-ply nod-ded. "I don''t think my clan would be in-volved in any-thing like that," she said, quite mat-ter-of-fact-ly. "We would proud-ly meet the mas-ters-from-be-yond, and work with them, if nec-es-sary."


    Ki''el and Mian ex-changed looks, but nei-ther said any-thing. Sobon had seemed to be-lieve there was no hope of peace, but... was he cer-tain? Or sim-ply afraid?


    "Still," Da Chi-an sat up straighter, look-ing at Ki''el. "It is an in-ter-est-ing sto-ry. And there is much dan-ger in the world. I don''t know about any of it--if I were home, I would bring prob-a-bly bring it to my grand-fa-ther, but it would be a long way to go from here. Bai Be-nai might be able to send word, but I wouldn''t ex-pect more than a spir-it mes-sen-ger, es-pe-cial-ly since your mas-ter isn''t here or re-quest-ing any-thing." She con-sid-ered. "If in the fu-ture, your mas-ter builds a no-ble house... it might not be im-pos-si-ble to ne-go-ti-ate, but I don''t think it would be easy. We live in the shad-ow of one of the Djang Great Clans--the Han fam-i-ly, one of the top ten in terms of pow-er. They don''t rule us di-rect-ly, but they per-mit us in their ter-ri-to-ry, and I as-sume there are rules."


    "I would imag-ine so," said Xoi Xam with a cer-tain bite to her words, that Ki''el thought was dis-ap-prov-ing of the un-der-state-ment.


    If she no-ticed, Chi-an didn''t mind. "The Han fam-i-ly don''t hunt us, but they don''t pro-tect us much, ei-ther. The moun-tain I grew up on--"


    But Mian stood up. "I don''t mean to in-ter-rupt," he said, "but I for one am not con-fi-dent in my abil-i-ty to clear the Gold-en Wall by the end of the month. You can talk freely, but... I need to fo-cus."


    Chi-an, though she said noth-ing, had a look on her face that was al-most of-fend-ed. Ki''el put a hand on hers, to try to com-fort the girl, but the look she got back was still dis-pleased. "We all have much to work on," Ki''el said. "Some peo-ple, some-times, need to work when they can. Mian does not mean any-thing by it."


    "No, he does not," agreed Chi-an, blow-ing out a frus-trat-ed breath. "And I sup-pose since we all just ex-pe-ri-enced some-thing, we should all med-i-tate on it. I just... en-joy talk-ing about home."


    Xam got up and moved away. "You two can talk," she said, "but I will be with my hus-band."


    That left Ki''el and Chi-an by the fire. This close, al-though Chi-an''s ears and tail were con-cealed, when she looked at the girl in the dark-ness, she could al-most imag-ine where they ought to be. In a way, Ki''el thought, she seemed... in-com-plete with-out them.


    "I ap-pre-ci-ate what Kuli said," Chi-an said into the still-ness, and Ki''el fo-cused on the oth-er girl. "That be-ing healthy--be-com-ing health-i-er does not need to mean be-com-ing sub-mis-sive. In many ways, it''s un-like the teach-ings of our fam-i-ly. They only al-low one way for-ward, and all oth-er ways are harm-ful and wrong." Chi-an closed her eyes. "I... could imag-ine that the oth-er ways for-ward are dan-ger-ous. That oth-ers have tried them and failed. But if there was only one way, all fam-i-lies would fol-low it."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "If there was only one way, the Di-a-mond Lord him-self would have fol-lowed it."


    Chi-an flinched at that. "Let''s not say things too far above our sta-tion," she chid-ed. "But, you''re right. The way of our fam-i-ly nev-er led us to those kind of heights. The Clan Ma-tri-arch is only..." she paused. "I should not say. But if she could have crushed the head of the Han fam-i-ly, she would have. And he is well be-low the Di-a-mond Lord."


    Ki''el just nod-ded. "I don''t tru-ly un-der-stand the way of my mas-ter, but I know that much of what fol-lows is prepar-ing our-selves to hold greater pow-er with-out mak-ing mis-takes. Un-der-stand-ing pow-er, and what''s com-ing..." she paused. "But I don''t. And I don''t be-lieve that I''m sup-posed to. Even he seemed to be wait-ing un-til he was stronger to han-dle un-lock-ing deep-er lev-els of his pow-er."


    "It would be strange if some-one of-fered us all that we need-ed be-fore we were ready to han-dle it," Chi-an agreed. "But you be-lieve he had un-der-stand-ing far be-yond his pow-er?"


    Ki''el paused, but sim-ply looked Chi-an in the eye. "I am cer-tain," she said, and her voice held no doubts at all.


    Chi-an ac-cept-ed that, nod-ding sim-ply. "I be-lieve it," she said. "I wish that I had that in-sight, or pow-er, but I feel like it will be a long time be-fore I''m ready for any-thing be-yond the ba-sics." She looked down at her hand, and af-ter a mo-ment, one of her aether cy-cles ap-peared above it--Right-eous, Ki''el thought, though it was hard-ly mov-ing at all. "Even this. My spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy rec-og-nizes it, but there''s no un-der-stand-ing there. Some-where in-side, I know how to wield it, but be-yond that..."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that. What makes her spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy dif-fer-ent from aether? Or qi? What is it that holds such pow-er but is be-yond us?


    She felt some-thing strange from Kuli, as though she was dis-con-tent, but she an-swered Ki''el silent-ly. { It is sim-i-lar to a qi na-ture, but qi cre-at-ed by some-one else. The ''key'' or ''way'' to use pow-er is with-in the en-er-gy it-self, and can-not be eas-i-ly ex-tract-ed. If you had the qi of a fire mas-ter, but did not un-der-stand fire, it would seem sim-i-lar-ly tem-per-me-n-tal. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, and af-ter a mo-ment, re-peat-ed what Kuli said aloud, and Chi-an looked over at her, nod-ding when she was done. "That is much like what I''ve heard," she said, "but more than that... the pow-er of my blood-line con-tains some bless-ings and will of its own. They told me many things they thought it meant, but... they also don''t like to an-swer. It''s hard to even know how much they know." She scowled and bunched up, de-fen-sive-ly. "They also don''t like any-one con-fronting them about those stu-pid things. Even with-in the fam-i-ly. But..." she looked at the aether ring in her hand, again. "...I don''t know what it''s all sup-posed to mean. They taught me a lot of small things that they said would be need-ed to use my pow-er lat-er, but not the things that un-lock it. And yet, when I look at things like this... I feel like I''m clos-er to the an-ces-tor than to any-one in my fam-i-ly. Touch-ing raw things, and not sim-ply re-peat-ing what oth-ers taught me."


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    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, and con-sult-ed pri-vate-ly with Kuli. Is there a way to turn qi back into pure out-er aether? Or aether of any lev-el?


    { No, } Kuli said. { The pow-er that binds qi to-geth-er merges the lay-ers. You can repli-cate the ef-fects of the low-er lev-els, but you can-not ex-tract them, or re-move parts of qi that are un-want-ed. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that. That is why pri-mor-dial qi is so im-por-tant, she pushed the thought at Kuli. There is no know-ing what pow-ers have touched the en-er-gy you use, on lev-els you can-not de-tect or un-der-stand, not un-less it is cre-at-ed from scratch.


    Kuli didn''t an-swer di-rect-ly, but Ki''el got the dis-tinct im-pres-sion that she was cor-rect.


    Ki''el said, "I know about the lay-ers that come next, but... the only one I''ve been able to touch is the sec-ond lev-el, and I can''t cre-ate aether of that lev-el yet. But... I did find a pair of stones touched by nat-ur-al aether that mim-ic-ed the ef-fects." She paused. "I wish I had kept them. But it went against what I was told to do at the time, and I didn''t think about the fu-ture. I doubt I could find the place or those stones again. But..." she hes-i-tat-ed, then spoke. "It is a pair of en-er-gies, one flow-ing end-less-ly out, one flow-ing end-less-ly in. Gen-e-sis and Con-sump-tion Aether."


    "End-less?" Da Chi-an leaned for-ward, her face in-ter-est-ed. "A source of end-less pow-er?"


    "No," she said. "A flow that seems to come from nowhere and go every-where, but does not. And the op-po-site... is a flow that seems to come from every-where and re-turn to noth-ing, but does not." Ki''el looked around, then fo-cused back on Chi-an. "Sobon says they are the ''space'' lay-er of aether, but I don''t re-al-ly know what that means."


    "Space..." Chi-an made a face. "I wouldn''t re-al-ly know what it means ei-ther, but if it only seems to be flow-ing in and out, that means it con-nects over dis-tance, right? So that the cir-cle is com-plete even if you can''t see it."


    Ki''el nod-ded, hard-ly notic-ing in her ex-cite-ment of talk-ing how much she was say-ing. "It has to mean more than that, or it has to have hid-den uses... he uses it to cre-ate aether script and struc-ture in midair."


    Chi-an looked at her, then sighed. "Ki''el... don''t give away too many se-crets, even among friends. But." She closed her eyes and con-sid-ered. "Com-plet-ing a cir-cle across any dis-tance... it doesn''t re-al-ly make sense. If only half of the cir-cle is vis-i-ble, what is the oth-er half?"


    Ki''el flinched at the re-buke, and didn''t an-swer Chi-an''s ques-tion, though she did think about the ques-tion. Sobon had said that the aether flowed in high-er lev-els, and that the cy-cle had to pass through them. But what did that mean? What ex-ist-ed in the place that aether flowed through? If her own qi in-clud-ed aether in all of those lev-els... wasn''t her mag-ic, and every-one else''s, al-ready flow-ing through all of those lev-els? Didn''t she al-ready ex-ist, in some sense, in those high-er lev-els of aether?


    Was some part of her-self con-stant-ly cy-cling from the phys-i-cal world into the world be-yond, and back?


    As Ki''el sat there and con-sid-ered it, she felt an urge to pull out her sword and med-i-tate... but, no. Lan Wu had just said that she had been snoop-ing and try-ing to catch her with the sword, and sug-gest-ed she wasn''t alone in that. Ki''el... should have watched what she said, she re-al-ized, and as she glanced out at the dark-ness, she could only feel the dark-ness more dis-tinct-ly. Was some-one out there, and she had just missed it?


    "Wor-ried about some-thing?" Chi-an''s voice brought Ki''el back. "There''s no one near. I wouldn''t have let you talk more if I thought there were."


    "You are cer-tain?"


    Chi-an''s good mood seemed to fade at that ques-tion. "We can nev-er re-al-ly be sure. If some-one from the rest of the Sect, es-pe-cial-ly some-one who tru-ly stud-ies stealth, want-ed to hide from me, they could. And I don''t al-ways cir-cu-late my qi. But... when we start-ed to talk more se-ri-ous-ly, I did. There is no one close, and no sign of qi ex-cept from your friends."


    Ki''el turned to look at Chi-an again, sur-prised. "I didn''t sense any-thing."


    "I hope not. That''s part of the tech-nique." Chi-an sighed. "I al-most envy you, talk-ing so eas-i-ly about your se-crets. But even if I want-ed to talk about it, most of it is in-stinct, and con-trol tech-niques. The most I could re-al-ly de-scribe is how to con-trol the spir-it en-er-gy, what I can do with it. It''s not like I could talk about cre-at-ing the qi that I use, not the way I''m learn-ing fire. But then, with aether..." she made a face. "It feels... I don''t know."


    "Sobon talked about aether as though it is the base of every-thing, a nat-ur-al part of the uni-verse that came be-fore life it-self." Ki''el looked at the oth-er girl, as Chi-an seemed to be lost in throught. "Even spir-its must cre-ate their strength from some nat-ur-al pow-er. I guess that must be aether."


    "I guess," Chi-an agreed. "If that''s the case... I won-der what it''s like to use all of that pow-er." She reached one hand up to-wards the sky, al-though the trees around them blocked most of the stars, and the night above was hazy. "We''re at the bot-tom, but what is at the top? Gods? Some-thing else? Or maybe noth-ing has ever reached that high be-fore?" She closed her fist, as though grasp-ing at noth-ing. "I won-der what it would be like to be the first. To tran-scend qi, tran-scend aether. To mas-ter the world it-self."


    Ki''el shiv-ered at the thought, not lik-ing it. "It... is not for me," she said, though she felt like her ear-li-er con-fi-dence in liv-ing a sim-ple life, like a sword, was some-how weak-ened lis-ten-ing to Chi-an speak, or... weak-ened, some-how, from her spir-it. "To gath-er pow-er for the sake of pow-er..."


    "Yeah, but that''s it, isn''t it?" Chi-an turned to look at her. "It''s not hard to see the bad peo-ple who gained strength and did ter-ri-ble things with it. But did those peo-ple lose their way be-cause they searched for pow-er? Or were they screwed up by oth-ers be-cause they didn''t have enough pow-er? The way your Kuli talked about be-ing in-jured and be-com-ing a worse per-son be-cause of it, and the way your mas-ter talks about prepar-ing to have pow-er... it sounds like it''s not hav-ing pow-er that''s some kind of prob-lem, is it? You just can''t let any-one or any-thing take you off of the path. If you''re healthy and pre-pared for it... then there''s noth-ing good or bad about pow-er. It just is, right?"


    Ki''el stared at Chi-an, feel-ing some-thing stir-ring in-side of her that she didn''t know how to put into words. But she looked away af-ter a mo-ment, feel-ing like she shouldn''t be hav-ing the feel-ing, and looked for some-thing to dis-tract her. "Well... I mean, that''s all we would have want-ed in the first place, right? To stay on our path, be healthy, pre-pare for pow-er we don''t have yet...?"


    "I guess," Chi-an said. "And I guess many of the peo-ple who be-come lost in a place like this... they must have had some mis-step, or been forced off the path by some-one else. But it all feels like..." She fi-nal-ly let her arm drop. "...talk-ing with you makes me feel like it''s ac-tu-al-ly pos-si-ble. And not just some-thing weird and dis-tant." She looked back at Ki''el, who re-fused to meet her gaze. "So... thank you for that, Ki''el. I... am glad you''re my friend. And I''ll do what I can to help you, I guess."


    Ki''el felt her face flush, and pushed some right-eous aether into her spir-it to try to quash the feel-ing... but it only made a strange heat stir with-in her. She stopped, and grasped at some-thing to say in re-ply. "You guess?" she said, fi-nal-ly.


    Chi-an just laughed. "Well, we''ve only known each oth-er a few days so far. But yes, I will help." She paused. "And as part of that... I''d like to ask about what else you re-ceived in your for-fei-ture. I know you re-ceived that space ring from it," she glanced at Ki''el, who did noth-ing to deny it. "...but what about herbs, trea-sures, any-thing?"


    "The con-tents of the space ring were nev-er re-turned to me," Ki''el said, "be-cause they were un-der sus-pi-cion. But there were sev-er-al reser-va-tions..." Ki''el list-ed them, again, watch-ing Chi-an''s eyes, but only two things seemed to reach her.


    "As I''d hoped," she said. "With the sil-ver and time with an in-scrip-tion-ist, plus one oth-er in-gre-di-ent, it would not be dif-fi-cult to cre-ate a tear em-blem." Chi-an looked at her. "They are com-mon-ly used for sum-mon-ings, and with the qual-i-ty of our ma-te-ri-als, they could only do the low-est-lev-el ones. But it would suf-fice to call a spir-it from my fam-i-ly."


    Ki''el heard all that, but wasn''t sure she un-der-stood. "You want to sum-mon a spir-it from your fam-i-ly?"


    "It would be a small an-i-mal spir-it," Chi-an said. "Bound to serve the sum-mon-er, they would pro-vide in-sights, and user their spir-i-tu-al pow-er to de-fend them if nec-es-sary." Chi-an rocked back and forth a lit-tle. "My fam-i-ly has a lot of them, but I couldn''t bring one when I left. I have to be strong enough in spir-it to forge and main-tain the link my-self."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that. "But hav-ing this spir-it would help you?"


    Chi-an went qui-et for a mo-ment, at that. "Ah," she said af-ter a minute. "You re-al-ly are a nice girl, Ki''el."


    Ki''el''s con-fu-sion must have showed, but Chi-an only seemed to bask in it for a minute.


    "I said I was do-ing some-thing to help you, didn''t I?" she said, fi-nal-ly. "I wouldn''t ask you to sum-mon one for my sake. In a while, I''ll be able to han-dle that my-self. I was say-ing I''d help you sum-mon one for your-self."

 [TAS] 24. Kiel - Climate, Part 5: Blade

    Ki''el spent longer than she would like think-ing about Chi-an''s of-fer through the next few days. She was at the peak of Gold Qi long be-fore she had an an-swer, thanks to her pu-ri-fied qi cy-cle, and had even pressed her qi into sev-er-al parts of her hand and arm un-til they seemed ful-ly ac-cli-mat-ed to the pres-sure.


    She found her-self star-ing at her wrist as she, as del-i-cate-ly as she could, pres-sured qi into the tis-sues around it, and won-dered if in a way, the Less-er House was the same--a way to force peo-ple to adapt to the pres-sures of the sect. Is this the en-vi-ron-ment I need to pre-pare to live in for the next few years? Am I re-al-ly okay liv-ing like this, with-out... mu-tat-ing? And... wasn''t it the case that peo-ple like Xan Bu and Otoma Mon-shu had mu-tat-ed, af-ter hav-ing been giv-en more pow-er than they were pre-pared for? They turn against the pur-pose of the sect, will-ful-ly, be-cause they be-lieved it would ben-e-fit them. Even if it end-ed up de-stroy-ing the sect--even if it forced the sect to de-stroy them--they pur-sued that course, and all be-cause... why? Be-cause they had been of-fered pow-er?


    Al-though the log-ic made no sense to Ki''el, nei-ther did it make sense that sim-ply giv-ing her body too much aether, or qi, might cause her to self de-struct. And yet, the one was hap-pen-ing around her, and the oth-er was told in many cau-tion-ary tales. Giv-en what Sobon had said, and what Ki''el had said to Chi-an--that aether was a force and con-cept that ex-ist-ed be-fore life it-self--was it sim-ply the case that on a fun-da-men-tal lev-el, some-thing could break, and there was noth-ing that mere willpow-er, mere in-sight, could do? That peo-ple re-al-ly must ac-cli-mate to pow-er slow-ly, no mat-ter how wise or men-tal-ly pre-pared?


    But if that weren''t the case, wouldn''t Sobon have sim-ply re-turned to his full pow-er as soon as he could?


    But it made Ki''el think, as she wait-ed for the pres-sure in her wrist to even out be-fore let-ting it re-lax. Is it tru-ly as sim-ple as hold-ing pow-er, in or-der to ac-cli-mate to it, or do you need to have a pur-pose for that pow-er? Should I be find-ing some-thing wor-thy to do with my pow-er while I''m here in the Less-er House? Be-yond sim-ply hav-ing pow-er, should I be-come used to hav-ing it and us-ing it to ac-com-plish things?


    { Most peo-ple at your lev-el can-not even use the pow-er that they have, } Kuli re-mind-ed her. { The sect, and the world, are ex-pect-ing you to be-gin us-ing your pow-er un-der the tute-lage of some-one more ex-pe-ri-enced. }


    Am I not? Ki''el''s thought was point-ed at Kuli, but her aug-ment did not re-spond. So Ki''el thought about it, but... her mind sim-ply kept go-ing back, over and over, to the floor in the room that she shared with Mian and Xam. If... if she want-ed to re-pair that floor, she would need ex-per-tise that she did not have. Sim-ply know-ing aether and a lit-tle bit of qi did noth-ing for her. Wouldn''t most tasks be the same? If she want-ed to help oth-er peo-ple, she need-ed to learn how to help peo-ple, how to teach them, how to heal them--what-ev-er spe-cif-ic task they need-ed as-sis-tance with.


    Was it the same with the bones, mus-cles, and nerves in her wrist? If they were un-pre-pared for pow-er, would they strive to right some wrong that she was not even aware of, and do harm in-stead?


    Ki''el let her-self med-i-tate on that for a long time, though in the end, the med-i-ta-tion was as much as any-thing about Chi-an, and the girl of-fer-ing Ki''el yet an-oth-er ad-van-tage--a spir-i-tu-al com-pan-ion that she had not earned, and did not know what to do with. If Chi-an said that it was wise and help-ful, Ki''el would trust that, but... was it go-ing to guide her to the right path, or en-cour-age her to stray off of it?


    Was there a thing as too much pow-er, even for some-one like her who had no in-ter-est or use for pow-er?


    When at last Ki''el had her fill of qui-et in-tro-spec-tion, but had time to her-self, she found her-self fi-nal-ly head-ed back to the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion, where El-der Gol resided and kept the Sect Point ledgers. In truth, she could well have gone back soon-er--she had no idea how much Broth-er Du had paid her for im-press-ing the In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples. With-out doubt, it would be sub-stan-tial, but... what re-sources did she even need to pay for, now?


    The Hall was not so qui-et this time as last, ow-ing to the day or time per-haps; the many small work-sta-tions that filled the Hall were both more filled with crafts-men and far more filled with clients, or so she imag-ined from the many stand-ing or wait-ing near the booths as oth-ers la-bored with-in. Even many of the store rooms in the in-ner re-gion had peo-ple in them, whether sort-ing through the var-i-ous stored con-tain-ers or per-form-ing some form of work on the con-tents that she was, usu-al-ly, in no po-si-tion to ob-serve.


    It was no sur-prise, then, that the El-der him-self was busy, as was an as-sis-tant who looked less busy but far more har-ried than the old man him-self. When Ki''el ap-proached, she felt a gen-tle qi wave that pressed on her the im-pres-sion of a num-ber--not the amount of sect points that she had, but how many peo-ple were ahead of her in line. Ki''el ac-cept-ed it with a nod, look-ing around at those wait-ing, but they had large-ly formed groups that spoke qui-et-ly, or silent-ly and with in-tent alone. Of her own ac-quain-tances, she found none, and no one that stood wait-ing seemed to no-tice or take any in-ter-est in her.


    Ki''el, see-ing that many oth-ers al-lowed them-selves to be-come dis-tract-ed, also sat against a wall and med-i-tat-ed on pow-er and ac-clima-ti-za-tion, feed-ing her qi cy-cle but not tak-ing any oth-er sig-nif-i-cant ac-tion. In the end... a place like this left her feel-ing out of her depth. In truth, she was un-cer-tain what she would do with the two hun-dred Sect Points she al-ready knew that she had--much less what-ev-er else she had gained in the mean-time.


    A flick-er of qi caught Ki''el''s at-ten-tion, but the ar-gu-ment that might have sparked it was si-lenced im-me-di-ate-ly by a sin-gle glance from the El-der, and all she saw was two cowed Out-er Sect dis-ci-ples bow-ing and then re-treat-ing. She con-sid-ered that for a few mo-ments, but then re-turned to her pre-vi-ous thoughts.


    When at last she felt El-der Gol''s at-ten-tion shift to her, and re-ceived an im-pres-sion that she was next, Ki''el sprung up rest-less-ly, al-ready un-sure what she would do here aside from find out what mon-ey she had and re-lease the reser-va-tions for things she did not need or want.


    "Xoi Doua Ki''el," the El-der said qui-et-ly as she ap-proached. "You have not been back re-cent-ly. Your Sect Point bal-ance has been ad-just-ed as fol-lows." [ For com-mon tasks, twen-ty-sev-en points. From In-ner Sect Dis-ci-ple Du, for an in-sight-ful dis-cus-sion, five hun-dred points. From Out-er Sect dis-ci-ple Abi, rep-re-sent-ing your share of a for-fei-ture, fifty points. In to-tal, sev-en hun-dred and six-ty-eight sec points. Ad-di-tion-al-ly, the con-tents of the space ring for-feit-ed by Xan Bu which have not been con-fis-cat-ed have been placed in es-crow and may be ob-tained at your dis-cre-tion. At your dis-cre-tion, you may trade your space ring for the one for-feit-ed by Xan Bu, or keep the one you have. They are of sim-i-lar qual-i-ty. ]


    Ki''el swal-lowed at the quan-ti-ty, and be-fore she for-got it, spoke fum-bled only slight-ly with her in-tent. [ I would like re-lease reser-va-tion for pills and herbs, and for spir-it gems. ]


    The El-der raised an eye-brow, slight-ly, but what-ev-er need-ed to be done to achieve that seemed to ex-ist pure-ly with-in his head. [ Done. The to-tal cost of those reser-va-tions was 182 sect points. With a 10% penal-ty for re-turn-ing your reser-va-tions, that is 164 points. You cur-rent-ly have nine hun-dred and thir-ty two points. ]


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed. [ Will take for-feit-ed items. Will keep my ring. ]


    The el-der nod-ded. "One mo-ment." He turned and once more en-tered through the seal in the floor, dis-ap-pear-ing from sight. Ki''el thought she heard a sigh from be-hind her, but when she turned and re-gard-ed the sev-er-al peo-ple wait-ing for the El-der''s time, there were far too many peo-ple giv-ing her looks for her to have any guess who had been more vo-cal about the ex-tra time.


    Had she even no-ticed more peo-ple ar-riv-ing be-hind her? She had been dim-ly aware, but was not keep-ing care-ful track.


    When the El-der re-turned, it was with a space ring on a tray, a tray that seemed to be en-graved. "Place your own ring on the oth-er cir-cle," he said as he ap-proached, and Ki''el re-moved her ring, plac-ing it down. Al-though she sensed a fluc-tu-at-ing qi for a mo-ment, when El-der Gol said, "You may take your ring," she felt that noth-ing had changed.


    Though when she put the space ring on and felt its con-tents, she could tell that was not the case. She swal-lowed, but forced her eyes to re-fo-cus on the El-der who stood wait-ing. She bowed. "Thank you, El-der. That will be all." She des-per-ate-ly want-ed to ask him more ques-tions--but they were not ques-tions fit for an el-der, es-pe-cial-ly not with so many peo-ple wait-ing for his time.


    El-der Gol sim-ply nod-ded and turned back to-wards the seal in the floor, as Ki''el re-treat-ed, con-sid-er-ing the con-tents of her space ring. This was, she re-al-ized, a time when her less-er space ring showed its weak-ness--she was aware that it con-tained a num-ber of items, but could only bare-ly count them, let alone iden-ti-fy them. I need a qui-et place to re-move every-thing and dis-cov-er what I now have, she re-al-ized, but her mind drift-ed, as well. I also need to dis-cov-er what can be done with the Sect Points that I have. Most like-ly, get-ting in-struc-tion from those in the Out-er Sect re-lat-ed to things that I wish to do.


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    In the end, she wait-ed un-til she was able to get back to the is-land of the Less-er House, al-though she found her way to an un-used area near the cliff over-look-ing the edge of the is-land, where she still liked to med-i-tate when she felt safe about it. There, she dumped out the whole con-tents of her space ring, ex-am-in-ing the re-sults. Tak-ing away her bar-ri-er stones and sword, which she re-turned to her space ring, there were sev-er-al herbs--most-ly of one type, but to-talling three dif-fer-ent types, as far as she could tell--some crys-tals that might have been ei-ther Spir-it Crys-tals or Spir-it Gems, and a va-ri-ety of what she most-ly as-sumed to be per-son-al ef-fects.


    Among those per-son-al ef-fects were let-ters and clothes--but, al-though Ki''el couldn''t say she un-der-stood, the clothes in-clud-ed... the per-son-al ef-fects of women. She not-ed them with some dis-be-lief, un-sure of what that said about Xan Bu''s lifestyle, and ul-ti-mate-ly dis-missed them, set-ting all of the cloth-ing re-lat-ed items aside and plan-ning to burn or dis-card them lat-er. But... also among the clothes were a few items with qi wo-ven through them. Most-ly, a bracelet, and a pair of rings.


    Her mind slipped back to the bracelet with pro-tec-tion scripts that Sobon had bought her at Lai Shi Po''s shop, but that bracelet had been de-stroyed when the Mofu fam-i-ly had at-tacked--part-ly, if she were hon-est, shield-ing her from the back-lash of Sobon''s own can-non tech-nique, though most of the dam-age had been done stop-ping a blow from the Ti-ta-ni-um qi war-rior. Sobon, she thought, had not even no-ticed; she was hes-i-tant to say any-thing, and had sim-ply been grate-ful that she''d had the bracelet at all. Now... she won-dered, giv-en how things were go-ing at the sect, if she would be miss-ing that ex-tra pro-tec-tion.


    That said noth-ing about what the bracelet, and the rings, ac-tu-al-ly were, but sim-ply ex-am-in-ing them would gain her noth-ing, and so she put them and the herbs back in the space ring. The crys-tals she stud-ied, pick-ing one up and clos-ing her eyes as she felt at the qi it con-tained. If... if there was sup-posed to be any in-tent in the crys-tals, she couldn''t de-tect it; and yet, if it was sup-posed to be pu-ri-fied qi with-out any in-tent, it wasn''t that pure. It also wasn''t such a sig-nif-i-cant amount of qi that she felt it was in-her-ent-ly valu-able; she could re-fine a sim-i-lar quan-ti-ty of pu-ri-fied qi in a day or so, and while it might have been nice to have that qi with-out the ef-fort, she would only think of ab-sorb-ing it af-ter pu-ri-fy-ing it first.


    Ki''el was sit-ting on a stone, with that crys-tal in her hand, when she heard a noise.


    Look-ing back, Ki''el did have a mo-ment of pan-ic, but it was in-suf-fi-cient. She had turned in place, spot-ting a fig-ure only a mo-ment be-fore a force of wind plucked her up from the stone and flung her away. Her mind ac-cel-er-at-ed, Kuli link-ing with her even be-fore it ful-ly reg-is-tered to Ki''el that she would not land on the edge of the is-land.


    Aether flowed through her spir-it in-stinc-tu-al-ly, but that aether was not suf-fi-cient to halt or re-verse her mo-men-tum, and one mo-ment af-ter the next, she no-ticed the edge of the is-land com-ing up from be-hind and be-neath her... and then slip-ping away.


    { Give me qi. } The thought from Kuli was not an or-der, nor a sug-ges-tion. It was not a com-mand, or a guess. It was an of-fer, and Ki''el didn''t even need to con-sid-er it for a mo-ment be-fore ac-cept-ing. Her dant-ian and her qi cy-cle both opened, and her qi flood-ed her whole spir-it in a mo-ment.


    Kuli, in only a mo-ment, con-veyed a sin-gle con-cept, one that Ki''el had even heard be-fore. As she watched the edge of the is-land come lev-el with her eyes, and then slow-ly sink up-wards, some part of her re-called sit-ting with Sobon in the auc-tion house, as rich peo-ple bid on a Star-beast Core as-so-ci-at-ed with a con-cept called [Thrust Qi], a qi ded-i-cat-ed to mov-ing an en-tire body with-out ap-ply-ing strain.


    It had seemed fas-ci-nat-ing. In this mo-ment, she did not find it so.


    Ki''el fo-cused her qi, charg-ing it with the in-tent of [Thrust], and drew her sword from her space ring, trig-ger-ing the blade with-out con-scious ef-fort. Al-though it felt strange--un-nat-ur-al, even--she didn''t even feel a need to swing her sword in the direction she wished to go, as she fell, instead sim-ply gath-er-ing the Thrust Qi into and around her, and in-tend-ing to go just be-yond that cliff edge, just once more.


    "[Thrust]," Ki''el said, and some-how, she thought that the world heard her.


    The snap change in her move-ment was so un-nat-ur-al that it near-ly dis-tract-ed her. She could also feel a tin-gling in her blade, as she had when she faced Otoma Mon-shu. But this time, she did not con-vey to her sword some ab-stract con-cept, like fire. She did not con-vey to the sword the con-cept of thrust. In-stinc-tive-ly, when she felt the sword ques-tion-ing her, Ki''el had only one an-swer.


    [ I am a blade. ]


    As Ki''el''s mo-men-tum brought her up to the edge of the is-land, she saw someone ex-am-in-ing the cloth-ing she had dis-card-ed. She saw him turn-ing to her in sur-prise. And she un-der-stood that she had not spent all the qi that she had on her first use of Thrust Qi. And when she un-der-stood that, and re-al-ized that her mo-men-tum was still car-ry-ing her up, many things fell into line, one af-ter the oth-er.


    "[Thrust]," Ki''el re-peat-ed, as she swung her Aether Sword at the man who had tried to kill her. And her Aether Sword seemed to con-sid-er, in the strange mo-ments that fol-lowed, in be-tween her throw-ing her-self at her foe and ac-tu-al-ly land-ing a blow, whether or not her in-tent was cor-rect.


    Was she a blade?


    Ki''el was blind-ed a mo-ment lat-er by blood and dirt, as her mo-men-tum car-ried her en-tire-ly through the name-less man who had at-tacked her. Whether there was re-sis-tance to her blade or not, Ki''el would only dis-cov-er lat-er, as her feet failed to catch her and she tum-bled to the ground, rolling and near-ly los-ing her grip on her sword. But some-how, un-til the mo-ment when she slammed her head into a tree, the blade re-mained in her hand.


    And then she knew only dark-ness.


    <hr>


    Ki''el woke with a start in the heal-er''s build-ing, and this time, she did not feel whole. Her body shiv-ered and her head ached, her eyes swam and her breath tore. She was mo-men-tar-i-ly un-sure what was go-ing on, or where she was, but--


    But there was a fig-ure there, stand-ing calm-ly be-fore her. She had to blink sev-er-al times to be sure of it, but it was Broth-er Du. And he stood there, look-ing at her, with-out re-act-ing to her awak-en-ing or con-fu-sion. She stared at him as her breath start-ed to catch up with her. What was go-ing on? What was the last thing that had hap-pened? Even with-out the help of Kuli, her mind caught up a mo-ment lat-er. The cliff-side. Be-ing pushed off of the cliff. Falling.


    "Thrust," Ki''el whis-pered, but al-though she had in-tent when she spoke it, she didn''t put even a shred of qi into it, and the word didn''t res-onate at all.


    "I had won-dered if that was you," Broth-er Du said. "It seemed like it could have been no oth-er, and yet, for all the strange things that have oc-curred around you, Sis-ter Ki''el, this seemed too much."


    Ki''el felt her body shiv-er-ing again, and she wasn''t sure why. Was she sick? Was it some for-eign in-tent? She all but begged Kuli to tell her--and at the same time, she didn''t ask Kuli any-thing. It was only a burn-ing need, not a ques-tion.


    She knew Kuli could hear it, and yet, the aug-ment did not re-spond.


    "We are in-ves-ti-gat-ing the cir-cum-stances, Sis-ter Ki''el," said Broth-er Du, and Ki''el looked at him, un-sure of what ex-act-ly he meant. "I trust that you un-der-stand."


    Ki''el, with some ef-fort, shook her head.


    "No?" Broth-er Du tilt-ed his head slight-ly. "Strange. You are aware you just slew a mem-ber of the Out-er Sect, are you not?"


    Ki''el shiv-ered, but shook her head. It had been her in-tent. Did she know that she had ac-com-plished it? No. And... what was a mem-ber of the Out-er Sect do-ing there? Why would a mem-ber of the Out-er Sect at-tempt to kill her? Had it been Otoma Mon-shu... or some-one else? But she could bare-ly think, and she could not speak.


    "I see." Broth-er Du stepped one step clos-er, and Ki''el felt the chill that was over-rid-ing her en-tire be-ing in-ten-si-fy. He stepped for-ward again, and she felt only cold-er. "I have nev-er known you to lie, Ki''el, so I will ask this plain-ly. Did you mur-der Sect Broth-er Kem Jee Sai?"


    Ki''el looked up at him, feel-ing like she was fi-nal-ly per-mit-ted to speak, and she found her words with dif-fi-cul-ty. "I... have no idea... who that is. Was... pushed off the is-land. Re-turned... blade." Her throughts were be-com-ing con-fused. "I... was a blade. I struck at the one who struck me. That is... the con-se-quence of strik-ing a blade."


    The ab-solute chill that must have some-how been ra-di-at-ing from Se-nior Broth-er Du did not stop for a long time. Ki''el could only close her eyes and fo-cus on try-ing to steady her-self in spite of the spir-i-tu-al pres-sure, not even able to breathe with-out ex-ert-ing ef-fort to push through the op-pres-sion.


    Un-til at last, the pres-sure eased.


    "You have been told that while you re-main in the Less-er House, you do not have rights to harm oth-ers. If this was an un-pro-voked at-tack on you, killing some-one in re-tal-i-a-tion is... un-der-stand-able. Not ac-cept-able, but a for-giv-able of-fense. How-ev-er, Sis-ter Ki''el... was that tru-ly nec-es-sary?"


    Ki''el looked at him, suck-ing in greedy lung-fuls of air now that it no longer hurt to do so. "Was killing him nec-es-sary? I don''t know," she said, be-tween breaths. "I was an-gry. I don''t know."


    "I don''t mean killing him," Broth-er Du said, and Ki''el felt her face pinch in ir-ri-ta-tion.


    "I do not un-der-stand," she said, and Broth-er Du''s head turned slight-ly, as the man changed the way he looked at her, in a way that she could not fath-om.


    There was more si-lence be-tween them for a long mo-ment.


    "I am be-gin-ning to think that you re-al-ly do not un-der-stand, Sis-ter Ki''el," Broth-er Du said. "And that will be a sig-nif-i-cant prob-lem for you go-ing for-ward."


    She looked at him, but Broth-er Du stepped away from her, his op-pres-sive aura dim-ming un-til she could no longer de-tect it, though with how numb and con-fused she was, it might have been ei-ther com-plete-ly gone or still sim-mer-ing--so long as it was not cur-rent-ly crush-ing her, she didn''t care which. But for whichev-er rea-son, Broth-er Du did not pro-vide more an-swers, and turned and walked away, not show-ing con-cern for her well-be-ing nor even telling her what to ex-pect in the fu-ture.


    As the last shiv-ers from the chill passed through her, Ki''el felt the voice of Kuli, now dimmed, in-side of her. { They took the sword, and your ring. You... may have done more dam-age than you meant to. }


    Ki''el didn''t have the en-er-gy to tru-ly un-der-stand those thoughts be-fore she fell back-wards into her bed again and passed out.

 [TAS] 25. Ren

    Djang Ren Sui had felt for a long time that the wait was interminable.


    He felt he had good reason to insist on a full meeting of the clan heads, and had been willing to concede that the issue was enough for a full meeting of the Ren Family in total. He had even, at the beginning, thought that the extra time would allow him to study the aritfacts he had gathered.


    Naive. They were mostly beyond him, with even the intent foriegn to his way of thinking. He was aware of how powerful the scripts were, and could even recall with some familiarity flickers of that accursed witch''s spirit as she directed it. But... no, these bones were beyond his ability to read or use.


    It was more than simply a pity. Much was wrong here. There was simply too much script written into nothing but the woman''s own bones, scripts that had helped her overcome an army that Sui himself would have hesitated before engaging. He had forced others to look into it, but he was confident, now--this Shiva Alassi was something other than human.


    Because she had once been human, and all reason and logic had only recently ceased to apply to her. Bones could not handle the incredible qi that she had displayed. The single small orb of beast core that had been used for some kind of movement artifact showed more signs of strain than the old woman''s bones. This... was doubtless at least in part because that orb had taken a great deal of strain in the fight, but even so...


    Even far away from the battle in time and space, Sui shivered at the barest thought of channeling enough qi through his bones to strike at or defend against strikes from someone at Titanium Qi. It wasn''t that the material positively couldn''t handle it--but someone having the surety that they wouldn''t shatter their bones, burn away their muscles and tendons, fry their nerves, or boil their marrow... it spoke of either a callous arrogance about the body they inhabited, or a fathomless depth of understanding about channeling qi, and healing the body.


    Footsteps in the hall mercifully pulled Sui out of that thought, and he turned, the Chains of his qi nature stirring restlessly in his dantian. But the door opened, and some nameless nephew or something bowed and announced that it was time.


    Finally.


    Sui followed along with his fists pressed behind his back, the perfect picture of a Master of the family, no longer young. Ruby Qi was not an achievement, not for one of the top three Great Families of the Djang empire, but by any other standard, it was not shameful. Mastering the mysteries of qi had seemed a breeze for a long time, but his own understanding fell behind his peers, and when the time came for families to focus their efforts on the prodigies of his generation... he was passed up.


    He still considered himself more than capable of achiving a higher level of qi. Heavenly Gem phase... was not beyond his reach, but those of his family in the same generation, but who had been favored where he was not, were already well into the second tier of it, and one even in the third. Even now, as he walked stiffly towards the meeting chamber, he understood that his peers in the room ahead could crush him, and the elders and family leaders were still beyond them.


    Djang Ban Fen, the true prodigy of his generation and their family''s enemy, was at Orange Flame Qi, three entire phases ahead of him. Nine tiers ahead. He had never felt oppressed like he had when her brother, one step behind her, had leveled a sword at him. He had no concept of the mysteries of qi that they had only confronted after they passed him. They had passed the tribulation that still stymied him, and two more, and that bitch Fen was knocking at the door of another.


    There were many elders and family leaders in the Ren family who could match them... but they were exceptional. The family still had not yet figured out how to teach the secrets to the next generation, not consistently.


    Still, when the doors opened before Sui, and the collective spiritual pressure of the entire Ren family focused intently on his entrence, Djang Ren Sui held his head high and kept his back straight. The family could not teach him to reach Flame Qi... but it had taught him poise.


    "At last," a dry voice echoed through the chamber, one he identified as a family leader--one of his grandfather''s brothers. "We get to the fool responsible for this mess."


    The room rippled with unease, and the scrutiny that fell heavy on Sui''s chest felt like poison. He could feel it, slick like water, trying to work its way into his spirit, but he gave every appearance of brushing it off.


    "Honored elders and family leaders," he said, though he was aware that more than a few lower castes were along, and some even sat in judgement beside the rest. In either case... it was not worth mentioning them, even if they were closer to his peers in strength than the people who mattered. "The news I bring is of far more than simply my own conflict with our family''s enemy. I believe that the prophesied end of the Empire is approaching."


    That was an approach he''d only chosen after consulting with others on the actual prophecies of the Empire. He''d bluffed about it before Djang Ban Dai, and it had struck a nerve, but now he was certain--or rather, was willing to stake his whole life, and the future of the clans, on that same bluff. He was not, after all, the kind who truly believed in prophecies.


    "Prophecies are a matter far beyond your level of cultivation, Sui." The elder who spoke, like many of the clan elders, didn''t choose to look as old as she was, but she had the heavy bearing of a person who had seen too much, been through too much, and had too many regrets. "State the facts and if you would be so kind refrain from doing anything more to insult our wisdom."


    Sui would have bristled, if it was even possible for him to do so under the oppressive spirit of the room. Instead, it was all he could do not to feel a wave of sticky, poisonous despair spill out and cling to him. He focused once more on his poise, letting it keep him centered. "As you wish, Elder Mai. You may recall that I was given the unusual task of overseeing a blood feud between a small provincial administrative family, the Mofu clan, and an upstart outlander who had offended them."


    "These simple facts have been presented before your arrival," Sui''s father, Sen, said.


    "Then I''m sure you''ve already discussed how she slaughtered them." Sui stepped forward, brazenly, although no one had asked him to do anything of the sort. He moved forward until he stood in the open space in the middle of the room, knowing that he would need to paint a vivid picture for them all to see. "This woman, alone--with qi unveiled, I swear on my cultivation itself, no greater than Bismuth--and with tools and implements I feel certain were her own design, slaughtered no less than two Mithril, one Damascus, thirty Bismuth, and one hundred Titanium warriors, with sufficient qi to spare that she treated killing their golds as a side task as unworthy of her time as it was unworthy of my time to count them."


    "This was no ambush. This was no trick. This was a warrior." Sui found himself losing his cool, his voice shifting as he spoke, but he dared not take a moment to center himself. "With methods unknown to the empire, and methods that are definitely not from the foreigner''s homeland. This is a woman who until months ago seemed to be nothing more than a cripple. A cripple at iron qi. A single, insignificant life."


    "Watch your tongue," said a voice, sounding surprisingly concerned. Sui didn''t know exactly who said it, but he turned to face the voice anyway.


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "Exactly," he said. "Elders, family members, there is a prophecy of one insignificant life to conquer all that the Empire has created. This being one of the sealed prophecies, because the Lord himself did not wish for us to speak of threats from other worlds. But if one insignificant life can be plucked up from the dust to slaughter entire armies above her qi stage, where--I ask you all--would she be if I had not clipped her wings early?"


    "[Silence.]" The oppresive weight of the word physically flattened Sui, and he felt his back muscles twinge at the way it had forced him down. Still, almost automatically, he shifted his posture so that he was kneeling, and turned to face the Elder who had spoken, not rising from the servile position.


    But there was no further declaration from above, only chattering around the room, as the others had not been silenced as he had been. The word, and its pressure, had been for him alone.


    "[You will not attempt to sway our family with loaded words, Sui.]" The elder''s voice, when it returned, resonated, and Sui felt band of qi pierce through his spirit. Far thinner than his Quenching Chains, they were a binding technique with more than a century''s more experience than he had, and there was nothing that resisting it would have done. "[Speak as you are ordered to, and do not attempt to redeem your poor choices. The facts, Sui.]"


    Djang Ren Sui swallowed, and when the pressure eased, he felt compelled to speak. Though... he noted, with muted relief, he had not been bound in such a way that he could not omit things. That helped. "As you will, Elder Ginjo. At the time I struck down the... this foreigner, I was not aware that the Royal Family would come to her defense. Indeed, I had every reason to suspect she would bring great harm to the Empire." By supporting the Ban over us, Ren internalized, but to his mind, the two ideas really were one.


    "I did what I could to both ensure the woman''s death, and also, to pry free the secrets of her techniques. My qi nature, [Quenching Chains], is ideal for removing and sealing bound techniques. As evidence that my fears are not unfounded, Elders and family leaders, I present the following."


    Sui produced them from his space ring, still stained the color of blood, though the surfaces were clean. "Two scapula bones, etched with arcane glyphs that match nothing in our family''s registry. Two humerous and a radius, all etched. One starbeast core, with etching in the same unknown language." Again... he was not bid to say everything, and he kept one back for himself. "I did not recover the weapons this foreigner used, many of which were breaking from the stress of using them, but I can swear on my honor that their foreign intent matched the intent on these scripts, and not any intent known to the Empire."


    His presentation was having the desired effect. Experts of all sorts were no longer sitting back, but jockeying in the seats and walkways for a clear look at the bones. The Elders and family leaders--save the two he had already consulted with--leaned forward and peered with the kind of intensity that would have flayed a layer or two off Sui''s spirit, if it had been directed at him.


    Elder Ginjo, the right hand of the clan Patriarch, stood, the intent of that action alone sending enough of a qi wave to alert others to make way for him. He stepped down, the other Elders watching with some mixture of wariness and respect, and with a gesture, the bones floated into the air so that he, the Elders, and the Patriarch could see them clearly.


    Sui knew that now was a time for silence, and he gratefully rested.


    "[I find it plausible that these scripts are from the Heavens,]" Ginjo said, heavily, and although in the silence that followed, there was room for any Elder or expert to disagree, none did. "[We are also aware that the circumstances of Shiva Alassi are unusual. However, the circumstances do not match the intent of the prophecy. In that, we find that we cannot accept the conclusions of (the former Djang Ren) Sui.]"


    The former. The intent behind the words was all the proclaimation that might have been needed. In the eyes of the Djang Ren family, Sui was outcast. But he looked up at them, knowing that there would be a moment to speak. It was not this moment.


    "[It seems true that the methods of this foreign being are profound,]" Ginjo continued. "[They will be studied. Their intent copied, distributed. The actions of (the former Djang Ren) Sui have threatened war with the Ban. In this, he was right to call a meeting. But we see no redemption in his reasoning, and the prizes he was won us are not nearly worth the cost. It is the intent and decision of the Patriarch that he should be turned over to the Ban for execution.]"


    Sui''s eyes travelled to the face of the Patriarch himself. The ancestor that sat in the highest chair of the Elder''s section spoke nothing and moved little, but his sunken eyes took in everything, and when Sui met those eyes even for a moment, the Patriarch''s gaze turned to him, meeting him.


    In that moment, all of his secrets were stripped away. And... as planned, it was now that he should reveal it, all the more because the Patriarch already knew.


    "There is one more prize," Sui said, looking away from those eyes, although he could still see them, burned into his vision. "One... greater, more important than the rest."


    Sui could feel the heavy footsteps of Ginjo as the man approached. Ginjo took his position as the Patriarch''s right hand very seriously, and his body reflected it--thoroughly muscled and heavy, his qi nature was a variant on the Patriarch''s own [Adamant Threads] that he used both for sealing... and to reinforce his body in combat.


    But more than anything, Djang Ren Ginjo built up an image of being huge, and in this moment, Sui felt his own size shrinking in comparison to the man. With every beat of his heart, with every twinge of his nerves, the size comparison was hammered into him--he was small, and Ginjo was great.


    "[Show us,]" Ginjo commanded, and Sui could not have refused if he tried.


    What passed out of his space ring was a simple crystal spike, but out of it spilled energy, pure and clean, feeling like nothing that anyone there had ever felt. Sui''s own experiments with the device had proved that there was some mechanism to control it--but he understood nothing about it. In truth, it baffled him completely.


    "I believe that the foreigner used this to use more qi than should have been available to her," Sui said, his voice sounding very small in the room. "It has not stopped releasing energy since I captured it. I believe it is a spatial artifact, though where it connects to... I do not know, except that it seems to be... in the heavens."


    Ginjo plucked the crystal spike from the ground with his own fingers, holding it up, and for several long moments, everyone in the Djang Ren family--at least, everyone worthy of this special meeting--benefitted from it, their qi soaking in this pure energy.


    [Seal it,] the Patriarch commanded, and Ginjo''s threads formed a shell around it.


    "Honored Patriach, if I may--" Sui spoke up, but he was not even aware of what power was used to stop his speech. All he knew was that for the first time in his life, with his own eyes, he witnessed the Patriarch''s shriveled form stand.


    It almost looked pathetic, watching the old man use his muscles instead of his power. Ren, the man who had formed the clan in the time of the Diamond Lord''s ascension, was many things, but physically fit he was not. His use of power was subtle and intricate, and the depths of his qi seemed bottomless. He always seemed to know what he should not and had reach where he could not go, but his body was shriveled and his face was gaunt. Whether it was age, sickness, injury, or some combination, few would ever be told, and Sui would never have been one of those.


    Only when he was standing straight did Djang Ren pass forward like a ghost, plucking Sui off the ground as though carrying a troublesome dog by the nape, and Sui felt himself sink in his clothes, all manner of poise or honor gone.


    [You will redeem yourself, (for the moment Djang Ren) Sui, by being sacrificed to the Ban clan to gain us the time that we need.] The Patriarch''s words were harder than diamond, and Sui found those eyes boring into his soul, scorching away his memories and his thoughts, so that nothing that would dare resist remained. [These prizes will be used for the good of the clan,] he continued, although there was no Sui left to hear them. [Those in the generation who may yet advance further will have unfettered access, and we will do everything in our power to suppor them. We will not be a clan which passes over a Dragon to become a cloud.]


    [We are a clan that will crush other dragons and devour the moon.]


    With that declaration bindings that Djang Ren had long ago put into the Elders and Family Leaders sealed any thought in them that might have been contrary to his will. They all, in lockstep, made a military salute, and the Patriach simply nodded, returning to his seat and beginning the laborious process of bending back into a sitting position, satisfied that the Ren family would move forward as it always had--exactly as the Patriach willed it to be.


    Only Djang Ren Ginjo, whose qi was just enough like his grandfather and Master''s qi to resist it, was even aware of the binding, and he would not dare let it show, not here. It would take weeks or months to begin to free himself from the Patriarch''s [Red Threads]. He had done it before... and would do it again. But never, never where the Patriarch could see. And the Patriarch''s eyes saw much.

 [TAS] 26. Kiel - Trials, Part 1

    Ki''el bare-ly no-ticed the time pass-ing, and was sur-prised when one of the times she woke up from her rest, Broth-er Du was there to lead her away. She was not en-tire-ly healed, al-though she felt bet-ter; more than any-thing, it was her poud-ing head, al-though she had also done no small dam-age to her left el-bow and shoul-der, and her back, and while heal-ing had been done to her, the wounds had not sim-ply been un-done like when she had been am-bushed be-fore.


    When Broth-er Du showed up and sim-ply com-mand-ed her to fol-low, Ki''el took a few mo-ments to stand and stretch, find-ing her-self more than sim-ply achy; her el-bow, es-pe-cial-ly, was still swollen enough that she had trou-ble mov-ing it freely, but she could fol-low, and she did. Al-though she asked, once or twice, where they were go-ing, Broth-er Du said noth-ing, and she could tell from the grim at-mos-phere around him that mat-ters were se-ri-ous.


    The path they took, as of-ten in the Moon-stone Is-land Sect, was not di-rect, but nei-ther was it long. They passed up sev-er-al bridges, though the last had to be un-furled by an In-ner Dis-ci-ple who stood wait-ing--the path formed in midair as sev-er-al stone blocks, and al-though Ki''el knew that Du, like many oth-ers, could sim-ply have flown up, she her-self could not fly.


    Well. Most-ly.


    The stones un-der her feet were as sol-id as is-lands them-selves as she moved up af-ter Du, and al-though he had said noth-ing, she had al-ready come to un-der-stand what must be hap-pen-ing, and so while she was up-set and ner-vous to find her-self on an is-land where many se-nior Sect dis-ci-ples and El-ders sat in a ring, all clear-ly await-ing her. But Ki''el formed her re-solve and, when they reached a point where Broth-er Du stepped aside and all heads turned to meet her, Ki''el sim-ply formed a mar-tial salute as best she could with her wound-ed el-bow and shoul-der and wait-ed.


    "You are Xoi Doua Ki''el, tri-al mem-ber of the Less-er House." The voice was a woman, and Ki''el glanced over, find-ing her posed in a style she would call in-for-mal, her legs out in front of her, and her weight for-ward on her el-bows as she rest-ed them on her knees. "I would ad-vise you to take this se-ri-ous-ly, young sis-ter. Mur-ders are not com-mon on the Moon-stone Isles, and we are not flip-pant in our in-ves-ti-ga-tion when one oc-curs. Step for-ward."


    Ki''el, ner-vous-ly, moved for-ward into the cen-ter of the cir-cle, aware that none of the ob-servers seemed to have much of a re-ac-tion to her pres-ence. Nor should they, Ki''el rea-soned with her-self. They are mas-ters, and I am noth-ing. She was be-gin-ning to feel a hol-low-ness in her heart, as she con-sid-ered that even this place was re-ject-ing her, choos-ing to blame her for de-fend-ing her-self. If they throw me out... can I even sur-vive be-ing thrown off of the is-land? If I can, what then?


    "Young Sis-ter Ki''el, we have so far to-day heard sev-er-al at-tempts to ex-plain the events, recre-at-ed from the ev-i-dence of the is-land it-self--the spir-its of the trees, the rocks, the wind and soil. You will tell us, in all hon-esty, whether you dis-agree with this ver-sion of events, and un-der-stand that we will be aware if there is a lie."


    Ki''el tried to flush her spir-it with aether, but found that there was some bind-ing on her, and she could not ma-nip-u-late her spir-it. She swal-lowed, and sim-ply nod-ded.


    "You ar-rived un-aware of the ex-is-tence of Sect Broth-er Kem Jee Sai, who had placed sev-er-al con-ceal-ment wards and med-i-tat-ed in the trees near a spot that you fre-quent. You per-formed cer-tain acts that the spir-its them-selves could not dis-cern, your own spir-it dis-tract-ed and per-haps con-fused, un-til the mo-ment when you were at-tacked by Sect Broth-er Sai."


    "By all ac-counts, you were thrown en-tire-ly off of the is-land."


    Ki''el swal-lowed, and since there was a long si-lence, which seemed to be filled with in-tent, she spoke. "That is all cor-rect. I was ex-am-in-ing the con-tents of my space ring, which El-der Gol had filled with items tak-en from Xan Bu."


    "That was a while ago," some-one said to her left, but Ki''el re-sist-ed the urge to turn her head, and glanc-ing with-out turn-ing showed her noth-ing.


    "I have only vis-it-ed El-der Gol twice since I ar-rived," Ki''el said. "The first time, the items tak-en from Xan Bu were still be-ing in-ves-ti-gat-ed. I have not had rea-son to re-turn."


    "Not had rea-son?" A scorn-ful voice over her right shoul-der. "He con-trols the sect points. There''s hard-ly a mem-ber of the Less-er House who isn''t con-stant-ly ha-rass-ing him about buy-ing pills."


    Ki''el again re-sist-ed the urge to turn, but felt com-pelled to speak. "I am not fa-mil-iar with the sect''s pills; they are not some-thing my mas-ter taught me. I have been fo-cus-ing on my own mat-ters."


    There were more mut-ter-ings at that, which Ki''el did not un-der-stand, and she felt... strange, about it. Was she sup-posed to have been beg-ging for pills of some kind? Spir-it crys-tals? Did peo-ple think that was how one gained strength? If she hadn''t had her aether cy-cles and qi turn-ing cy-cle, would she have been the same?


    When Ki''el of-fered no fur-ther de-fense, though, the El-der who was speak-ing con-tin-ued. "Once you were far enough from the is-land, we could find no ev-i-dence of what specif-i-cal-ly hap-pened, but it is known that you used a tech-nique that should be far above your lev-el to re-turn to the is-lands. It was far enough above your sta-tion that the de-fen-sive wards of the Is-lands picked it up as a plau-si-ble at-tack, if not one wor-thy of con-cern. It was suf-fi-cient to bring you back to where you had fall-en, and here mat-ters be-come con-fused."


    "The stones and the trees, the grass and the dirt, even the ephemer-al wind spir-its that bore wit-ness, all agree that what re-turned was not a girl, but a blade, a blade that spoke the de-sire to move to-wards its op-po-nent." The woman''s voice was mat-ter of fact, but it felt heavy, laden with sig-nif-i-cance. Ki''el swal-lowed, but the woman did not yet pause for her to com-ment. "This blade moved through the Sect Broth-er Sai, who had moved for-ward to where you had been sit-ting be-fore. It cut, un-til it could cut no more, and when it could not cut, its own mo-men-tum dam-aged it, and all that re-mained be-hind was a girl." The woman''s head tilt-ed to one side. "That is what the nat-ur-al spir-its of the Is-lands record, and they are all that sur-vives to tell of the events--ex-cept you."


    Ki''el looked down, but nod-ded. "I... do not know why they would all see me as a blade, ex-cept that I had that in-ten-tion, and spoke it to my sword." She paused. "The sword... is an ar-ti-fact left to me by my mas-ter. I am aware that it con-tains mys-ter-ies that I have not yet un-der-stood, but it is... only a sword."


    "You spoke your in-tent to your sword?" An-oth-er El-der spoke up, his voice not doubt-ing, but... nei-ther con-tent with her de-scrip-tion.


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but nod-ded. "I do not un-der-stand it yet. But twice when I have need-ed to use it to de-fend my-self, I have felt it wait-ing to hear my in-tent. The first time, I be-lieve I mis-un-der-stood and wast-ed it. This time, my in-tent was sim-ply that I am a blade. A blade, in the sense that those who strike at me..." she hes-i-tat-ed, los-ing her steam. What did she re-al-ly want to say? What had she in-tend-ed in the mo-ment?


    "Those who strike at a blade must be sharp-er and hard-er than it," some-one sug-gest-ed. "When two blades col-lide, one or the oth-er is cut, or both, whether it is the small-est nick or a deep gouge."


    Ki''el turned and nod-ded, grate-ful-ly, though in truth, she was still un-cer-tain.


    "And how did you re-turn to the is-land?" An-oth-er voice, from the oth-er side. "I want to know how you could pos-si-bly have done that at Gold Qi."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but spoke. "My mas-ter also left me a... spir-i-tu-al as-sis-tant. It has helped me in small ways, and this time, she spoke to me the in-tent I need-ed to move my-self. I ex-pressed that in-tent in my qi, and spoke my will to the world."


    "Thrust," sev-er-al peo-ple echoed, not quite in synch with each oth-er, and Ki''el felt a strange mix-ture of em-bar-rass-ment and con-fu-sion come over her, but nod-ded quick-ly.


    "It beg-gars the mind," a sharp voice came from be-hind her, "to think that a child at Gold Qi could make such ef-fi-cient use of the qi you have to use such a pow-er-ful in-tent twice and still have enough pow-er left to do so much dam-age. Even if we were to sup-pose that Broth-er Sai raised no de-fens-es, it takes sub-stan-tial pow-er to cut through hu-man flesh and bone, let alone..." there was a pause, though Ki''el did not turn to look. "...the rest."


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    Ki''el paused, frown-ing, and looked up at the El-der who had been speak-ing so far. "...The rest?"


    "Are you not aware of what you did, young Sis-ter Ki''el?"


    But Ki''el sim-ply shook her head. "From the mo-ment I launched my-self at the man who at-tacked me, it was all a blur, and then I was knocked un-con-scious. In truth, my mem-o-ries from the mo-ment I was first at-tacked are con-fused. I do not have any un-der-stand-ing of what hap-pened."


    There were sev-er-al scoffs at that, and some mum-bling, but an-oth-er voice piped up. "In all hon-esty, that''s one of the few be-liev-able things," he said. "If she held shields while also do-ing two oth-er things, both of which she claims are new to her, I''d sus-pect her of ei-ther be-ing a ge-nius or a liar, and more heav-i-ly fa-vor-ing the lat-ter, even here."


    There were more mum-bles and some laugh-ter at that, but Ki''el kept her eyes on the El-der who seemed to be in charge.


    The woman tilt-ed her head, but turned to look down at one of the few fa-mil-iar fig-ures. "El-der Gol, if you would."


    The man in charge of the Sect''s fi-nances stood, as al-ways in no hur-ry, and moved down to the cen-ter of the cir-cle near Ki''el, in the un-hur-ried way he had--al-though, now, his eyes were closed, his at-ten-tion with-in rather than drift-ing to all of the de-tails around him. When he reached the bot-tom, he be-gan pac-ing in a cir-cle around Ki''el, as his voice sud-den-ly reached them all, car-ried pure-ly by his in-tent. [I ar-rived at the scene late,] Gol''s in-tent spoke, and Ki''el could vivid-ly see the scene in her mind, her own at-ten-tion dragged over the var-i-ous de-tails of the near-by trees and stones, grass and dirt, as each caught the El-der''s eye one af-ter the oth-er. [Late enough that more than six oth-ers had been there be-fore me, and four had gone, along with the girl.] His at-ten-tion swept over foot-prints, spir-i-tu-al signs, marks of in-tent left be-hind, briefly not-ing the two who re-mained, ob-serv-ing the scene.


    But Ki''el, al-though her at-ten-tion was be-ing pulled in var-i-ous di-rec-tions, only had eyes for the one de-tail that she knew had cap-ti-vat-ed the oth-ers, but of which the El-der had not yet spo-ken, nor had his wan-der-ing eyes drift-ed to.


    [I found, as de-scribed, sev-er-al items pre-vi-ous-ly owned by Xan Bu left dis-card-ed by a rock where Xoi Doua Ki''el had been sit-ting. There were traces of Gale Qi, orig-i-nat-ing not far from a cir-cle of con-ceal-ment marks, al-ready re-vealed by an-oth-er. The stones along the edge of the is-land were not touched by the girl''s move-ment tech-n-qi-ue. I found that odd at first, be-liev-ing it to have been a mat-ter of con-trol.] The El-der''s at-ten-tion fix-at-ed for too long away from the scene it-self, on the rocks at the edge, be-fore turn-ing. [But it be-came clear that the in-tent was sim-ply only ever on the girl her-self. She moved as she di-rect-ed her-self, rather than pulling on things or push-ing on things. It was an im-pec-ca-bly clear in-tent to [Thrust], with nu-ances I have not seen be-fore.]


    Fi-nal-ly, the El-der''s own at-ten-tion on the scene that his in-tent spoke of came to the lead-ing edge of a deep cut, one that sheared ef-fort-less-ly through the large stone boul-der that Ki''el had been sit-ting on, con-tin-u-ing far deep-er than the length of Ki''el''s own Aether Sword, but no wider at any point than her sword, and in many places al-ready col-lapsed. Al-though she could not be-gin to guess at the depth... she did not have to, be-cause El-der Gol''s at-ten-tion was drawn to it.


    [There was a sin-gle cut from a sin-gle swing of a blade,] the El-der mused. [The pow-er used was strange, a form of qi am-pli-fied in strange ways, which spoke un-de-ni-ably about con-se-quence, but not so clear-ly that it could be un-der-stood as in-tent. In-deed, [in-tent] is the wrong word for it. The cut ex-ists as a con-se-quence, not be-cause it was in-tend-ed, and not as a mat-ter of some-thing else''s na-ture. Qi was still in-volved, but that qi was re-shaped by a pow-er I do not un-der-stand.]


    [The cut ex-ceed-ed eight feet in depth at its peak, fif-teen feet in length, but only a fin-ger''s width wide. The edges showed no signs of qi trans-form-ing into heat, and in-deed the qi leak-age and cor-rup-tion around the cut were min-i-mal. Only at the very end was there any sign of re-sis-tance, and here the blade''s path be-came shal-low-er. At the end of the path, there was a sign of im-pact, a sin-gle body strik-ing shrubs and a tree. By that time, the girl had been re-moved for heal-ing.]


    "That''s more con-cise than usu-al, El-der," some-one re-marked, and there was a smat-ter-ing of laughs around the cir-cle.


    "Do you be-lieve that the pow-er be-hind that strike was be-yond the girl''s con-trol?" The voice that spoke up, much to Ki''el''s sur-prise, was that of Broth-er Du, and al-though she had done her best to keep fo-cused on the peo-ple in charge of the pro-ceed-ing, she did turn to look at him, sur-prised.


    But El-der Gol hummed for a long mo-ment, and as he hummed, the sound car-ried his con-cept of the scene, though not locked in a mo-ment of time. [The length of the blade cut seems to be a mis-es-ti-ma-tion,] he said af-ter a while. [A novice fight-er''s over-reach, per-haps even a case where she was un-aware her will de-ter-mined the blade''s length. Giv-en the amount of cut-ting pow-er the blade had, it doubt-less could have ex-tend-ed fur-ther, but it did not. If the ar-ti-fact were sim-ply vent-ing pow-er in the form of blade qi, it would reach as far as it could. The ar-ti-fact seemed to re-main func-tion-al, per-form-ing ex-act-ly what its novice user in-tend-ed.]


    "Then it is your es-ti-ma-tion that young Ki''el can con-trol that much pow-er? At Gold Qi?"


    El-der Gol sighed, and the scene was scrubbed from Ki''el''s thoughts. Then, with care and rev-er-ence, El-der Gol spoke, and in Ki''el''s mind, a fa-mil-iar ob-ject ap-peared. [The item in ques-tion un-der-stands it-self as the Aether Sword. Its in-tent is for-eign to us, and speaks of a pow-er that is not qi. Con-cealed with-in it is a tech-nique from its cre-ator, which re-sist-ed my scruti-ny.] Ki''el saw it, in the men-tal im-age, and al-though its shape was un-fa-mil-iar, she felt cer-tain that what she saw was a Thorn... and there-fore, a Cy-cle, though one whose aether flow was un-fa-mil-iar to her. [Aside from that, the ar-ti-fact ap-pears to be an ex-act-ing ex-er-cise in sim-plic-i-ty. The blade it-self is formed of pow-er ac-cord-ing to sim-ple rules of geom-e-try, with chan-nels cre-at-ed to al-low qi re-in-force-ment. Its sharp-ness is as sim-ple and as bru-tal as math-e-mat-ics it-self, with no ma-te-r-i-al to bend or chip. There are ad-di-tion-al meth-ods and fea-tures, but... for all pur-pos-es, it can be un-der-stood as ex-act-ly two things: a sword, and a ves-sel for one tech-n-qi-ue of the girl''s mas-ter.]


    [The ques-tion as you un-der-stand it, Sect Broth-er Mai Han Du, is whether this tech-nique of the girl''s mas-ter is too pow-er-ful for her to con-trol. As it seems to be the source of the am-pli-fi-ca-tion, it is not im-plau-si-ble. How-ev-er, this cir-cum-stance seems to be one more plau-si-ble than most to have caused a sit-u-a-tion be-yond the girl''s con-trol. Am-bushed alone, she was pan-icked, ter-ri-fied, wrath-ful. She was un-aware of her mas-ter''s tech-nique and seemed to ac-ti-vate it un-know-ing-ly or by in-stinct. She had yet done noth-ing with it to dis-charge the en-er-gy it con-tained. Un-der these cir-cum-stances, most would in-stinc-tive-ly use as much pow-er as they can ob-tain. Ei-ther this is the full ex-tent of the tech-nique''s pow-er, or there are ad-di-tion-al re-stric-tions, meth-ods that she must learn to use the pow-er to its fullest. In ei-ther case, I do not be-lieve that it is un-safe to re-turn the ar-ti-fact to the girl.]


    Ever since the sword was pre-sent-ed to those here, there was much mut-ter-ing and mum-bling, Ki''el saw that even the el-ders and mas-ters were dis-cussing qui-et-ly with each oth-er, some trad-ing looks and in-tent silent-ly rather than speak-ing aloud.


    "And what about the oth-er? The spir-i-tu-al guide?" Broth-er Du''s voice was still on edge.


    El-der Gol coughed aloud, and the vi-sion van-ished. "Ac-cord-ing to the Sect by-laws, I will not be pre-sent-ing the form of any spir-i-tu-al en-ti-ty to those un-aware of it, even un-der these cir-cum-stances. I would have the ac-cused speak on the mat-ter, but in my es-ti-ma-tion, its bond-ing was a mat-ter of con-sent."


    Ki''el un-der-stood that Kuli was on tri-al here, and sud-den-ly, the harsh re-stric-tion on her abil-i-ty to use her spir-it made more sense, but she nod-ded. "The spir-it... was not giv-en to me di-rect-ly by my mas-ter, but I was told I would re-ceive it, and it has since passed mes-sages to and from my mas-ter. I was asked my con-sent, and gave it freely. To date, Kuli--the spir-it has not done any-thing against my will, and has of-ten re-fused to act so that I must learn things for my-self."


    "But it was able to con-vey to you an in-cred-i-bly pow-er-ful in-tent," Broth-er Du''s voice was still sharp, "in a mat-ter of mo-ments, when fail-ure meant death. This is no sim-ple en-ti-ty."


    Ki''el turned to look at him, and saw that Broth-er Du''s face was as se-ri-ous as his voice. She hes-i-tat-ed. "It is... not sim-ple. It is..." she paused. "I am un-cer-tain what I am al-lowed to say."


    "Why?" The voice of an-oth-er El-der broke in. "You want to pro-tect the se-crets of your mas-ter even if it might cost you your life, or your chance to re-main at the Sect?"


    Ki''el turned to look at that El-der, some-one for-eign to her, and frowned at him. "Did you not all agree that I was at-tacked first?"


    "The ques-tion now, young Ki''el," the woman in charge said, "is whether or not you are taint-ed by an in-flu-ence too pow-er-ful for you to re-sist, too clever for you to de-tect malfeasence in, too deep in your mind for you to even per-ceive the work-ings of. Per-haps even a be-ing too pow-er-ful, too mas-ter-ful, for those col-lect-ed here to safe-ly re-move." She ges-tured. "By all means, con-vince us. At this mo-ment, it should have no in-flu-ence over you, and if it tried, we would no-tice. But be care-ful what ar-gu-ments you make, be-cause we have good rea-son to be sus-pi-cious, and if you are too naive... we may need to act in your best in-ter-ests, what-ev-er your own de-sires may be."


    Ki''el stared at the woman for a long time, then looked away. "I would still need per-mis-sion to speak on some mat-ters."


    "Why?" the oth-er El-der asked, again.


    "Be-cause there are larg-er mat-ters in this world," she said. "I am aware of se-crets I do not have a right to share."


    "I ask again, why?" The El-der''s voice be-came sharp. "It goes be-yond not trust-ing us. We are not ask-ing for in-tri-cate de-tails of some-one else''s tech-nique. We''re ask-ing you whether the en-ti-ty that is con-cealed in-side of you is an en-e-my. If you are un-will-ing to speak on that mat-ter in par-tic-u-lar, it cer-tain-ly sounds like an en-e-my to me."


    Ki''el sighed. She looked around at the gath-ered mas-ters and el-ders, and bowed her head.


    "I would at least like this mat-ter to re-main with only a few," she said, and af-ter a beat, she heard a clap.


    "Very well," the el-der in charge said. "In-ner and Core sect dis-ci-ples are dis-missed."


    Ki''el took sev-er-al deep breaths, hop-ing that what she was do-ing was okay, as the Sect dis-ci-ples be-gan to fil-ter out of the area.

 [TAS] 27. Kiel - Trials, Part 2

    "At this time, young Ki''el," an el-der that had so far not ad-dressed her said, "no one oth-er than the el-ders here can hear you. Your se-crets, and your mas-ter''s, are safe."


    Ki''el took the time to look at the few peo-ple that re-mained. El-der Gol re-mained the only one she had been in-tro-duced to; he had stopped me-an-der-ing around her in cir-cles and tak-en a seat near-by, though not where he had be-gun. And there re-mained the yet-un-named el-der who seemed to be in charge, who re-mained sit-ting above her in a some-what re-laxed pos-ture, head in her hands, el-bows on her knees, legs out in front. She... like many here, did not ex-act-ly look el-der-ly, though there was a weari-ness and in-ten-si-ty to her spir-it that spoke of her ex-pe-ri-ence.


    The one who had just spo-ken was a thin man with short and half-kept hair who wore script-ed met-al frames around his eyes that oc-ca-sion-al-ly sparkled with qi. He wore robes just a touch too vo-lu-mi-nous for him, such that he half-seemed to dis-ap-pear into their folds, and had spent the meet-ing so far stand-ing to one side. Near-est him was an old-er-look-ing, large-boned but short-er woman with a per-ma-nent peace-ful smile on her face and nar-row eyes, who sat cross-legged on a float-ing, over-stuffed cush-ion.


    There was a man to Ki''el''s left who had a well-tend-ed mous-tache and beard in a strange style she was un-fa-mil-iar with, wide but not at all con-ceal-ing, and he had a dis-agree-able look on his face, or per-haps only a pained look, like his head was al-ways hurt-ing. Near-est him was a per-son that could eas-i-ly have been mis-tak-en for a young child--less than half the size of a nor-mal adult, and well small-er than Ki''el, who seemed un-will-ing or un-in-ter-est-ed in look-ing at her di-rect-ly, though she had lit-tle doubt he was pay-ing at-ten-tion, and she had no-ticed him look-ing be-fore. More than that, though... this small el-der''s spir-it was in-tense-ly pow-er-ful, un-de-ni-able, swirling around him like an-gry wind, or... per-haps more like mis-chievi-ous spir-its at play, though Ki''el could not catch any sign of dis-tinct pieces.


    The last el-der vis-i-ble most no-tably had a very long face, though he didn''t seem par-tic-u-lar-ly tall or long oth-er-wise. His ap-pear-ance was just be-com-ing that of a more el-der-ly gen-tle-man, though he still looked sim-ply adult and not aged. At most... per-haps his hair was thin-ner than nor-mal, his skin not quite fresh.


    Ki''el used that time, as she looked around, to steady her-self. No one here is an-gry or cru-el, she thought qui-et-ly. They are in-ter-est-ed in the truth. Though...


    She took a fi-nal, deep breath, and spoke. "...My mas-ter is one who does not come from this world," she said, her eyes flick-er-ing around to catch their re-ac-tions.


    There mere mut-ed move-ments and shifts, but they con-tin-ued to wait for her to speak.


    "He was brought here against his will, af-ter his death, ap-par-ent-ly to help the world in some fash-ion I am un-fa-mil-iar with. Al-though he has spo-ken in pieces and parts about it, I am un-sure what I can say, or what I should say, ex-cept that he was brought by oth-ers who are also not from this world. He has spo-ken to me that the knowl-edge of the uni-verse is much greater where he is from, and mat-ters such as men-tal as-sis-tants and us-ing great pow-er are well known and un-der-stood there. Kuli--my spir-it--was a gift from him, but pro-vid-ed by the ones who brought him here."


    To Ki''el''s sur-prise, there were a cou-ple nods, but oth-ers seemed dis-qui-et. When Ki''el re-mained silent, to see if they had ques-tions, the one with the mous-tache spoke up. "That cer-tain-ly ex-plains their knowl-edge, but it does lit-tle to as-suage fears, young Ki''el. I''m sure you un-der-stand that?" He paused only long enough to see, per-haps, Ki''el''s con-fused re-ac-tion, be-fore con-tin-u-ing. "Pow-er is pow-er. Among those with great pow-er, there will al-ways be a great many who abuse it. The more pow-er a so-ci-ety--a peo-ple, a group, even a world--has, the more pow-er-ful their crim-i-nals and vil-lains will be. We all wish it were not so, but it is, in-escapably, true." He lev-elled at Ki''el a glare that pierced through her, though it did not seem am-pli-fied by spir-it or qi.


    Ki''el shiv-ered, slight-ly, try-ing to keep her mind clear enough to ar-gue against that point, but she was un-sure how.


    "Onda''s not wrong," said the small el-der. "And it''s pret-ty clear young Ki''el can''t be ob-jec-tive about her mas-ter. But I''d even be will-ing to be-lieve that her mas-ter is, him-self, harm-less, since he''s of lit-tle con-se-quence now. What I''d like to hear from you, young one, is more about these oth-er peo-ple, the ones who you say cre-at-ed the... ''men-tal as-sis-tant''."


    "I... do not know," Ki''el ad-mit-ted, look-ing down. "I was told that... that in the heav-ens, there are tru-ly mighty be-ings, and that these oth-ers are their ser-vants, sent here be-cause a prob-lem was de-tect-ed, a prob-lem that the mas-ters nor-mal-ly over-see. But... these ser-vants were struck down..." she swal-lowed. "I... was led to be-lieve, by the Di-a-mond Lord him-self."


    Again... de-spite the rev-e-la-tions, and some dis-qui-et-ed glances be-tween the el-ders, noth-ing she was say-ing seemed to be tru-ly earth-shak-ing. "Some of us re-mem-ber that day very clear-ly," the spec-ta-cled el-der said af-ter a mo-ment. "Though it... was strange. The be-ing, or ves-sel, that was struck down... was in no way the op-po-nent of the Di-a-mond Lord. Though we had been told that great en-e-mies ex-ist in the heav-ens, and al-though we were told they were a... fore-spo-ken en-e-my, the truth is less clear."


    "I take it that what you are say-ing, young Ki''el, is that they still ex-ist in this world? Re-lat-ed to the Star-beasts, I would as-sume?"


    "They still ex-ist," Ki''el agreed. "I... know lit-tle enough about them or the Star-beasts, and do not wish to speak out of turn. But... they of-fered So--my mas-ter..." Ki''el swal-lowed. "Again... I do not wish to speak out of turn."


    "Some se-crets are not meant to be shared so eas-i-ly," agreed the smil-ing el-der.


    "But do you think they are wrath-ful? Or help-ful?" The mous-tached el-der''s voice was harsh, di-rect.


    "They would have lost a great deal," said the one with the long face. "And they are trapped in this world. Fight-ing against the Em-pire for sur-vival, no doubt."


    "I''d be mad," of-fered the small-est el-der, in what Ki''el thought was a self-sat-is-fied tone


    But af-ter an-oth-er com-ment or two, they wait-ed for Ki''el, who wor-ried her lip. Could she speak? Should she? "My un-der-stand-ing," she said af-ter a time, re-luc-tant-ly, "is that the star-beasts are not weapons. They... the vis-i-tors... raise them to har-vest their cores, to re-pair their ves-sel."


    The at-mos-phere shift-ed slight-ly, seem-ing per-haps... more re-laxed? "That would make more sense," she thought she heard the small one say, while oth-ers talked too qui-et-ly for her to hear or com-mu-ni-cat-ed with in-tent she could not even per-ceive, lock-ing eyes with one an-oth-er.


    "That doesn''t say for cer-tain that they aren''t wrath-ful," said the mous-tached el-der. "Though... the fact that the Star-beasts ex-ist world-wide and not only at the crash site sug-gests they have great reach. Sure-ly, if they wished to gath-er all their strength to in-vade the Em-pire, they could?"


    But the small one looked up over his shoul-der at him, mak-ing a dis-ap-prov-ing face. "Most star-beasts are well be-low the Flame Phase," he said. "With as many Flame Qi war-riors as ex-ist in the Em-pire, sure-ly...?"


    "That many Flame Qi users fight-ing at once would dev-as-tate the na-tion," said the spec-ta-cled el-der. "They could con-sume the am-bi-ent qi of the en-tire coun-try in but a cou-ple hours, if they were pressed to it. But if these in-vaders'' goal was re-venge, wouldn''t that suf-fice?"


    "You still think they''re in-vaders?" The smil-ing woman turned to him, and he made a dis-mis-sive head ges-ture.


    Ki''el looked back and forth, but there seemed lit-tle con-sen-sus. When at last things be-gan to slow, Ki''el cleared her throat, and spoke up, ner-vous-ly, though she didn''t feel any spir-i-tu-al op-pres-sion from the gath-ered el-ders. "I firm-ly be-lieve that Kuli is not an en-e-my. And I do not be-lieve that I, or you, would be at risk if you al-lowed her to speak for her-self."


    The gath-ered el-ders each looked to her when she spoke, but each sim-ply turned to look up at the woman sit-ting above them all, who had re-mained silent, sim-ply sit-ting and watch-ing Ki''el.


    Fi-nal-ly, though, the el-der took one of her hands from her chin and waved it, and Ki''el felt the bind-ings on her dis-solve, and she could feel Kuli, though the aug-ment was... silent, for a long mo-ment.


    Kuli?


    Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    { Re-boot-ing... Per-form-ing [in-tegri-ty checks]. Please stand by. }


    Ki''el winced slight-ly at the some-what hard-er edge of Kuli''s in-tent. "She is en-sur-ing she is not dam-aged," Ki''el said af-ter a mo-ment, and the oth-ers, now all watch-ing her, each made small tells or move-ments that Ki''el thought were un-com-fort-able, but wait-ed.


    { Boot sta-tus: Un-dam-aged. Safe-ty mode. Are you in dis-tress? } Kuli''s pres-ence flick-ered through Ki''el''s mind, and for just a mo-ment, Ki''el felt the world slow to a crawl, as though she could have danced through a still mo-ment in time be-fore any-one else had a chance to re-act. But... she... did her best to not let it dis-turb her. No, Kuli. Be calm, she urged her aug-ment. Though I have said per-haps more than I should.


    Ki''el felt the touch of Kuli in her mind, but quick-ly, the amaz-ing slow-ness of the world seemed to van-ish. { Safe-ty mode dis-en-gaged. Ki''el. I am sor-ry that I could not pro-tect you. It does not ap-pear that you are in dan-ger. You wish me to speak? }


    I do not know how to ease their con-cerns with-out your un-der-stand-ing, Ki''el an-swered, try-ing to re-main calm. The were un-cer-tain I can trust you, be-cause of who cre-at-ed you. But I be-lieve in you.


    There was a mo-ment, and then, Ki''el could feel Kuli pro-ject-ing into the open air. { I can an-swer some ques-tions, but Ki''el''s mind can-not pro-vide me with enough qi for me to con-tin-ue to pro-ject to this en-tire group for a long pe-ri-od. }


    "I no-ticed her brain''s merid-i-ans were rel-a-tive-ly small," the El-der in charge said, straight-en-ing slight-ly and let-ting the oth-er hand drop, so that she was cross-ing her legs over her knees. "And rec-ti-fy-ing that doesn''t seem to have been one of your im-me-di-ate goals."


    { No. My task is to pro-vide her in-for-ma-tion from her mas-ter, and to a less-er ex-tent, pro-tect her. }


    "In-for-ma-tion?" The spec-ta-cled el-der stepped for-ward, one hand stray-ing to his face and ner-vous-ly ad-just-ing the spec-ta-cle frames. "What kind of in-for-ma-tion?"


    { In-for-ma-tion her mas-ter want-ed to pass her in per-son, but was wor-ried he would not be able to. }


    "Don''t ask dumb ques-tions, Sang," said the small el-der. "If it want-ed to say, it would have. We may only have a cer-tain num-ber of ques-tions we can get an-swered." He swung his legs around and fi-nal-ly turned to look at Ki''el, and when she met his eyes, she saw... depths, like the depths of a jun-gle. Wild, and with a great many things hid-ing. "We are told that your cre-ators are the ones in the ves-sel the Di-a-mond Lord de-stroyed. Are they wrath-ful? Do they in-tend harm to our world?"


    { I do not rep-re-sent ei-ther the ship''s Cap-tain, nor the Founders who gave us our or-ders, and I can-not ac-count for the ac-tions of the rest of the crew, } Kuli an-swered, and Ki''el felt the an-swer was ex-treme-ly pre-cise. { How-ev-er, I be-lieve you are mis-tak-en as to our cul-ture and meth-ods. Crew se-lec-tion for a mis-sion of this im-port is not [po-lit-i-cal]. } Ki''el frowned at that in-tent, un-der-stand-ing it as a squishy con-cept that is of-ten mis-used to al-low peo-ple to pur-sure their own peo-ple''s in-ter-ests, but not able to cap-ture most of the de-tails. { Crews formed to fol-low the or-ders of the Founders un-der-stand that the task comes be-fore per-son-al mat-ters, and will at-tempt to com-plete it even in the face of death. Crewmem-bers, and es-pe-cial-ly crew lead-er-ship, that al-lowed them-selves to be dis-tract-ed by feel-ings of wrath would not have been cho-sen. }


    By the time that Kuli fin-ished that trans-mis-sion, Ki''el was be-gin-ning to feel a headache, and she fed some of her Right-eous Aether into her body to com-pen-sate. With the seal on her body gone, the pow-er calmed her, though it could not eas-i-ly undo the slight burn-ing ache in her mind.


    "A very pro-fes-sion-al an-swer," said the spec-ta-cled el-der, and Ki''el thought he sound-ed pleased.


    "Mil-i-tary types," said the mous-tached el-der, his own voice... mixed? Ki''el wasn''t in the frame of mind to un-der-stand, not ful-ly.


    "The an-swer is very pre-cise," El-der Gol said, sound-ing... dis-tract-ed, as al-ways. "I have sat-is-fac-tion that every-thing said was true, if only in some tech-ni-cal fash-ion."


    There was a lit-tle more talk-ing, of-ten at once, be-fore the el-der in charge raised her head slight-ly. "Agreed," she said, and for a mo-ment, Ki''el wasn''t sure what she was agree-ing with. "What was said was true. Which bodes well for the girl. Then, Kuli--if you do not mind my us-ing that name--what about the tech-nique in that sword? Is it too much for the girl to con-trol?"


    Ki''el blinked, half sur-prised that the con-ver-sa-tion had come back to that. But af-ter a mo-ment, Kuli an-swered. { Ki''el con-trols a less-er ver-sion of the same tech-nique. That en-er-gy is above her abil-i-ty to con-trol di-rect-ly. It should not harm her. } Each sen-tence drew more en-er-gy through the weary part of her mind, but Kuli seemed to have cho-sen her words, and need-ed no oth-ers.


    "I see." The el-der in charge clapped her hands. "Well, then, that re-solves the mat-ter for now."


    "Does it?" The el-der with the long face looked up at her. "I am un-satisi-fied that this as-si-tant will not harm the girl in the long term. If the mak-ers'' pur-pose on the world shifts--"


    "You might as well ask if no-bles or half-spir-its can be trust-ed," in-ter-rupt-ed the small el-der again. "How many of the dis-ci-ples here will be caught in fam-i-ly pol-i-tics soon-er or lat-er?"


    The long-faced el-der looked over at the small one, frown-ing deeply. "This isn''t the same. She was just a girl--is just a girl--who might have been lied to..."


    But the mous-tached el-der laughed. "Yes," he said, "that nev-er hap-pens with spir-its or no-ble fam-i-lies."


    The long-faced el-der huffed, but when he looked around, seemed to find no sup-port, and wilt-ed. "Fine. No ob-jec-tions."


    "I have one ob-jec-tion," said the spec-ta-cled el-der, step-ping for-ward. "I would like to be able to ba-sic prin-ci-ple be-hind the mas-ter''s tech-nique, and the girl''s, so that we can un-der-stand what dam-age it may do to the girl''s spir-it, how it may in-ter-act--"


    "Oh, lay off," the smil-ing woman snapped, her mouth mov-ing briefly into a frown, and the spec-ta-cled el-der moved like he had been smacked light-ly on the chest, al-though Ki''el no-ticed only a flick-er of qi. "You''re ask-ing to sat-is-fy your cu-rios-i-ty."


    The spec-ta-cled one turned so that Ki''el couldn''t see his eyes any-more, but she could imag-ine the glare. "It is for her safe-ty."


    The el-der in charge just raised a fin-ger, and the rest were si-lenced. "For now, young Ki''el is free to go. And Ki''el." The woman low-ered her hand. "I sus-pect more than one of the El-ders here, and like-ly sev-er-al oth-ers from the Out-er Sect, would be will-ing to men-tor you. I will sim-ply sug-gest that you not ac-cept the first of-fer you re-ceive." Her mouth, which had most-ly re-mained in a bored ex-pres-sion through the meet-ing, curled into a grim smile. "Most-ly, I''m telling you this so that every-one here knows they don''t need to fight or de-ceive you into ac-cept-ing their of-fer be-fore re-ceiv-ing any oth-ers. There have been... in-ci-dents in the past." She dropped her fin-ger, and Ki''el no-ticed sev-er-al of the oth-ers giv-ing the woman looks--es-pe-cial-ly, the spec-ta-cled el-der and the small-er one. "Now... you are dis-missed, Ki''el."


    Ki''el, for a mo-ment, didn''t rec-og-nize that as the or-der it was--but as soon as she did, bowed and re-treat-ed. As she reached the edge of the clear-ing, though, she felt a flick-er of qi, and found that her space ring had ap-peared on her hand--and in it, she could tell, the com-fort-ing feel-ing of her sword. She re-trieved it, just to be cer-tain, but when she felt it, and the strange feel-ing of the en-er-gy her mas-ter had left to her with-in, she re-placed it in the ring, feel-ing at lesat a lit-tle re-lieved that there would be no trou-ble get-ting it back.


    She re-treat-ed to the edge of the is-land quick-ly af-ter that, find-ing the bridge al-ready in place at the exit to the small meet-ing is-land, a col-lec-tion of faces wait-ing ex-pec-tant-ly for her be-low. Ki''el took a deep breath, and start-ed down the stairs, still feel-ing the aches in her body that had not ful-ly healed, but most-ly, her mind whirled with the many spo-ken and un-spo-ken con-se-quences of the meet-ing. As she slow-ly de-scend-ed, af-ter sev-er-al mo-ments of hes-i-ta-tion, she pressed one thought to Kuli. Kuli... did I do wrong by an-swer-ing their ques-tions? Telling them about... your cre-ators?


    { Ki''el... } Kuli''s an-swer car-ried a tone that Ki''el thought was sur-pris-ing-ly ten-der. { The crew of the Tidal Coro-na are pro-fes-sion-al adults who un-der-stand these mat-ters. Of the great many peo-ple who could be blamed if some-thing ter-ri-ble hap-pens, a young girl--pres-sured into speak-ing by sev-er-al mas-ters--does not be-long high on the list. They, and your mas-ter, would praise you for try-ing to keep se-crets even un-der those cir-cum-stances--they would not con-demn you for fail-ing to. }


    Ki''el un-der-stood that Kuli meant that to be calm-ing--and it was. But the an-swer also did not say that she had done no wrong, and did not say that noth-ing bad would hap-pen. If I''m in the same sit-u-a-tion again, what do I do? Ki''el didn''t even di-rect that thought at Kuli, but sim-ply dwelled on it. What if I must choose be-tween telling that se-cret to some-one who I be-lieve will be an en-e-my of Sobon, and the oth-ers, or die or suf-fer? She felt a cold doubt creep-ing over her. Was she strong enough to choose to do what was right? Could she even be sure what was right? Had she been right this time?


    "Ki''el!" Be-low her, the fig-ure of Sis-ter Xari waved. "Seems you got away free and clear. And I bet it''s been a while since you ate!" She of-fered a wide smile. "Come on, Broth-er Du''s buy-ing, this time."


    Ki''el''s eyes flick-ered to Du, who rolled his eyes, but didn''t con-test what Xari had said.


    "That can wait," grumped an-oth-er fig-ure--the soft-look-ing Broth-er Juno, who wore plain ir-ri-ta-tion on his nor-mal-ly-re-laxed face. "Ki''el! I want to know that you learned your les-son!"


    Ki''el stopped in place, still sev-er-al steps up. "My... les-son?"


    "Yes! This is a test. Tell me--what did you learn last time?"


    Last time? Ki''el just stood there for a long mo-ment, her mind hav-ing been lost among many oth-er things--but af-ter sev-er-al mo-ment, her thoughts caught up to her, and she loos-ened, for a mo-ment. "...Nev-er give away in-sight for free?"


    "Pay-ment in ad-vance!" The old-er Sect Broth-er slapped his left palm with the back of his right hand to em-pah-size each word. "You didn''t se-cret-ly give those stuffy el-ders some great in-sight into the work-ings of the uni-verse, did you? Those old bas-tards nev-er pay peo-ple what their ad-vice is worth."


    "How would you know?" one of the oth-er dis-ci-ples stand-ing around, who Ki''el did not rec-og-nize, growled the ques-tion. "You nev-er have any-thing to con-tribute."


    "You wouldn''t know what I can or can''t con-tribute." Juno stuck his nose striaght into the air. "You can''t pay my fees."


    "I know you''re a lazy--" the oth-er start-ed to say, but Ki''el''s at-ten-tion was drawn back to Xari.


    "Ugh, come on, Ki''el! Food!" She ges-tured for her to come. "Good food! Free food! What are you wait-ing for?"


    Ki''el let the smile cross her face, as she fin-ished climb-ing down the stairs, not even notic-ing as the stone blocks moved away again the mo-ment her foot left them.

 [TAS] 28. Kiel - Trials, Part 3

    In summarizing the trial for the Inner Sect disciples that Brother Du and Sister Xari allowed to gather around her, Ki''el only said that she had talked about the origins of her Master and those of her assistant, and that for the most part, they had not been completely surprised. That was enough for many people to split off and have their own conversations, especially when Ki''el deflected other attempts to question her and seemed content to eat, for a while.


    "But really," grumped Brother Juno, slumped over a small plate of breaded and fried dumplings of some kind, "the Elders never pay for anything, whether it''s news of the world, insights into qi, labor... they act like simply letting us stay in the sect is payment of its own, sometimes." He reached down and plucked lightly at the dough with one hand, while the other began to scratch at his hair. "You''d think we didn''t need those sect points, the way they act. And not just for us inner disciples; they never appreciated anything I did as an outer disciple, and for certain they wouldn''t care about a Lesser House member like Ki''el." He pulled off some small part of the dough and ate it, revealing some fruit or vegetable sauce inside, as his other hand ceased to scratch restlessly and simply supported his head as she slumped.


    "I don''t think you should have ever been trying to get money from the Elders," said another Inner Sect disciple, a foreigner who Xari had introduced as Aju. "Especially as an Outer Sect disciple, but even now. If you have that kind of valuable insight, shouldn''t you make it available to everyone?"


    "It''s available," Juno said, but looking away, somewhat petulantly. "...to those who can pay."


    There was a silence that Ki''el thought was filled with an intent to say something, but which no one actually voiced.


    "I for one and more interested in this strange master''s technique of Ki''el''s." Xari leaned forward, the impish look on her face highlighted by her intense eyeshadow. "Surely you can tell us some small part of it...?"


    Ki''el glanced around, frowning. Her eyes met Juno''s, who looked at her, and then smiled. Ki''el glanced away, however. "I don''t know how much to say," she said, finally. "But if I understand it... then it is simply another kind of aether."


    "Isn''t aether just an energy? That''s not a technique." Aju frowned at that.


    Ki''el looked at him, noting that he had not been there when she had talked to the others about aether. Are they gossiping? Telling each other what I told them? I should not be surprised. She sighed. "The technique I have for purifying qi works similarly--"


    "Ki''el!" Juno''s voice sounded shocked. She glanced at him, frowning, but Du spoke up in the silence.


    "I agree, if for different reasons, Ki''el," he said. "If you try to explain that technique, many of the people here will try to experiment, but it will be without the basic understanding that you were taught. When you have earned the right to teach, and can start from the beginning, that is when you explain your techniques." Brother Du glanced at Xari. "Is it correct to say that you simply understand this technique as providing you a unique type of energy?"


    Ki''el considered. "My master never told me he hid it in the sword. But if it is a higher level of aether than I am able to use, then I suspect I am one of the few who would have any access to it in a pure form. If that makes it unique... then perhaps."


    "How high, I wonder? What is it for?" Xari let her head drop to the table, cushioning it on her crossed arms, her face caught in a pout for a long moment. When she began to speak again, though, that expression mostly cleared. "Every nature of qi has a purpose and reason for being. Either it comes from a natural force of the universe, or it fulfills a use for its creator. I''m sure your special aether energies are the same."


    "I''d love to hear more about this aether qi..." The tone in Aju''s voice, although foreign to Ki''el, was clearly leading, but Ki''el just shook her head.


    "I am not ready," she said. "I... still have a great deal to learn. And as Brother Du and Juno have said, I should not."


    There was a scoff at a nearby table, and Ki''el was certain she heard someone say, quietly, "Don''t listen to Juno..."


    "Respectable," Brother Du said, firmly. "And since you are done with your meal, Ki''el, we should return you to your family and friends, who I am sure are eagerly waiting for news."


    "Ah." Xari, head still on the table, looked up at Ki''el. "Yeah, I didn''t mean to keep you trapped here." She sat up, stretching slightly.


    "I would be happy to walk with you--" Brother Du began, but Xari spoke up quickly.


    "No, I''ll do it, I''ll do it." She pushed her chair back. "That is unless Sister Ki''el is so smitten with Brother Du that she prefers his presence over this pretty sister?" Ki''el looked from one to the other, but didn''t have a chance to respond before Xari spoke again. "I didn''t think so. Come on, Sister Ki''el, let''s leave the boys behind and have a talk on the way back."


    Ki''el stood up quickly, unsure why Sister Xari would be so eager to speak with her, but somewhat more comfortable with the idea of walking with her rather than Brother Du. As she moved away from the table, though, she heard the plaintive voice of Brother Juno, as though the man was being physically restrained from coming after her, although she knew it wasn''t true. "Remember, Ki''el," he called after her, a comedic warble in his voice. "Payment... in... advance!"


    Ki''el could all but feel the eye roll of Xari in response.


    When the two were a little ways away, Ki''el began to more actively flush her spirit with Righteous Aether. It was... not so much the meal, or even the meeting with the elders, as it was the rest of the trial before the elders dismissed the rest. Being watched over by so many eyes, some of them clear and direct, but many... not, had made her feel very uncomfortable. And... there was still some medical qi in her system, though not with the heavy and sick feeling that the Djang Military''s medical qi had left. In some ways, this medical qi didn''t even contest the righteous aether that she flooded her spirit with, and some of it even resonated more strongly because of it, soothing her remaining soreness.


    But also... as the aether cleared her spirit, Ki''el''s senses sharpened, and she frowned, noting that there was still a sense of her being watched.


    "I sense them too," Xari said, so suddenly that Ki''el at first thought she could not possibly be aware of what Ki''el had sensed. "It''s part of why I wanted to walk with you instead of Brother Du. He is careful and clever, but he wouldn''t notice people stalking a couple pretty girls even if it happened in front of his eyes. It''s the kind of problem I often think only women know exists." She paused her steps and raised her hands, a serious look on her face, and Ki''el felt the woman''s qi stirring.


    And Ki''el got the distinct impression, which did not normally occur, that the woman''s spiritual core moved, independent of her body, though it did not stray from her.


    Dancing threads of silvery-blue qi lit up the area around them, and Ki''el felt the attention on them cease even before it completed. The threads themselves began to form several arrays that hung in midair ominously, although the overall impression she got from the threads was a silvery moon hanging over them--a moon that watched, imperiously, but also swayed those beneath, even though it was still early in the day. When at last the threads finished forming an array and it seemed to activate, at least three small groups of threads leaped away into the distance, while several others began to circle the two of them. After a moment, the pensive look on Xari''s face cleared.


    "That will do," Xari said, and Ki''el noticed the circling qi threads fade until they were no longer visible, although she could still feel them. Xari began walking again immediately, and Ki''el kept by her side as she did. "Because of my family, my qi nature often expresses itself as threads, although the qi nature I''ve chosen--The Dancing Midsummer Moon--doesn''t resonate too strongly with it. I''ve been told that it will stop me from advancing too much further--but then, they told me that when I was just starting out, too." Xari made a face. "A lot of us either came to a Sect to avoid their family, or remain here to avoid our family. In my case, it''s both, but... more the latter nowadays."


    "You do not like your family?" Ki''el looked around as they walked, noting again the quality of the grounds and buildings of the Inner Sect.


    "Our patriarch wants everything done his way. Whole branches of the family rise and fall depending on whether their leaders resist or accept that. When people do resist, they just don''t tell him. It''s easier that way." She sighed. "I''m sure my father is the same, though he doesn''t exactly tell me. In one way, it''s nice, because I get to be myself. But also, if the family leader or the patriarch demands something... I have to at least pretend to be a loyal member of the family, or else everyone else suffers." Xari looked down at her. "And like I said... there''s a lot of people in the sect like that. Some, I guess, are the opposite--sons and daughters of families that are actually good, but the kids aren''t, so they get shipped away in hopes the sects will redeem them." She scoffed. "As if we could be so lucky."


    Ki''el just walked for a little while, considering that. "I do not know what my family would have thought," she finally said, "except that all of this..." she looked around, gesturing with one hand as she turned, "...would have been strange to them. It is far beyond what they could understand in the village."


    "An Illan village, huh?" Xari looked up at the clear blue sky above them. "Sounds like the kind of cute quiet place I would have loved to visit. Did they ever have tourists?"


    Ki''el noted the past tense. Had she told Xari about her past? She didn''t think so, but perhaps someone else had. Ki''el firmed her lips into a line, but spoke up after a moment. "No. Our village was behind a natural breakwater, hidden from passing ships. The fishers were taught to avoid being seen when they could. It... must have been because someone saw them, that..." Ki''el paused, and didn''t say more.


    "That?" From the sound of Sister Xari''s voice, she didn''t know the rest.


    "...that Djang slavers raided them." Ki''el all but spat the words.


    There was a tense silence after that, but only for a few moments.


    This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    "I... see," Xari said. "I... have to admit, Ki''el, that my family has used slaves for generations, and I never thought about them, growing up. I guess that''s just one more on the list of things about my family for me not to like." But her voice wasn''t intensely emotional, not the way Ki''el knew that she herself was.


    Some part of her wanted to immediately yell at the other girl--or was Xari a woman? It didn''t matter, but Ki''el closed her eyes and held her breath until the urge quieted. Xari was nice. And she didn''t like her family, who did these things. She...


    ...Could she just accept that? The idea that people like her families and neighbors, perhaps including her families and neighbors, had been bound in chains or with qi to serve people like Xari? Could she just--


    A warm feeling took Ki''el by surprise, and she opened her eyes to find that Xari had wrapped her up in a big hug. Ki''el, without meaning to, found her eyes full of tears, and she couldn''t muster the courage or reason to resist wrapping her arms around Xari in return.


    "There''s no reason not to be sad or angry," Xari said. "You don''t have to hold all your feelings inside. I''m not happy that my family does awful things, but even if I wanted to change it, I couldn''t. Even if the family leader or patriarch insisted that I take or use a slave, it would be difficult to resist the order, let alone trying to convince anyone else to stop." Xari tightened the hug slightly, for a moment, and Ki''el found herself consumed for a moment in her feels, barely able to pay attention to the rest of what Xari said.


    "But it''s not that I don''t want to. It''s not that I don''t want to rebel or have my own life. But there''s no way to even form a sub-family without reaching the Flame phase of qi, and if I were talented enough to reach there, I''d be at least Quartz by now." Ki''el didn''t hear much, but she... did feel that Xari, at least, seemed to be sincere, and that was enough, for now.


    Some time later, Ki''el recovered to the point where she could pull away and wipe her face, and Xari gave her a sympathetic look. "Come on," the woman or older girl said, offering Ki''el a hand, which she took, and they both began to walk again. "You''ll probably advance far past me, you know?" Xari said that with no heat to her voice, and Ki''el turned to look, but Xari didn''t so much as glance down at her. "I''ve only been in the Inner Sect for a little while, but I''ve already seen a few people blow completely past me. The advantages of being in the Inner Sect are great--I expect I''ll get several steps further in the next few years. I''m already clearing up a lot of my old confusion, changed a lot of things I thought which were..." she grimaced. "...honestly kind of dumb."


    "Like what?" Ki''el asked, numb enough to not really be thinking about what Xari said, or about her own question.


    Xari glanced at her, and Ki''el realized it was probably a sensitive question, but she did answer, after a moment. "An easy one is tribulations," she said. "I had a few cousins I looked up to as a kid who were crippled by them, and everyone treated it as though the heavens had decided they were inferior beings. I thought, the heavens must hate us, and that''s why they try to strike us down. The first time I passed one, I understood that it was wrong."


    "They are a test," Ki''el said, numbly, and she saw Xari nod.


    "They are. But more than that... I don''t think that it would have gone well for anyone if they were allowed to go further if they couldn''t pass those tests. It''s not like the heavens are refusing to hand out pocket money to children they don''t like. Perhaps it''s more like..." she paused. "Well, I don''t think this metaphor will mean much to you, but it''s like not giving soldiers to a bad military leader. If a bad leader is given troops, he''ll just waste them--waste the lives under his command, and fail to attack or defend or whatever he was asked to do. A bad commander tends to become a problem for their own people."


    Ki''el looked back up at Xari, and from the way the other woman changed the topic, she was sure it was clear how little that discussion meant to her.


    "The point is, Ki''el," she said, "there are things where you feel like what happens is about you, and it''s usually not. It''s about--what happens if this is done wrong? It''s like making qi natures; if you make one that''s wrong, the best thing that can happen is nothing. But a badly made qi nature, once you dedicate all the qi that you have to an effect, might also do something terrible, kill you or others... lots of awful things. Tribulations are one of those things that''s definitely more about what can go wrong rather than some being playing favorite, but there have been a lot of other things in my life, where I thought I could just," she waved a hand, "do stuff, and was mad when it didn''t work or I was stopped. Often, I had to completely change my way of thinking in order to get past a challenge, and if I hadn''t, I''d have only hurt myself."


    Ki''el listened, silently, finding that she was calming down, but not focusing too much on that either. "I wonder what I am wrong about," Ki''el said after a time. "I''d just as soon fix it so that I don''t need to worry about hurting myself or others."


    Xari nodded at that. "It''s easy to say that," she said. "But sometimes what''s wrong feels so natural. And when someone tells you it''s wrong, even if it really looks like they might be right, you never want to admit it." At the end, Xari''s voice seemed to fade, as though she had a thought about what to say next, but did not wish to say it.


    Ki''el could imagine a topic that would make her behave that way, and simply squeezed Xari''s hand. "I understand."


    Xari smiled, a little sadly. "I suppose for people like us--people like me, I mean, from noble families--we''re taught a whole lot of things that are wrong. And I suppose cute little Illan girls from small fishing villages are told very different things," she said, her voice having a sudden energy that may or may not have been fake, "which will lead them very different places. Or maybe... not at all. I bet one of the things you''ll struggle with that people like me never did was taking command of others."


    Ki''el blinked at that, looking up at Xari. "Taking command?"


    "Yeah, I thought so. But I think that''s a longer topic for another day." Ki''el looked, and sure enough, somehow they were almost all the way back to the Lesser House. But even so, Xari plowed on, her voice now deliberately holding at a level of cheeriness Ki''el could never have matched. "Suffice it to say--you''re already better than a lot of people, Ki''el, and others will look to you for leadership. You''re already someone who doesn''t belong in the Lesser House, but you won''t belong in the Outer Sect, either, and maybe not even the Inner Sect. Everyone will want to follow you where you''re going, if only so they''re not standing around stuck in place. I can already see in my mind this cute little Sister," she squeezed Ki''el''s hand firmly, "looking completely confused at all the people who''ve gathered around her, expecting her to give them a way forward. It''s the kind of thing a fishing village can''t possibly prepare you for."


    On that, Ki''el could firmly agree, and she felt a kind of creeping horror at the image of dozens or more people eyeing her expectantly, as though she was supposed to be responsible for every one of them. "No. It did not."


    "Well, you''ll just have to look to your older Brothers and Sisters for help with things like that," Xari said, and gave Ki''el a clear wink. "Especially your cutest Older Sister. Right?"


    Ki''el laughed at that, and grinned at Xari. "Yes, Sister Xari. Of course."


    "Alright, then." Xari let go of Ki''el''s hand and stopped, although they were not quite to the bridge yet. "Go meet your friends. And don''t worry too much about the goings-on in the higher levels of the Sect. You have friends up here who will make sure no one is getting in your way." She backed up a step, raising one hand in a parting gesture. "You just worry about clearing that first tribulation so that you can get one step closer to where you belong. Alright?"


    Ki''el smiled back at her. "Alright. Thank you, Xari."


    "Don''t mention it!" Xari turned abruptly and started marching away, and Ki''el could understand that the older girl must have also not wanted the conversation to end. So she took a deep breath and turned to the Lesser House, wiping her face one last time before forcing herself to take purposeful strides.


    She was most of the way there, when a figure stepped out of the shadows--shadows that she was sure had been empty a moment before. But the figure only raised a hand and gestured Ki''el closer, and Ki''el quickly recognized it--him.


    "I won''t take much of your time," the small elder said, his voice clear despite being very quiet. "But there are some things that shouldn''t be left the way they are."


    Ki''el paused, blinking, but with a twist of qi that she couldn''t quite follow, the elder had pulled the two of them further into the woods, and a qi barrier flashed into place around them, one whose purpose she didn''t have time to probe.


    "It''s normally no problem," the elder continued, as though he hadn''t even used his qi, "this thing about forcing people to wait a month before they advance out of Gold Qi and into the Sect. But we--the elders as a whole--are worried. The weight of the entire sect''s attention on one little girl is a lot to ask, especially when you have things, and people, that you need to protect." He leaned back against a tree, as though idle or frustrated, and looked up at her. "You and your people--if you need to test out of the Lesser House early, we''ll allow it. Just say the word."


    Ki''el felt a thrill at that, but her mind was quick to point out the problems. "I wish to wait until Mian can also leave the Lesser House," she said. "And he has just started with Gold Qi. It may take until the end of the month... or longer."


    "I thought you might say that," the elder said, not sounding upset or even disappointed. "And I bet you''d say the same about the fox, too."


    The fox. It wasn''t exactly spoken disrespectfully--rather, it almost seemed like the elder would rather use any term other than Chian''s name. What that meant, she had no idea, and she only nodded. "Da Chian is my friend, and I believe she has the potential to leave the Lesser House soon."


    "Their advancement is different, but I suspect the next attempt will be a success," the elder agreed. "Then--the last thing you need to understand is that you''re being seriously considered for the Core Sect. Mostly, that''s no concern of yours for now, but you should know that a great many people will respect that kind of status, and there are many people in the Inner Sect who would gladly give you training at discounted rates. Mostly, they want it because they''ll expect things in return, but..." he gave kind of a shoulder shrug, as much as his posture, leaning against the tree, easily allowed. "Expectations aren''t contracts. They aren''t even agreements. Try not to be tied down by them."


    "I... will keep that in mind?" Ki''el didn''t intend for her voice to come out as confused as it did, but something about the Elder''s presence was distracting, confusing.


    "Right. The only other thing is the forfeiture." The elder grimaced. "And there''s a problem there. A couple problems, really. Mostly, this is all Gol''s business, and I''m sure he''ll explain most of it. But normally a Lesser House cultivator wouldn''t be in any position to inherit the full possessions of an Outer Sect disciple, especially not one like Kem Jee Sai. But it''s far more complicated than you''ll be aware of, because he was an attendant to someone else. A noble." The elder''s voice was perfectly level and flat, enough that Ki''el couldn''t tell from his voice alone how momentous what he was saying was--but she understood. Or... was beginning to understand.


    "Whether Kem Jee Sai was following his master''s direction or not, he was also carrying a number of his master''s possessions--in one of his master''s space rings. Most likely... he was not following directions, since his master is in closed door cultivation, and has been for a bit. How exactly things turned out this way, we don''t know. Not one person involved in this matter expected the outcome. And there is at least one person out there who absolutely will not accept this outcome, no matter the sect rules... but they won''t come out of seclusion for a while. Whether that''s hours or weeks, no one can say, but when that happens, you will have trouble. Kem Jee Sai''s master will have a number of expectations, a number of demands. And perhaps others will even push them further down the path of vengeance. It would be wise for you to be as far ahead when that happens as you can be."


    Ki''el swallowed, but said nothing, waiting to see if the elder was proposing any solution.


    "Suffice it to say, young Ki''el, that it might be wisest to substitute money for time in this instance, and do whatever it takes to take you and yours out of the Lesser House with all haste." The elder stood back up, and stepped just one step closer to her, though it was a deceptively long step, and somehow, in spite of the elder being far shorter than her, she felt like she was eye to eye with the smaller man. "Those here will do their best to protect you, and the Sect is watching closely--as those above should well know. But if arrogance were qi, nobles would conquer even the Empire. Do you understand?"


    That... was a strange phrasing, but Ki''el nodded, and before her eyes, the elder melted into shadows, the barrier around her flickered out of existence, and she was suddenly moved back to the path, not even stumbling despite the motion.


    She stood before the Lesser House as though nothing had happened, but she understood--more than any time since she had come here, something had truly begun to change.


    She moved forward quickly, intent on finding her friends.

 [TAS] 29. Kiel - Trials, Part 4

    "Closed-door cul-ti-va-tion?" Xam''s face dark-ened just at the term, one which Ki''el un-der-stood but had not en-coun-tered. It must have showed in her face, be-cause the woman spoke again af-ter a mo-ment. "A no-ble need-ing that kind of seclu-sion... peo-ple shouldn''t need that un-less they''re try-ing to break through a bar-ri-er in the Gem phase of qi or high-er, or prepar-ing for a tier change. At low-est, that would put him at Mithril Qi, prepar-ing to ad-vance to the low-est Gem. And that''s... way too much for us."


    "The Sect won''t let some-one like that crush us, though. Right?" Mian looked at her, naked con-cern on his face. They were squat-ting at their usu-al camp-fire site, al-though it wasn''t dark yet; Ki''el had also left a mes-sage with Sis-ter Futi, and with Sis-ter Be-nai, for Chi-an to meet her, but nei-ther would promise any-thing.


    "Rules are rules," Xam said, look-ing at her hus-band, "but there are al-ways ways of get-ting around rules. If you know that the worst con-se-quence is to be thrown off the is-land... sure-ly there are ways to en-sure some-one will land safe-ly, as long as they per-form you a ser-vice. That, and suf-fi-cient mon-ey to make up the dif-fer-ence..."


    Ki''el hadn''t thought like that, and couldn''t help the chill that swept through her at the thought. Was that what Kem Jee Sai had been of-fered? If he should be caught, he would not be in dan-ger? But what about his mas-ter? What about his space ring?


    "So it''s an-oth-er case where the pow-er-ful just break the rules?" Mian''s voice had an edge of... pan-ic? Ki''el couldn''t quite iden-ti-fy the stress. "I shouldn''t be sur-prised. It keeps hap-pen-ing over and over again..."


    "It was sug-gest-ed that I should use the points I have gained to pull us all out of the Less-er House," Ki''el fin-ished her sum-ma-ry. "Pur-chas-ing what-ev-er re-sources we need to en-sure it. And I have the as-sur-ances of an El-der that we will all be al-lowed to be-gin the ex-am-i-na-tion as soon as we are ready."


    "I can do it any-time," con-firmed Xam, with a firm nod of her head, but Ki''el was look-ing at Mian.


    The man hes-i-tat-ed, but shook his head. "I went a long time with-out re-ly-ing on oth-ers," he said, fi-nal-ly, "but I got nowhere. If sect med-i-cines or trea-sures can al-low me to catch up to you, at least in the short term... my pride''s al-ready worth-less. Just tell me what I need to do."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "I don''t know," she said, look-ing at Xam, who looked back, "but we should go to the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion, to-geth-er."


    Xam sighed. "Hope-ful-ly they will tell us what we need to know about the med-i-cines," she said, not ris-ing, but turn-ing to look to-wards the path. "I''ve gone to ask for help sev-er-al times, but the El-der has not giv-en ad-vice on med-i-cines. He says it''s be-cause there are dif-fer-ent ones for dif-fer-ent paths, but..." Xam left the rest of the sen-tence hang-ing.


    They sat in un-com-fort-able si-lence for a few mo-ments, but Ki''el caught a flash of move-ment in the dis-tance--move-ment and red. She turned, and raised a hand. "Sis-ter Chi-an!"


    "Kiel!" The oth-er girl''s voice sound-ed edged with pan-ic. "I''m... I''m glad you''re okay." She slowed to a stop a lit-tle ways away from the camp-fire. "Be-nai told me... that you were at-tacked. That there... is go-ing to be a lot of trou-ble from now on. That... I should prob-a-bly..."


    Ki''el might not have been as bold, if not for what the El-der had said. She... had, for a long time, felt more than com-fort-able sit-ting aside and let-ting the world turn with-out be-ing of-fend-ed when it left her be-hind. But... the el-der had said it so sim-ply. I bet you''d say the same about the Fox. This el-der, who bare-ly knew her, thought that she want-ed Da Chi-an to stay with her. And... Ki''el re-al-ized that she did.


    "Come with us," she said, al-though it felt to Ki''el, as she said it, that she was watch-ing her-self from the out-side.


    She saw Mian turn to look at her, saw Xam eye-ing her, but nei-ther said any-thing. Chi-an, though, seemed con-fused. "With you?"


    "We must ad-vance out of the Less-er House," Ki''el said, feel-ing like her thoughts were slow, con-fused, even as she spoke. "An El-der told me they will let us test out even be-fore our first month is com-plete, but we want to be sure we are ready. We will go to the Hall of Earth-ly Recita-tion to ask for med-i-cines... but we do not know quite what to get."


    "Ah..." Chi-an straight-ened. "There are a num-ber of things, but I think it''s Be-nai who would have the most in-for-ma-tion. She''s an ex-pert on rais-ing peo-ple out of Gold Qi..." her voice trailed off. "Ah... but most-ly, for..."


    "Peo-ple like you," Xam said, Ki''el thought a lit-tle cold-ly.


    "Yes," Chi-an said, not sound-ing both-ered. "But I imag-ine she knows more than enough about med-i-cines to help."


    "May we speak with her? Now?" Ki''el wasn''t quite sure why she felt dis-tant... ex-cept that some part of her was lead-ing, and it was not what she was used to. Was that wrong? Wouldn''t Kuli tell her if it was?


    "Of course," Chi-an said, straight-en-ing slight-ly. "She''s usu-al-ly med-i-tat-ing in her room, un-less the Sect makes her take a task."


    "Then let''s go." Ki''el felt her heart pound-ing as she stood, and with a men-tal twist, she pushed a lit-tle Right-eous aether into her spir-it... but it did lit-tle to re-store the bal-ance. Why?


    { It is your heart, } Kuli an-swered, fi-nal-ly. { In an emo-tion-al, not a spir-i-tu-al, sense, al-though it ex-ists, spir-i-tu-al-ly. It is a part of your spir-it that wants to guide and pro-tect. It is... not ex-act-ly your mind, and you must be vig-i-lant, to keep it from mak-ing mis-takes. But it is a part of you, and your aether will en-hance it along with your mind... un-less you fo-cus your aether care-ful-ly. }


    I have not felt like this. Ki''el felt her body mov-ing af-ter Da Chi-an, though her thoughts turned in-wards.


    { You have known your heart to be hurt and alone, } Kuli an-swered. { And this will be-come a prob-lem if left alone. If the path that you, the mind, take... if that ig-nores what your heart tells you, your heart will not trust you. And if you leave things to your heart en-tire-ly, it will try to take over at times when you will need to think and act wise-ly. You must act as you know your heart wish-es, but re-main in charge of it, in or-der to reach the great-est heights. }


    Act as my heart wish-es? Ki''el felt be-wil-dered. What does my heart want?


    { Your heart is a part of you. It wants what you want, but with-out un-der-stand-ing as much. }


    When Ki''el re-al-ized that she was stand-ing be-fore Bai Be-nai''s door, with-out any an-swer to what Kuli was telling her. But... she also turned to look at the pa-thet-ic half-room where she and the oth-ers had been sleep-ing, its floor still miss-ing, the raw wood-en board that Xam had pro-cured still sit-ting there, its ob-vi-ous splin-ters around the edges still some-thing that Ki''el didn''t want to even look at.


    It feels left un-done, Ki''el ad-mit-ted to her-self. But many things are. I had hoped... when I left...


    She had hoped, when she left the Less-er House, that her friends would be there with her. She had hoped, when she left the Less-er House, it would be leav-ing a bet-ter House be-hind, with at least their one room fi-nal-ly fixed. But al-ready, she didn''t have enough time, and Mian was still be-hind. She want-ed more time, to bring Mian to the peak of Gold Qi with her and Xam... and she want-ed to be able to...


    To ask Chi-an prop-er-ly, even though the girl had said they were friends. Be-cause...


    "Ki''el?" Mian put a hand on her shoul-der. "It will be fine."


    Ki''el looked back at Mian, her thoughts start-ing to get lost--but she no-ticed Kuli, gen-tly, col-lect-ing them, and she ap-pre-ci-at-ed it. She knew that she was on the edge of some-thing, but... now was not the time.


    She took a deep breath, and turned to look at Chi-an, who nod-ded her to-wards the door, and Ki''el knocked.


    "It''s not as though I don''t know you''re there," the voice in-side said, and Ki''el could hear a cer-tain bit-ter-ness. "Just come in. At least... Ki''el, and you, Chi-an. There''s not re-al-ly a lot of room."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but opened the door, find-ing--as she knew--that it was true. The woman was sit-ting there, some-what cen-tered in the con-fined space, with no can-dles or spir-it lights ev-i-dent to keep the dark-ness away. Al-though Ki''el couldn''t quite see, she got the im-pres-sion of some-thing be-hind Be-nai... but de-clined to try to fig-ure it out, step-ping in in-stead.


    As soon as Chi-an closed the door be-hind them, how-ev-er, the space changed.


    Ki''el didn''t know--and didn''t find rea-son or courage to ask Kuli--whether it was an il-lu-sion or some more pro-found tech-nique, but she found her-self in a wide cir-cu-lar room lit by spir-i-tu-al flames along its un-bro-ken stone wall. The floor be-neath them was like bot-tom-less wa-ter, but sol-id be-neath her feet; when Ki''el looked down, she thought she was look-ing through the floor, though there was noth-ing to see ex-cept blue that fad-ed too quick-ly into black.


    "You want some-thing from me," Bai Be-nai''s voice sound-ed strange, in the space.


    Ki''el turned to look at her, but only took a deep breath. In this mo-ment, she could have wished that the force that had dri-ven her for-ward had the right words for her to say... but also, it felt like that was wrong, self-ish. She was here be-cause of what she want-ed.


    "In or-der to get out of the Less-er House swift-ly," Ki''el said, try-ing to keep her nerves in check, "I was ad-vised to use Sect med-i-cines to ad-vance my-self and my friends, as soon as pos-si-ble. And..." She hes-i-tat-ed, again un-sure, but spoke, only be-cause her feet and her heart had brought her here. "I... would like to en-sure that Chi-an can take the test along-side us. I will use all my sect points, and any oth-er re-sources I have, to en-sure it."


    Ki''el kept her eyes on Bai Be-nai, even though she felt a spike of qi, or emo-tion, from the girl next to her.


    There was a si-lence for a time, and Ki''el found her-self match-ing the stare of the old woman--and the more she looked, the more firm her be-lief be-came that Bai Be-nai was a very old woman. It wasn''t ob-vi-ous in her looks, but in the un-wa-ver-ing spir-it be-hind those eyes--eyes that must have seen a great deal, more than Ki''el could imag-ine.


    "Sis-ter Futi told me that you are fa-vored by the el-ders," Be-nai said af-ter a time. "Enough that they want you to sur-vive the con-se-quences of this ridicu-lous chil-dren''s spat. But the Sect is fool-ish in so many ways, about so many things. Al-ways stick-ing to old ways, no mat-ter who gets hurt." She low-ered her head, but kept her eyes fixed on Ki''el. "Not that I have done dif-fer-ent-ly."


    Ki''el said noth-ing in re-sponse, un-sure what even could be said to that.


    "Of course they have the re-sources to pull peo-ple out of Gold Qi as eas-i-ly as they wish," the woman said af-ter a mo-ment. "The most com-mon med-i-cines be-gin your jour-ney down spe-cif-ic spir-i-tu-al paths. For you, young Ki''el, I do not sus-pect they will have any med-i-cine pure enough to meet your stan-dards."


    "I am not wor-ried about my-self," Ki''el said brave-ly, al-though it wasn''t true.


    "Da Chi-an''s tribu-la-tion is more ex-pen-sive than a nor-mal one, at two hun-dred fifty Sect Points," Be-nai con-tin-ued, "which she has most-ly col-lect-ed, or so she''s told me. But for her to ad-vance, the ide-al med-i-cine would be the Wheel of Light and Sky Ton-ic."


    Be-low, Ki''el no-ticed a flick-er, and glanced down, sur-prised, but a sheet of pa-per--not white, but some pale green ma-te-r-i-al--with com-plex di-rec-tions shot out of the wa-ter be-neath her and hov-ered be-fore her. She took it, sur-prised.


    "You will need time with at least an In-ter-me-di-ate Al-chemist, to pro-duce a ton-ic of at least the Com-mon grade." She scoffed. "Any med-i-cine less than Com-mon is the poor prac-tice of a novice al-chemist, and not suit-able for any se-ri-ous mat-ters, and even a com-mon ton-ic will be a com-pro-mise." She paused. "For the oth-ers... I am un-aware of their paths, and I doubt they are aware, ei-ther. But it would be fool-ish not to at least ask."


    Be-nai ges-tured, and Ki''el heard the door open. Al-though she didn''t turn to see her friends en-ter, she heard Mian suck in a breath as soon as the door closed. Had the na-ture of the room been hid-den while it was open?


    "In or-der to find the best med-i-cines for you, I would know your path," Be-nai said, her tone more for-mal than it had been be-fore--more for-mal than Ki''el re-mem-bered the woman be-ing any oth-er time.


    "Can''t say that I even--" Mian be-gan, but Xam spoke up.


    The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.


    "My clan has per-cep-tion tech-niques, but I don''t fa-vor them. In the mil-i-tary, I used most-ly move-ment and stealth tal-is-mans. I am com-ing to un-der-stand that my... na-ture in-volves move-ment and foot-work, but be-yond that, I am un-cer-tain."


    Be-nai stretched her neck slight-ly, from where she was sit-ting, and Ki''el got an-oth-er strange un-seen half-vi-sion of the woman''s spir-it na-ture, but didn''t fo-cus on it. "I see. Sword, spear, or bow?"


    Ki''el blinked, un-cer-tain of the ques-tion, but Xam an-swered, "Spear," with-out much thought, and the woman nod-ded. "There is a spir-it med-i-cine, a hal-lu-cino-gen, known as the Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall Flower. If you can en-dure its ef-fects while cul-ti-vat-ing, it may start you on a path of move-ment and wa-ter qi... if you so choose." The woman re-laxed slight-ly. "A flower of suf-fi-cient qual-i-ty--at least Com-mon--will also tem-per your body, and sig-nif-i-cant-ly im-prove your chances at pass-ing the tribu-la-tion."


    Xam frowned and con-sid-ered that, seem-ing-ly se-ri-ous, as the woman turned to Mian, who frowned, and con-sid-ered.


    "I''m afraid I don''t know my path," he said, "ex-cept that I hope to sup-port my wife," he looked point-ed-ly at Xam, "and Ki''el. And I know that my spir-it is fo-cused around my heart."


    "Your heart?" Be-nai sound-ed per-haps a lit-tle cu-ri-ous, but more like she sim-ply found his words un-clear.


    Chi-an spoke up to an-swer that. "You re-call what I said about be-ing at-tuned to my tail? How Ki''el said it was like a voice for spir-it en-er-gy?" Be-nai turned, and gave the girl a look that said in no un-cer-tain terms that her mem-o-ry was quite good. So, af-ter only half a mo-ment, Chi-an con-tin-ued. "My tail, Mian''s heart, Xam''s feet, and Ki''el''s skin--these are all the same sort of ''fo-cus''."


    "I see," Be-nai said, and af-ter a mo-ment, looked back at Mian. "Then--you con-trol your-self with your emo-tions? You strive to be-come the per-son you must be from with-in?"


    Mian had a sur-prised look on his face, but tapped his chin, and nod-ded. "I sup-pose. That''s not a bad de-scrip-tion, re-al-ly."


    "Then I sup-pose I must rec-om-mend the most--and least--use-ful med-i-cine I can imag-ine." Be-nai''s lips curled away from her teeth in a strange-ly ugly smile, or per-haps a gri-mace that looked too cheer-ful. "The Hun-dred Hearts Ton-ic is a com-bi-na-tion of sev-er-al herbs that al-lows one to ex-pe-ri-ence every emo-tion the hu-man heart can pos-si-bly know--and a few more. For some, the drug is an un-pleas-ant jour-ney through all the worst feel-ings--pain, shame, mis-ery, angst--but they are equal-ly dragged through all the best feel-ings--the many fla-vors of love, joy, and ec-sta-sy, along with con-tent-ment and ac-cep-tance. Some have called the ex-pe-ri-ence en-light-ment, oth-ers tor-ture. But for a per-son who must speak with their heart in or-der to progress, it helps to speak its lan-guage. Flu-ent-ly. I would rec-om-mend you not ac-cept a ton-ic at less than Un-com-mon qual-i-ty, or the side ef-fects will be... se-vere."


    Mian made a noise, and Ki''el thought the man went pale at the idea, but he also seemed to be se-ri-ous-ly con-sid-er-ing it.


    "Each of these med-i-cines, if tak-en while med-i-tat-ing, will also vast-ly in-crease your in-take of qi--if you can keep your mind on the task." Be-nai''s voice echoed slight-ly in the cham-ber--more than it had be-fore, Ki''el thought, now that the woman wished it to. "If you are se-ri-ous about push-ing for-ward quick-ly, com-bin-ing the qi gain and in-sight is the only op-tion. The cor-rect way for-ward is to gain that same in-sight with hard work and ef-fort--but then, prodi-gies have been raised to be-come the great-est pow-ers among mankind by us-ing the cor-rect mix-ture of train-ing and med-i-cine."


    For Ki''el, the whole top-ic sound-ed odd. She had been more ex-pect-ing to hear of pills that did noth-ing but in-crease one''s qi, some-how--but hal-lu-ci-nat-ing wa-ter-falls and ex-pe-ri-enc-ing every emo-tion known to man?


    And from Be-nai''s face, when the woman turned her at-ten-tion back to Ki''el, her thoughts must have been show-ing. "You may doubt this method, young Ki''el," she said, and Ki''el thought the woman''s voice was hard, un-yield-ing. "But peo-ple were nev-er meant to use these pow-ers. Dis-cov-er-ing the truth of the uni-verse in or-der to un-lock its se-crets takes ei-ther med-i-ta-tion and in-sight... or un-usu-al meth-ods."


    Ki''el stiff-ened, but in a way, she did un-der-stand. If she didn''t have Kuli or Sobon to tell her the an-swers... what could she do? If it hadn''t been for Sobon, she wouldn''t even be try-ing to gain these sorts of spir-i-tu-al pow-ers, but... if she had cho-sen to go down this path, where would she even be-gin search-ing for in-sight into how to con-trol fire, or wa-ter, or school one''s heart?


    So she only took a breath, and spoke qui-et-ly. "I un-der-stand, Sis-ter Be-nai. I... am very for-tu-nate to have ac-cess to in-sights by oth-er means, and with-out them..."


    There was a pause, and then Chi-an spoke. "We''re all for-tu-nate," she said, her cheer sound-ing a lit-tle forced. "I would be nowhere with-out Be-nai, and with-out you. And we are all here be-cause of un-count-able oth-er suc-cess-es, oth-er bless-ings." She moved clos-er and took the sheet that Ki''el held, which con-tained the for-mu-la-tion for her Wheel of Light and Sky Ton-ic. She glanced over the list, wor-ry-ing her lip. "But... what should we ex-pect all this to cost?"


    "Your ton-ic alone will cost at least five hun-dred Sect Points--if you can find an al-chemist will-ing to work cheap-ly," said Bai Be-nai, quite se-ri-ous-ly.


    Ki''el swal-lowed, the amount seem-ing crazy--at first. But she had also been giv-en that many sect points sim-ply for hav-ing a sin-gle ''in-sight-ful'' con-ver-sa-tion with In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples. And... she had no idea what she would have in her pos-ses-sion be-cause of the for-fei-ture of the man who had tried to kill her. "And the rest?" she said, won-der-ing whether what-ev-er she might end up sink-ing the whole for-fei-ture into it.


    "If the herbs are al-ready in sup-ply, I would imag-ine be-tween three and five hun-dred for both, plus al-chemist costs," Be-nai said. "If they must be gath-ered, an ad-di-tion-al one to two hun-dred points per herb that must be gath-ered--if you are will-ing to wait up to two days for the mis-sion. A re-quest put in as ur-gent will dou-ble the costs."


    Ki''el kept her calm in the face of that. It... did not en-tire-ly es-cape her, that if she had not cho-sen to in-clude Chi-an, or if she blind-ly as-sumed that Chi-an would be fine with-out the med-i-cine, then it would halve her costs... but there was no rea-son to take that thought se-ri-ous-ly. It would be strange if she had ar-rived just at the mo-ment that Chi-an was ready, on her own, to chal-lenge the tribu-la-tion. And... if she was hon-est, she would pre-fer to bring up oth-ers, as well. Not be-cause she was as close to them as she was her friends and Chi-an, but...


    But... be-cause she kept see-ing them, and the echoes of her own lone-li-ness in them.


    But she shook the thought off, and not know-ing what else to do, gave Be-nai a grate-ful ges-ture, one she re-al-ized a mo-ment lat-er was in the Il-lan style rather than the Djang, but she didn''t think the woman cared. "I will see what we can do. Thank you, Sis-ter Be-nai."


    "Thank me by tak-ing care of Da Chi-an," she said, still sound-ing very se-ri-ous. "While she is here, she is my charge. If any-thing should hap-pen to her..." Be-nai left the rest un-said, but the look she gave Ki''el was stern.


    "I will," Ki''el said, though as she turned away, her mind got caught in a sil-ly ques-tion: should I have said I would try, in-stead of say-ing that I would? Am I strong enough to take re-spon-si-bil-i-ty for such a thing?


    When they reached the door and walked out, Ki''el was mo-men-tar-i-ly stunned to re-turn to the hall-way of the Less-er House, and more sur-prised when she looked back into Be-nai''s clos-et and saw it as one more sim-ply a cramped space with a woman med-i-tat-ing at its cen-ter. But once she and the oth-ers were out, the door closed it-self, and Ki''el was left think-ing that what she had ex-pe-ri-enced--the wide room with its wa-ter floor--was some-how more true than the clos-et, no mat-ter how ob-vi-ous it seemed to be that the clos-et was real.


    I have seen spa-tial ex-pan-sion from Sobon''s tech-niques, Ki''el rea-soned as she fol-lowed the oth-ers back to the spi-ral stair-case with the loose steps. Even as the stair-case re-quired her at-ten-tion again as she moved down it, though, there was doubt in her mind. But the room looked dif-fer-ent from with-in than from out-side. And... I didn''t think, when I looked back from out-side, that I was see-ing il-lu-sion. Both felt true.


    "Trou-ble," grum-bled Chi-an, be-fore they had even got-ten to the bot-tom, and Ki''el felt it as soon as her thoughts were drawn back to the pre-sent. When they got to the front door, Ki''el could tell that things were only get-ting worse.


    Out-side, a woman dressed in what was clear-ly In-ner Sect robes was... seat-ed on a palan-quin, that had been set down by the four Out-er Sect dis-ci-ples who had been car-ry-ing it. Un-like most, who wore the robes long or had pants, this woman--or girl--had cut her robe short, not far be-low her waist, and had her legs bare--and shaved, with only thin san-dals on her feet, which were tucked be-neath her in a side-lean-ing sit that looked like it was sup-posed to ap-pear com-fort-able, but which Ki''el thought could not have been. She was also, Ki''el thought, not Djang, and nei-ther were her four re-tain-ers; their faces were some-what sharp-er


    For her part, Ki''el didn''t un-der-stand at all; it felt like a ridicu-lous-ly un-com-fort-able cut for her robe, and Ki''el felt mor-ti-fied at the thought of or-der-ing oth-er peo-ple to car-ry her around like that; it made no sense, and she couldn''t imag-ine it was even re-mote-ly com-fort-able, es-pe-cial-ly for a cul-ti-va-tor who was sup-posed to be get-ting ever more com-fort-able with their own body. The ride in that abom-inable fly-ing box that had brought her here had been quite un-com-fort-able, and it had also not been at all cheap.


    "There you are," the woman called, long be-fore Ki''el had stepped out of the House it-self. There was some-thing to her voice that Ki''el dis-trust-ed, and also didn''t un-der-stand; she was clear-ly go-ing through some ef-fort to add a strange tone to her voice, though it was not a car-ri-er of qi the way Lan Wu''s was. "I''ll make this easy for you, girl. I want all the for-fei-ture of Kem Jee Sai, mi-nus what-ev-er Sect Points he had. I''ll even through a hun-dred Sect Points in it for you, which should be more than enough, giv-en how much trou-ble I''ll be sav-ing you. And if I were you..." she raised a hand, and the four who had car-ried her stu-pid sled stepped for-ward, look-ing men-ac-ing, "I wouldn''t refuse."


    Ki''el looked around at the oth-ers, but their wor-ried looks only mir-rored what she felt--ex-cept Mian, whose wor-ry was mixed with some dis-trac-tion. Ei-ther way, she saw no ad-vice in them, and she turned back to look at the woman out-side, pro-ject-ing her voice slight-ly to make her-self heard through the open front door. "I apol-o-gize, Sis-ter, but I don''t know who you are."


    One of the four car-ri-ers stepped for-ward, his voice loud and brash. "Of course some gut-ter-trash is-lander wouldn''t know Lady Pha. Just shut up and do what you''re told, be-fore things get rough.


    From where Ki''el stood, she could still see Sis-ter Futi in her of-fice--and the mo-ment she locked eyes, she felt a nar-row pulse of in-tent di-rect-ed at her. [ That woman is Vaja Pha Laila. She is a dis-tant re-la-tion of the Va-jan Roy-al Fam-i-ly, and more spoiled than many of the Djang no-ble hous-es. She has al-ready sac-ri-ficed sev-er-al of her ser-vants in feuds, but has done no wrong in the eyes of the Sect. She is also not the mas-ter of Kem Jee Sai. Be very care-ful how you treat this one. ]


    Ki''el ab-sorbed that knowl-edge, and looked out ahead. "I have not re-ceived any for-fei-ture yet. If Broth-er Sai was hold-ing into some items for you, I am sure--"


    "All the con-tents," Laila said, and Ki''el felt a threat-en-ing twist to the qi out-side, but... she was also sure that it was not from the woman.


    Ki''el un-der-stood that she was be-ing threat-ened, and could rec-og-nize--even with-out what Sis-ter Futi had said--that the woman was will-ing to cause sub-stan-tial trou-ble, here, but Ki''el couldn''t help her na-ture, and her na-ture told her that this woman was try-ing to con-trol her--to taint her, to get in-side of her and cor-rupt her. She set her jaw, stub-born-ly, and spoke again. "I will speak to the El-der and en-sure that those who have a le-git-i-mate claim to the con-tents may re-quest their re-turn."


    "You bitch--" One of the four guards--not the one who had stepped for-ward--start-ed for-ward as though at a run, though he only took two or three steps be-fore low-er-ing one hand to-wards the ground, and his qi flared. Ki''el blinked, tak-ing a step back. Sure-ly he wouldn''t--?


    Ki''el might have been hap-py nev-er to have seen what hap-pened in the blink of an eye--but in a way, this time, Kuli was a curse to her. Be-cause the man''s qi shot into the ground, and four pil-lars of stone leaped for-ward like spears, but spears larg-er than Ki''el''s tor-so, and they tore com-plete-ly through the front of the build-ing, throw-ing splin-ters and shrap-nel--


    But then, with a men-tal sound like a snap-ping tree branch, the dam-age was un-done, and Ki''el only caught a glimpse of the small El-der''s ar-rival, even as the small man ca-su-al-ly back-hand-ed the of-fend-ing Out-er Sect mem-ber, knock-ing him en-tire-ly out of the area. In the blink-ing mo-ments af-ter-wards, as the El-der be-gan to speak, Ki''el could imag-ine be-ing un-sure whether what she had seen was il-lu-sion, or not.


    It wasn''t. That fact was made per-fect-ly clear from her aug-ment, as Kuli re-gard-ed those mem-o-ries, those sen-sa-tions, with a cool de-tach-ment that Ki''el might nev-er have with-out her. By what-ev-er means, from what she had seen... vi-o-lence had been done, and then un-done. But it had hap-pened.


    "Lady Vaja," the El-der said, with an in-tense in-tent be-hind his voice that Ki''el was ex-treme-ly glad was not di-rect-ed at her, as she could see plant life be-hind the oth-er woman with-er-ing with its in-ten-si-ty. "You will keep your re-tain-ers on a short leash, or you will be pun-ished along-side them."


    "I don''t--what?" The oth-er woman, Vaja roy-al fam-i-ly or not, seemed caught en-tire-ly off-guard by the El-der''s phras-ing. "Pun-ished? For do-ing what?"


    "Per-haps it was un-clear to you when young Ki''el was brought be-fore a coun-cil of all the Sect''s El-ders," the short El-der said, and Ki''el could only imag-ine the look on his face as he said it, "But we are pay-ing at-ten-tion to what is hap-pen-ing, here, now. Are you ex-pect-ing that play-ing the fool will be tol-er-at-ed while we are watch-ing every-thing you do? No mat-ter how sub-tle your plans or in-sin-u-a-tions, if you think they will suf-fice to dis-guise your in-tent from the three El-ders cur-rent-ly mon-i-tor-ing the sit-u-a-tion, then you clear-ly mis-un-der-stand the Sect in its en-tire-ty." He stepped for-ward, and al-though it was only a step, Ki''el felt like the man had moved leagues and leagues of land away from her--and, she imag-ined, to the woman, it must feel like he was com-ing that much clos-er with each step.


    He stepped for-ward again, and again, and again, at what could be de-scribed as a nor-mal walk-ing pace, and Ki''el watched her and her three re-main-ing com-pan-ions buck-ling un-der the in-ten-si-ty of the El-der''s qi.


    "What-ev-er your ri-val-ry, what-ev-er your per-son-al con-flicts, tear-ing apart Sect prop-er-ty and as-sault-ing un-in-volved stu-dents will nev-er be ac-cept-able." His words were mea-sured, even, but Ki''el could hear the mut-ed echoes of his in-tent bounc-ing off the woman, her palan-quin, and the trees be-yond. "We very fre-quent-ly al-low peo-ple to cre-ate con-flict, when we be-lieve it will al-low peo-ple to learn valu-able lessons. But it seems the only les-son to be learned here to-day is," his last words fell with the im-pact of boul-ders from the sky, "this is not your coun-try."


    Two of the re-main-ing Out-er Sect dis-ci-ples failed to hold up un-der that much stress, and the El-der stepped back, this time with-out any strange qi ef-fects. "We are not sim-ply go-ing to al-low you, or any-one else, to do what you wish," he con-tin-ued, his voice sud-den-ly as placid as though he were sim-ply mak-ing con-ver-sa-tion over lunch. "It was un-wise of you to push at all, more-so when you should know you''d be caught." Al-though Ki''el felt breath-less just from the echoes of what the woman had faced, the el-der main-tained an al-most friv-o-lous-ly calm air. "Per-haps you should go rest? Per-haps it is only the stress of your day that is mak-ing you be-have so fool-ish-ly."


    "I..."


    "Now, miss Vaja."


    The woman swal-lowed hard, and with a flick of her qi, sim-ply shot her palan-quin up into the sky-mak-ing Ki''el won-der why the woman had ever made four men car-ry it. Or had she? By the time they''d got-ten here, it had been set on the ground. And yet... some-how, she was sure.


    Ki''el''s at-ten-tion was drawn to the el-der as he turned his head to look at her, his face se-ri-ous. "Go on," he said, no con-cern ap-par-ent in his voice. "Things will be fine, here."


    Ki''el glanced over to where Sis-ter Futi re-mained in her of-fice, but that woman was sim-ply stand-ing still with her eyes closed, and Ki''el saw no rea-son to wait for any kind of sign from her.


    "Thank you, El-der," she said, po-lite-ly, and gave a def-er-en-tial half-bow, but when she start-ed for-wards, she couldn''t stop her-self from mov-ing at al-most a run.


    To get away from this place, and hope-ful-ly, to get to an-oth-er safe place, as soon as pos-si-ble.

 [TAS] 30. Kiel - Trials, Part 5

    Moving through the Sect felt odd. Many times, Ki''el glanced around to find members of the Outer Sect simply standing and watching them pass; it felt like she never saw anyone not watching them pass. Even those members of the Outer Sect she recognized, if sometimes not by name, simply stood back and watched.


    Were they expecting an incident? Aware of her circumstances? Or were they only told small pieces of what was going on? Perhaps they didn''t even know, and just thought their group looked strange?


    There was a group waiting for them at one of the bridges, and while they looked imperious, their auras were not threatening. Three among them seemed, to Ki''el''s eye, to be noble--the others organized themselves around them, and they carried both attitude and dress that set them apart.


    They were also arranged in such a way that would have prevented them from crossing, if Ki''el had been brash enough to try to ignore them.


    "Junior sister!" The young man in front seemed eager to greet her, though the women around him only gave Ki''el measured looks. "We''ve heard about your accomplishments. Congratulations."


    "I do not consider needing to defend myself an accomplishment," Ki''el hazarded, glancing from the man to the others behind.


    "Nonsense, nonsense," he said, waving one hand dismissively. "There are always challenges along the path, and rising to those challenges is always a sign of strength."


    "Brother Kai is indirect," said the second noble, to one side. "We trust you are on your way to receive the forfeiture of the late Brother Sai? We would very much like to trade for... certain items."


    Ki''el frowned, pausing. She was... already worried about offending whoever owned the ring, and simply trading for items felt... dangerous. "I... would not wish..."


    "If you''re worried about offending the ring owner''s master, you will have more protection with allies than by simply being humble." The third noble, a woman, took a step to the side, as though distancing herself from the others. "Bruised egos are not so easily soothed."


    "Sister Qi is right," Brother Kai said, fidgeting with his hands in a way that while he might have been trying to be polite, he mostly seemed eager to get his hands on things. "We are not greedy--there is much to be shared."


    "How do you know so much about what Kem Jee Sai was carrying?" Xam''s voice was more than guarded, almost hostile--as though she were unafraid of offending them.


    "Ah, it''s not so much Brother Sai himself," Kai said, sounding pleased to be able to show off his knowledge, though the other two gave him looks for it. "Brother Sai''s master is known to have collected a great many unique treasures, some by... underhanded methods."


    "You made a stupid gample," one of Brother Kai''s companions said, sourly, and he tried to conceal a grimace.


    "In either case, you would do better to have someone there willing to blunt our Senior Sister''s anger," said the other Brother. "Since we are mostly interested in recovering our own treasures, our assistance could be considered cheap."


    Ki''el paused, a mixed feeling swirling in her gut. Before, when she spoke to the woman outside the Lesser House, she''d said something about letting people have anything they had a claim to--in part, out of fear, but once she''d said it, it felt right. So... now, although these people were offering her a trade, Ki''el firmed her expression.


    "If you have some claim to the items that Kem Jee Sai was holding, I will not ask anything of you in return," she said, feeling that her voice sounded more serious than she expected, to her own ears. "As long as your claim to the items can be proven."


    The three all seemed to relax. "Ah," the other Brother beamed. "You''re a virtuous Junior Sister. This Brother Yuan is happy to protect such a precious junior."


    Brother Kai laughed at that, for some reason, while Sister Qi seemed to roll her eyes. "If you are truly interested in returning people''s treasures, you''ll have lots of people trying to cheat you," she said, while the other two were sharing a moment. "It''s the kind of matter even the Elders would hesitate before undertaking."


    Ki''el looked at the woman, but before she could object, Da Chian spoke up. "What other choice does Ki''el have?" she said, frustrated and irritated. "How many other people will we make enemies of if she keeps things for herself that belonged to someone else?"


    "Hm," Brother Yuan said, crossing his arms and leaning back. "Most people in the Sect are well aware that strength is what rules, and you won a battle of life and death. What cause do they have to complain?"


    "Ah, Brother Yuan," Kai said, sounding disappointed. "Surely--"


    "And we''re not complaining about the past," Brother Yuan said, looking away from the other Brother, almost indignant. "We''re making a trade."


    "In any case," Sister Qi spoke up. "As long as you are willing to return our items to us, I think we can blunt even the fury of our Senior Sister."


    Ki''el felt a slight chill at those words, but only pressed her lips into a determined line. "I will not demand, but I do appreciate anything you can do."


    "Then, let''s go." Brother Kai gestured, and Ki''el let the other Nobles lead her towards the Hall of Earthen Recitation.


    As they walked, though, Ki''el forced herself to quicken her steps, and although she was afraid of the answer, she spoke up. "Exactly who is this woman, the master of Kem Jee Sai?"


    Sister Qi turned to look at her, and Ki''el thought her eyes were sad. "Senior Sister Djang Zen Ai is the only prodigy of the Djang Zen family for the last three generations. There are many guesses as to why her talents are so much better than the rest of her family, but..."


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    "Mostly, everyone thinks her mother slept with a demon," Brother Kai broke in, sounding entirely too flippant.


    Ki''el swallowed, but was too ignorant of such matters to understand the subtext. Instead, she asked, "She follows a demonic path?"


    "More like her blood is special. Not like the blood of spirit beasts, either." Sister Qi glanced briefly back, behind Ki''el, and she needed no guesses to understand why. "It is said that demon blood brings great powers, but the entire line is cursed. Sister Ai normally has great trouble controlling herself, and it is for that reason that her family spared no expense to favor her and calm her temper through her childhood. But... since joining the sect, it has fallen on her two retainers to keep her in check... and one of those retainers needed to remain with her while she was in seclusion."


    Ki''el glanced ahead, seeing several familiar faces around the Hall. Although they were all making efforts to look idle, the same faces that had gathered around her when she had come down from meeting the Elders were gathered near the entrance.


    "In truth, Junior Sister," Brother Yuan said, and Ki''el noted that he seemed quite uncomfortable. "Yours is not the first, and will not be the last, matter that has brought Senior Sister Ai into conflict with the Sect. Usually, there is some matter or other which requires several Inner Disciples or Core Disciples to intervene. We are all aware of her foul temper. But..."


    "...It is a tad more serious than most," Sister Qi agreed. "And... there are those, like us, who are interested in using this moment to regain things from Senior Sister Ai that we... may have previously donated to keep her calm."


    "Don''t talk you didn''t also lose your flute in a drunken quarrel," grumped someone else in the group, though Ki''el didn''t see who.


    "Sister Ai and her retainers would never willingly relinquish such things," Sister Qi continued, without paying any attention to that accusation. "And... we only wish for our own rightful belongings to be returned. Though, again... some people might wish for slightly more. People who know, or can imagine, the contents of Brother Sai''s, and Sister Ai''s, space rings."


    Now that they were essentially at the entrance to the Hall, Ki''el could see the Elder standing in the gateway. Elder Gol had a look on his face more serious than she usually saw on him, and although his attention drifted slightly, it always returned to her, and to those around her.


    "Xoi Doua Ki''el," Elder Gol said, and the nobles ahead of her parted. "The matter of your forfeiture has been decided. Beyond question, the death of Kem Jee Sai is a matter of self-defense, and according to the rules of the sect, you are owed the full forfeiture."


    Ki''el continued to walk forward until she was at a normal conversational range. "I understand, Elder. However... for those who may have had some belongings taken from them by Brother Sai, or Sister Ai, or whose belongings may otherwise be in the forfeiture... I would like some way to return their belongings to them, if their claim can be proven. And for the rest... I have no reason not to return to Sister Ai that which is undeniably hers."


    Ki''el heard the stirring of others around her from the first mention of the belongings of others--not disbelief, but an eager murmuring.


    Elder Gol waited for a long moment, his attention not stirring at all, this time, until finally he spoke. "There have been disputes in the past, and generally speaking, the Sect Elders do not intervene in such matters," he said, his voice firm, but... there was a slight weakness to the intent, a give. "...However. There have been no cases in memory where the difference in power has been so great, and the evidence so clear."


    "According to Sect rules--rules that are no different to right of forfeit in other Sects--you have full right to the entire forfeiture, although without question, you would have no ability to defend it. And it is unfortunate that Djang Zen Ai is unable to retain her composure in such matters. We have all foreseen the inevitable, and you, Ki''el, need to understand that what will occur next truly is inevitable."


    Elder Gol raised his voice, slightly, though Ki''el was certain that everyone here could hear him anyway. "For those gathered, you can rest assured that Senior Sect Sister Ai remains in cultivation still. Even if she had lost concentration with the death of Kem Jee Sai, consolidating her spirit to prevent further loss would take several more days, perhaps a week or more. There will be no battle to contain her wrath today."


    There were several relieved sighs at that, including a deep one from Ki''el. When she she met the Elder''s eyes again, a moment later, she could feel the man''s intent reaching her, and--she somehow, knew, even in this crowd--her alone. [ For the forfeiture, there are a total of six space rings. While normally, I would not deign to classify the rings or their contents, in this case, I can add some amount of clarity immediately, and the rest will take time. The contents of one ring should be considered to be only those of Kem Jee Sai himself, and that ring I trust you are interested in. One ring should be considered to belong to Kem Rai Mei, retainer to Djang Zen Ai. Of the four additional rings, all appear to be, directly or indirectly, the possessions of Djang Zen Ai. One ring is normally kept by each retainer, and two by Sister Ai herself. ]


    [ On the matter of Sect Points, a modest fraction of the points of Djang Zen Ai are split between her retainers, and as such, your forfeiture is above the threshold we normally place on those in the Lesser House. Under the circumstnaces, this normal limit is suspended, but I will still only allow you to use up to that limit before leaving the house, and as such, I will currently say that you possess ten thousand sect points. ]


    Ki''el swallowed, but forced her thoughts into order, and with Kuli''s help, sent the Elder the tonics and ingredients that Bai Benai had prepared. Although the Elder''s outer appearance didn''t shift, she received an amused spirit wave in return.


    [ I will notify you when the ingredients have been collected, ] he said. [ For the matter of finding a skilled alchemist, I will leave that in your hands. ]


    Ki''el didn''t need further prompting to understand that, but spoke out loud again. "Elder... I am serious about returning to my fellow Disciples anything which may rightfully be theirs, including to Senior Sister Ai and her retainer."


    The Elder let out a small sigh, as though he was simply holding back saying what he knew he needed to say. "There will be a process. I will be putting forth a request for several inscriptionists to assist in creating truth seals for this purpose. Those wishing to submit a claim will also need to pay a fee, which will offset the cost of creating these seals." He raised one hand and gave a shooing gesture. "The rest of you, go on. Trust that you will all be well informed of the moment when Sister Ai becomes aware of this matter."


    Ki''el swallowed. How powerful is this Sister Ai? And am I really just... not given any other choice but to bear the brunt of the woman''s fury? Why?


    { What other choice is there? } Kuli gently reminded her. { From the moment Kem Jee Sai attempted to kill you, peace was no longer an option. }


    Ki''el looked around at the other discipled around her, and signaled to Kuli, mentally. From now on, Kuli, help me maintain as many Qi Turning Cycles as we can handle, purifying as much qi as possible. And I will wish for your help with the acclimatization process later.


    Ki''el felt her spirit stirring within her, as almost without her knowledge, several cycles spun up while remaining concealed within her. But for her part... Ki''el turned and moved towards Brother Du. Because while she was sure many of her friends knew skilled Alchemists--including the cook Sister Xari had taken her to--in her heart, Ki''el had faith that Brother Du would not steer her wrong.


    But also... the last time they had talked, she had not talked about Brother Du''s attitude at the trial, and now more than ever, Ki''el was uncertain about why he had seemed interested in stripping her of power that she might need.

 [TAS] 31. Sobon - Empire

    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.

 [TAS] 32. Kiel - Tribulations, Part 1

    Al-though Ki''el had wor-ried some about ask-ing Broth-er Du for ad-vice on find-ing an Al-chemist, the man had not let her down. Du had led them to a pri-vate place, where she talked about the ton-ics, in-gre-di-ents, qual-i-ty lev-els, and her bud-get, and the man had stu-dious-ly con-sid-ered them all, be-fore rec-om-mend-ing two al-chemists, one for each of the ton-ics, and one herbal-ist al-ready fa-mil-iar with prepar-ing the Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall Flower for use.


    "I imag-ine, young Ki''el, you are pre-pared to spend what-ev-er you must to see these pre-pared prop-er-ly," Du con-tin-ued. "In truth, there are bet-ter al-chemists--but they charge more for their ser-vices than the im-prove-ment war-rants. None of these three will be sat-is-fied pro-vid-ing some-thing of less than Un-com-mon qual-i-ty, and Sis-ter Mai, the herbal-ist, is more se-ri-ous than most when it comes to in-sight-grant-i-ng herbs, ow-ing to her own bad ex-pe-ri-ences in the past. Es-pe-cial-ly for a ju-nior, I ex-pect she will pro-vide bet-ter qual-i-ty than what is paid for."


    A day lat-er, Ki''el re-ceived no-tice that all the al-chem-i-cal in-gre-di-ents were ac-count-ed for, and with the as-sis-tance of Broth-er Du, gath-ered the al-chemists and herbal-ist, along with her friends, at the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion. Du was wait-ing with them out-side by the time those from the Less-er House ar-rived--all four of them wear-ing the robes of In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples, and Ki''el not-ed with some alarm that at one of the al-chemists seemed dis-pleased.


    "Young Sis-ter Ki''el," Du in-tro-duced as she ap-proached, ges-tur-ing with one hand. "Broth-er Prang, Broth-er Hong, and Sis-ter Jian."


    "It''s been a very long time since I had to work in the Earth-en Hall," Prang said, his voice as bit-ter as the look on his face, as he stared at the large build-ing. "If this wasn''t a re-quest from Broth-er Du..."


    "It does you good to get out," the herbal-ist, Sis-ter Jian, said, with a mock-ing smack to Broth-er Prang''s shoul-der, though the man jerked like he had to hold back a vi-o-lent re-ac-tion. "The Heav-en-ly Hall may be bet-ter, but the air there is so stuffy. Too many of the peo-ple who work there hard-ly ever leave, ex-cept to eat and sleep."


    The oth-er al-chemist, in con-trast, seemed with-drawn--though Broth-er Hong was ac-tu-al-ly quite large, Ki''el im-me-di-ate-ly got the im-pres-sion he wouldn''t speak much. But... she im-me-di-ate-ly did her best to calm them, giv-ing them all a salute. "I am hon-ored for your help. I apol-o-gize if the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion seems be-neath you, but..."


    "It''s fine, it''s fine," Sis-ter Jian said, her voice slight-ly rough de-spite the cheer in her tone and words. She was al-ready turn-ing to-wards the hall, and ges-tur-ing for them to fol-low. "But the longer we stand here, the less time you''ll have to get ac-tu-al work out of us. Come along, boys and girls!"


    "The paid time has al-ready start-ed?" Mian''s voice sound-ed both du-bi-ous and alarmed.


    "You''d bet-ter be-lieve it," said Broth-er Prang, with a sneer, but he was also walk-ing into the Hall. "Our time is pre-cious, and if you waste it with idle ban-ter--then it''s bet-ter you waste your mon-ey than ours."


    Broth-er Hong, for his part, kept pace with Broth-er Du silent-ly, though Ki''el thought he saw the man''s eyes flick-ing around, notic-ing the de-tails as they went.


    Though Ki''el had done noth-ing to arrange it, each of the three seemed to know ex-act-ly which of the many work-ing rooms of the Hall they need-ed to pick in or-der to find the in-gre-di-ents that had been pre-pared, and each got to work with in-tense fo-cus. The were, re-gret-tably, not ad-ja-cent to one an-oth-er; Mian, Xam, and Chi-an each fol-lowed the per-son prepar-ing their own med-i-cine, leav-ing Ki''el to stand with Broth-er Du as the scat-tered.


    "I sense you have im-proved your abil-i-ty to use your Qi Turn-ing Cy-cle," Du said af-ter a mo-ment. "Un-less I am mis-tak-en?"


    Ki''el turned to look at him, sur-prised, but nod-ded, shy-ly. "Un-til now, I was main-tain-ing it only with my own spir-it, but since we are in a rush, I am hav-ing Kuli as-sist me. I would not dare to do less, when every-one else is prepar-ing for their own or-deals."


    "I imag-ine that with the ex-tra qi, you will con-tin-ue your body tem-per-ing." Du''s voice was not judg-ing, and might have even been ap-prov-ing, though it was a lit-tle hard to tell, since it was not silent in this part of the Hall. "If you can tem-per your-self enough, even be-fore reach-ing Ti-ta-ni-um Qi, then I imag-ine that the tribu-la-tion will be easy for you--far eas-i-er, per-haps, than it will be for your friends."


    Ki''el nod-ded, vague-ly. "When my mas-ter reached ...a tribu-la-tion, with his knowl-edge and pow-er, he sim-ply took a walk, faced it, and came back as though noth-ing of note had hap-pened." She hes-i-tat-ed. "It changed what I un-der-stood, though I had un-der-stood very lit-tle. My grand-moth-er told me sto-ries of men who chal-lenged the gods and were struck by light-ning, only to sur-vive, re-cov-er, and grow stronger. But I do not be-lieve she un-der-stood, as no one in my vil-lage was ever a pow-er-ful qi user. I be-lieve that she thought it was luck, or some mas-sive bat-tle be-tween men and gods."


    Broth-er Du made some-thing of a hum-ming laugh, clos-ing his eyes as though en-vi-sion-ing it. "That is cer-tain-ly one ver-sion of the tale. When I was a young boy in the city--long ago, and far from here--I was once told that in or-der to cul-ti-vate past a cer-tain lev-el, you had to slay a god in a duel and steal their god-hood. Those who nev-er pass the Gold-en Wall can only imag-ine the truth." He re-opened his eyes and looked down at Ki''el, and she thought his eyes had some-thing to them, though what, she wasn''t cer-tain.


    "Though... for those who are un-pre-pared, fac-ing a tribu-la-tion can be as dan-ger-ous as fac-ing a god in com-bat. Nor-mal-ly, I would not sug-gest that any-one who has just reached the peak of Gold do such a thing. You... I firm-ly be-lieve are more pre-pared than most. Your Sis-ter Xam, in con-trast, has pre-pared for a long time, and I be-lieve that with this as-sis-tance, she will be fine. Even young Sis-ter Chi-an seems like-ly to be ad-e-quate to the chal-lenge. Your Broth-er Mian..." The doubt in Du''s voice gave away his next words long be-fore he was will-ing to voice them. "...I still doubt his abil-i-ty, even with help. For that rea-son, I asked Broth-er Prang to pre-pare a Greater qual-i-ty ton-ic for him."


    "Greater qual-i-ty? As in... above Un-com-mon?" Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed. She... had not ex-act-ly de-mand-ed to know what they would charge her, and she trust-ed Broth-er Du, but she had only been told a few of the Alche-my grades, and Greater was the sec-ond high-est that Chi-an had told her. Was that... tru-ly with-in her bud-get, un-be-liev-ably high though it may be?


    But Broth-er Du sim-ply nod-ded, not look-ing at her. "It is a more com-pli-cat-ed mat-ter than you might be-lieve, young Ki''el. I would not have al-lowed it if I didn''t be-lieve that you would be by his side. Your qi pu-rifi-ca-tion and your... aether rings, I be-lieve will be enough to sta-bi-lize him if he should have a bad re-ac-tion to the ton-ic. And high-er-grade ton-ics will not only have few-er side-ef-fects, but height-ened ef-fects. I be-lieve that as long as you can sta-bi-lize him, a Greater ton-ic will tem-per him enough to get through a tribu-la-tion on his first try."


    Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, but looked up at him. "You have ex-pe-ri-ence with the Hun-dred Hearts Ton-ic, Broth-er Du?"


    "I con-sid-er my-self a teacher, young Ki''el," Du said, glanc-ing in her di-rec-tion, but still not mak-ing eye con-tact. "I have done a num-ber of things in my time, prepar-ing to lead and teach peo-ple. The Hun-dred Hearts Ton-ic is a sober-ing re-minder of how many dif-fer-ent ex-pe-ri-ences peo-ple may al-ready have had, be-fore they reach the Sect. I have tak-en the ton-ic sev-er-al times over the years, when I feel that I have tak-en on a stu-dent who I can-not un-der-stand. Af-ter tak-ing the ton-ic and speak-ing with my stu-dents again, I of-ten find my sym-pa-thy for their plight is far greater--or else I find that they tru-ly are self-ish, or fool-ish, and I need not con-cern my-self with them."


    Ki''el swal-lowed. Sis-ter Be-nai had said that for some, the ton-ic was tor-ture--and Broth-er Du took it sim-ply to un-der-stand his stu-dents? Sev-er-al times?


    "In con-trast, young Sis-ter Chi-an''s ton-ic is some-thing I will nev-er be able to take, and the Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall Flower would pro-vide me no ben-e-fit, as Wa-ter Na-ture Qi is not close enough to my Path. But Broth-er Hong has many sym-pa-thies for peo-ple like Sis-ter Chi-an, and Sis-ter Jian has long been a firm be-liev-er in care-ful-ly prepar-ing med-i-cines for spir-i-tu-al in-sight, and where pos-si-ble, ad-just-ing the dosage for the per-son re-ceiv-ing it. I be-lieve that each of your friends is in good hands--but to an ex-tent, Broth-er Mian will be in your hands." His voice was be-com-ing qui-et, as though re-flect-ing, al-though it still car-ried per-fect-ly well. "As a per-son who has tak-en that ton-ic, I would ask that you are there for him on his jour-ney as only a sis-ter can be."


    Ki''el swal-lowed, but nod-ded. When Broth-er Du said lit-tle else for a time, she spoke up. "Do you have any ad-vice on ...tem-per-ing the body?" She was com-ing to ac-cept that Broth-er Du''s word for it was bet-ter than Sobon''s "ac-clima-ti-za-tion", if only be-cause it felt more nat-ur-al. Like many of the words her mas-ter used, it was prob-a-bly cor-rect, but... awk-ward.


    "I sus-pect your Kuli knows it as well as I do," Du replied, af-ter tak-ing only a mo-ment to clear his head. "Most peo-ple I have known tem-per their bod-ies af-ter de-ter-min-ing their qi na-tures, and they tem-per them-selves with their in-com-plete qi na-tures, not tem-per-ing un-til they are cer-tain that they want to keep that na-ture as a part of them. The process caus-es our bod-ies to nat-u-ral-ly gen-er-ate that na-tured qi, which en-hances our abil-i-ty to per-form re-lat-ed tech-niques." His face shift-ed as Ki''el watched, and he fi-nal-ly turned to meet her eyes again. "If you have any in-tent, in the fu-ture, to pick a qi na-ture, you will def-i-nite-ly not want to ful-ly tem-per your body be-fore form-ing that qi na-ture. I can only imag-ine that tem-per-ing with pu-ri-fied qi is as dif-fi-cult to undo as tem-per-ing with a spe-cif-ic na-ture... but it is be-yond my knowl-edge."


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    Ki''el frowned, con-sid-er-ing that. In truth... she had done very lit-tle con-sid-er-a-tion of qi na-tures, in part be-cause she most-ly ex-pect-ed to fol-low her mas-ter''s route of us-ing knowl-edge and tech-nique to draw scripts in the air. But... Sis-ter Xari per-formed such scripts while also hav-ing some form of moon and thread-na-tured qi. She... was most-ly sure that she would not re-gret at-tun-ing much, per-haps even most of her body to pu-ri-fied qi. Was there a rea-son to also have parts of her spir-it that pro-vid-ed qi na-tures? She was sure that Kuli had some-thing to say on the top-ic, but the aug-ment seemed to not wish to speak on it here and now.


    So Ki''el looked away from Broth-er Du, her own thoughts go-ing to what Sobon had taught her. "My mas-ter spoke of... tem-per-ing, as a process where the body grows used to hav-ing qi, or aether, with-in it. He spoke of ter-ri-ble things that may hap-pen if we pos-sess great qi with-out ever tem-per-ing. That... the self-ish-ness of the body de-stroy s it from with-in."


    "De-stroys... yes, there are qi sick-ness-es that warp the body, if you go too long with-out tem-per-ing," Broth-er Du said, slow-ly. "Self-ish-ness of the body... is an odd phrase. Is my skin self-ish? My bones? Do they not ex-ist only to al-low me to live?"


    Ki''el found her-self clench-ing her jaw slight-ly. Is my skin na-ture self-ish? As soon as the ques-tion was asked, she knew that it was, or close enough. "Your skin only knows its task, its world. There are times when it, if it were giv-en pow-er, would be-have as it be-lieves it should, and it would be wrong. If you were cut near the mouth, and your skin was giv-en un-lim-it-ed abil-i-ty to re-grow, might it cov-er your mouth by mis-take? Or even a small part of it? What if it made such a mis-take and you could nev-er con-vince your skin that it was wrong? Would it not stub-born-ly at-tempt to re-main whole and in-tact even if you could not eat or breathe? Your skin may be a nec-es-sary part of you, but it does not ex-ist while know-ing your form and pur-pose. It only ex-ists to ful-fill its pur-pose, to be what it is." With some parts of that, she thought she felt Kuli di-rect-ing her thoughts slight-ly, but... most-ly, it was all things that she al-ready felt were right.


    She could see Broth-er Du re-act-ing some-what to that idea, one hand drift-ing to-wards his face, al-though he caught it and low-ered his hand a mo-ment lat-er. "I... hm. You do pose raise strange thoughts when-ev-er we speak, Sis-ter Ki''el." He con-sid-ered that for a mo-ment. "And bones... when bones break, they re-grow stronger, but this is only a virtue if the bone is set and can heal in its prop-er place-ment. I have seen heal-ers re-break bones which were... stub-born-ly healed be-fore they should have been, lead-ing to a tru-ly ter-ri-ble state. But sure-ly, bones that are in-tact can do no harm, if giv-en pow-er?"


    "I am ig-no-rant of such things," Ki''el ad-mit-ted. "I only have thought about my skin be-cause it is part of my spir-it. I do not like when things at-tempt to get in-side of me, change me, af-fect me. It is a self-ish urge that some-times caus-es is-sues."


    "I see," Broth-er Du said, and turned slight-ly. "It seems Sis-ter Xam is done."


    Ki''el looked past, and no-ticed Xam and Sis-ter Jian walk-ing and talk-ing. She could not see Xam''s med-i-cine, but then, the woman had her own space ring--which re-mind-ed Ki''el that she could now af-ford one for each of them. "It seems so," she said, watch-ing them for a mo-ment, be-fore re-lay-ing a thought from with-in. "Kuli says that bone mar-row is also where blood is pro-duced in the body, and that such can eas-i-ly go wrong if they are giv-en too much pow-er, among oth-er things."


    "Hm? Oh. I have heard that, as well." Du, for once, sound-ed a bit flus-tered. "I... sup-pose I will con-sid-er the top-ic more lat-er, but..."


    Ki''el laughed, qui-et-ly. "It seems I have found a top-ic that up-sets Broth-er Du?"


    The man turned and gave her a look, then glanced past her. "Broth-er Hong and Sis-ter Chi-an are also fin-ished."


    Ki''el turned to look, but the large Al-chemist avoid-ed her gaze and Chi-an''s as they walked, and Chi-an seemed cha-grined or flus-tered. Ki''el turned to look at the work-room where Broth-er Prang and Mian were... but the man there still seemed hard at work, and deeply fo-cused.


    "That ton-ic should take time, and know-ing Broth-er Prang, he will pace his work to take the full al-lot-ment of time you have paid for."


    "Then... I should at least pur-chase an-oth-er space ring for Broth-er Mian." Or take a re-place-ment for one of the ones in the for-fei-ture, as be-fore. She looked over at Chi-an as she moved, find-ing that the girl did have one on her hand--though she was not sure she had no-ticed it be-fore. Then... as para-noid as she and Sis-ter Be-nai were, they might have a way to con-ceal it, nor-mal-ly.


    Du ges-tured to the line cur-rent-ly wait-ing for the El-der. "It will be luck to find which is fin-ished first, but... go ahead."


    In truth, Ki''el had won-dered if she would be able to sim-ply sig-nal the El-der and con-tin-ue to wait... but the tone of Broth-er Du''s voice sug-gest-ed that she could not. So she went in, and when she was as-signed a place in line, med-i-tat-ed, re-in-forc-ing her ac-clima-ti-za-tion... her tem-per-ing with the help of Kuli. Some-thing about the way Kuli helped her ma-nip-u-late the qi, along with some of her Right-eous aether, was sublty dif-fer-ent, and Ki''el did her best to study the dif-fer-ences un-til the mo-ment when she sensed El-der Gol''s at-ten-tion.


    [ Xoi Doua Ki''el. Af-ter pay-ing the al-chemists and for your in-gre-di-ents, your Points to-tal--ad-just-ed for your po-si-tion in the sect--stands at two thou-sand, one hun-dred and fif-teen points. ]


    Ki''el swal-lowed hard. Out of ten thou-sand? Be-nai sug-gest-ed that the cost of in-gre-di-ents might be a thou-sand, plus any fees to go fetch them, that fee be-ing dou-bled for ur-gency... and the al-chemists are In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples, but work-ing out of the Earth-en Hall... Al-though Kuli made a few sug-ges-tions of the ra-tios, it still worked out to the time of each al-chemist be-ing worth more than a thou-sand points per hour. In all these mat-ters, she hadn''t spec-i-fied... and El-der Gol and Broth-er Du had spent her points freely. Of course, from what El-der Gol had said, she had more than this many points strict-ly from the for-fei-ture, but would only be al-lowed ac-cess to the rest af-ter pass-ing her tribu-la-tion. And... it wasn''t as though she wasn''t in a rush.


    But the idea that they had made no ef-fort to help her un-der-stand ran-kled her. Did they think of her mind as in-fe-ri-or? That per-haps she didn''t need to make her own de-ci-sions?


    [You seem dis-turbed, child.] El-der Gol''s men-tal voice was as sol-id as ever, and Ki''el took a breath, let-ting it out, and ig-nored the thought--for now.


    In-stead, she fo-cused her in-tent on the El-der. [ Would like space ring. Con-tin-ue to hold ones from for-fei-ture. Would like re-place-ment for one un-til mat-ter re-solved. Like last time. ]


    El-der Gol''s re-ply in-tent wave back seemed slight-ly off, per-haps con-fused. [ All the con-tent of the rings, but es-pe-cial-ly the con-tent of Kem Jee Sai''s, be-longs en-tire-ly to you. I don''t mind hold-ing the rings in es-crow, but would it would be sim-pler if you sim-ply take that one. ]


    But Ki''el only nar-rowed her eyes in re-turn, form-ing the re-turn thought pack-et. [ Don''t know re-la-tion-ship to mas-ter. She may want his items, and I don''t care. Would pre-fer peace. ]


    El-der Gol wait-ed a mo-ment be-fore re-ply-ing. [ A re-place-ment ring will be fur-nished for you, ] he said, with no ob-vi-ous emo-tion-al tones to the mes-sage, and then he re-treat-ed to the space ar-ray, or what-ev-er it was, that con-tained the Sect''s stor-age.


    Ki''el fin-ished re-liev-ing the pres-sure and re-ab-sorb-ing her qi from her ef-forts at tem-per-ing just as the El-der re-turned, and she took the space ring glad-ly, bring-ing it out to where all the oth-ers were gath-ered around Broth-er Du. Mian''s eyes shot up with sur-prise when she hand-ed him the ring, and al-though he put it on, he seemed to have al-ready giv-en his med-i-cines to some-one else, pre-sum-ably Xam. Broth-er Du nod-ded to her, and then glanced around at them.


    "I would like to in-vite you all to a pri-vate spot for these kinds of med-i-ta-tions," he said. "Nor-mal-ly, it is re-strict-ed to the Out-er Sect and above--"


    "And what of the fee?" Ki''el found that there was a hard-ness to her voice.


    Du turned to her, look-ing some-what sur-prised. "I be-lieve you still have enough re-main-ing."


    "Per-haps. But I do not like that nei-ther you nor El-der Gol gave me any no-tice or in-for-ma-tion about the costs of this. It is ur-gent, and I do ap-pre-ci-ate the ad-vice. I do not wish--"


    "Ah," Du gri-maced some-what at that. "I... apol-o-gize, Sis-ter Ki''el. I for-get, again, how dif-fer-ent it is be-ing at the bot-tom of the Sect in-stead of the top. And El-der Gol... is in-fa-mous for not giv-ing in-for-ma-tion un-less it is asked." He fold-ed his hands and bowed in what Ki''el thought was an apolo-getic stance. "The fee would be one hun-dred Points per per-son per hour, and I would ex-pect that the three of you act-ing at once, and Ki''el there to as-sist... would take no more than four hours, cost-ing six-teen hun-dred Points to-tal."


    Six-teen. With the help of Kuli, Ki''el un-der-stood that to leave them all just enough points to make a sin-gle at-tempt at the Gold-en Wall each by the end... and a small bit more. "That leaves lit-tle mon-ey to pay for heal-ing or med-i-cine if there is a mis-take," she said.


    Some-how, Ki''el thought, it didn''t fit her im-age of Broth-er Du that the man seemed sur-prised by the idea that they might fail and re-quire heal-ing. Or... was it that he was sur-prised that Ki''el ex-pect-ed to pay for it? Or some-thing else?


    "...The lo-ca-tion is known as the Less-er Gale Pavil-lion," Du con-tin-ued af-ter a mo-ment, a strange dis-tance in his voice. "It is one of the three ar-eas in the sect where the Moon-stone Is-land Sect''s wards chan-nel the pur-er qi from out-side the Sect, the oth-ers be-ing the Greater and Peak Gale Pavil-lions. It is con-sid-ered a bet-ter lo-ca-tion for gath-er-ing qi than any but the spaces re-served for the El-ders and Core Dis-ci-ples, es-pe-cial-ly when un-der the ef-fects of med-i-cines that im-prove your gath-er-ing abil-i-ty."


    "You can choose to gath-er qi at an-oth-er lo-ca-tion with-in the sect if you pre-fer... and you can cer-tain-ly ask my-self or oth-er Sect Dis-ci-ples to help de-fer the costs, but un-der the cir-cum-stances, I would con-sid-er it the best use of your re-main-ing Sect Points which I can fore-see... bar-ring, of course, the need for med-ical treat-ment."


    Ki''el bris-tled, but Mian spoke up. "I''m ob-vi-ous-ly the weak-est here," he said, into the at-mos-phere that Ki''el hadn''t even re-al-ized was get-ting tense. "And I trust that if some-thing does hap-pen, Ki''el will help, even if she has to ad-vance into the In-ner Sect to gain ac-cess to the rest of her funds. If this is the best op-tion, I for one am not wor-ried... for my-self." He glanced at Xam, who looked back, and Ki''el re-al-ized that she did look dis-turbed... but per-haps not as up-set as Ki''el her-self felt.


    But Ki''el breathed in, and out, and con-sid-ered it only for a brief while be-fore open-ing her eyes again. "Fine. We will do it. But I do not like this." There were so many things that could go wrong--


    A cool sen-sa-tion on her shoul-der sur-prised her, and she turned to find that Chi-an had laid a hand on her, and was smil-ing. "Sis-ter Be-nai has talked to me of these Gale Pavil-lions as well. I think this is the right choice. And... I think we can trust our al-chemist Broth-ers and Sis-ter to have giv-en us the best pos-si-ble chances, as well."


    We cer-tain-ly paid a great deal for their help, Ki''el thought, with a bit-ter-ness that sur-prised her, but she nod-ded to Chi-an. "Do you wish Sis-ter Be-nai''s help with your own cul-ti-va-tion?"


    "Ah..." Chi-an gave her a look, but with a smile. "No. She is on a very dif-fer-ent path. I don''t be-lieve her pres-ence would help, ex-cept in spir-it."


    Not the same kind of spir-it beast? Per-haps that is not sur-pris-ing. Ki''el sim-ply nod-ded, and with an un-steady breath, looked to Broth-er Du. "Then... I sup-pose we will go."


    Du sim-ply nod-ded, and be-gan to lead the way.

 [TAS] 33. Xam - Tribulations, Part 2

    Xoi Xam un-der-stood, silent-ly and with-in her own heart, that she was, at times, on the verge of mad-ness. Not be-cause of the med-i-cine--she was still now fol-low-ing her adopt-ed sis-ter Ki''el and Sect Broth-er Du to the Gale Pavil-lion, and the med-i-cine was safe-ly with-in her Space Ring. The Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall Flower had been processed into a pow-der, which could be ab-sorbed a num-ber of ways--and un-til Broth-er Du had talked about this Pavil-lion, she had as-sumed that she would burn it and in-haled the smoke.


    Per-haps... a place called the Gale Pavil-lion would be a bad place for that.


    But for now, Xam was re-flect-ing on her life, with the most dis-tant and fa-mil-iar mem-o-ries need-ing lit-tle re-flec-tion. She''d been a clever child, but re-bel-lious. Loved her fam-i-ly, but was proud. Didn''t take to their teach-ings, and re-fused to be held down sim-ply be-cause she failed their tests, re-ject-ed their Way. Joined the mil-i-tary... and fought, some, but too much of the time there had been wast-ed.


    She had tak-en pride in her abil-i-ty to re-main a beau-ti-ful flower even in the dark-ness of the Bil-gish isles, and as such, she had been treat-ed like a flower. They had wished for her to bloom into a more beau-ti-ful flower in the fu-ture, and as such had been will-ing to lay some ground-work, give her med-i-cines and train-ing. But the dif-fer-ence be-tween a flower and a weed was only in the pass-ing fan-cies of the gar-den''s own-er. Un-til she was a hard-ened war-rior, she was not tru-ly of use to the mil-i-tary, only a can-di-date. And she had irked some-one pow-er-ful enough that pluck-ing one or two weeds was a tru-ly mean-ing-less thing.


    If she had not been a flower, would they have even giv-en her what they did? Would she have been re-turned to her fam-i-ly in shame? Or al-lowed her to die in a bat-tle-field above her abil-i-ty? Ground her into dust with train-ing that would pro-duce a war-rior, but re-move all traces of per-son-al-i-ty, his-to-ry? She didn''t know.


    From pride in her-self, to shame at not meet-ing her fam-i-ly''s ex-pec-ta-tions, to pride in join-ing the mil-i-tary, to shame in be-ing eject-ed, dis-card-ed. Then she had been ap-proached by a pa-tron who wished for her to mar-ry--but not be-cause she was a pret-ty flower, al-though... her new hus-band Mian tru-ly did seem to ap-pre-ci-ate the beau-ty she found in her-self, and the ef-fort she went through to cul-ti-vate it, ex-press it, wear it like a sec-ond skin. But was this feel-ing that she held, about her mar-riage and him, pride, or shame? Or some mix-ture?


    Now she was swept off to a Sect--a real one, one of the world''s Twen-ty Great Peaks, if low-er on that list. But... al-though the Sect ac-knowl-edged her, or seemed to, it was her com-pan-ion that held their in-ter-ests most firm-ly. Every-thing that she had ever found in her-self to be proud of paled in com-par-i-son when she was pre-sent-ed next to this girl, who seemed more for-tu-nate than ge-nius, al-though... she did show great abil-i-ty of her own, as well as hav-ing, Xam would grudg-ing-ly ad-mit, a far pur-er heart than she her-self had.


    Was Xam''s whole life some-thing to be proud of, ashamed of? Was she reach-ing high be-cause she was pow-er-ful, beau-ti-ful, wor-thy? Was she be-ing car-ried along by the whims of yet an-oth-er per-son who would dis-card her in time? Was she even tru-ly valu-able to Ki''el and her mas-ter, or sim-ply a con-ve-nient No-ble child with which to en-act their plans?


    Xam had no trou-ble pulling her at-ten-tion back to the path be-fore them as they made the fi-nal ap-proach to the Less-er Gale Pavil-lion. In truth, she had seen it sev-er-al times be-fore, on mis-sions for the Sect, but nev-er ap-proached. In part, that was be-cause there was no path to the is-land--those pow-er-ful enough to be able to use it were ex-pect-ed to be able to car-ry them-selves, or pay some-one else to pre-pare a tem-po-rary path--but she also felt some com-bi-na-tion of shame and piety that stopped her from ap-proach-ing a place she was un-wor-thy of reach-ing.


    For now, when they reached the edge of the is-land, Broth-er Du sim-ply waved his hand, and con-jured forth a mas-sive hand of light, palm up-wards, and they all stepped on it long enough to be car-ried from one is-land to the next. She spent no ef-forts fo-cus-ing on Broth-er Du''s meth-ods--she doubt-ed her own path would be in any sense a re-flec-tion of his--but fo-cused on the is-land and build-ing that was the Less-er Gale Pavil-lion, as it came into full view.


    The Pavil-lion it-self could be un-der-stood as a build-ing, al-though it had no struc-ture, ex-cept a floor of stone blocks, and a few care-ful-ly shaped and en-graved pieces of flat stone that were po-si-tioned at key places along what should be the walls and ceil-ing of a large, oc-tag-o-nal build-ing, one that she was sure had one di-rec-tion ori-ent-ed due north. These stone pieces float-ed with mas-sive gaps be-tween them, both held by and sus-tain-ing the bar-ri-er that de-fined the edges of the pavil-lion, while the gaps chan-neled wind and qi from the out-er world in an in-tense and steady stream.


    It felt... good here. Bet-ter than good. From the mo-ment she stepped in-side the bor-ders of the Pavil-lion, she felt fresh qi all around her, live-ly and dis-tant, very dif-fer-ent from that of the rest of the Sect, just as Broth-er Du had said. But... for the most part, that fresh qi re-mained just as dis-tant as qi al-ways did, sep-a-rate from her-self. She un-der-stood just from that how valu-able a prop-er cul-ti-va-tion tech-nique was, though she was loathe to en-gage hers un-til giv-en per-mis-sion.


    A few flick-ers of qi made her glance ahead to where Ki''el and Du stepped for-ward to-wards what must be a Sect El-der or oth-er wor-thy in charge of the pavil-lion, a thin man with glass-es and robes that seemed too large for him, who gave off an au-thor-i-ta-tive air that was dif-fi-cult to mis-take. What-ev-er con-ver-sa-tion was made, was made with in-tent alone, a tal-ent that Xam en-vied, un-til Broth-er Du bowed, and said aloud, "Thank you, El-der Sang."


    Ki''el bowed as well, and Xam fol-lowed suit, but it was only a pass-ing thing, and then Broth-er Du turned to her--to them.


    "The Gale Pavil-lion is in-tend-ed to both fun-nel fresh qi to each per-son here, but also, to iso-late the ef-fects of each per-son''s cul-ti-va-tion from each oth-er. The marks on the ground show the dis-tance apart you must main-tain, and it is best to re-main in the cen-ter of your own, un-less you have a rea-son oth-er-wise. Ki''el, in your case, you will want to re-main with-in Broth-er Mian''s space, so that you may mon-i-tor his spir-it, but do not dis-turb the flow of qi un-less you need to."


    Ki''el nod-ded at that, but Xam''s glance went to her hus-band. Broth-er Du had, while they had wait-ed for Ki''el to fin-ish speak-ing with El-der Gol, told them all that he ex-pect-ed Ki''el to mon-i-tor Mian for signs that he was too much un-der the in-flu-ence of the Hun-dred Hearts Ton-ic, and pull him out if he must. Xam... felt that should have been her job, if she only had the tal-ent nec-es-sary. A part of her felt jeal-ous, and an-gry, that she couldn''t be at her hus-band''s side in the case of an emer-gency, be-ing the one that he thanked, the first face he saw. Al-though... she was un-sure yet whether she tru-ly loved her hus-band, if such feel-ings were to grow, like a flower, they need-ed to be nur-tured, the world built around cre-at-ing those mo-ments that gave them strength.


    It felt like a cal-lous dis-re-gard of their re-la-tion-ship... but also, Xam knew, it was the Way. She could do noth-ing, and Ki''el could. But also... Ki''el was in no way com-pet-ing for Mian''s af-fec-tion, and she knew it. Her anx-ious-ness was noth-ing more and noth-ing less than see-ing an op-por-tu-ni-ty to grow clos-er that she could not take. But even say-ing that it was noth-ing more... that was enough.


    "For those of you who have nev-er tak-en In-sight-ful Med-i-cine be-fore, a bit of ad-vice," Broth-er Du con-tin-ued, and Xam found her at-ten-tion dragged back to the man, by his will, al-though she agreed with the ac-tion en-tire-ly. She had too much to wor-ry about to fo-cus on such small things now. "What you will ex-pe-ri-ence when you take In-sight-ful Med-i-cine is not real, and it is most-ly not true. But it re-veals truth, if you can dis-cov-er those pat-terns deep with-in the throws of hal-lu-ci-na-tion. Your task is not to use your spir-it or your qi to try to con-trol the world that you per-ceive--it is to use your spir-it and your qi to mas-ter your-self, as you search through the ex-pe-ri-ence to find pat-terns that give you in-sight into the pat-terns you have al-ready seen in the real world, but which are cur-rent-ly a mys-tery to you."


    That... Xam fo-cused on the words, in-tent on un-der-stand-ing, al-though she sus-pect-ed that she would be ful-ly im-mersed in her ex-pe-ri-ence and would find it dif-fi-cult to re-mem-ber the words. Sis-ter Jian had praised the qual-i-ty of her spec-i-men of flower, and boast-ed that she would pro-duce a high qual-i-ty med-i-cine from it, though in truth, Xam had no un-der-stand-ing of med-i-cines in gen-er-al or what the dif-fer-ence in qual-i-ty would mean. But she was cer-tain that Broth-er Du un-der-stood what was hap-pen-ing far bet-ter than most peo-ple she''d met, and any ad-vice from him was pre-cious.


    "For you, Sis-ter Xam," Du turned to her, and Xam fought back the blush on her cheeks, ig-nor-ing what she thought of the man for now, in spite of cer-tain in-stincts. "Your med-i-cine is not at its great-est ef-fi-ca-cy when in-gest-ed. There are censers in-tend-ed to al-low burn-ing of pow-ders with-in your space--"


    "I would very much pre-fer that," she read-i-ly agreed, be-fore he even fin-ished. "I was... a bit wor-ried that would be im-pos-si-ble."


    Broth-er Du smiled, and Xam cursed her-self for be-ing charmed by it. "We would be a poor sect if we couldn''t at least pro-vide such a means. I have no-ti-fied the el-der, and whichev-er place you take, you will find a censer there. Do not put the med-i-cine in it un-til you are ready."


    She bowed to him, though again, she won-dered--was she crazy? To be so dis-tract-ed now by thoughts and feel-ings that were mean-ing-less? Where was her pride? Should she even have pride?


    Du spoke briefly with Sis-ter Chi-an, who... who Xam, if she were hon-est, still did not like or trust, al-though the girl seemed agree-able. Know-ing that she was of a Spir-it Beast blood-line made Xam think of the beasts--Star-beasts, but also, less-er spir-it beasts--that she had fought be-fore, and all of them had been mon-strous things. The mil-i-tary made great strides in prepar-ing its army only by hunt-ing down those things, giv-en pow-er but un-wor-thy of it, and plun-der-ing that which should al-ways have be-longed to hu-man-i-ty.


    Chi-an... no, she couldn not take the time to think about this now.


    When at last they broke apart, she took a place where she was close to her Mian, but chose not to look in his di-rec-tion, for fear that her eyes would open just to dis-tract her. As she set-tled down onto a com-fort-able pad on the ground, a small aer-at-ed bowl ap-peared in front of her, and she un-der-stood its meth-ods in-tu-itive-ly. She had only to load the med-i-cine and ig-nite it with her own qi, but...


    ...But, there was prepa-ra-tion be-fore she took the med-i-cine. She had nev-er been un-der the throws of a pow-er-ful one, but she had tak-en mi-nor med-i-cines be-fore. Be-fore she be-gan, she walked the area, and faced the place the qi seemed to come from, sens-ing its depths, try-ing to un-der-stand where the qi she would ab-sorb came from. And she also with-drew and stud-ied the med-i-cine it-self, try-ing to be aware of how the med-i-cine felt, try-ing to un-der-stand what she could ex-pect from it. And fi-nal-ly, she set-tled, and stead-ied her-self, and cleared her mind, and only then did she pre-pare and ig-nite the med-i-cine. And for a few min-utes af-ter, she sim-ply... steeled her-self, hold-ing on to her mind and forc-ing it back into a state of seren-i-ty.


    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.


    But seren-i-ty was dif-fi-cult to find, once her jour-ney be-gan.


    The first drops of the Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall felt to her like me-te-ors falling from the sky above her. If they had been phys-i-cal, Xam knew she would have been thrown into the air, and per-haps im-me-di-ate-ly killed, but they were only drops of essence. But... the drops that splashed near-by in-creased the qi avail-able for her to cy-cle, and she did, greed-i-ly drink-ing in the essence along with the qi.


    That greed cost her, or per-haps, only hur-ried her along her path.


    The more of the essence she cul-ti-vat-ed, the more that drops from the Wa-ter-fall fell, but more than that, as she gath-ered that qi, some part of her be-came the falling wa-ter, and was not sim-ply med-i-tat-ing in the place where the drops were falling. Still con-scious of what Broth-er Du had said, she did her best not to pan-ic as she be-gan to ex-pe-ri-ence--over and over again--the feel-ing of be-ing a wa-ter droplet cast away from a great height and falling, falling, falling... to-wards what Xam knew, just as the wa-ter knew, was an in-evitable end-ing.


    When the first of her men-tal/spir-i-tu-al pieces land-ed in a dev-as-tat-ing crash af-ter years, or mo-ments, of falling, she very near-ly lost her trance, ex-pect-ing the crush-ing im-pact to be the end of that part of her--but it was not. The wa-ter that fell was not de-stroyed by land-ing, nor could it be. Al-though it sensed an-oth-er part of her-self falling--and that part of her felt the ground ap-proach-ing, sensed its sis-ter part splat-tered across the ground--she was pow-er-less to pre-vent the im-pact, pow-er-less to con-trol the in-evitable, in-ex-orable col-li-sion.


    That im-pact also did not end her. And al-though the two pieces of her that had met at the bot-tom were dif-fer-ent pieces of her, they merged ef-fort-less-ly, seam-less-ly. But she was more than one or two drops of wa-ter, now--there were per-haps six pieces, per-haps eight or ten, and the num-ber was only grow-ing. Xam was... only dim-ly aware that the flower was not Thou-sand mile few-wa-ter-drops flower. That it was not the Thou-sand mile light-sprin-kle-of-wa-ter flower. Was only dim-ly aware of what the flower was.


    But the process could only be halt-ed if she gave up, and she did not, would not.


    As the drops went from a few to a dozen, Xam be-gan to rec-og-nize that from with-in the falling droplets of wa-ter, she could sense her-self, sit-ting there sep-a-rate from where that part of her was, sep-a-rate from who that part of her was. And she watched the mas-sive drops of wa-ter, most of them also her-self, head-ed to-wards that ar-ro-gant young woman rest-ing on a padded cloth in front of a small burn-er. Al-though the drug showed her no more of the world, she could not have fo-cused on more than her-self... and her-selves.


    Those wa-ter drops were her-self, and in many way, they were so much stronger than Xoi Xam.


    It was not only their re-silience, not only their sheer mass. Al-though there was no in-tent be-hind the wa-ter smash-ing like ham-mers into the ground be-low, scat-ter-ing into small-er drops, and re-form-ing, there was some-thing. Wis-dom, per-haps. In-sight. But it was also in-com-plete, or Xam did not un-der-stand it, not yet.


    But a dozen droplets of wa-ter were be-com-ing two dozen, and Xam be-gan to un-der-stand that her-selves were greater than her-self. So great that if they wished, they could crush her. And she wres-tled with her qi, and her spir-it, and her-self, and won-dered, and ag-o-nized.


    Am I even wor-thy? The ques-tion, when re-en-tered her mind, de-light-ed her-selves. It felt like a weak-ness, like--


    But no, Xam hitched her breath and did her best to re-cen-ter her-self, know-ing where she was, what she was do-ing. She could see her-self, in that vi-sion, an ar-ro-gant woman, and she knew that the ar-ro-gant woman in her vi-sion was the real her, the real self. Only... no, she ar-gued. The her in the vi-sion was it-self only a re-flec-tion; she was her true self. But she was not wa-ter.


    Two dozen wa-ter drops be-came six dozen in only a few breaths, and the wa-ter drops that were her were only a small frac-tion of them, now. At last, the wa-ter that de-scend-ed around her de-served to be called a wa-ter-fall, if only a small one. A small trick-le of wa-ter break-ing up into droplets as it fell. But... why break up? What was her in-tent--the wa-ter-her''s in-tent? Or was there no in-tent, again, only a truth?


    Or was it even truth? Du had said... some-thing...?


    The wa-ter con-tin-ued to pound, a trick-le in-creas-ing into some-thing more, a tiny brook in the for-est, but Xam mea-sured her breath, try-ing to re-mem-ber who she was, even as she--but more, the essence of the flower with-in her--tried to ab-sorb more and more of that essence, bring-ing more qi into her than she felt ready to ab-sorb. Still none of the drops had ac-tu-al-ly struck her, each land-ing around her, as though the flower--or her own soul--were pro-tect-ing her from the ef-fects. But the qi, the flower''s qi, was thick-er, wider, more.


    Xam re-al-ized--a small bro-ken part of her--that this was what med-i-c-i-nal ef-fec-tive-ness meant. That there was more of this. More flower with-in her to draw in the qi with-out her con-sent. But she didn''t try to scat-ter the pow-der from the censer, didn''t try to flee from the il-lu-sion of the falling wa-ter. In-stead, slow-ly, as she grew used to the mas-sive weight of the falling wa-ter--al-though that weight and the wa-ter-fall con-tin-ued to grow--she be-gan to push back, her spir-i-tu-al per-cep-tion push-ing back against it and be-gin-ning to ex-plore the world of the il-lu-sion, be-gin-ning to grap-ple with it.


    Sis-ter Be-nai, a spir-it beast that Xam thought must have been far old-er, far wis-er, far more ma-ture than Sis-ter Chi-an--had said that this flower would lead her on a path to Wa-ter Qi... and also, move-ment. But while she was ab-sorb-ing a great deal about wa-ter that sim-ply fell and smashed head-long into the ground, she could not find any in-sight about move-ment in the il-lu-sion.


    Was she miss-ing some-thing? Was there... what had Broth-er Du said... a pat-tern?


    The droplets fell, and fell, and fell, and Xam be-gan to med-i-tate on the flow, her spir-it slow-ly be-gin-ning to reach up the wa-ter-fall, be-gan to rec-og-nize droplets as be-ing ''her-self'' soon-er, but she could not reach the source of the flow. By the time the wa-ter was near the ground, it had ceased to have agency, ceased to have con-trol over its des-ti-na-tion. Would she find mean-ing at the top? An in-tent, a de-ci-sion to be-come an un-stop-pable force?


    Was a wa-ter-fall re-al-ly in con-trol of its own move-ment? Could it be? She knew the an-swer be-fore she reached the top, but spent no time try-ing to un-der-stand what she al-ready knew, in-stead med-i-tat-ing on what she would find.


    When at last, her bat-tered spir-it found some-thing above that was more than mere-ly wa-ter, she all but em-braced that sen-sa-tion, but as she firmed her will and pulled her-self up onto the ledge that had been so far above her, so far that it might as well have been the moon, she found what she should per-haps have ex-pect-ed, but which she didn''t un-der-stand.


    She found her-self. An ar-ro-gant woman, sit-ting be-neath an-oth-er wa-ter-fall, the runoff from that wa-ter-fall now a rag-ing riv-er that threat-ened to sweep her off the edge. If she let her-self fall, now, she knew what would hap-pen. She would...


    She would end up right back here, at her-self.


    She would dash against the rock, pick her-self back up, and let her-self be swept over the next edge, to fall and meet her-self again. Whether she fell or whether she rose... she would only find her-self.


    When she re-al-ized that, for the first time, the wa-ter-fall ceased to avoid hit-ting her. The tor-ren-tial flow crashed over her head and shoul-ders, tore at her cloth-ing, ripped away the heat, tried to re-duce her to noth-ing. But she al-ready was the wa-ter-fall, and she could bear her own weight. She stud-ied that scene, look-ing at her-self from the edge of the cliff, and then looked up wa-ter-fall, see-ing an-oth-er her far above, who looked up at an-oth-er wa-ter-fall, and an-oth-er.


    And she turned and looked down, see-ing her-self be-neath the falls, and her-self at the cliff, look-ing down at her-self be-low, and again at her-self be-low.


    And as she be-gan to ac-tu-al-ly, prop-er-ly med-i-tate on those thoughts, she sensed some-thing else, some-thing that--again--she should have ex-pect-ed, but didn''t. A spir-it, in the shape of a flower. Not wise or all-know-ing, but... a plant, in tune with one sim-ple thought about the uni-verse. But when she some-how, word-less-ly asked the flower how to trav-el some-where, how to move like the wa-ter-fall, the flower had the only an-swer that she could have ex-pect-ed.


    You can''t go some-where that you haven''t al-ready been, and go-ing some-where you''ve al-ready been is as easy as let-ting go. You don''t move to a place that you al-ready are, you sim-ply are.


    In an-oth-er mind, in an-oth-er world, the thoughts would have meant You can-not trav-el. It is the only an-swer any plant could have to such a ridicu-lous thought. But Xam was split into a thou-sand, per-haps a mil-lion pieces, and re-dis-cov-er-ing her-self as the many pieces of her-self co-a-lesced into a whole. She ceased to be a woman un-der a wa-ter-fall, ceased to be some part of the wa-ter swept along by the flow... and be-came the en-tire il-lu-sion of wa-ter flow-ing over the edge of a cliff, un-der which a woman med-i-tat-ed.


    You can''t go some-where that you haven''t al-ready been meant some-thing very dif-fer-ent when her mind was split into so many pieces. She could be any-where that she al-ready was. And that re-al-iza-tion was, in her mind, some-thing fun-da-men-tal. Al-though she couldn''t quite grasp how to turn that into a tech-nique... she was pos-i-tive that be-tween that idea, and the prop-er-ties of wa-ter, there was a core, some-thing foun-da-tion-al, some-thing true.


    And she med-i-tat-ed, and her spir-it gath-ered qi, so much that it filled her whole body, and some parts of her squealed in protest, but she en-dured, let-ting the qi flow out when it was too much, and flow in when it was too lit-tle.


    Xoi Xam had thought that she was at the peak of Gold Qi be-fore. But when she had en-dured the pound-ing of the wa-ter-fall for a thou-sand years, en-dured the crush-ing weight of en-tire worlds on her spir-it, when she fi-nal-ly be-gan to feel the ef-fects fade, the qi no longer dive so read-i-ly into her spir-it, when the vi-sion fi-nal-ly be-gan fad-ing, Xam knew that she was past the peak of Gold Qi, that she was ready to sim-ply ask to be al-lowed to move on, and she would.


    There was no thought of shame in her mind, the idea ban-ished at least for now. Be-cause she was far ahead of where she was sup-posed to be, had en-dured more than she was sup-posed to be able to. She had been test-ed and found ac-cept-able, but not for the next step. She should have been swept ahead long ago. Per-haps she could not leap and touch the moon, but she felt that she could walk up a moun-tain.


    Even a thou-sand-mile one.


    When at last Xam felt en-tire-ly at peace, she opened her eyes, to find that the Pavil-lion be-fore her was no dif-fer-ent. But when she looked around, not all was the same, ei-ther. Da Chi-an was sit-ting in a sec-tion con-cealed be-hind black walls, al-though Xam felt that her own will was a key that might have al-lowed her to see in-side. In-stead of look-ing there, though, she turned to look at Mian.


    He... did not look well.


    His face was a mask of pain, and even from a dis-tance, Xam could see ir-reg-u-lar qi flows through his body. Ki''el was next to him, her hands on his back, her eyes closed. And Xam... could be-lieve that what-ev-er was hap-pen-ing, Ki''el was like-ly able to help. Even as she watched, ex-pect-ing Mian''s ir-reg-u-lar spir-it to ex-plode, ex-pect-ing him to lift his head up to the skies in a pained scream... at worst, noth-ing hap-pened. And at best... she could be-lieve that he was sta-bi-liz-ing, if very slow-ly.


    Xam didn''t ex-act-ly feel her break-throughs swept away, but her good mood and sta-bil-i-ty dimished rapid-ly. And al-though she felt she should prob-a-bly con-tin-ue to med-i-tate, she got up and left her space, but stopped short of the bound-ary of Mian''s. And she knelt there, watch-ing as close-ly as she could, watch-ing, study-ing. She... be-came cer-tain, af-ter a few mo-ments--Ki''el was pu-ri-fy-ing some of Mian''s spir-it, and it was hold-ing back ef-fects that were too strong. And... Mian was also be-com-ing stronger.


    She stud-ied his qi as well as she could from this dis-tance, but she was cer-tain of it. The man had only just en-tered Gold Qi, and was so far be-hind that he should have been a thou-sand miles away from reach-ing Peak Gold, much less chal-leng-ing the Tribu-la-tion. She was... hes-i-tant, even now, about ac-cept-ing that he need-ed to at-tempt it. He had told her that he was fine with her be-ing stronger than him, that he idol-ized and re-spect-ed her strength as much as her beau-ty. And... she was will-ing to go through some dif-fi-cul-ty to car-ry him along with her, as long as he con-tin-ued to of-fer not only gen-uine praise, but con-cern and care as well.


    Whether that was love was not quite the same ques-tion, but it seemed a far less in-ter-est-ing ques-tion to her. Mar-ry-ing a man who would sup-port her and al-low her to flour-ish seemed far bet-ter than mar-ry-ing a man that she loved, if the one that she loved would not sup-port her or al-low her to flour-ish. And she had met many men, even ones that gave her heart thrills, who seemed con-tent to leave her be-hind, to be-come noth-ing while they ad-vanced. If de-ci-sions of the heart had to come down to whether she want-ed some-thing or need-ed it, she must choose that which she needs.


    Star-ing now at Mian as he strug-gled to catch up, strug-gled to sur-vive, she be-gan to feel a sense of de-ter-mi-na-tion. She closed her eyes, med-i-tat-ing for sev-er-al min-utes, try-ing to put her spir-it in or-der, but then, fi-nal-ly...


    She stood up, and moved into Mian''s med-i-ta-tion space.

 [TAS] 34. Mian - Tribulations, Part 3

    Mian wished that he''d been given more time to think things through, but then, he''d wasted most of his life already. But... he''d already decided that, for better or worse, he''d committed to a choice. Of course, he''d done that once before--leaving everything to follow Alassi. He had come to believe that there was hope, and he was willing to trust again, but...


    ...But some part of this was terrifying, setting out with so little sense of a plan, of a path. It was the kind of fear that, if he were still the boy he used to be, would have crushed him entirely. Now that he was older, rather than being braver, he simply... had less faith that finding the ''right'' path was necessary, or at least, less belief that he needed to believe, feel that the path was right. What he did have faith in was that he needed to dedicate himself to something, before he fell so far behind that there was no more hope.


    He... understood what the mystic closet woman was saying about this Hundred Hearts Tonic. He even thought there was an unspoken message there--that she understood that he had not found himself, even if he was willing to burn away his future potential in order to advance just far enough. It wouldn''t be hard for him to simply accept any and all qi, building himself up and up... until he could no longer stand himself.


    Before he had crumpled at finding Alassi broken, he had been nearly at the peak of Silver Qi, eagerly wondering what lay beyond the Golden Ridge, but had regressed almost to nothing over the many years, caring nothing for qi nor stability. He had tried to press forward as he had in his youth, and failed. His heart and body were different, now. But in which ways?


    If there was an answer, doubtless, the medicine he had been given would provde it. It was... expensive, he understood. Far more than he had earned. And some childish fear warned him away from it, but once he was there, at the Sect''s Gale Pavillion, he found that he had no hesitation. Doubts, yes, and heart demons, most assuredly, but no hesitation.


    Taking the tonic and settling in to cultivate seemed simply rote, and he all but ignored Ki''el sitting there, watching him. He knew that she meant well, and knew that he would be nowhere and nothing without her, but he needed to understand himself, master himself. And if he failed to accomplish that... it wouldn''t be because she distracted him.


    He had barely begun to notice signs of a trance when he thought he heard footsteps.


    His efforts to wake up from the trance to investigate only pulled him deeper, and before he knew it, he was turning to face a man wearing a demon mask, an overdramatic thing meant to evoke terror, and although Mian was startled, he calmed at seeing the mask, because it was simply too over-the-top.


    But there were other footsteps, and he turned, seeing other masked people, each of different sizes and shapes, each with different masks. But turning away was dangerous, because when he took his eyes of the man with the demon mask, he felt the man''s footsteps, turned to find him much closer--but now, no longer moving. The masked man was frozen in the act of rushing at Mian.


    But in the process, he took his eyes off the other masks, and heard their footsteps rushing at him.


    The first touch of one of those masked people made a lance of pain shoot through Mian''s head and heart, and he fought back, throwing himself away from the creature, but too late--in that moment, his head and heart were changed, and he was despondant, miserable, empty. His whole life had been nothing, and he was no one. Mian blinked several times as though to banish tears, but his eyes were already dry, the tears long spent.


    Throwing himself away let him turn to see the masked man--no, woman?--who had touched him, and Mian almost thought he saw a real face behind the mask, but it blurred away, replaced with a cringing face mask that... that if Mian were honest, matched his face, or what his face should be, here, now. The mask of misery, of... but no, that word alone was not enough. What was the right name? The right face?


    There were more sounds in the far distance, and Mian tore his eyes away from one face to see more in the middle and far distance, but the next masked man to touch him was the demon mask--and Mian felt focus narrow to almost nothing. No--not to nothing, never to nothing; it narrowed to the one thing. But what name did it deserve? Hatred? Vengeance? Fury?


    Mian''s fist knocked the demon mask away, but there was another hand--no, a whole arm that emerged from the ground, this one definitely female, and it wrapped around his leg, pulling him down to pull her up, and her mask was ugly, but not as ugly as the feeling that sped through Mian''s body. A feeling like Mian had already missed his chance, or worse... had never had a chance, from the moment he was born. That he would go on to watch others rise forever, while he stood still.


    For a minute, Mian thought he saw his face behind that mask, but kicked the grasping creature away, trying to push off, hoping to find any solace in this entire place. But another hand grasped his back, fingers digging into flesh in a way that would be impossible in reality--unless they carved enormous rents through his skin and tore apart muscles and bones. But it only siezed him from behind, this feeling of holding on for just one more moment, just one more, to that feeling of being special, knowing that it would not last.


    How long had elapsed, Mian wondered. Seconds? Each touch was agony, but not a single touch lasted more than a moment. He batted away the desperate hold on his spine, only to run into--


    To run into serenity.


    The mask that he stumbled upon wore his own face easily, and it was him, and he was it, and for that lovely moment, he simply faced himself. And then it tilted its head, in salute or sympathy, and Mian felt that he was falling over backwards. What he saw, when he tumbled enough to be able to look downwards, was a sea of faces all looking up at him, with a thousand masks, a million. Too many.


    How many had he endured? Five? A hundred? He was already unable to remember.


    When he landed in the pile, though, there was a hand on his shoulder, and it was Ki''el, and she was helping a cooling feeling flow through him. He wondered, for a moment, what mask this was, but another hand took him--and yet the cooling flow stayed, keeping just one small part of him separate, keeping him just barely sane.


    It was three or four masks after that first touch that Mian began to understand that the cool energy was real, and he used it as best he could to ground himself in the moment, rather than panicking as each new hand grasped at him. He... began to notice, too, that there was qi behind each of the hands, and qi within himself. When the hands, or claws, or feet, or whatever else grasped him, they pushed more energy than he could stand into his body--but he also lost something, and he wasn''t sure what.


    Agony and astonished joy. Wry humor and feverish hunger. Exhaustion, elation, confusion, irritation. Ecstacy, for a moment, though it felt wrong, unpleasant. Deep and abiding love, though it flashed by too quickly. Warm sunlight. The strange pleasure of being buried, safely, in the ground. The unparalleled terror and pain of standing on a floor so hot that his feet vanished instantly, and his legs crumpled inch by inch with nothing he could do but scream.


    Drowning to death. Swimming in a pristine lake. Performing on stage. Murdering someone in the night. Being murdered, Mian thought, by himself. Being a child and jumping for the sheer joy of jumping. The taste of candy. A shattered limb.


    In a way, Mian began to wish that the cool sensation that kept reminding him of who he was, of how he was only a passenger on this journey, would go away, and let him be consumed entirely. What was the value of a man like him at all, much less in a world with so many terrible things in it?


    When he had had that thought a few times--maybe twice, maybe twenty times--he began to see more and more people around him not wearing masks. And although some of them were taller, and some of them fatter, and some of them women, and some of them beasts... they all had Mian''s face. Their faces were still emblematic of what they were--of that feeling that coursed through their veins--and sometimes they had other things. Scars. Burns. Cuts. Missing pieces. But they all wore his face.


    Even so, he could not understand, and could not endure.


    It was perhaps a year later, perhaps minutes, that Mian, who had long since stopped being able to resist and throw off the phantasms, heard footsteps, but different ones. He cocked his head to the side, unsure what he was hearing, but turned, a cape made of clinging monsters swirling behind him as he did, his body mutilated and some parts of him replaced with those things that were consuming him.


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    "Oh... hello, love." The words felt as empty to him as ashes, as his mood flickered from the thrill of the hunt to sitting under a tree in the rain. The Xoi Xam that was before him wore a strange mask, or too many of them--he wasn''t sure. They were all blending together into a strange mash now, too many occurring too fast for him to understand.


    "Are these...?" Xam''s voice felt distant, like the light through the surface of a pond, waving even when things should have been still. "Did you...?"


    "Did I?" Mian didn''t understand the question, but looked down at his hands, which were... hands. Not made of monsters, though they would be again, he was sure. "Am I surviving?"


    "Are those..." Xam''s voice was doubting, and now Mian was charging headlong into death, content to die with his best friend, but no--he survived, and they did not. A burden of guilt so heavy that he could not... "...are those all the things that you''ve experienced?"


    Mian looked up at her, the coolness in his spirit reminding him again that he wasn''t actually alone. But why would Ki''el show him an image of his wife? Or had something gone wrong? Was his cultivation session broken? Had he failed and gone insane? A feeling came over him, one he was already familiar with. "Ah... ?" He cringed, identifying the thought, but powerless to do anything about it.


    "The ones with your face. Are they the ones you have already felt? Already been?"


    Mian looked around him, and saw now that the monsters around him, though the swirled and merged together, though they came and went like waves, could still be divided into masks... and beings with his face. But also... there were others, where he thought he saw other faces. Xam''s. Sobon''s. Ki''el''s. Shadows of them, but shadows that felt too real to ignore. "Those faces..."


    The footsteps beside him now were different from the ones in his earliest dream. They were not the sound of something pursuing him, chasing him, ready to pounce. They were plodding, heavy. Familiar... familial. He felt his head cock to the side, too tired to respond, but there were hands on his arms, then on his hands. Cool fingers that took his own.


    Though he was scared, Mian turned to look.


    The masks that crowded Xam''s face and competed for space underneath her flesh all wore her own face. Pride, misery, madness, confusion, angst. But when Mian clutched her fingers tighter, thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, she was really here, he saw the expression change, the masks moving out of the way for one feeling that he knew, that he had only experienced for a fleeting moment.


    Hope.


    If Mian hadn''t experienced that one feeling among an exhausting tide of others, he might still be cynical, thinking of hope as the thing that had led him astray earlier in life. But hope was hope, and although he was too burnt out to understand, to really be able to tell what was going on inside his own heart, he was sure that hope wasn''t the problem.


    Although he had to compete with the twisted masks, Mian began to push a feeling forward in his own heart, a feeling of contentment and hope for himself, for his own future. If Xam feels hope seeing me survive... if she feels hope holding my hands... if she feels anything like love for me... then there is hope and reason to exist. If it is more than a ploy, more than a mere choice... then there may be hope.


    "I am here, husband." Xam''s voice was firm, but there was something there, vulnerability. Mian looked at her again, saw it. Saw the need.


    "Of course you are," he said, and he wasn''t really sure that he''d said it aloud, but was sure that she heard it. "Because you''re amazing."


    Xam flushed, looking away, that vulnerable part not wanting to be teased, not wanting to believe, but Mian''s fingers found their way out of her hands, up her arms, around her shoulders, and he pulled her close, more aware than he had ever been that people never only had a single feeling in their hearts at a time. Because he endured five, ten, a hundred hearts imposed on him by the Hundred Heart Tonic, but his own heart was also a mess of feelings. Of hope, and love, and joy, and shame, and lust, and pride, and so many other things, all tangled together.


    And somehow, something bent inside of him, and the Tonic and its hundred hearts swirled inside of him, the qi that it had absorbed flushing through his system in a rush that was almost too much for him to bear, even given the emotional burden that he was already undertaking, even with the purified aether from Ki''el. Or perhaps... at this stage, that was harming rather than helping.


    But... it was only almost too much. Mian felt the qi surge through his body, crushing his insides and making his body feel bloated. And... although he had no idea what his path would be, he was sure that he had a lot more options than he had before, if he''d even had the potential to rise at all.


    When at last the trance from the tonic was dispelled, Mian was surprised to find that he was holding Xam''s hands, the two of them facing each other, with her eyes closed. "Oh," he said, though he should have known. "You came inside, too?"


    "Foolish of me, I know," Xam said, but there was a playful lilt to her voice. "But if Sister Ki''el has to endure my husband''s drugged qi, I can endure it as well."


    Mian turned his head to see Ki''el sitting behind him, but the girl didn''t seem the worse to wear for it. "You got through it okay, though, right?"


    Ki''el gave him a look. "I experienced some strange things," she admitted, "but I was worried about you, and didn''t take any time to explore them."


    Mian had a pang of regret, a feeling like he might have once felt as flippant about going through danger as Ki''el seemed to--long ago, now. But he didn''t dwell on it. "Thank you, Ki''el." He turned back to Xam, and smiled, seeing the undercurrents in her that suggested she felt the same as she had inside. "And thank you, dear Xam."


    "Is it ''dear'' now," teased Xam, but she squeezed his fingers before letting go and standing up. "It felt like you tempered yourself quite well. I get the impression that a tonic of that quality isn''t meant for someone of your level."


    Was it not? Mian considered that for a long moment, but stood up as well. "You might be right. Let''s hope it''s not the last time we do things beyond our level."


    "I think you meant to say that differently," Xam said, but she seemed relieved. "But I think we''ll continue to improve more rapidly than most, yes."


    "You''re both talking much more than usual," Ki''el noted from behind them.


    "I''m in a good mood," Xam admitted, a little shyly. "Aren''t you, dear?"


    "Definitely," Mian agreed, though his mood sank a little when he turned to look for the last of their company.


    "I am still worried about Chian," Ki''el said, but even as she did, the black barrier around Chian''s space dimmed and then vanished, leaving only the girl sitting in the center of the space placidly, her own spirit also seeming to have been pressured by whatever she had gone through. "Perhaps... without need?"


    Mian watched the girl reunite with her friend, and felt Xam attach herself to his arm, turning and giving her a look. "How was yours?"


    The expression on Xam''s face remained bright even as she answered, "Awful," but it sank soon after. "That flower, and its method, were also definitely intended for people above Gold. But it''s interesting. That woman said water and movement... but if she hadn''t added the movement part, I''m not sure I would have gained that insight from it at all. As it is, it''ll take a lot of effort to turn it into a movement technique."


    Mian nodded, and looked back at Ki''el and Chian. "No insight into paths for me. But... I feel like learning something will be easier. Maybe I just need to pick something."


    "Something that works well with mine, perhaps?"


    Mian looked at her, thinking she was teasing, but just nodded. "Probably wise, and definitely more fun than us trying to forge separate paths for the rest of our lives."


    "Imagine being able to feel like we''re actually married." Xam let out a sigh. "That girl is precocious, but I am certain that she has no idea when she''s ruining a moment."


    Mian laughed quietly at that. As far as he could tell, Ki''el still didn''t even notice when he and Xam were together... or that they were irritated when she intruded. She was, after all, still just a child. "Even if we had walls and floors, I doubt the Lesser House has any kind of privacy. I know I''ve heard and ...sensed things."


    Xam made a face. "We should have taken a vacation first. Surely the fate of the world won''t depend on a few days or weeks."


    But Mian could only think of the veritable whirlwind that had been Sobon blowing in and out of their lives, with a sigh. "You never know," he said, picking an old phrase, although he was never one for poetry. "A dragon can sleep for a century, then be a calamity for an hour."


    "I know," Xam said, sounding sour, though she still clung to his arm. Now, Ki''el and Chian were walking towards them again. "It was the same in the military. I just can''t help feeling like we should have time."


    "If only things worked the way they should," Mian agreed, but shut his mouth as Ki''el nodded to them and turned to bow to the Elder, who still stood a ways away, watching them all idly. Mian followed suit, Xam matching his movement, and they all moved towards the exit. Louder, he asked, "How long were we in those trances?"


    "Two or three hours," Ki''el answered. "Not the full four. We should have a few points remaining, in the end."


    "We should probably find a place to settle ourselves and calm our spirits before we attempt the tribulation," Mian said, though it sounded like anyone would have made the same advice. They were all... somewhat tired.


    "I..." Ki''el stopped suddenly, a moment before the rest of them felt it--a tremor, a ripple of qi from somewhere above. Not a qi wave that was a message, or the side effect of some technique.


    A qi wave that felt like shock. Fury.


    "It seems you''re wrong about having time," Elder Sang--if Mian had heard Brother Du speaking his name correctly, before--appeared next to them. "That would be our dear Sister Ai discovering that matters have become complicated. Our advice is to take shelter in... a particular area."


    But Brother Du dropped down from somewhere above, landing heavily, and glaring at the Elder. "This way," he said, making a large glowing palm appear for all of them to stand on. "The place you will be safest from Sister Ai''s wrath is exactly the place you need to be next--The Sealed Palace, where the Sect performs its tribulations."


    "Hmph," Elder Sang said, half turning away. "You never did have a sense of drama, Brother Du."


    But Ki''el and Chian were already aboard, and Mian and Xam were but steps behind. As the qi of the entire sect seemed to shiver, Mian wondered just what kind of madness had been dropped in their lap--and who must have set this all up. Because although Mian dared not say anything out loud, he''d known from the very beginning.


    Someone like Kem Jee Sai wasn''t sent after someone like Ki''el without a reason, and with his master in seclusion, that meant someone else playing with everyone''s fates. His hand reached out and squeezed Xam''s firmly, and she returned the pressure, but he couldn''t help staring upwards, wondering what puppetmaster was toying with an entire Sect.

 [TAS] 35. Kiel - Tribulations, Part 4

    Ki''el followed Brother Du with a heavy feeling in her gut. Although the Sealed Palace was an imposing structure--and Ki''el had no doubt it was built to withstand stronger than whatever level Sister Ai was at--she couldn''t help worrying about what came after. What was the point of moving from the Lesser House to the Outer Sect? Was it as simple as the Sect didn''t want to protect anyone beneath a certain level? Or something more?


    It was beyond doubtful that whatever--whoever this Sister Ai was, that they would expect Ki''el or her friends to do something about her. Inner Sect students had been nervous about Sister Ai, people Ki''el knew were whole phases beyond her ability. So why the sudden interest in moving her forward?


    Ahead of them, the Sealed Palace drew nearer, Brother Du leading them to an entrance where one of the Elders--the shorter, smiling old woman--stood waiting, her hands placidly placed knuckle-to-knuckle behind her back. Brother Du''s golden hand transport rose and descended to land right in front of her, and Brother Du gave a surprisingly crisp salute as soon as he was before her. "Elder Aji."


    "Little Du." The woman''s smile curled just a bit, but she nodded at him. "And our wayward guest, and friends. Welcome, Lesser Hall disciples Ki''el, Mian, Xam, and Chian." She let her narrow eyes widen slightly, more like she was relaxing than that she was surprised. "Your circumstances are unusual, but we''ve had multiple people challenging a tribulation before. If you are sure that you have found your Way, proceed within. But even those who have gained the ability to challenge the Golden Wall find themselves tested here. The Guardian Deities of the Sect are many and will challenge your path."


    Ki''el heard that with some trepidation, but nothing that bothered her more than what came before, and what would come after. She glanced at the others, and while Mian frowned, in the end, none of them voiced an objection. "We are ready, Elder."


    "Many think that." She didn''t move a muscle or so much as flicker her qi to grant them entry, but neither was she blocking their way.


    Xam moved forward first, Chian a moment later. Mian strode forth with determination, but Ki''el stood there one more moment, wondering if she would get the answer if she just asked. "Elder... why now?"


    The Elder''s eyes regarded her coolly, and after a minute, they narrowed again, though her qi seemed to subtly shift, making her expression a bit darker . "Do you know what the most powerful myth in the world is, young one?"


    Myth? Ki''el narrowed her eyes at the word used. Was it only a coincidence? "I do not."


    "The Great Hero myth, also known as the Hero myth, or more commonly in the Empire, the Prodigy myth." The woman''s voice remained calm, without bite, edge, or sourness, but there was something to it, as well. "The belief that those people who rise the fastest and furthest are supposed to. That rulers and emperors can be judged even before they rise to power, by how quickly they ascend to their station. A child genius has a thousand times the value of an elderly one, even if the Elder knows far more, is far wiser, is far more powerful. If one seeks to move hearts and minds... giving them a Great Person to gather around is by far the easiest and most certain way. It rarely turns enemies into allies, but bystanders, especially those with the strength to intervene..." She let her voice drift off for only a moment, as though the answer was obvious, but after a beat, continued. "...few of them want to watch a Great One fall in their lifetime."


    They want to pretend that I am some hero? Some prodigy? Ki''el frowned, but also, understood that the woman had called it a myth. And... that led her to ask her master''s question again, but for a different reason. "What does the word ''myth'' mean to you, Elder?"


    "That is a philosophical question, and a deep one," Elder Aji replied, but the darkness had vanished from her face. "Are you sure that you have time to ask such things now?"


    Ki''el''s eyes flickered ahead, but her friends had vanished once they got a certain distance into the Sealed Palace. Above, the qi of Sister Ai was more active, and moving, if not here--not yet. "It is a question that my master has asked of others. So far, I have yet to hear the same answer twice."


    The woman''s face cracked into a grin. "I''ll put it in a few words, then. A myth is something that we want to believe, in our hearts. Whether or not it''s true is insignificant in comparison to whether the heart believes it." Her smile dimmed, and her attention shifted. "Off with you."


    Ki''el went without further prompting, though she sensed that Sister Ai was not coming here... yet. The Sealed Palace itself was a large stone castle made of bricks of purest white, and mortar that was black, except where the qi flowed across it, giving it shimmering and flickering colors in brief bursts. She spent no time looking, but passed through the wide gate, its double doors stretched inwards--but although she felt like she ought to be able to see what was ahead, she could see nothing--it was dark, as though the entire castle, hundreds of feet on a side, was no more than a box without light or window.


    Long after she passed the point where, she thought, the others had disappeared, she was still walking forward and leaving far behind the dim circle light from the door, but she didn''t look back or around, only trusted and walked forwards. It felt like many minutes, but must have only been seconds, when she finally felt something, a flicker of qi, like a person moving to follow her from the side, but not getting too close. She didn''t feel a need to look--she suspected she wouldn''t find anything if she did.


    But at the same time, there was no sign of anything else she should do, and she began to realize that the light behind her had stopped dimming, and when she looked back, she seemed closer to the entrance than she should have been. So she just closed her eyes, considered her options, and then sat, clearing her mind.


    No instructions, she noted silently. But it was supposed to be as simple as letting the deity know that I am ready. So she took another breath, then looked up. "I am ready."


    [ Are you? ] The illusion that appeared before her, of a strange-garbed man with a mask leaning over into her field of view, did not line up with her sense of where the deity must be. [ Do you know your path? ]


    Ki''el considered that silently for a moment. Did she? But also... she didn''t even feel a need to ask Kuli for her opinion on the subject. "I will find my path," she said, simply. "By learning and growing, as I become stronger."


    [ Can you not do that while being held back? ] The phantasm before her ducked out of her field of view, but when her eyes flickered in that direction, it reappeared from another edge of her vision. But... Ki''el could also feel the qi of the world churning around her. Mentally, spiritually, she grasped a qi thorn in each hand, before setting both aside, and taking her more familiar aether spikes, left and right. [ Why do you search for power? ]


    "I do not," Ki''el answered, simply.


    [ Then fail, ] the deity said, and it flickered away from her sight, but this time, she felt it--the real body--moving ahead of her, at the center of a storm of qi that was gathering, darkness against the darkness of the room, with light that flickered within the darkness but showed nothing of the room beyond. [ Prove that you don''t seek power. ]


    Ki''el rose to her feet, Sinister thorn projecting ahead an Right thorn turned within. She sensed, rather than saw, a dark figure against the qi cloud raising one hand, and the qi that flickered there was beyond intense. She would have considered it uncontrollable, like one of her master''s beam attacks when let loose.


    But when she focused her Sinister Aether before her, the lightning bolt that snapped at her seemed to deflect away.


    [ You don''t mean to fail? ] The deity snapped several more thunderbolts at her, and Ki''el reacted as best she could. Even so, she was sure, the deity simply didn''t wish her to be struck, not yet. [ If you don''t seek power, then quit. Fail. Suffer. Unless you wish it, I won''t kill you, but I could, if you ask. ]


    "I do not seek power," Ki''el growled at the thing in the darkness. "But I will not be beaten by you."


    [ You seek power out of pride? ] The bolts flashed around her again, and this time, Ki''el didn''t even feel a need to shield against the strikes. None of them came close. [ Or to protect others? To protect yourself? Why do you seek power? ]


    "I do not seek it," Ki''el repeated.


    [ You LIE! ] At last, the Sect''s guardian deity let the power flow at and through Ki''el--and to her surprise, although it struck her like an attack might, all of the burning was felt in her spirit. The attack wasn''t truly an attack, but power--power attuned to her, power beyond her control. In the time that it took her to understand that, the power was gone, and she had seen and sensed nothing that might be her goal, to be found inside that power. [ Before you came to this room, before you came to the Sect, you first sought power. You would like to pretend it''s behind you, but it isn''t. You still bear the scars. ]


    Ki''el froze at that. In truth... she had desired power, enough to avenge her family and her home, but she''d been distracted from it by Sobon and his plan, his request for her. She had by no means forgotten what the Djang slavers had done--but her master seemed a far better person to avenge them than she did. Although she considered herself a blade, although she wished to remove such awful things from the world... it did not feel like it was her duty, her destiny, or her quest to find and kill pirates.


    And now Sobon spoke of saving the world, of wishing her help, but she was... unsure. She still did not like the idea of gathering power for the sake of power. She still did not like the idea of seeking power. If it was needed... if it was asked of her... but so far, she had gathered power easily. Seeking power beyond what she had felt like a different question.


    Caught up in her thinking, Ki''el was surprised by another flash of qi lightning, this one lasting long enough that she could force her Sinister aether into it, causing the deity''s power to fade just a bit, its control to slacken. When it did, Ki''el only found the power more chaotic and dangerous--it did, indeed, not wish to hurt her seriously, but any power freed from its control might. Even so... she didn''t stop, forcing more of the power between her and the guardian and flushing righteous aether through her own spirit, trying to focus on everything that she could sense--herself, her qi and aether, the deity, the qi storm, the lightning...


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    But the lightning was over with in a flash, and the deity in the darkness stepped forward as though into the light, becoming something more of a strange misshapen shadow than a real figure. [ You are searching for power. Why? ]


    Ki''el just grit her teeth. "If I had the choice, I would leave," she snapped, angrily. "But my village was attacked for no reason--and so was my master. And now, so am I." She looked up at the deity--if it could really be called that. What use was a guardian deity for the Sect, if she had almost been murdered here? For nothing? "You say that you won''t kill me if I fall here. But if I die because I do not have enough power, and it''s simply because you refuse to let me, did you not kill me?"


    [ You''re trying to act like a grown-up, ] the deity said, [ but your words are those of a child. I''m not stopping you from growing. You simply need to be strong enough to take what you want. ]


    "So stop missing on purpose," Ki''el hissed back.


    [ You want to pretend to be an adult? To take the weight of the world head-on? ] The deity''s powered flickered with amusement. [ Do you even understand what a Path is? What a Way is? If you step forward in ignorance, your Way will end. ]


    "It will not." Ki''el stood up. "My master comes from--"


    [ I am aware of your master, and aware of who and what you are. ] The Deity''s storm began to grow, until it almost seemed to be a sky above the two of them. The flickers of qi lightning within helped show that there was more to the space she was in than the size of the building, which... was little surprise. [ But his path is not yours. Yours is a path of qi mixed with aether. Is it not? ]


    Those words, more than anything else, gave Ki''el pause. She was not expecting a spiritual deity to understand that much. "I... suppose."


    [ You may not require a path of aether. But your Natureless Qi Path is not ready. ] The lightning that flickered above began to flicker in patterns, now--starting further out, and gathering closer and closer. [ Even if you use all of your strength, can your Path stop this? With or without your assistant? ]


    Ki''el looked up at the sky clouds above her, sensing more and more power gathering--but the first strikes that began to rain down from it came before it was fully gathered, before it was fully ready. Ki''el did her best to weaken it with aether, and strengthen herself--but the power that flashed through her was too much.


    It poured through her channels so much that she burned, flooded through her dantian until it wanted to burst, and every organ that she could feel was flooded with more intense qi than she had dared temper herself with. Most of it also ripped out of her a moment later--but it still left her feeling both completely burnt, inside and out, and stretched out.


    This is an incomplete bolt? Ki''el scowled, and forced all the qi she had in her dantian out, trying to grab hold of it, but her mental and spiritual abilities were sluggish, burning at her. Kuli...


    { I sensed the [key] that time, } Kuli warned her. { That thing we need to [grasp] is at the center of the gathering power. }


    Ki''el didn''t need to concentrate at all to understand, and glared up at the gathering storm. That''s too much qi.


    { It''s meant to be. I believe this test is supposed to challenge your mastery of the path you''ve chosen. The lightning is mixed aether and qi--and it includes Genesis and Consumption qi. }


    Ki''el swallowed. Although she''d tried to filter--no, that was the point, wasn''t it? Ki''el took all of her Qi Turning Cycles and discarded them, letting their Thorns vent into the nearby air, and turned all of her attention to the working, her mind and spirit still slowed, still burning. One cycle. Big. Make it too big, and it still won''t be enough. To filter all the qi that I have, and all that it can throw at me. Within her, she felt the touch of Kuli, adjusting and evening out her efforts, but still letting her lead.


    [ You think that will be enough? ] But there was something different about the deity''s projected words. Ki''el had no warning when the next bolt flashed towards her--and with all of her strength and all of Kuli''s help, it still went straight through her efforts to create some kind of purifying defense barrier, went through her, and went out again. [ You haven''t even begun your path. You aren''t ready. How can you be? You are a child. ]


    Ki''el wasn''t listening, focusing on the turning cycle. Although she hadn''t noticed, the lightning had left lingering aether within her system--Sinister was the most obvious, but there was also Consumption aether, eating at her and drawing strength away. That didn''t account for all the damage--the excess qi must have actually hurt her--but as she focused on purifying her own body, many of the effects lessened, and her control and senses improved. But as she turned the cycle, as she gathered and filtered the qi and aether mixture, as she tried to adjust the technique... she also began to understand that there was something fundamentally wrong with her first version.


    Another flash of lightning tore through her, and this time, a small part of the incoming lightning got trapped in the qi turning cycle, but more importantly, her system began to better resist the enemy aether. At the same time, the bolt was stronger, more intense by far than the last one, and the small amount removed and was far less than the increase, and the resistance was nowhere near enough.


    Ki''el, though she was unaware of it, screamed, and her turning cycle collapsed. Even her aether cycles, concealed within her spirit, destabilized in the intense qi.


    [ Every strong person on every path has to fight, ] the Sect''s guardian deity said, its shadow unsteady against the flickering of the qi lightning above. [ If your path is to purify, then that must be either a sword, or a shield. ]


    The sword... Ki''el considered pulling forth the aether blade, but she couldn''t see how it would help, and it would take precious time, time she needed. Instead, she was rebuilding the qi turning cycle, trying to focus on what she had felt, what she had realized as she adjusted it. But...


    [ Your ability to use Consumption Aether with your qi is still sealed, ] the deity said, sounding like it was laughing. [ Strange... how fate swirls around you. The knowledge that''s here... very strange. If you can grasp the key, the power you need will be yours--but that''s only if you grasp the key. ]


    Ki''el heard the words, understood them, but discarded them. Because she wasn''t thinking about using qi, nor using the purified aether that her master''s power cycles created. If... if what she had sensed, what she understood, was consumption aether... then she didn''t need to create a purified version of it to be able to use it.


    Aether was already all around her--she only had to find it, manipulate it.


    She barely had finished forming another Qi Turning Cycle when the next bolt of lightning hit, but this one was much less, the technique absorbing the qi that struck it far better. It still hurt, but not so much that she couldn''t feel a deep satisfaction, and with Kuli''s help, she formed a second cycle next to the first. Not because she was confident--but because it was easier than trying to perfect it under these circumstances.


    The next bolt of qi lightning seemed almost to not hit her, and Ki''el was able to finally sense it--the key that Kuli had sensed, in the heart of the gathering storm.


    [ Finally, ] the Guardian Deity said, almost with a sneer. [ But can you grasp the key while defending? ]


    Ki''el only had to consider that for a moment. If he expected me to use Consumption, perhaps he expects me to use Genesis. Ki''el only vaguely understood the aether--less even than Consumption, and she had guessed its use here as much by the name as anything. But if she could manipulate aether at a distance... could she ''reach'' the key? It must be possible, if Sobon could control his own aether beyond his body.


    It took several attempts, and several more blocked lightning bolts--enough that her first Cycle was overfull and fraying apart--before Ki''el was able to grasp the key that hung in the center of that energy, energy that was still too much, too thick, too dangerous to enter. And although just touching the key did nothing... it did give her pause.


    Because she was touching it, and she knew that she was--but that was somehow not enough. Something was wrong, dead wrong, and she didn''t know what.


    [ Congratulations, ] the Deity sent, but it didn''t feel heartfelt. [ But I would be remiss if I didn''t give you one last parting gift. Don''t blame me for this--I was asked to. ]


    Suddenly, the lightning all flashed together into a single massive point in the sky, and Ki''el looked up, gaping. The energy wasn''t simply too much--it was too dense, unbelievably beyond her capacity--


    { Safety mode. }


    In a flash, Kuli burned through her system, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. Ki''el remembered the effect--when the Elders had suppressed her, Kuli accelerated her thoughts as soon as she recovered. She guessed it to be a higher aether ability, but why...?


    { Someone is toying with you, and this isn''t safe. } Kuli''s voice seemed compressed, and yet, Ki''el understood her. { It''s more than that lightning bolt. In the middle of it is another key--a key you aren''t supposed to have yet. I don''t know if it will advance your qi the way this tribulation was supposed to--I don''t know why it would. But it seems like it would unlock something within you. I believe it would unlock additional aether in your qi. }


    Ki''el felt something nasty go through her, and she felt sick to her stomach. Is this why they sent me here? To suffer through some insane trial because I have aether? Every last part of her wanted to already be done with this. Taking that first key should have been a moment of triumph, of freedom. She could hardly do more than she''d already done, and was wavering at the point of collapsing--or giving up.


    { I deciphered the first key before you reached it. I had meant to keep it to myself, but it activated when I grasped its meaning, as a kind of fate magic, and your qi has already reached the next phase. I can do the same for that key... but only if you can maintain the acceleration pattern that I''m using. }


    Ki''el stared up at the gathered lightning for what she knew to be an impossibly long moment. Kuli... was helping her pass a test she never should have needed to pass. All merely to survive, both this moment, and the ones that should follow. Can you teach me?


    { Safety mode is more than the acceleration function. I am currently handling too many things, including a healing pattern using Revival aether, and I cannot link into your mind without overwhelming you. However, if you can sense the world around you, you should be able to sense both Acceleration and Revival Aether. }


    Ki''el could, of course. If Genesis and Consumption aether felt like flow in and out, Acceleration flow felt... onward. There was no better word for it; the flow simply seemed to go... onward. Although she had barely begun to grasp the lesser aethers, something about onward aether felt... right.


    But as she did her best to study it, her thoughts kept being drawn to the bolt of lightning in the sky. No, she decided, after her thoughts had flickered from the acceleration effect to the sky and back several times. They aren''t expecting me to learn this, not now.


    { I worry that they expect you to be injured. }


    Ki''el studied it, but her thoughts kept coming back to the obvious. No. They expect me to use the sword. It is another part of my path. That bolt is not meant to be absorbed, it is meant to be cut. They said before--my abilities must be either a sword or a shield.


    Kuli considered that for what Ki''el realized was a very long time, considering how quickly the augment usually worked. { If you wish to use your purifying cycle with your sword, you will need to be able to express the intent for it in a word. }


    Ki''el mentally groaned. She was exhausted, hurting, and still teetering on the edge of collapsing. But... she mentally began reviewing the concept of her modified Turning Cycle, piecing the thoughts together in a mental space within Kuli, then going back to clean the thoughts up. It was a fraught process, with how tired she was, but Kuli gave her more time than she had any right to expect--or perhaps, the Sect''s deity did. She adjusted the concept from being a tool, to a shield, and now again to a sword--one that would keep the energy trapped, purifying it.


    Although she did not notice it, Kuli made minor corrections, and... an addition.


    When at last Kuli allowed her {Safety Mode} to disengage, and Ki''el withdrew the Aether Sword from her space ring, the deity seemed pleased. [ You have time stretching abilities. I get the feeling this is going to be more interesting than I was expecting. Are you ready for this? I can wait. ]


    But Ki''el took the sword and extended it, feeling the barrier blade''s sharp form as she brought her other hand to it, focusing on it. Within, some part of Sobon''s aether--a Power Cycle he had left behind, she could now sense--reacted to her intense focus, and she could feel it wordlessly asking for an intent.


    "[Turn.]" The single word carried with it days and hours and weeks of mastery--but only that. Ki''el knew that her knowledge and experience were shallow. Almost everyone at the sect had many times her experience, even those who remained stuck in the Lesser House.


    Nevertheless, within the blade, Ki''el felt a strange warping, and she glared up at the guardian deity, who seemed to watch her with concern.


    [ Very well. [ Fall. ] ] The last bolt of Tribulation Lightning fell, and Ki''el raised her sword to meet it. When falling met raising and turning...


    Ki''el fell into darkness, and would not find out the result for some time.

 [TAS] 36. Chian - Tribulations, Part 5

    "Child."


    Da Chi-an was bare-ly a step in-side the Sealed Palace when the fa-mil-iar, bit-ing voice of her an-ces-tor emerged from the dark-ness. Al-though she knew, from speak-ing with the El-der in the past, that the room split be-fore the Guardian Deities, or her An-ces-tor, were al-lowed to reach to her... she still con-tin-ued a ways fur-ther, into the dark-ness, be-fore sit-ting and ac-knowled-ing the spir-it.


    That both-ered the old fox, and it was clear in the dis-tor-tions of his qi, in the way his pres-ence loomed clos-er and heav-ier, from the rank stench that she could feel on his spir-it waves. By the time she was ready, her ears and tail out and sta-ble, the spir-it--an ac-tu-al fox spir-it, who only took hu-man form if it suit-ed him--ap-peared quite cross.


    "Yes, An-ces-tor."


    "You haven''t learned your les-son from last time." The spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy seemed to melt re-al-i-ty around her, though for the mo-ment, the dark-ness re-mained only that.


    "My les-son from last time was to trust my in-stincts," Chi-an said, clos-ing her eyes and know-ing what was com-ing, her heart pound-ing. "And I do."


    The old man raised one clawed hand and bat-ted at her, and Chi-an had to force her spir-it en-er-gy into a bar-ri-er. Ki''el''s ad-vice helped great-ly here--or Kuli''s. Un-der-stand-ing her tail as a way to com-mu-ni-cate her will with the spir-it world, as a way to change the qi that she had al-ready de-ployed, al-lowed her to sim-ply vent her spir-it en-er-gy and then snap it into some sem-blance of a wall in time to stop the three curved slices.


    Slow slices, al-most dull. An-ces-tor was not se-ri-ous.


    "You don''t un-der-stand, and you nev-er will." The fox took a hu-man step for-ward, but his ''real'' pro-jec-tion, a fox, slunk away in the oth-er di-rec-tion. Chi-an warred with her in-stincts--it was only po-lite, if the hu-man pro-jec-tion con-tin-ued to watch her, not to di-rect her at-ten-tion away, even as she knew that she was be-ing test-ed, that the fox pro-jec-tion was the threat. "Your path will al-ways and only ever be my path. All of your strength comes from me. All of your in-stincts come from my side. I am your in-stincts."


    Chi-an bared her teeth back at the hu-man pro-ject, al-most be-com-ing too dis-tract-ed to split her fo-cus, but she kept the real threat in mind. She had been taught through her youth that what the old man was say-ing was true--that her pow-er and in-stincts came from her no-ble blood-line, in-her-it-ed from her an-ces-tor. But she had also been taught, by her fam-i-ly and by Bai Be-nai, that the spir-it in her tribu-la-tion would lie and at-tempt to con-sume her, con-trol her.


    It had been hard-er be-fore.


    "You are not my only source of strength," Chi-an said, "and even if you were, my in-sincts tell me not to trust you." That was only half true--they had said that, un-til the old fox wished oth-er-wise. Even now, with the fox it-self creep-ing clos-er, she sensed its in-tense fo-cus on her, how it con-ceived of this as a preda-tor stalk-ing its prey, lulling it to sleep, so that--


    When at last it was close enough, Chi-an''s tail flick-ered, and the spir-it en-er-gy she had kept around her lashed at the an-ces-tor''s fox body. It wasn''t enough to be dan-ger-ous--she knew it wasn''t--but the goal was nev-er to de-feat her an-ces-tor, but to catch it and claim the seed that would be-come her sec-ond tail. But, as she ex-pect-ed, her fox an-ces-tor leaped away spry-ly even be-fore her en-er-gy could prop-er-ly mo-bi-lize.


    The hu-man pro-jec-tion grinned a nasty smile, and his sev-en tails curled out be-hind him, his out-fit dark-en-ing into the one he used in fights. "You have no strength with-out me, child," the old man said. "And no need to lie. Your heart is open to me, as your an-ces-tor, but nev-er more than when you are to face a tribu-la-tion. Your ef-forts to con-trol qi are pa-thet-ic, your mis-un-der-stand-ings thick, and your at-tach-ments to those fool-ish hu-mans poi-son you from with-in."


    Chi-an bris-tled, even know-ing that it was a trick, the old man prod-ding at her weak-ness. "Don''t talk about my friends."


    "No?" The hu-man pro-jec-tion leaped for-ward, and Chi-an sprung to her feet and flick-ered out more en-er-gy, di-rect-ing it to move her back and lash out light-ly at the hu-man form--though she knew that the fox car-ried her prize. The old man wouldn''t be sat-is-fied hav-ing a con-ver-sa-tion with-out ex-er-cis-ing at the same time, which meant she had to let him waste pow-er, while she spent as lit-tle as pos-si-ble.


    But he did con-tin-ue to speak, and Chi-an felt her-self get-ting ang-i-er as he did. "What about the old-er girl--Xoi Xam? She fears your con-nec-tion to things she can-not com-pre-hend. She is jeal-ous that you will be hand-ed pow-er for the rest of your life, and knows that you will be-come ever more the preda-tor, ever less her peer." The hu-man pro-jec-tion stepped for-ward and slashed a few times, and each time, Chi-an moved her-self away, eye-ing both the hu-man and the fox. "She is ready to go to war with you for the small-est of-fense, and you de-serve that, be-cause you are not your peer--you are a preda-tor who feeds on peo-ple like her."


    "Stop it," Chi-an said with a snarl, but she knew that the man was speak-ing to her doubts--and he wasn''t wrong.


    "And that man--Xoi Mian? A liar, a mur-der-er, a craven cow-ard, pa-thet-ic and des-per-ate. Giv-en a sec-ond chance out of luck, he squan-ders it, though he is ea-ger to re-ceive his re-wards any-way." The el-der fox''s tails twitched, and Chi-an fo-cused in-tent-ly on the sense, but she couldn''t catch how he com-mand-ed the mas-sive well of spir-i-tu-al pow-er that he''d al-lowed for this tribu-la-tion. It sim-ply seemed to come in be-ing that a pair of mas-sive polearms, hal-berds this time, she thought, ap-peared from the air by his hands, and he caught one in each hand, jump-ing for-ward and cross-ing the blad-ed weapons in front of him like they were noth-ing more than an ex-tend-ed, hor-i-zon-tal jaw.


    Chi-an knew well enough that he un-der-stood the use of hu-man weapons far bet-ter than that, and stayed well clear of them.


    "If it came down to it, both of those ''friends'' of yours would be-tray you if not for dar-ling lit-tle friend Ki''el," the el-der said, his voice tak-ing a light tone that she was sure was heav-i-ly con-de-scend-ing, though he hid it, for the mo-ment. "And what a dear she is, so fo-cused on her tasks, so ea-ger to work hard, so blind to what''s around her." The lev-i-ty in his voice fad-ed. "In truth, child, you know far bet-ter than me that she is rav-en-ous-ly hun-gry for at-ten-tion. If you fail for even a mo-ment to be at the cen-ter of her world, you will fade away, be quick-ly and eter-nal-ly for-got-ten. I''ll give her this--the child is in-no-cent. But she is weak at heart, just like you."


    Chi-an was ex-pect-ing it, when the man reached the end of his speech and the two forms pre-sent both fad-ed, the fox form seam-less-ly tak-ing a hu-manoid form while re-tain-ing its true face and na-ture. The hal-berds hung be-hind it for a mo-ment be-fore leap-ing at her, and al-though Chi-an had to turn away from where the hu-man pro-jec-tion had been to see the an-ces-tor with her own eyes, she still dodged the at-tacks with lit-tle ef-fort. But now, the el-der''s spir-it en-er-gy be-gan to gath-er around the seed, and his ca-nine face had no ex-pres-sion that could be con-sid-ered friend-ly on it, the eyes leak-ing ha-tred and angst.


    "You cow-er be-hind your pro-tec-tors, be-hind that id-iot tor-toise, nev-er fac-ing the truth of the world, and you want to tell me that this is you trust-ing your in-stincts?" The pro-jec-tion flick-ered, and for just a mo-ment, Chi-an thought that above them both, like a child look-ing down on their toys, was a mas-sive fox spir-it per-haps twen-ty times her size, who only waved a hand through the dark-ness around them, and where it passed, the world changed.


    Chi-an fell through the air be-fore she could muster enough spir-it en-er-gy to stop her-self, plung-ing into the storm-tossed sea. With-in the wa-ter, as she''d found last time, it was dif-fi-cult to find qi that res-onat-ed with her blood-line, but it was there--stormwa-ter and wind, even traces of light-ning qi that swirled through the ocean wa-ter. With ef-fort, she forced more pow-er into her tail, and lift-ed out of the wa-ter un-til she could stand atop it, and grasp the stormy air that was her birthright, forc-ing it to car-ry her into the sky.


    That had been enough, last time, for the an-ces-tor to choose not to de-stroy her, even though she failed to as-cend a tier. This time, she was not will-ing to fail.


    But see-ing her an-ces-tor, the mas-ter of her en-tire fam-i-ly, in his nat-ur-al el-e-ment, the Six Tailed Rag-ing Storm Spir-it Fox, dulled any ex-cite-ment she could have. He had not yet em-braced the full might of the storm that raged around him--per-haps he couldn''t, not at this lev-el of her as-cen-sion. But nei-ther did he have even a mo-ment''s fear for the lash-ing wind, the dri-ving rain, the flash-es of light-ning that seemed to trav-el miles.


    "Your in-stincts are those of a preda-tor in the rain," a voice whis-pered from near-by her. "Not those of a child hid-ing be-hind fa-ther''s legs, be-hind tur-tle shells. If you want to chase vic-to-ry, then chase."


    Chi-an hung there in the storm-tossed air and con-sid-ered that. She was still con-sid-er-ing it when a mas-sive skull made of storm-twist-ed rain ap-peared from nowhere, jaws open-ing in a sound-less show of teeth. But Chi-an was not there when the jaws closed, and she struck once at the pro-jec-tion, hop-ing to at least knock it away--but no such thing hap-pened. In-stead, the skull turned, mov-ing for-ward once more.


    Chi-an felt the rain soak-ing through her clothes, soak-ing into even her spir-it tail, soak-ing into her skin. She felt every buf-fet-ing wall of wind that ran into her, but she closed her eyes, ig-nor-ing all but the fanged skull be-fore her, the dis-tant pro-jec-tion of her an-ces-tor... and the les-son.


    Though the An-ces-tor might call Bai Be-nai an id-iot, the woman had cho-sen a ton-ic for her that matched her de-sires far bet-ter than the world that An-ces-tor was show-ing her.


    Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.


    It took her a mo-ment to find the clar-i-ty, but when at last she could find the per-spec-tive, a slice of the sky opened--just a slice--and that sky wheeled over-head. She saw her an-ces-tor look up at it, felt him try-ing to will it closed--but in only a mo-ment, Chi-an was no longer be-neath the storm-clouds.


    The view from above was mag-nif-i-cent.


    The storm-clouds from above were white things, like the small-er puffy clouds you would see on a clear day, or even the tow-er-ing storm-clouds that you saw in the dis-tance--when they didn''t block the sun. What the Wheel of Light and Sky Ton-ic had shown her was that the storm only dark-ened the world be-neath it. Here, in the world above the storm, was a dif-fer-ent world. Even the dark-est, widest, wildest storms only con-cealed the blue sky, the sun-light.


    "Some small in-sight, I see." An-ces-tor stood atop his clouds, but his face and de-meanor were not ap-prov-ing. "But mean-ing-less in the face of true pow-er." His tails twist-ed, and the storm-clouds be-low whipped up-wards to-wards her, try-ing to form a shell around her, to re-turn her to dark-ness and rain.


    But Chi-an was will-ing to bet that his do-main was far weak-er here, even if he forced the im-age back to a fa-mil-iar form. It was one thing to ma-nip-u-late a nat-ur-al rag-ing storm, and an-oth-er to force a rag-ing storm into new forms, new places. But more than that... Chi-an pulled at her own spir-it en-er-gy, try-ing to find every scrap of it that she had and all that she had left be-hind, or-ga-niz-ing it, grow-ing it, col-lect-ing it--and or-der-ing it.


    It was prob-a-bly the truth that An-ces-tor saw the at-tack com-ing. It was prob-a-bly true that a be-ing so wise wasn''t go-ing to fall for such a sim-ple am-bush. But the spir-it en-er-gy she''d left be-hind, in the rain-soaked sea, stalked up through the storm be-hind him while his at-ten-tion was di-vid-ed, and ap-peared as claws and fangs with-in his own pre-cious clouds, from with-in the storm that he stood upon look-ing up at her, snap-ping down on him from be-hind. She felt her en-er-gy force its way into the pro-jec-tion, seek-ing and find-ing that seed of spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy, that prize she was sup-posed to steal away.


    She felt it slip into her pos-ses-sion, de-spite some strug-gles from her an-ces-tor.


    "Bah." As the en-er-gy of the tribu-la-tion be-gan to dis-perse and swirl around her, at-tract-ed to the Rag-ing Storm Fox Spir-it Seed, her An-ces-tors will re-leased its grasp, let-ting her win--but also, she saw one of the an-ces-tor''s hal-berds slink into view from just be-hind her, and she didn''t know when or how it had slipped in so close. "An ac-cept-able hunt, lit-tle girl. Not quite wor-thy of a two-tailed spir-it fox... but I will ex-pect bet-ter of you next time." The vulpine face that the an-ces-tor showed her gave her an un-pleas-ant, sharp-toothed smile, but she thought she sensed real pride there. "Be sure not to dis-ap-point me."


    Da Chi-an re-turned from her spir-it trance to feel the world shak-ing.


    She leaped to her feet, half sur-prised that she was sim-ply in a dark room, and found her-self rush-ing out-side--but be-fore she could leave the Sealed Palace, she end-ed up find-ing Xam and Mian gath-ered around...


    ...Around what seemed to be the body of Ki''el.


    The girl wasn''t dead--that was the wrong word. But qi was turn-ing in bands around her--in many bands, each turn-ing through dif-fer-ent or-bits around the girl, each spin-ning at dif-fer-ent rates and in dif-fer-ent di-rec-tions, each with an as-so-ci-at-ed thorn--and each thorn was al-ready over-full of blind-ing-ly white qi. Chi-an paused, star-ing, but un-sure. What-ev-er was hap-pen-ing, she felt sure that it was too much.


    "Chi-an." Mian''s voice sound-ed re-lieved. "You were in there for a while."


    Had she been? Chi-an had not both-ered to find out how long her trance had been the last time, but this didn''t feel like it had been a long bat-tle. In-stead of an-swer-ing that, she looked at Ki''el. "Is she al-right?"


    "Only the El-der would know," Xam said, tired-ly, "but we can''t move her. And I don''t think the El-der wants us leav-ing while--"


    The world shook again.


    "--while Sis-ter Ai, we as-sume, rages out-side," Mian fin-ished, look-ing at his wife, who looked back at him, sourly.


    Chi-an stared at Ki''el for a long mo-ment, but couldn''t shake the feel-ing that the pow-er was too much, and turned to-wards the en-trance. "I will ask."


    "Chi-an--"


    But she was al-ready push-ing ahead, her qi and spir-it en-er-gy mixed. The feel of her sec-ond tail--no more than a sprout-ing seed, yet--felt good, and she felt in-cred-i-bly free, mov-ing through the space like it was noth-ing.


    Get-ting too close to the en-trance spat her out be-fore she was quite ready, and she felt her stom-ach drop at what she saw out-side.


    Djang Zen Ai had a lev-el of qi that Chi-an had nev-er seen be-fore, or not specif-i-cal-ly, but there could be no ques-tion that it was Di-a-mond--three phas-es above her, and mere steps be-neath the be-gin-ning of Flame Qi. Her qi was mer-ci-less-ly clear and dev-il-ish-ly hard, and Chi-an could sense with-out try-ing that there was some-thing buried with-in her qi--some blood-line trait that was wo-ven through her core and merid-i-ans, and right now, it was boil-ing over, vent-ing en-er-gy that seemed ea-ger to con-trol Sis-ter Ai from with-in, in ex-change for of-fer-ing her pow-er.


    And right now, she didn''t seem par-tic-u-lar-ly keen to stop it.


    It wasn''t as though no one was try-ing to stop her. At least a dozen In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples were around her, and it seemed like Sis-ter Ai kept enough sense to not try to se-ri-ous-ly hurt any of them. But even as Chi-an watched, she lashed out, seem-ing-ly be-cause she couldn''t con-tain the en-er-gy, and it vent-ed into the side of the Sealed Palace--mov-ing the en-tire is-land by sev-er-al feet and knock-ing her down, but seem-ing to do no harm to the build-ing it-self.


    "Stay in-side." El-der Aji spoke qui-et-ly, but even so, Chi-an could tell that the de-mon-ic Sis-ter above heard her, no-ticed them.


    "What is this?" The woman moved with a flash of in-tent, and al-though it was in-tense-ly pow-er-ful, her use was im-per-fect, bru-tal. She crashed into the ground be-fore them, and the is-land dropped by feet, enough that Chi-an could ma-neu-ver in the air to be back on her feet be-fore she land-ed.


    She... didn''t re-mem-ber in time, what it meant to dis-play her pow-er. She was too fo-cused on the dan-ger in front of her, dan-ger that she didn''t imag-ine she could es-cape one way or the oth-er--but she should have known that she could still make things worse.


    "A com-pan-ion of that bitch... and a spir-it beast. Per-fect." The woman''s eyes were too in-tense for Chi-an to look at, and her voice all but com-pelled her to obey, but some part of her re-sist-ed, even be-fore she un-der-stood what she was fight-ing against. "You will serve me for the rest of your life. Or I will kill you and your pa-thet-ic friends."


    Chi-an heard the words, felt them sink-ing into her like teeth, but stopped them from catch-ing on any-thing in-side of her, any-thing that would have forced them to be-come true. She all but for-got about the El-der be-side her, all but for-got about every-thing ex-cept the im-pe-ri-ous gaze of the woman in front of her, but--


    "You will not." The steps that the El-der took to place her-self be-tween Chi-an and Sis-ter Ai didn''t res-onate with the world, didn''t ex-ude enor-mous strength or shake the is-land. Her strength was in the shad-ow that she cast, a shad-ow that blocked Chi-an from the sun ahead of her ef-fort-less-ly. "You have been told this be-fore, Sis-ter Zen Ai. You may be a ge-nius, but your sta-tus here is not un-lim-it-ed. And harm-ing your ju-niors, es-pe-cial-ly prodi-gies, is nev-er ac-cept-able."


    Sis-ter Ai twitched like she want-ed to at-tack the El-der, but clear-ly thought bet-ter of it. "I de-mand sat-is-fac-tion."


    "You can-not de-mand of some-one so be-neath your sta-tion." The El-der''s voice wasn''t smug, sim-ply mat-ter of fact.


    "My re-tain-er was mur-dered!"


    "The facts of the case have been record-ed." The El-der''s voice re-mained per-fect-ly mea-sured. "This case, and sev-er-al oth-ers in the past of Broth-er Kem Jee Sai. And sev-er-al oth-ers in your past. The eyes of this Moon-stone Is-land Sect are not blind."


    "As though I care about what some pa-thet-ic Moon-stone sect thinks," Sis-ter Ai spat. "I am from one of the Em-per-or''s vaunt-ed lin-eages, and you shall not stand in my way."


    "This is not your Em-pire," the El-der said, her calm-ness not yet seem-ing to be test-ed.


    But Sis-ter Ai looked past her, to Chi-an, who swal-lowed. "You, girl. If you wish to save your mas-ter, you will swear your life, and your de-scen-dents, to me, to serve my house for-ev-er. If you do not, there will be no sav-ing you."


    Chi-an felt like she was be-ing swal-lowed up by a do-main more per-ilous than that of her an-ces-tor, felt qi more in-tense and more blood-thirsty than any-thing she had yet ex-pe-ri-enced--and she un-der-stood that it was real blood-thirst, and not train-ing, not even of the most bru-tal kind.


    Parts of her were scream-ing to say what-ev-er she need-ed to say to save her-self. An-oth-er part of her want-ed her to say what-ev-er she need-ed to say to save Ki''el. But she also had strength, and pride, and stub-born-ness. And all of that de-layed her for a mo-ment, when the El-der turned back to look at her.


    "Why did you come out?" The El-der''s voice was clear and even de-spite the cir-cum-stances, but it also car-ried with it an in-tent, one Chi-an didn''t re-sist.


    "Sis-ter Ki''el has come out of her Tribu-la-tion, un-con-scious," she said.


    The words caused sev-er-al near-by to flick-ered their qi, un-cer-tain, wor-ried. "Did she fail?" The El-der asked, though with her calm voice, Chi-an thought that the woman must have known. In truth, Chi-an did not know, not for cer-tain, but it would have made no sense.


    "No," she said. "She sur-vived--but she has ab-sorbed so much of the Tribu-la-tion Qi that she can-not re-gain con-scious-ness."


    Chi-an... did not un-der-stand, gen-uine-ly; she didn''t un-der-stand that at her words, that ha-tred, and the un-remit-ting blood-lust of Sis-ter Ai... hes-i-tat-ed. It be-gan to shift, away from her. It backed away, as though in awe... or in fear.


    "Is that the truth?" El-der Sang, the spec-ta-cled el-der from the Gale Pavil-lion, ap-peared next to her as though from nowhere. Chi-an shied back from him, but looked up and nod-ded, and the man moved past her like a flash, she as-sumed into the sealed Palace. And mo-ments lat-er, he walkd out of the Palace, hold-ing Ki''el limp in his arms, the bands of pure white pow-er turn-ing around her undimmed by be-ing in the pres-ence of greater pow-ers.


    El-der Aji re-mained where she was, so that Chi-an re-mained in her shad-ow, but Sis-ter Ai''s tu-moltuous qi was re-ced-ing, its cor-ro-sive blood-lust reigned in. Al-ready, it felt as though Sis-ter Ai was no longer the cen-ter of every-one''s at-ten-tion, as many of the In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples who stood near ma-neu-vered to get a bet-ter look.


    "It seems to be true," El-der Sang said, his voice eas-i-ly car-ry-ing, "that Sis-ter Ki''el has cap-tured and is ab-sorb-ing the ma-jor-i-ty of the tribu-la-tion en-er-gy that was sent to her. Her qi and life force are be-ing used to re-fine as much of it as pos-si-ble, and the process is tem-per-ing her spir-it, but she re-mains in dan-ger. If she sur-vives the process-es, she may ad-vance straight to mid-Bis-muth, or even low-Dam-as-cus Qi."


    "Im-pos-si-ble." The voice that ut-tered that was Sis-ter Ai''s, though her voice had lost some of the tim-bre of ha-tred that it had. "To ad-vance half of an en-tire Phase sim-ply from a sin-gle tribu-la-tion...?"


    "I knew our Ju-nior Sis-ter wouldn''t dis-ap-point us." That voice came from Broth-er Yang, who ap-peared near to Sis-ter Ai, his clothes torn and his face and hands bruised--from a bat-tle, she guessed, with Sis-ter Ai. He glanced over at Ai with a smug grin. "If you''re not care-ful, Se-nior Sis-ter, she''ll sur-pass even you in time!"


    Sis-ter Ai clenched her fists, and Chi-an could feel the world''s qi tense as the words got to her, but she willed away the ha-tred for now. "Fine," she said, af-ter a mo-ment. "I will... grudg-ing-ly ac-cept the Ju-nior Sis-ter''s of-fer to have my... per-son-al items re-turned."


    A voice from some-where Chi-an could not see, clear-ly of El-der Gol, rung out. "Your points and pos-ses-sions will also be used to sat-is-fy the for-fei-ture owed due to your ram-page."


    "Ugh." Sis-ter Ai curled a lip in dis-gust, but not anger or fear. "What-ev-er. This non-sense is be-neath me." She turned, and in a flash, was else-where, the in-tense qi that she had been emit-ting van-ish-ing as though to noth-ing.


    And Chi-an fi-nal-ly let her-self fall to her knees and gasp for air.

 [TAS] 37. Kiel - Tribulations Part 6

    Ki''el had been in pain for a while before she was aware of even being conscious. By the time she was aware of herself, she felt like she was at the center of a swirling storm, distant from it but still being twsted by its winds.


    { You seem to be awake enough to help, now, } Kuli said, as she began to piece together the elements of her surroundings. { You need to control your qi, and understand the changing nature of your qi core. }


    My qi core? But Ki''el reached out sluggishly with her mind, thoughts intertwining with the flow, to find that they dragged out of her channels and into a solid working of qi--her qi turning cycles. But they were advanced, more advanced than she remembered. They...


    No, she had improved them during her battle, her... tribulation. Ki''el''s memories became clearer as she remembered--she had imbued her sword with the meaning of turning, and struck back against the lightning. Whether that would turn the blade into a sword, or a shield... she had to defeat that bolt to complete the tribulation.


    Now that she studied the qi turning cycles around her, it became clear that there were more than she remembered, and not by a one or two. She might have forged one, or two, at most three of the massive turning wheels--her memory wasn''t clear right now--but there were more than a half dozen, many sprouting from the thorns of one of the larger wheels, flows breaking off like flowers from a plant.


    Should I just release the energy? Let it go? But Ki''el reached her feelings out towards those more distant cycles, feeling like they were a reflection--too distant, too abstract, to be real. Or do I need to absorb all of this energy?


    { Your evolved while you were unconscious. When you reached the beginning of the next phase, you were supposed to add Genesis and Consumption aether to your qi, but you were unconscious, and it has been rioting inside of your spirit. }


    Rioting? Ki''el pressed at her qi, but couldn''t understand. I still don''t understand how to use Gen... Outwards and Inwards aether spins. How do I calm the energy down?


    { First study your core. }


    Ki''el had not studied her dantian particularly much, and when she turned inwards, her first reaction was that it was swollen, overfull--but it was also twisting, flexing, a silvery orb--no, the color of Titanium, she knew--that seemed unable to sit still. But as she reached out to touch it, she only found herself--her pain, her confusion, like she were looking at a younger sister wracked with fever. Her first instinct was to reach out, to comfort that child, and to ease her pain--and the fluctuating chaos that was her qi flooded back, away from her dantian, and into her soul.


    Ki''el screamed, though the was not aware of her body enough to notice.


    The qi that flooded her was no heavier than it had ever been, but it was... porous. When her mind reached for it, parts of the qi that had been solid were instead fine controls for tweaking, controlling, manipulating. Things that had once been safe now made her qi twist, and she could feel it inside her meridians, coiling like worms.


    But now that she was becoming aware of the rough new texture to her qi, she could better understand what Kuli was doing, keeping the flow smooth, guiding the qi in ways that were still safe, still harmless. And she shifted her mental grasp slightly, adjusting how she held it, understanding how she needed to change, and slowly, she was able to feed her qi back into her core without it going wild.


    It still hurt--it still put too much pressure on her--but when she was no longer losing control of the qi, she felt it expanding her Titanium core, making more room safely--but slowly.


    { Your system may be calm enough to continue. Your Aether Sword is in your hand, though I deactivated it. You are aware that it has additional features. It allowed you to conceal its additional controls from yourself, and you are aware that it contains your master''s aether. But there was a third feature that you were intended to make use of. }


    Ki''el couldn''t frown, but that first one didn''t strike a memory. Conceal?


    { When you normally hold the blade, you can feel its aether switches. You are aware there were more, but you do not sense them anymore. This was deliberate, so that others would not realize what you possess if it fell into their hands. }


    Ki''el... was not in a state of mind to debate whether she had known that, but it was true that she did not feel the sword was any different than it had been before her master had improved it, the night before he left--except for the strange aether that was within. Either way, it didn''t seem important. Third feature?


    { The sword contains a form of expanding space, but it is not meant for you to use as a storage ring. Instead, you can feed aether or qi to the sword, and it will store it within. To do so, you must first unlock its features once more. }


    Ki''el had to force herself to even notice the sword in her hand, even after Kuli had told her it was there. She felt like her hand had tightened into a death grip on it, which was lucky, since she needed it--or perhaps unlucky, because she could sense that the sword''s aether channels were being used to sustain one several of the turning cycles, especially the ones that seemed to be branching off, and the energy flowed through her, burning incessantly through her meridians.


    Her first attempts to reach the sword had to stop when her meridians complained, the burning agony of too much qi almost destroying her concentration. Only after three or four attempts did she find a way to reach the blade she knew was in her own hands, and then her senses were numbed by the pain, unable to operate it more than a little bit.


    But in time, she was able to express it with her will. Unlock, she tried, and when that did nothing, she tried other variations of intent. Allow. Access. Reveal. That, at last, opened up something to her, several aether nodes within that had seemed to be concealed.


    { Feed the energy into the bottom node. }


    If she were thinking more clearly, she wouldn''t have needed to be told, but she did as Kuli suggested, and the sword seemed to drink the qi within her greedily. She let it pull qi from her system until her core seemed more stable, and then began to pull energy out of the qi thorns. That was more painful than she expected; the size of the thorn, matching the size of the ring that created it, meant that the qi was suitably more intense than her smaller rings had been, and pulling even a little at a time out of them strained her.


    But she progressed, however slowly, and soon, the first of her qi cycles was dry, enough that it collapsed of its own accord, leaving her with a heavy mass of leftover purified qi without a thorn to contain it--and that burned at her, but she was able to hold it, contain it, and drain it into the sword.


    She was exhausted by the effort, but Kuli kept her focused, convinced her to continue.


    When at last she had dissolved the more normal qi cycles, leaving only the flowering one, Kuli spoke up again. { This structure is my fault. When you created the intent for [Turn] to give your sword, I amended it without explaining myself, so that qi that your turning cycle could not purify without conscious action would be held in stasis until you addressed it. It seems my intent did not have the desired result; I believe that the ''flower'' rings contain intent on aether layers you cannot understand. The lowest flowers would be the Genesis and Consumption rings, followed by Acceleration and Reverse. Anything beyond that is too much for you to understand at this time. }


    This is already too much. But Ki''el gritted her teeth, starting with the normal qi held in the turning cycle that her sword had created. She left it before it was empty, however, and tried to move on to the lowest flowers, but she felt the blade itself resisting her, challenging her. She... could barely sense it, could barely understand it, but she felt like there was an intent lock, a consequence to the way the intent had been laid on the blade.


    { You must prove to it that you understand Genesis Aether. }


    Ki''el almost passed out, and did let her mind slacken, which forced Kuli to take up maintaining things for a moment. But... she also, even after all that she had been through, also wanted to think about this. Wanted to test her understanding of aether, and to grow. She felt it almost like a thirst, a need.


    Genesis, or outward-spin aether. When she had made use of it in the tribulation, she only understood it as a gateway from her to places that she already had put her qi. And... Sobon had called aether a substance built upon connections. From the very beginning, reaching out through a connection should have been the most basic of abilities... should it not?


    But it wasn''t the lowest level of aether, was it? If aether connected all things, what as more basic than reaching the other end of that connection?


    It took time, but she found her answer when her thoughts drifted, or perhaps Kuli led them, to the meditation Sobon had led her through to first create her Aether rings. Aether was a substance with an ''inside'', like a bubble, and it could merge together with other aether to form a larger bubble. But once you had bubbles, bubbles claimed by one thing or another, what was the most basic control you had?


    Certainly, it was how the bubble treated other bubbles that they made contact with, whether they fought them or tried to join, to coexist, to strengthen one another. If that were the first layer of aether--either joining together, or tearing apart--then the next layer of aether was maintaining that alliance even when apart, behaving as a whole--or at least allies--when not holding on to one another.


    Being apart but of the same being, like the organs within a body, or like parts of a spirit that were complex and nuanced but still were only a part of something greater, and not independent wills competing for supremacy.


    Stolen story; please report.


    Somewhere in her meditations, the lock on the Genesis-tainted qi ring began to collapse, and the qi within it began to grind back to a purified form. Although she should have moved on, Ki''el felt herself dwelling on that image of Genesis aether. It reminded her... of many things perhaps, but most directly of her village life. Of people setting out to fish, or trade, or just to cut wood, or staying on opposite ends of the village because they didn''t get along with someone, but... always, to Ki''el, there had never been a question of who was, and was not, of the village.


    And she glanced only briefly at the Consumption ring, her mind going immediately to the pirate ship where she had lost Sobon, to the black hearted man and his black qi. The pirate captain had only been at Gold Qi, and could not have used qi with consumption aether... but the image was right. A terrible, cruel, and selfish thing that still owes some allegiance--to coin if nothing else--and understands ''us'' and ''them'', ''crew'' and ''other''. A poisonous ally, but a useful tool, if one was willing...


    Ki''el passed into unconsciousness at some point, jerking awake to find that Kuli had moved more purified aether into her sword, and the burning throughout her spirit was less. The Consumption-tainted qi cycle also seemed to have vanished, along with all but two others.


    { If you request it, I will remove the Acceleration and Revival locked cycles as well. However, I believe that you are close enough, and if you can obtain this energy, you will achieve what the Elders seemed to have hoped. }


    The elders? At that moment, Ki''el couldn''t fathom caring about the Sect Elders. Whatever fraction of this was their fault--and it couldn''t be a small fraction--she was not doing this to satisfy their expectations, and certainly not their will. But the idea of falling short of their expectations also irritated her. They might have allowed her to be brought here by the point of a sword, but she would not let herself be cut.


    She grit her teeth and tried to focus on her impression of Onwards-spin aether, but she understood it but poorly. She had been able to sense, when Kuli accelerated her aether, that the energy truly did feel onwards. But what did it mean? Did she have any insight, aside from the fact that it was linked to time?


    If the first layer of aether was a single bubble, fighting or joining with others all on their own, and the second a village--or a pirate crew--what was a third?


    Although the burning throughout her spirit dulled her memory and thinking, the answer still seemed to come unbidden, by her or by Kuli. A memory of Sobon speaking of his home as a place--a single city--full of more people than Ki''el would ever know. She had seen small cities, and seen glimpses of other large things, and although she didn''t understand, she could still sense. That it took another level of cooperation, beyond simple coexistence.


    It required people to have single minded dedication to a task, to spend their whole lives in learning one thing, trusting that what they did not achieve, someone else would. It took a world that could put aside hatred and mistrust, accepting their role as a small part of a larger thing. Even now, Sobon was out there somewhere, working at important things so that Ki''el could focus on her own advancement, her own achievements.


    How could a world be created where such a thing was even possible? But then... wasn''t her body the same? Could her heart survive without her skin? Her stomach without her lungs? What could possibly allow such complex life, when any one piece could not life without the others?


    Ki''el felt more than simply the lock on that one Qi cycle crumbling. She felt a resonance deep inside, and remembered the other key that Kuli had seen, understood why her augment had let these flowers remain. And she looked at the other of the pair, the Reverse aether, and understood it as a power that had to work hard to prevent things from growing, to prevent damage from spreading, that dedicated itself--its whole life--to making sure that something didn''t happen.


    She felt something tearing within her, felt her qi boiling and bucking her control once again, but the last of the qi cycles unlocked, grinding forwards, and Ki''el slipped into unconsciousness again.


    <hr>


    When Ki''el next regained consciousness, she was actually able to see with her own eyes, and the first thing she saw was the back of Da Chian, sitting in meditation next to her.


    The girl seemed to be in good health and spirits, which was a relief, even though Ki''el was so tired that she wouldn''t have thought a part of her was still worried. But... there had been no guarantees, that she and Mian and Xam and Chian would all come through the tribulation.


    And... Ki''el started to sit up, but a wave of dizziness and a fit of coughing took her, and she slammed her head back onto a soft pillow, her hand obeying her only poorly when she went to cover her face.


    "Ki''el!" Chian whirled around at the sound. "You''re awake!" There was a long pause, as Ki''el coughed again, painfully, and Chian''s face turned worried. "Let me get you some water," the girl said, rising.


    Ki''el let her go and come back, accepting the water gratefully, although she felt swollen and unwell throughout her body.


    "It seems it wasn''t a misunderstanding," came a new voice, and Ki''el looked to see someone she didn''t know, most likely a healer. He stepped up to her on the other side, one hand passing a few inches over Ki''el''s body. "Once you found a way to store your qi, most of the worst of your condition passed. The Elders were quite worried that you would not survive the after-effects."


    Ki''el tried to speak, but only ended up coughing. At last, through burning qi channels, she projected. [ Friends? ]


    "We all succeeded," Chian said. "The other two are... either working, or enjoying their time alone. I haven''t spent much time with them, since we entered the Inner Sect."


    Inner? Ki''el looked up at her, and Chian seemed to understand the question, looking embarrassed.


    "Not all of us," she said. "You and I did. Mian and Xam are in the Outer Sect." She paused. "My own tribulation... I did not succeed as well as you did. But standing up to someone like Sister Ai was worth something to the Sect. And... I suspect that now that I am... unable to conceal my Spirit Beast nature, it is better for everyone if I remain in the Inner Sect."


    Ki''el gave her a look, which the girl apparently couldn''t quite read, so she sent along, [ Unable? ]


    But the healer broke in. "Junior Sister Ki''el... if I may. Your body will recover now that your qi isn''t out of control, but you were never supposed to absorb that much qi that quickly, especially when it was out of your control. Do not attempt to absorb any more, not even purified qi, until a Healer or Elder tells you that you can, and you will need to minimize your use of it. Right now, your body and spirit are close to tearing themselves apart." He looked down at her, his face stone cold, and Ki''el met his gaze, understanding that what she felt was no lie--she really was in a truly terrible spot.


    She could only send along a minor intent-wave that she understood.


    "There will be training you can do, especially studying, but also some use of intent with minimal power, like you just did," the healer continued, "and when your body has recovered, you will need physical conditioning. But take it seriously when I say that you likely did permanent damage, and if you act before you are fully healed, you definitely will."


    { The healer''s assessment is correct, } Kuli added, within her mind.


    [ I know, ] Ki''el projected quietly, aloud, and the healer nodded. [ Medicine? ]


    "The best medicine you can have right now is rest, though there will be medicines and special foods," the healer said. "Pain is only a messenger. Your body and spirit is currently in disarray. Time is absolutely necessary for you to reach your full potential. If you are as perceptive as people say--as perceptive as you seem--then you will know when your spirit has fully settled. Everyone has an unsettled spirit after a tribulation, and once you have begun adding natures to your qi, you will need to fix the damage the tribulation does to your qi nature."


    Ki''el understood that, after having sensed that her qi had new ways for her to control it. If that trend continued... but how many more steps could there be, if she had unlocked the second tier of aether, and possibly the third? She couldn''t begin to understand that much, but if there were additional changes to how qi worked as she went up, it only stood to reason that each one would change how a person was supposed to use their qi--and that would change how they interacted with any nature they added to it.


    "You''ve been in bed for four days already," added Chian, and Ki''el looked at her, surprised. "Your purification circles began to shrink after the first day. Before that, everyone was very worried you weren''t going to make it."


    "If you had tried to absorb all that power, you would have died," the Healer said, flatly. "Wherever you stored it, and however, keep that in mind. You would also have died, or someone would have been forced to cripple you, if you couldn''t release your technique. It very nearly destroyed the meridians in your hand. Those will, without question, take the longest to heal."


    Ki''el tried to make a noise of shock, or maybe protest, but it only led her to another coughing fit. This time, the healer, waved a hand over her, and somehow, the soreness and pain eased enough for the coughing fit to abruptly end, even if she didn''t feel... better.


    "Yes, Junior Sister, I''m being quite serious," the healer continued. "You are young, and will probably recover. But what you did was too much. Do not think that you can do that again and survive it. Most people absorb an insignificant fraction of the qi from tribulation lightning--a percent or two, perhaps five--and that number is one of the things that nobles like to compete with each other about. I believe the Sect''s record was around eight and a half percent, according to the Guardian Deity who oversees these things."


    The healer met Ki''el''s eyes, and from the sternness of his glare and his voice, she understood that what he said next was not praise. "The guardian says you absorbed fifty three percent. You are already at the peak of Titanium Qi, and when your core settles, you will likely advance. Advancing without consolidating your power, without stabilizing your spirit, will likely cost you a very great deal. A number of people are afraid of you and your potential, young Ki''el, but among those who actually understand these things, that choice was a very poor one indeed. It may allow a sudden brief rise--now that you''ve survived--but the liklihood of permanent damage is high. I am far from the most experienced healer here, but..." He stood up, and stepped back. "I believe that you already have done permanent damage. I believe you will never be as strong, now, as you could have been. However high you may rise in the future, I hope that you remember that."


    When Ki''el could only sit silently, thinking about that, the Healer seemed to content himself that she had listened, and he left the two of them alone.


    When they were alone, Chian reached out and took her hand. Ki''el thought the girl''s hand was nearly freezing, at least compared to the feverish heat that beat within most of her body. "We were all worried," she said. "Through it all, it was Mian who said not to try to stop you. He said that you were strong enough to take it, that... that Kuli would save you. And I think maybe he was right, but..." There was an unsteadiness to her voice. "...but. It''s really hard to believe it when you see a friend thrashing in pain, screaming like she was dying."


    [ Sorry. ] Ki''el pressed the word towards Chian, and the other girl gave her a weak smile. [ Thank you for being with me. ]


    But Chian just laughed. "As though I could go anywhere else," she said, and there was a dark, bitter edge to it. "There are others--mostly, your fan club in the Inner Sect--who come by all the time to see if you''ve awakened. I''m... not sure, but I get the feeling like they would be mad at me if I was anywhere else but here."


    Ki''el didn''t understand that, and she thought the expression on her face said so, but Chian just smiled back. "Don''t worry about that," she said after a moment. "The point is, they know you need to not be alone. And... with your friends still in the Outer Sect, I''m the best you have. And since you helped me with my tribulation several times over..." she shrugged. "I''m happy to be here. And... I feel calmer being with you, especially now that you''re safe."


    Ki''el smiled back at her. [ I am glad you are here. Feel calmer too. ] Despite the burning and aching, she found that it was true--and she didn''t want to imagine waking up to all of this aching and not having a familiar face by her side. It had been different before, when she was attacked but healed immediately. But this...


    "We''ll have a lot to talk about," Chian said. "But you look tired. You should rest."


    That, too, Ki''el found to be true, as the darkness passed over her once again.

 [TAS] 38. Sobon - The Crestan Forge

    The workshop provided to Sobon was more of a relief than he had felt in a while. It was shielded from nearly all forms of scrying, well stocked with materials--and crucially, it even had advanced tools, some due to the Founder who now pretended to be the Diamond Lord, but also, because of the previous Founders'' influence over this world, and their nurturing of the Diamond Lord in his life.


    It was only after seeing the workshop that he had agreed to the plan, because it was far from clear that he would be able to work with any real efficiency with his heavily damaged spirit. But the workshop contained several tools, many of which the Diamond Lord had probably never had the means to properly use--processing cores meant to connect to mental augments, and multi-dimensional fabrication matrices that were not useful for those working with qi. Some of the items weren''t even powered when he discovered the workshop--they might have responded to specific forms of qi by the Diamond Lord, but they certainly were never meant to operate without dedicated aether generators.


    Sobon had asked why they were there, only to be reminded that he knew--that the Auction House had been built on top of a crashed starship. Nor was that, apparently, the only historical source of alien technology, and the Founders had made... some allowances, for the Diamond Lord to acquire parts. For all that, the workshop was far from complete--even assuming he could get everything here working, a great many tasks were only really safely achievable with specialty hardware, like creating subspace warp cores.


    Technically, the spatial manipulation he would need to do was also best done with specialty tools, but the Marines did a lot of it anyway. It was less that he was supremely confident he would succeed, and more that he was used to the danger.


    The first thing he did when he was alone was create enough aether batteries to run the fabricator without using his own spirit, and then he forced his own personal dynamos to begin charging them while he connected to a processing node, searching through the connected system for anything useful. The contents weren''t Crestan, nor Founder, nor apparently local--it must have been taken from the crashed starship, or some other source--but by some small mercy, the system''s damaged micro-assistant recognized him as, according to its poor translation, [not-barbarian], and was therefore willing to drop all but the highest security restrictions on the system.


    Sobon could relate.


    Regrettably, even with an Intent-speaking interpreter, it was difficult to find much of use. A lot of the files were no longer relevant and could be scrubbed--old security and personnel logs and the like--and processes that would never be useful could be safely stopped. The extra resources Sobon used to sketch out designs, and tasked the assistant with searching for anything similar in the files.


    While it was working, Sobon tried the same on another system, but that system''s assistant failed to activate. Although Sobon could use the processor with brute force, it wouldn''t accomplish much that he couldn''t do on the other system. He was tempted to connect the two, enhancing the power of the other assistant, but there was a good chance the core was simply too flawed to make use of, and might even contaminate the good core.


    He moved to a third, finding that the core had been completely wiped, and seemed to be clean internally, which was... interesting. Either the Diamond Lord had somehow acquired it from a real source, or the Founder, or someone else, had formatted it. It lacked any kind of assistant, but it also had no extra processes drawing power, so Sobon simply hooked up to it and used it to expand his mental canvas--and more importantly, his memory.


    When he was hooked up, he triggered a download from the mental database he''d gotten from the Ri''lef, then ran several analyses on the data. As expected, spiritual damage had rippled through parts of it, but not all. But more interestingly, the analyses showed that the Ri''lef understanding of qi he''d been given was inconsistent--at least, from a certain, aether-centric perspective. It was difficult to pin down how and why it differed from how his own people understood aether, but the analysis was clear.


    "You find something amusing?" The Founder, as was becoming the case more often than not, entered the room exactly as Sobon began to wish to speak with him. "About the workshop, perhaps?"


    "Qi is more than simply layered aether, isn''t it?" He frowned, disliking how he''d said the analysis, but instead of changing what he said, he turned to a projector--far less sophisticated than the Founder presentation apparatus he had been allowed to use, but sufficient to project several concepts into free space and organize them. "I understand that it''s held together by the... Consequence-layer aether?"


    "Saying that it is ''held together'' is a poor choice of phrase," the Founder answered, its bare grey feet silent as it crossed the floor to examine the equations, which Sobon assumed was theatrical rather than practical. "Your society embraces many of the strengths of aether, but the purity of your understanding requires forgoing others. Alas, a more nuanced discussion would take a very long time indeed."


    Of that, Sobon had no doubt. He took a breath, although it was purely for his emotional health, in this false body. "How much of my understanding is false? Are the equations--"


    "As I said, a nuanced discussion would take time." The founder''s voice didn''t have any heat to it, and if anything, seemed amused. "Your equations are not wrong, and if you have a specific need to rectify the differences, you should ask directly. I am not one of our engineers, but I do have a basic grasp of the concepts."


    Sobon shook his head, but threw together a mental picture of the Fairy Orb--the transportation vehicle he had promised. Even in concept, it was a complicated structure that spanned four spatial dimensions--plus extending into aether dimensions beyond that. "I''ve thought back to when I was using spatial expansion on my house, and I just can''t tell whether there was a small difference or not between how the equations work in theory and how they seem to work here. If there was, it would be a matter of long-term stability. For artifacts that we hope to last..."


    "Your equations are acceptable," the Founder said. "Physics isn''t modified that much by being in an aether-rich zone. If you need it, there is an aether pattern in the Fate layer which can stabilize space by reducing the effect of aether in general--without the added complexity of working within the Consequence layer of aether."


    Sobon grimaced. In order to create the Crestan Crown, Sobon had forced himself to create a sample of the highest-order aether he had ever witnessed--what his people called Hyperior Aether, and the Ri''lef called simply called ''Truth.'' This Truth aether was woven throughout qi--all qi present on the planet, created by all living things. But that level of aether was not actually accessible to the people using it; it was simply bound into the structure of qi, ensuring that those who used the power could advance through the layers of aether naturally, if they trained correctly.


    Holding the actual aether in his hand had changed Sobon, though he wasn''t sure how. It wasn''t some grand insight, but it did feel like he became connected in ways he was unclear on. But... from what he understood, qi was only built on Truth, the forward-spin of the Consequence pair. Any effect that reduced the influence of aether, in that tier... would be its reverse-spin counterpart.


    Not all reverse-spin aethers were violent or subversive, and all aethers were dangerous, but he still didn''t like the idea of working with it. He also didn''t really like the idea of working with Truth again, but... he had already committed to it.


    Sobon shook his head, clearing his mind at the same time. "I have to work, before I start doubting the plan again," he said, his mind flickering through the Fairy Orb design, listing the requirements and associated aether patterns. "It will work, though? You believe?"


    "A large part of my task here, Crestan, is to not interfere with your behavior. I suppose it would be faster to clarify why." The founder looked up and away slightly, at nothing that Sobon could sense. "All beings are bound one way or another by fate magic. The more you interact with me, the more my fate affects yours. But in this matter, you are the specialist, and any fate magic I could command would lead you astray. This is a well known phenomenon to our people." They looked back at him. "However... all beings, even Founders, perform fate magic unconsciously, unwillingly. All of the highest tiers of aether are difficult to choose not to perform. The feedback mechanisms are imprecise. We go through many years of schooling, and it is still imprecise."


    Sobon thought he understood, but before he opened his mouth to reply, another thought occurred to him. "It''s not about performing it. It''s about fighting someone else who uses fate magic on you unintentionally."


    Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.


    The founder nodded. "People on this world are able to unlock levels of fate manipulation simply by advancing. You have unlocked it by manipulating the raw aethers of fate and consequence. I must defend myself against fate manipulation by others on this planet. I will violently repulse any accidental fate magic that you cast upon me. I will not deliberately alter your fate. However, when you ask an open ended question like ''Will this work'', even when you intend for me to give a clinical analysis, you desire a prophecy, a surety."


    That made Sobon positive that he knew the answer. "And there is no surety. Right." He looked back at his equations, his diagrams, and sighed. "Still... I think we have our bases covered. The Thrones will act as seals to slow the fate aethers that your facility is putting out. The Crowns will clear the most powerful people''s minds, give them something peaceful to focus their minds on, help them detect corrupting influence, and encourage them to fight them off. The Orbs are to help pull fights away from populated places, and discourage people from sitting on their thrones for their entire lives, the way the Diamond Lord did. And the Swords..."


    "Yes... your aether swords." The Founder flicked one hand out, and a blade of aether appeared there, with a ball of Truth aether at its base--just like the one he had given Ki''el. It had been... a choice between simply destroying his Hyperior Aether dynamo, or finding a place to hide it, and giving it to her felt right. "I do not believe anyone on this world is prepared to wield this power as a weapon--but for certain, this is the most innocent form such a weapon could take."


    Sobon scoffed at the very concept of an innocent weapon. "If they ever really understand it, thousands of years from now, there will be severe consequences. But if I understand the locals, that won''t be how they view it anytime soon. Because Truth aether is what gives qi its form, and only Consequence-level aether or higher could possibly unmake qi. The first time someone understands that the Aether Sword can slay the most powerful qi warriors... no one will see past that. Especially as a power that only exists in a handful of legendary swords--they''ll see a weapon and nothing else."


    "With one exception," the Founder said, gently, the sword vanishing from their hand.


    And Sobon nodded, feeling his certainty deflating slightly. "...Except Ki''el. She already doesn''t see the sword as a weapon alone. If she understand that it''s more, she''ll change the world." He looked away. "...Do you mind filling these aether batteries for me? And maybe a few more?"


    The Founder simply willed some sort of power generator into existence in response, and Sobon looked at it, then--as he came to understand that its operation was foreign to him--glared, somewhat peevishly, at the Founder. "I was going to make a dynamo next."


    "Then do." The Founder glanced around the room. "I must say--I am not a scholar of the Child races'' technologies, but much that''s in this room interests me. The fabricator, of course, but what use is this one?" They gestured to a machine that Sobon had looked at the last time he was here.


    Sobon walked over, double checking what he thought he understood from it. "Ansible creator," he said, after a moment, and forced himself to speak with intent. "[Ansibles] are exotic matter that interacts with aether in specific ways in response to electrical or chemical stimulus. They are a common way to use non-aether technology to create aether effects. I plan on using them for the Fairy Orbs; they''re very helpful for space manipulation."


    "Really?" The Founder looked closer. "Seems broken to me."


    Sobon assumed they were seeing something that he would have had to take the machine apart to find, but he also wasn''t surprised, and said so. "Even if the core components are cracked, I have what I need to create replacement parts. You could, technically, just create ansibles out of aether, and creating a tool like this is much easier for someone that already has aether." Mentally, he checked out, going back to redesigning the Fairy Orb, but continued to speak. "What I find most fascinating about them is when a non-aether culture creates an Ansible Creator for the first time. It means they grasp the physics fundamentals that underlie aether, before they have proof that the physical laws alone don''t describe the universe. I know the Founders have files on civilizations like that--I''ve read one of the public ones--but I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when someone proves the existence of aether to their entire civilization."


    The Founder chuckled at that. "Our records aren''t that detailed," they said, "but I can imagine the sweeping changes. And more importantly, the people who resist."


    Sobon paused his designing for a long moment, thinking about that, but continued before he replied. "I suppose so," he said, glumly. "There are always people who resist change."


    "Before aether is understood, it is both fetishized and demonized," the Founder replied, and Sobon thought that they sounded interested in the topic as well. "The same can be said of many different types of power, especially military and financial power. But aether, even when it is diffuse, has effects, and it creates many myths across the world, myths that are difficult to differentiate from lies and entertainments." The Founder paused. "I don''t mean to start another conversation on ''Myth'' with you."


    "It''s fine," Sobon said, as he began to slowly design a four-dimensional physical structure on a mental canvas. "It''s not a bad thing to think about difficult philosophical questions... if you have the spare time. I admit I haven''t given your other question much as much thought, though."


    "How much power is too much?" The Founder''s mood didn''t seem to dim. "It''s fine. In the end, that''s not a question for you or I to decide. The ones who truly have too much power are the elite within my society... and beings greater than us all. And ones such as you and I have no chance of affecting them, whatever answer to the question we may find."


    Sobon could agree with that, but then, he would never have thought that questions of mythology would be at all relevant to himself, either. Or... a great number of other things, really. Instead of answering, he looked around the room, eager to find something other than difficult discussions to help him divide his attention. By the time he decided that he would begin constructing proper dynamos--real, non-attuned aether dynamos, the kind that should be powering equipment--he looked up to find the Founder gone once more.


    That was rude of me, Sobon decided, as he took the output from the Founder''s generator and hooked it up to the fabricator. Of course they could sense that I didn''t want to talk after that, but I shouldn''t have just stayed silent.


    He put a mental note up in his now more exhaustive notetaking space to apologize, but it was quickly drowned out by other things he had to do and think about.


    He ended up losing track of time long and running out of strength before he had a finished prototype for the Fairy Orb. It was, he decided, a very unpleasant part of his false body--it would continue to function without fatigue, but if he didn''t take breaks, the weaker parts of Alassi''s brain and his own mind would still begin to crumble around the edges. Becoming tired was a very human thing, and suffering the consequences without feeling them coming was alarming.


    He did take a break before collapsing, but it was difficult to resist the urge to get back to work when he didn''t feel tired. He was left with setting a timer, and relying on old cyborg patience, simply switching off his mind and forcing it to recover. At least, with functioning mental augments, he could pick up his work again at the same place he''d left it.


    The prototype for the Fairy Orb didn''t look anything like its namesake when he finished it--not depowered, and taking up most of the workshop. A crystal structure that, when fully within normal space, appeared to be strange multi-axis wheel and spoke structure, with various larger rooms at the end of each spoke. This form of it actually took power to maintain--it was necessary to finish construction, but the ''natural'' form of the structure pulled all of the spikes into extradimensional space.


    Sobon rechecked every surface for flaws several different ways before he was satisfied, and reached into the control nexus to bring the structure ''down'' to its orb form. The pure crystal sphere, somewhat larger than his body, was thick with space and time aethers, and he passed through it only as it allowed. Once he was in its center, he shifted the orb so that each of the rooms was the part expressed in the real world, the energies within the orbs letting him hover in place--or move freely within. The interior spaces were empty now--but they would someday be filled.


    Resting places. Armories. War rooms. Battle stations. The crystal interiors could store anything, and the shell could be inscribed and reinscribed without damage. The Fairy Orbs were, as the name implied, the tools of the other half of the Crestan Mixed Marines--the personal space fighters of the Fairy Marines. Sobon resisted the urge to run his fingers over the crystal again. Properly equipped, with a proper power source, Fairy Marines in orbs like this one could take out full-size star ships.


    Sobon twitched a finger, and the orb shrunk itself, passing through him, until it was a crystal sphere he could conceal entirely within his fist--and then, with a twist, it was a small, unadorned crystal ring. He took a deep breath, then left the workshop.


    When he found the nearest exterior door, to no surprise, the Diamond Lord was standing there, waiting. Sobon eyed him, but moved to stand outside, hesitating only a moment before expanding the Fairy Orb from his ring finger until it surrounded him. And then, with only a push of his will, he soared into the sky.


    A minute later, he was in orbit, looking down on the world below, feeling his guts clench. Every tool that he gave out had the potential to change the world--to ruin it, in the wrong hands. But as he passed over the world below, so high that most masters couldn''t begin to sense him--especially with his qi now so limited--he understood yet again the dangers.


    Some day, probably soon, every empire would have a shield above them, or else. He shook his head. When Crest had first reached for the stars... but this was a different world. And those powerful people who will reach this height, see the world so distant, so large... they won''t all think of protecting the small marble of existence that is their home.


    Of course, some of them would likely destroy themselves trying to master thrust vectoring and momentum, or lose themselves in the stars and never find their way home. But too many would only look down and see targets. As a military man, Sobon understood only too well.


    With a soundless sigh, he picked out the mountain where the Diamond Lord had lived, and flashed down through the skies, stopping himself barely a foot from the ground, and banishing the orb with a thought.


    The look the Diamond Lord gave him was uncompromising, and Sobon just nodded. He would find some way to seal it, but the die was cast--or it would be soon.

 [TAS] 39. Kiel - Speculation, Part 1

    A week''s worth of sol-id rest had done a lot for Ki''el, but it was still nowhere near enough. Af-ter the first day, the med-i-cine helped her to eat and drink, and speak with-out cough-ing, but try-ing to stand or move still elud-ed her. It felt un-com-fort-ably like she was wear-ing weights across her en-tire body--weights that she had the strength to move, but which stretched her flesh when she start-ed and stopped her mo-tions.


    It was good that she had Chi-an there, but her real sav-ior was Kuli, as al-ways. The aug-ment with-in her helped her to hold off pan-ic, helped her to sense the flow of en-er-gy, helped her speak more clear-ly than her voice alone al-lowed, and... helped her to un-der-stand what ex-act-ly she had done wrong.


    [ The aether that your mas-ter left with-in the Aether Sword is a lev-el far too high for you to con-trol, ] had been the pre-am-ble, but the aug-ment con-tin-ued. [ Use of aether al-ways has a con-se-quence, and when you do not un-der-stand the con-se-quence, the ef-fects ap-pear mys-te-ri-ous, con-fus-ing. I have not been told the prop-er meth-ods for us-ing that lay-er of aether, and so I can''t pass them on to you. But every lay-er of aether builds on the ones be-low, and you can be-gin to un-der-stand it by un-der-stand-ing the aether lay-ers that it con-trols. ]


    Ki''el nod-ded. Even Sobon had said that he would strug-gle to prop-er-ly use aether above the third tier--above Ac-cel-er-a-tion and Re-verse.


    [ The first lay-er of Aether is res-o-nance, of work-ing to-geth-er with or clash-ing against oth-er en-er-gies, as you felt clear-ly while fac-ing the Con-se-quence lock on your qi cy-cle. To build the sec-ond lay-er of aether, no mat-ter whether you are cre-at-ing Gen-e-sis or Con-sump-tion, you must use both Sin-is-ter and Right-eous aether. No aether is good, and none evil. Gen-e-sis could not ex-ist with-out Sin-is-ter aether, and Con-sump-tion could not ex-ist with-out Right-eous aether. ]


    How are they used?


    [ The form of aether dy-namos that Sobon cre-ates re-lies pure-ly on math, and the math-e-mat-ics will like-ly not pro-vide you with the an-swer you seek. How-ev-er... to a lim-it-ed ex-tent, Res-o-nance aether al-ways touch-es the sec-ond lay-er of aether, just as it touch-es the phys-i-cal plane be-low. Ar-rang-ing that part of res-o-nance aether that you con-trol sim-ply cre-ates a loop that pulls aether from the next lay-er down-ward, and your own essence from the phys-i-cal plane up-wards, al-low-ing them to mix. The same prin-ci-ple holds for build-ing up to each fur-ther lay-er, al-though the arrange-ments get sig-nif-i-cant-ly more com-pli-cat-ed. ]


    Ki''el didn''t un-der-stand, even when Kuli showed her a ba-sic di-a-gram that in-clud-ed three lay-ers. The arrange-ment of the dy-namos must have made sense, but it was not in-tu-itive to her at all.


    [ Func-tion-al-ly, Gen-e-sis aether is will-ing to weak-en it-self to pow-er oth-ers, and Con-sump-tion aether weak-ens oth-ers to pow-er it-self. The raw en-er-gy, with-out in-tent, pow-ers it-self by weak-en-ing it-self, and no en-er-gy is lost. ]


    That much Ki''el could un-der-stand, though it felt odd to say that she had used a "pow-er to strength-en oth-ers" to grasp the key dur-ing her tribu-la-tion.


    [ That was a mat-ter of will and con-nec-tion, not en-er-gy. Both Space aethers con-nect you to a tar-get, and Will al-lows for a great many things, for rea-sons too com-plex for a sim-ple con-ver-sa-tion. ]


    When Ki''el con-sid-ered that for a long mo-ment, her mind in-evitably came to the next ques-tion. How do Space and Time aethers con-nect?


    [ The math is sim-i-lar to the pre-vi-ous ex-am-ple, ex-cept in the de-tails. But func-tion-al-ly, Ac-cel-er-a-tion aether con-sumes the pre-sent to more rapid-ly gen-er-ate the fu-ture, and Re-vival aether con-sumes the pre-sent to sus-tain a ver-sion of the past. ]


    Ki''el shiv-ered at the idea of aether con-sum-ing the pre-sent. She un-der-stood, hav-ing ex-pe-ri-enced it, that noth-ing as ter-ri-ble as that sound-ed was hap-pen-ing, but... even with bet-ter phras-ing, the con-cept felt alarm-ing. Draw en-er-gy from the world as it is now, to bring the fu-ture or keep the past. But what ex-act-ly was lost? Was it tru-ly just en-er-gy?


    [ What is lost, and what is gained, will vary de-pend-ing on how you use it. Time-lay-er aethers re-main nat-ur-al parts of ex-is-tence, al-though they do not nat-u-ral-ly ex-ist in the pu-ri-ty that Sobon can cre-ate. ]


    She con-sid-ered that, but moved past it quick-ly. And above time is...?


    [ The lay-er above Time is known as Fate. It is some-thing peo-ple rarely con-trol, and ar-guably, some-thing that few should. ]


    Ki''el would have said the same, just from hear-ing the word, and know-ing that the names of the aether lay-ers had been bru-tal-ly hon-est so far. How do fate and time in-ter-act?


    [ Be-fore we be-gin, you must dis-tin-guish the speed of time from the con-se-quence of pass-ing time. Time aethers af-fect how quick-ly time pass-es, but even the stored mo-ment of time with-in Re-ver-sal aether is lit-tle more than knowl-edge of the past. It is not pos-si-ble to trav-el to the past, be-cause the past--the en-tire mo-ment of time that is the pre-sent mo-ment--no longer ex-ists. The nat-ur-al flow of time eras-es the pre-sent to cre-ate the fu-ture, which is what must be. ]


    Ki''el... was will-ing to be-lieve that she only un-der-stood that be-cause Kuli spoke with care-ful in-tent. Mem-o-ries, knowl-edge of the past, ex-ist-ed, but the time that once ex-ist-ed is gone.


    [ Fate aether breaks this rule. The whole past may not ex-ist, but Fate aether pre-sent in the world to-day is still an-chored in the time it was cre-at-ed. It main-tains it-self frozen in time, while also al-low-ing en-er-gy, will, and knowl-edge to pass through it like a gate-way. It is a con-duit that runs from the mo-ment it was cre-at-ed un-til the mo-ment it is de-stroyed. And fate aether is very fre-quent-ly de-stroyed; it is frag-ile, and at-tempts to ma-nip-u-late it fre-quent-ly cause it to snap, fray, or shat-ter. Al-though fate aether could be used to per-form very pow-er-ful ma-nip-u-la-tions of the fu-ture, even the great-est pow-ers have great dif-fi-cul-ty work-ing with it. ]


    That got Ki''el''s at-ten-tion. Could we find a thread of fate aether from the past and change the pre-sent?


    [ That is pos-si-ble in the-o-ry, but in re-al-i-ty, threads of fate snap un-less the past and pre-sent are co-or-di-nat-ed. Gen-er-al-ly, the two fate Aethers work by trans-fer-ring en-er-gy across time, al-though many also fo-cus on the in-for-ma-tion passed through the con-nec-tion, which is known as Prophe-cy. The aethers them-selves are sim-ple in con-cept; Sa-cred aether in-volves freely of-fer-ing pow-er that will be tak-en at an-oth-er time, and Cor-rupt aether takes en-er-gy from an-oth-er time by force, for use now. In or-der to use the links for trans-fer-ring en-er-gy, you can-not risk the link break-ing, and so these uses of the aether are rarely used for prophe-cies. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that. Could I sim-ply push the Tribu-la-tion en-er-gy for-ward in time? To when I could ab-sorb it?


    The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    [ If the en-er-gy is not un-der your con-trol when you trans-fer it via Fate aether, you will most like-ly dam-age the link. You can trans-fer en-er-gy you have pu-ri-fied, but only as much as you can han-dle cur-rent-ly. And you can-not do it in your cur-rent state. ]


    Ki''el un-der-stood, but as she thought about fate aether, she be-gan to feel a sink-ing feel-ing. Even this fate aether is not what is with-in the Aether Sword.


    [ No. Above Fate are the aethers of Con-se-quence. They trans-fer en-er-gy to and from the past, fu-ture, and past at once. Con-se-quence is the high-est lay-er of aether that the Founders, the alien race which Sobon re-ferred to as the great mas-ters of aether, are will-ing to ad-mit ex-ists to oth-er races, al-though it is be-lieved that they ac-cess oth-ers. It is a cer-tain-ty that high-er lev-els ex-ist, for be-ings that ex-ist pure-ly of aether, but we will nev-er ac-cess them. The en-er-gy in your sword ap-pears to be Truth aether, which will re-arrange the en-er-gy it can reach to cre-ate the vi-sion with-in your will. ]


    Ki''el swal-lowed. This was the en-er-gy that she had cut Kem Jee Sai in half with. An en-er-gy that she had pre-vi-ous-ly... sim-ply spo-ken con-cepts to, like the con-cept of fire. And it was the en-er-gy she had told her con-cept of the qi turn-ing cy-cle to, and ab-sorbed too much of a tribu-la-tion.


    [ I... am not pow-er-ful or well-in-formed enough to give you nu-anced ad-vice on us-ing it safe-ly, but in my ob-ser-va-tions so far, your in-tent and vi-sion must align. When you spoke Fire to it, that did not align with your in-tent. But fac-ing the tribu-la-tion, your in-tent and con-cept aligned, al-though you may have been mis-tak-en to trust it. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, but only briefly. Isn''t that how just qi is used? In-tent, vi-sion, and pow-er?


    [ Truth aether is a fun-da-men-tal com-po-nent to qi. Qi is a man-u-fac-tured en-er-gy, one cre-at-ed by great mas-ters. De-signed to make ac-cess to Truth aether, and more specif-i-cal-ly, the aether lay-ers be-low Truth more ac-ces-si-ble. To use Truth aether is in-deed like us-ing qi, but a lev-el of qi nor-mal-ly re-strict-ed to the most pow-er-ful, who have the most ex-pe-ri-ence with its nu-ances. It is qi with-out struc-ture or fil-ters. Qi al-lows one to build up to a ver-sion of Truth aether piece by piece, where you are try-ing to cre-ate a fi-nal ef-fect at once. ]


    More than any-thing, it was the rote con-fi-dence in Kuli''s men-tal voice that sapped the strength from Ki''el, mak-ing her feel like she had been toy-ing with pow-ers far be-yond her com-pre-hen-sion. I was ex-per-i-ment-ing with en-er-gy that peo-ple like the Djang Prince and Princess are not yet qual-i-fied to wield. Kuli didn''t an-swer her thoughts, let-ting her dwell on them. The con-se-quences of the pow-er I use... if I make any mis-take... are heav-ier than a tribu-la-tion. And I... can''t even sense the en-er-gy, can''t un-der-stand it. I was only giv-ing it an in-struc-tion, a word, and hop-ing that noth-ing hap-pened that was wrong.


    [ The only rea-son I would have al-lowed it is be-cause you fo-cus on care-ful in-tent and pu-ri-fied qi. The path that most take, where their qi it-self changes as they evolve... those peo-ple rarely if ever hold the full con-cept of their qi, the full in-tent, in mind. If those peo-ple at-tempt-ed to wield this form of aether, their in-tent would be in-com-plete, con-fused, but they would still have a vi-sion in their mind that res-onat-ed with it. The aether would take the in-com-plete in-tent and the vi-sion and cre-ate an un-pre-dictable ef-fect. As long as you fo-cus on hold-ing the full in-tent in mind every time you use your qi, you will be train-ing your-self to wield Truth aether ef-fec-tive-ly. ]


    Ki''el med-i-tat-ed on that thought for a long time, long enough that Chi-an broke her con-cen-tra-tion to say she was go-ing to get food, and ask what Ki''el want-ed, long enough that Chi-an broke her con-cen-tra-tion again when she re-turned. As her fox-spir-it friend helped her sit up and set a tray with fried rice, fish, and veg-eta-bles on it be-fore her, she asked what Ki''el had been think-ing about.


    "Kuli was help-ing me to un-der-stand... the pow-er that is with-in my Aether Sword," she said, with some ef-fort. "A pow-er that my mas-ter left me. One I was not ready for, but... may be some-day."


    "Some spe-cial qi na-ture? Or some pow-er-ful... aether?" The word was clear-ly still for-eign to the girl, though she only hes-i-tat-ed for a mo-ment over it.


    "Aether. An aether pow-er-ful enough..." Did she want to ad-mit that qi was cre-at-ed? By crea-tures that may, some-day, wish to de-stroy the world, crea-tures that the Di-a-mond Lord had spit-ed for some fool-ish rea-son? Did she even un-der-stand what had hap-pened, was hap-pen-ing? Did even Sobon un-der-stand it? She swal-lowed. "...pow-er-ful enough to have the same po-ten-tial as the great-est qi, if Kuli un-der-stands it cor-rect-ly." That last bit felt like a lame eva-sion, but Ki''el--though of-ten blunt and a proud-ly straight-for-ward girl, was un-used to speak-ing of great and pow-er-ful truths as though she un-der-stood them.


    "The great-est qi..." Chi-an leaned for-ward onto Ki''el''s bed, care-ful not to jos-tle the tray with her food on it. "I can''t imag-ine what that must be like. What wis-dom it must con-tain."


    Ki''el stared at the tray of food. But that''s the point, she thought. It is pow-er with-out wis-dom. If what Kuli says is true, then qi ex-ists so that we can build wis-dom through-out our lives. But... she con-sid-ered, her head cock-ing slight-ly to the side. That is only wis-dom in con-trol-ling one spe-cif-ic qi na-ture. The path I am on, if I con-tin-ue it, re-quires me to have the wis-dom to con-trol many dif-fer-ent types of qi.


    When she con-tin-ued for more than a mo-ment, Kuli in-ter-ject-ed. [ You are free to use the men-tal space I pro-vide to form sev-er-al types of qi, or fo-cus on mas-ter-ing one. I am here to as-sist you; my pres-ence should not force you down any path. ]


    But Ki''el re-ject-ed that thought, not be-cause she want-ed more pow-er, but be-cause she knew that she would end up find-ing in-ter-est-ing con-cepts that she want-ed to un-der-stand, and un-der-stand-ing them would al-low her to use them. A strange feel-ing be-gan to bub-ble up in-side of her. If I want-ed to learn and grow in that way while us-ing qi, would I even be able to? Are the peo-ple in the In-ner Sect lim-it-ed to ac-com-plish-ing only a frac-tion of the things they wish to, sim-ply be-cause of how qi works?


    "Ki''el?" Chi-an''s voice dis-tract-ed her again.


    "Think-ing," she said, and reached for her food. "Not all pow-er comes with wis-dom with-in it. Qi must be built over time, but the pow-er of aether is raw."


    "Ah. I for-get that some-times, be-cause the spir-it pow-er of my blood-line is some-thing I will con-tin-ue to un-lock over time." She looked down at her hand. "I... would like to talk to you about my tribu-la-tion, if that is okay with you?"


    Ki''el nod-ded, as she be-gan to eat, and Chi-an spoke about her duel with her an-ces-tor. About the Wheel of Sun and Sky, which had helped her to find per-spec-tive and clar-i-ty in the face of a storm wrought by some-one else. Al-though it didn''t give her any ex-tra abil-i-ty to wield the nat-ur-al qi of the Rag-ing Storm Fox blood-line, she still felt as though the ton-ic had changed her for the bet-ter, giv-en her strength to face oth-ers.


    Ki''el ate and lis-tened to her friend, think-ing that it was nice to see her in a good mood. Chi-an was cute, she thought, speak-ing an-i-mat-ed-ly about dif-fi-cult things. Al-though it was clear that the girl still wor-ried and feared, she seemed to have pushed past some of it.


    "...my sec-ond tail is grow-ing slow-ly, but I''ll be much stronger when it''s done." She reached be-hind her, touch-ing some-thing near her butt, but it wasn''t large enough to peek out be-hind her like her first tail. "I was told that the num-ber of tails a fox has is a sign of their pow-er, but I didn''t un-der-stand it be-fore. I feel like... a dif-fer-ent part of my an-ces-tor''s wis-dom is fill-ing the sec-ond one, maybe. The first one lets me touch and com-mand the types of qi that I am al-lowed to reach, but the sec-ond one... I feel like it be-gins to ex-pand what I can touch, what I can con-trol. Nor-mal-ly, it has to be very close to me. Even dur-ing the tribu-la-tion..." She looked dis-tant. "I had nev-er com-mand-ed my en-er-gy from so far away, but it felt right, nat-ur-al. I think it''s sup-posed to be like that?"


    Ki''el nod-ded, see-ing the par-al-lels to Space aether, but didn''t try to speak on them. She was still un-sure of what she knew, and what she could con-vey well to oth-ers, and she would need to think for a time be-fore she was will-ing to act on she had been told.


    "Any-way, I should eat, too." She took her own tray from the floor where she''d set it and put it on her lap, but paused. "Oh... I did see Mian. He and Xam are adapt-ing to the Out-er Sect, though they''re wor-ry-ing about you. I told him that you''ve awok-en and are re-cov-er-ing..."


    Ki''el nod-ded, and lis-tened, and ate. She still felt aw-ful, but things were get-ting bet-ter, and she still had a great deal of think-ing to do.

 [TAS] 40. Kiel - Speculation, Part 2

    It was only an-oth-er three days af-ter that when Ki''el was well enough to stand and move, and was able to leave the heal-ing house, along with Chi-an. Dur-ing that time, Chi-an did her best to keep her com-pa-ny, though in the end, Ki''el spend more of her time try-ing to grasp the fun-da-men-tals of aether, es-pe-cial-ly those of Space and Time. It was dif-fi-cult, with her not be-ing able to prac-tice; her main ref-er-ence point for Space aethers was still the pair of riv-er stones that she had not even brought along, along with a few--or now, a great many--vague words from Kuli about space aether formed con-nec-tions at a dis-tance.


    Even just sit-ting in bed, even with-out us-ing aether, Ki''el felt cer-tain that she was al-ready sens-ing the aether of oth-er things at a dis-tance--that she al-ways had. Kuli kept silent about some things, per-haps when the aug-ment felt that Ki''el would fig-ure it out on her own, but on this, Kuli was clear: space aether was an ac-tive use, far more than just a pas-sive sense of the world around her. To form a con-nec-tion to an-oth-er place, en-er-gy must be con-sumed.


    Of course, she wasn''t well enough to ex-per-i-ment when she left, ei-ther, but she still breathed bet-ter be-ing able to stand on her own two feet, if un-steadi-ly.


    "The In-ner sect has pre-pared us hous-ing," Chi-an said. "Or... a place, at least. Broth-er Du said that most times, they al-low--I be-lieve he re-al-ly meant force--In-ner Sect dis-ci-ples to cre-ate their own hous-es, but you are... not pre-pared for that." She paused. "I''m not ready for it, ei-ther. I... should prob-a-bly not be in the In-ner Sect. I ap-pre-ci-ate that they are let-ting me stay, though."


    Ki''el want-ed to re-as-sure Chi-an, but had no idea what she could say. She so far knew noth-ing of the In-ner Sect, or even the Out-er Sect, and how ei-ther of them func-tioned. "We will find a way," was all she could fi-nal-ly say.


    Chi-an was silent, for a time. "I''m less wor-ried about my-self," she said, as they wan-dered down an-oth-er path. "I think that the Sect ex-pects a great deal from you. Al-ready, when I''ve gone out, I''ve heard sev-er-al peo-ple whis-per-ing. Al-ways call-ing me the friend of a prodi-gy." She scowled, her face dark-en-ing. "Or the ser-vant of one."


    Ki''el, though she was tired and weak, did feel the ir-ri-ta-tion from Chi-an, and felt it in her-self as well. "You are no such thing."


    "No." Chi-an sighed. "But a re-la-tion-ship like that would make things sim-pler. Some peo-ple al-ready seem... im-pa-tient with me. As though I should be able to do every-thing they do, when I''ve only just sta-bi-lized my tribu-la-tion en-er-gy." She sighed. "It''s not as though I don''t think I can learn, but I would have pre-ferred to go much more slow-ly. Af-ter get-ting away from my clan... I was hop-ing to make friends in the Out-er Sect and learn things slow-ly. Maybe..." her voice dropped, slight-ly. "Maybe that was spite. I al-ready spent a lot longer in the Less-er House than I planned to."


    The Less-er House. It al-ready didn''t feel real that Ki''el didn''t have to go back to that place. Though... as she looked ahead, she saw that Chi-an had al-ready turned them down a path in the woods, one of many that had branched out ever since they had some to one of the high-er is-lands in the Sect. Ahead... was a small cot-tage, one that was fa-mil-iar to her--but, she judged, might have been the least of the build-ings in the Sect. It was cer-tain-ly not large enough to con-tain more than one room com-fort-ably, not with-out some-thing like Sobon''s spa-tial ex-pan-sion.


    "This is...?" Ki''el didn''t ex-act-ly feel un-com-fort-able with the build-ing ahead--it was more than the Less-er House, and in bet-ter shape than what was left of her vil-lage. But com-pared to the mod-est lot Sobon had in Emer-ald Val-ley, it was noth-ing.


    "It''s bet-ter than it looks," Chi-an said, but her voice was warm. "They have some stu-pid name for this style of build-ing--Wis-dom Seek-er lodge or some-thing stu-pid--but ac-cord-ing to El-der Sang, you have the right to mod-i-fy the area around it by quite a lot." She paused, and turned back, point-ing to a stone by the side of the path. "That''s one of the bound-ary mark-ers. There should be oth-ers, at the cor-ners. Once you can con-trol your qi again, we can try to fell the trees for wood, or some-thing." She frowned. "I... don''t know any-thing about wood-work, though."


    { There are many ma-te-r-i-al-con-trol aether pat-terns like the ones Sobon used to cre-ate quartz rods, } Kuli sup-plied, sens-ing Ki''el''s ea-ger-ness, { but it might be bet-ter to learn the qi meth-ods first. }


    Ki''el nod-ded. "I would like to study how we would do things like that with qi."


    "Me too." Chi-an paused. "I... guess we''re just al-lowed to do that. But, we''ll have to pay, like every-one else. Al-though El-der Sang said lit-tle, he im-plied that you still have quite a few points left, though I..."


    "What I have, you can use," Ki''el con-firmed quick-ly, be-fore the oth-er girl could hes-i-tate more than a mo-ment.


    "...thanks," Chi-an said, sound-ing em-bar-rassed. "We''ll take jobs for the sect some-time soon. I''m sure we won''t have a choice, but I''ve also been rest-less. I want to do some-thing."


    Ki''el agreed, but silent-ly. She knew that her chances of us-ing her aether or qi soon were still low, but she doubt-ed she could take any job for the Sect that was pure phys-i-cal work--not that she felt at full phys-i-cal strength yet, ei-ther.


    When they fi-nal-ly got to the cot-tage and looked in-side, Ki''el found the room ex-act-ly as she en-vi-sioned it--a bare room with-out even mat-tress or table, a dirt floor, and only a sin-gle open door-way. "No hole in the floor," she said, bit-ter-ly. "That is a step up."


    Chi-an wrin-kled her nose. "And it''s pri-vate. I was shar-ing at-tic space with sev-er-al oth-ers. Every-one there keeps sep-a-rate from the oth-ers, but some-one al-ways seemed to be look-ing, even when I slept."


    Ki''el snarled word-less-ly in re-sponse, but stepped in, pulling her mat-tress from her space ring and de-posit-ing it on the floor. The room seemed just wide enough to fit two side by side, which struck her as right, and just long enough to place a small table on the oth-er end with-out block-ing the door. "We can do this."


    "We?" Chi-an sound-ed ea-ger, but paused. "Ah... I mean, I was hop-ing, but didn''t want to guess..."


    "You are my friend, and I would be hap-py if you re-mained with me," Ki''el said, though she felt like her voice was stilt-ed, up-set. Did that much still need to be said? "You have pro-tect-ed me and re-turned my friend-ship. I place as much trust in you as I do my fam-i-ly."


    Chi-an gave her a smile in re-turn. "I hoped you''d say that. The Sect grant-ed me the small lot next to this, but... with-out a cot-tage, Wis-dom Seek-er or oth-er-wise. I could have sur-vived un-til I could pay to build some-thing, but..." She ap-peared a mat-tress from her own space ring next to Ki''el''s, and then filled the room on the oth-er end with a small table. "I pre-fer this. I would be hap-py to join your prop-er-ty to mine, if we have use for the ex-tra space."


    Ki''el nod-ded, but sagged to her mat-tress. "Do you have items to set up a pri-va-cy bar-ri-er?"


    "Yes, Be-nai was hap-py to pro-vide me with them. They ...prob-a-bly won''t stand up to any-one in the In-ner Sect if they re-al-ly want to force their way in, but Be-nai is very good at these things, and far stronger than she lets oth-ers know, so... maybe they will." She moved to the door. "I''ll go place them. You re-lax."


    Ki''el did, the bloat-ed feel-ing of her qi dis-or-der eas-ing now that she wasn''t mov-ing. But... she couldn''t re-lax, just as she hadn''t been able to so far. When at last her thoughts set-tled on a ques-tion for Kuli, it didn''t sur-prise her at all what she had been think-ing. What would I need to learn to ex-pand space the way Sobon did?


    { Sim-ply us-ing the kind of meth-ods he used isn''t dif-fi-cult, how-ev-er, de-sign-ing the ef-fect to be sta-ble and us-able re-quires sev-er-al dif-fer-ent meth-ods work-ing to-geth-er. You seem to re-call the ba-sics of his method-ol-o-gy, but the sta-bi-liz-ing method will be un-in-tu-itive with-out un-der-stand-ing the high-er math in-volved. The ''base-ment'' in your mem-o-ries can only make use of the sta-bi-lized space thanks to force planes and grav-i-ty-al-ter-ing ef-fects, which you will also not un-der-stand. }


    Ki''el sighed, hav-ing more or less ex-pect-ed a sim-i-lar an-swer. She didn''t doubt that a method like the one Sobon used would be dif-fi-cult for most peo-ple with-out his back-ground. What do I need to learn to form sand into... quartz, the way that he did?


    { Meth-ods of that type vary in their re-quire-ments. I have no doubt that Sobon used ver-sions far more com-plex than you can use, re-quir-ing ex-treme-ly pre-cise con-trol, but less-er ver-sions with lim-it-ed ef-fects can be quite sim-ple. The ma-te-r-i-al used also mat-ters; ma-te-ri-als made of one or two types of [atoms], which can be sourced eas-i-ly, still re-quire you to un-der-stand their [chem-i-cal struc-ture], while ma-te-ri-als like wood have dif-fer-ent re-quire-ments. In each case, the pur-er a source you can find, and the sim-pler the re-sult, the eas-i-er the process. }


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    Chi-an came back as she was hear-ing that an-swer, and when she con-firmed that their space was pri-vate, Ki''el re-layed what she was think-ing. Chi-an had a strange look on her face as she lis-tened.


    "...Your mas-ter could just form ma-te-ri-als with his ...not even qi, but aether? With-out be-ing a spe-cial-ist in that el-e-ment?" Chi-an with-drew a small stool from her ring and sat down next to the table. "You talk about him as be-ing very wise, but most of the peo-ple I know of who can con-trol a ma-te-r-i-al stud-ied their whole lives to do it. I guess..." she paused. "It''s not that I doubt-ed that your mas-ter re-al-ly was great, or any-thing..."


    "You have nev-er met him," Ki''el said, tired-ly. "And even if you did, you would not have seen the side of him that we did. But he grew stronger at a rate be-yond any sense, and he knew so much." She looked out the door-way, to the woods be-yond, feel-ing that the world felt dif-fer-ent with the wards set around them. Qui-eter, but also... emp-ti-er, in a way. Some-how, that empti-ness dis-turbed her, not be-cause she thought it was fake, but be-cause she like the feel of oth-ers'' qi in the back-ground. As she conidered that still-ness, she con-tin-ued speak-ing, not re-al-ly think-ing about what she said. "In truth, I don''t know how great he is, or if per-haps he is only what I have seen of him so far. Per-haps, in my mind, I have a... myth, of him."


    "Myth?"


    Ki''el looked at her friend, her thoughts catch-ing up to her words, but looked down at the floor af-ter a mo-ment. "He speaks of strange things, some-times. Of fate, and myth. He has made me re-al-ize that the world was not as I thought it was, but that is still prob-a-bly true, even with as much as I have learned. I do not know what is true and what is false. He could be the amaz-ing and wise war-rior that I be-lieve he is, or he could be... just... some-one. I do not know." Maybe I will nev-er know.


    "I don''t know why you''re sud-den-ly ques-tion-ing it, but I think he must be amaz-ing, to have taught you every-thing he has." Ki''el glanced back up at Chi-an, who was lean-ing back against the wall. "But we re-al-ly ought to talk about what we do next. You said you want to learn to make things with qi, or with aether? I can find some-one to speak on these things, but with you not be-ing able to prac-tice..."


    "It would be fine to ask Out-er Sect dis-ci-ples," Ki''el said, when Chi-an left the im-pli-ca-tion hang-ing. "And I would be hap-py to watch you prac-tice, and sense, and see if I can un-der-stand what is be-ing said and demon-strat-ed. It will be far bet-ter than wait-ing alone and think-ing."


    Chi-an nod-ded, and stood up. "Should we start right away?"


    Ki''el con-sid-ered it, then nod-ded. "I don''t have a rea-son to de-lay."


    In far short-er a time than Ki''el ex-pect-ed, Chi-an re-turned with a woman from the Out-er Sect, who bowed as Ki''el brought Chi-an''s stool out-side and sat. "Sis-ter Ki''el," she said. "Sis-ter Chi-an said that you wished to learn about ma-nip-u-lat-ing wood qi, but can-not prac-tice yet."


    Ki''el nod-ded, and the woman stepped for-ward, ea-ger-ly. "I am Sis-ter Muzi, and I have stud-ied the prop-er-ties of wood for sev-er-al years. Be-fore we be-gin talk of ma-nip-u-lat-ing it, we should speak of what it is. Wood--when processed for use, and not still liv-ing--can be fun-da-men-tal-ly un-der-stood as two main ma-te-ri-als. Part-ly, it is made of fibers, which we call [thread-wood], and part-ly, a com-plex sub-stance we call [press-wood]. Wood with-out ei-ther com-po-nent is much weak-er, and cer-tain ways of ma-nip-u-lat-ing it will break the threads or re-sult in less-er press-wood bonds..."


    Ki''el lis-tened in-tent-ly as Sis-ter Muzi spoke at length about how the fun-da-men-tals of wood, and watched as she bent a sam-ple of pre-pared wood into shape, and then the same with a fresh branch from the for-est, which oozed sap im-me-di-ate-ly when she twist-ed it. The woman talked about how the com-pounds from the wood nor-mal-ly liked to dry and set be-fore use, and said that bend-ing live-wood would not nec-es-sar-i-ly meant that it would main-tain the shape as it dried.


    Be-fore Ki''el knew it, two hours had passed, and Sis-ter Muzi bowed out to go to an-oth-er task. Al-though the woman had not specif-i-cal-ly taught her any-thing about how to ma-nip-u-late wood, Ki''el felt that she would do a much bet-ter job at mak-ing a first at-tempt, if she could, and when she said as much to Chi-an, the oth-er girl agreed.


    "Liv-ing things are com-pli-cat-ed," Chi-an said, mov-ing over to a near-by tree and press-ing her hand to it. "The fox part of me feels that--we are for-est an-i-mals--but I nev-er looked clos-er. No mat-ter how I sense, no part of life is ever quite sol-id. It''s a mix, even if it''s some-times very well blend-ed to-geth-er." She low-ered her hand and looked back at Ki''el. "I am go-ing to try a few things."


    And Chi-an did try, sev-er-al times, to bend wood with her qi, but she still had trou-ble get-ting her qi to do what she want-ed, to say noth-ing of at-tempt-ing new meth-ods. In the end, nei-ther she nor Ki''el were sat-is-fied with the ex-per-i-men-ta-tion, and Ki''el only felt more rest-less.


    So she turned in-wards, again. Kuli. What can we teach Chi-an so that she can be stronger? Con-trol her qi bet-ter?


    Ki''el''s aug-ment seemed to hes-i-tate be-fore an-swer-ing, but when Kuli did an-swer, it didn''t seem to re-veal any doubts. { Your friend''s the-o-ry of how qi works is fun-da-men-tal-ly wrong. She still un-der-stands Qi as be-ing much like spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy, al-ready con-tain-ing wis-dom that she can sim-ply ''com-mand''. To form her own qi tech-niques, she must com-mu-ni-cate her full in-tent to her qi, not mere pieces of it. }


    Ki''el nod-ded, al-ready un-der-stand-ing parts of that. When she looked at Chi-an, she found the fox girl look-ing aback at her, and Ki''el con-sid-ered how to say what she want-ed to say.


    "How well do you think you''ve learned Fire?" she even-tu-al-ly asked.


    "Fire?" Chi-an tilt-ed her head. "I was... most-ly learn-ing it to hide my na-ture, but... I guess I still un-der-stand some of what you said."


    Ki''el swal-lowed, feel-ing un-com-fort-able with dis-guis-ing her in-ten-tions, but ges-tured. "Show me. We could use a fire here, any-way."


    Chi-an sighed, and got to her feet. "I should make a fire pit, first. Let me gath-er some stones."


    Ki''el didn''t ar-gue, al-though be-tween that and gath-er-ing the wood, it took Chi-an a while be-fore she was ready to at-tempt to light the fire with her qi. Al-though she was able to light it, the girl took three at-tempts--and the re-sult was not spec-tac-u-lar.


    "I do re-call some of your in-tent," Chi-an said, "and it helps that you also put it into words. But there is too much--"


    "Try to tell me what you un-der-stand, with in-tent," Ki''el said, find-ing that her voice was cold-er than she want-ed, cold-er than she in-tend-ed.


    Chi-an looked at her, but her eyes changed af-ter a mo-ment, and she nod-ded. She set-tled back by the fire, and closed her eyes, and med-i-tat-ed. Af-ter a while she said, "[Fire] burns [wood] with [air] and heat." But even with those few words, Ki''el could tell--even with-out Kuli''s help--how sev-er-al of the con-cepts felt wrong, in-com-plete.


    "If that were the in-tent you put into your fire qi, it would do a poor job," Ki''el said, feel-ing like the sound of her voice was too au-thor-i-ta-tive, too smart. She felt like it didn''t sound much like her-self at all, but... she didn''t stop. "Qi must con-tain the whole con-cept, as much as you know. What burns is not al-ways wood, but any-thing that can burn, in-clud-ing things in the air. And there is more in the air than just the kind of air that burns, but the one kind of air is need-ed for fire. It is the com-bi-na-tion of those things and heat that makes it hap-pen." Hav-ing said all of that, Ki''el''s next words felt much more nat-ur-al, even though the use of qi to speak them aloud itched at her. "[Fire] is the [re-ac-tion] of [fuel] and [oxy-gen] with heat."


    Chi-an frowned, and tried to speak, but stopped with-out any sound com-ing out. Ki''el un-der-stood--she had felt the same when she first tried to speak with in-tent--and wait-ed un-til the girl was fi-nal-ly able to speak. "The burn-ing... of [fuel]... and [oxy-gen]. With heat."


    Ki''el nod-ded at her. "Qi is not spir-it en-er-gy. It needs the whole in-tent."


    Chi-an looked at the fire, and frowned. Af-ter a mo-ment, she gath-ered qi into a ball in her hand; Ki''el winced, wor-ried that the fire would ex-plode, when the girl re-leased it, the air swirled, and the fire went out. Chi-an frowned at it. "So it''s true, with-out oxy-gen, there is no fire. Hmm..."


    Ki''el watched the oth-er girl play with her fire qi on and off for the next few hours, oc-ca-sion-al-ly ask-ing Chi-an to speak with in-tent again. As time went on, the girl seemed less and less re-luc-tant to speak the same sort of un-der-stand-ing of Fire that Ki''el had spo-ken, as though she was grudg-ing-ly ac-cept-ing what Ki''el had al-ready spoke. Though... in truth, Ki''el be-lieved that it was sim-ply how the girl need-ed to learn, just as Ki''el of-ten need-ed to learn in her own way. It would be wrong, she was sure, to sug-gest that Chi-an was be-ing re-bel-lious, al-though from the way she act-ed, it was easy to un-der-stand how teach-ers some-times thought so.


    Her moth-er had seemed to think so, in some mem-o-ries she had, when Ki''el had been young. More of-ten, though, her moth-er had been kind and pa-tient. She sup-posed that every-one had times that test-ed their pa-tience.


    The day wound on, and Ki''el found she had to rest for much of the af-ter-noon. The next day, Chi-an again fetched Sis-ter Muzi, who went over what she had said the day be-fore, but more briefly--un-til Ki''el in-ter-rupt-ed her to try to speak what she had learned with in-tent. The rest of their ses-sion in-volved both her and Chi-an try-ing to speak in-tent that matched that of their in-struc-tor. The woman was re-lent-less in cor-rect-ing them, and only when when they were be-gin-ning to sat-is-fy her did she be-gin speak-ing on ma-nip-u-la-tion meth-ods.


    That came very close to the end of their ses-sion, though Ki''el and Chi-an ex-changed notes af-ter the woman left. Kuli helped Ki''el keep a fair-ly good im-pres-sion of the in-tent the Out-er Sect sis-ter had giv-en them, and with that, Ki''el did her best to keep Chi-an fo-cused.


    When, af-ter an-oth-er af-ter-noon nap, Ki''el came out to find that Chi-an had in-ex-pert-ly twist-ed sev-er-al branch-es into strange shapes, they both shared a grin, and Chi-an be-gan to talk about where and how her in-tent had not quite had the cor-rect ef-fect. Ki''el watched her make an-oth-er at-tempt, pri-vate-ly won-der-ing if Chi-an would be able to make ad-e-quate use of wood ma-nip-u-la-tion in-tent in an-oth-er few days, and she won-dered how Mian and Xam were do-ing in the Out-er Sect.


    She hoped that her friends were at least do-ing as well as her, or at least, were as hap-py as Ki''el was be-gin-ning to feel.

 [TAS] 41. Xam - Speculation, Part 3

    Xam moved through the ex-er-cis-es with, she knew, a stub-born lack of grace, but she was im-prov-ing. Af-ter mov-ing into the Out-er Sect, a cer-tain amount of dai-ly ex-er-cis-es were re-quired, some-thing over-seen by the hous-ing over-seer for the sec-tion she and Mian were now housed in. At the very least, un-like the Less-er House, here she and her hus-band had pri-vate space--and they had made some use of it.


    She was... not dis-sat-is-fied. Mian was an en-thu-si-as-tic lover, did his best to be at-ten-tive, and was im-prov-ing his tech-nique. Like her, he was also com-ing to be in ever bet-ter shape as the Sect de-mand-ed they should, and she saw en-cour-ag-ing im-prove-ments in his mood, not only since they were to-geth-er, but ever since his break-through. The old-er man seemed to have gained some in-sight from his Ton-ic, but the true im-prove-ment seemed to come af-ter he left be-hind the fail-ures of his past.


    Now, the two of them, and the oth-er Out-er Sect mem-bers on this is-land, were mov-ing in rough syn-chro-niza-tion through the morn-ing''s ex-er-cis-es, at a time when they would have al-ready been work-ing in the Less-er House. They were fed bet-ter, clothed bet-ter, the qi in the air was fresh-er, and Mian had re-ceived word that Ki''el had awok-en and was on her way to re-cov-ery. In short, al-most all of the strain had left them both.


    "That''s enough." When the word fi-nal-ly came, Xam re-laxed, though she no-ticed many of the oth-er stu-dents con-tin-u-ing, of-ten chang-ing their pat-tern now that they no longer had to fol-low in-struc-tions. "Xam, Mian, your forms are im-prov-ing. Mian, your foot-work is still weak. Xam, you aren''t keep-ing your back straight." The in-struc-tor, a Djang man who Xam would have a hard time pick-ing out from a crowd of oth-ers even af-ter star-ing at him every morn-ing, nev-er had much more to say than what he saw wrong in peo-ple''s forms. He went on to make point-ed jabs at a few oth-ers, but then left with-out any-thing else.


    Xam took a deep breath, but looked at Mian, who nod-ded. The two of them, af-ter briefly wash-ing off their sweat, went to the Hall for their hous-ing is-land, which was a small meet-ing house on the next is-land over. Cloudy Riv-er Hall was not the most aus-pi-cious, they had been told, but it was far from the least of the Out-er Sect halls. The dis-patch-er who over-saw the hall was tall from a Djang and well-built, but re-mark-ably with-drawn, with nar-row eyes that were of-ten closed. It was not odd to find that he had wan-dered from his of-fice, which like Sis-ter Futi''s, was filled with glyphs that con-nect-ed the dis-patch-er to oth-ers through-out the Sect, and this morn-ing, he had paced to a seem-ing-ly ran-dom sec-tion of wall and paused, as though star-ing at a spot on it, though Xam would ex-pect to find that his eyes were closed, if she checked.


    "Broth-er Meng," Mian said, to alert him, while still a ways away.


    As usu-al, the man took a mo-ment to come out of his rever-ie, but turned, his eyes open-ing briefly to con-firm who was there, be-fore he turned back to-wards his of-fice, pac-ing blind-ly. "Sis-ter Xam and Broth-er Mian. A mo-ment." Af-ter cross-ing into his of-fice, he paused, tilt-ed his head like he was lis-ten-ing, and turned to face the glyphs one at a time, as though con-vers-ing silent-ly. "The in-scrip-tion pro-ject from yes-ter-day will be-gin again in an hour, if you are in-ter-est-ed. Oth-er-wise, all I have for you are Spir-it Gem boun-ties, and the same tasks as the Less-er House has."


    Xam gri-maced. The in-scrip-tion pro-ject only asked that they pro-vide qi, and as fresh Ti-ta-ni-um Qi mem-bers, they had lit-tle enough, by the Sect''s ac-count-ing. And pro-duc-ing Spir-it Gems... al-though they had been taught the method, nei-ther she nor Mian was good at it yet. The Sect would buy even the low-est qual-i-ty gems, but for es-sen-tial-ly noth-ing.


    "I see," Mian said, sound-ing dis-ap-point-ed. "We will help with the In-scrip-tion, but..." he looked at Xam, who did her best to read his face, and nod-ded at what she thought she saw there. "We''ve been mean-ing to go see our friend. Per-haps we should do that this morn-ing, be-fore we get start-ed."


    "Sis-ter Ki''el has been moved from the Heal-ing House," Broth-er Meng re-pond-ed, voice still flat. "She and her friend have hous-ing in the In-ner Sect, Bil-low-ing Woods Is-land." He turned back, his eyes open, and his gaze lent his next words a cer-tain weight that they might not have need-ed. "The over-seer says they have ward-ed their house, so you may not be able to find them on your own. Ask at the Hall."


    They nod-ded, and de-part-ed, and af-ter ask-ing around, found their way up the chain of float-ing is-lands to one of the few In-ner Sect is-lands ac-ces-si-ble by bridge. The Bil-low-ing Woods Hall, un-like their Cloudy Riv-er Hall, had most of its work rooms sealed shut with tal-is-mans or chains, many ra-di-at-ing in-tense-ly as they passed by to find the hall''s dis-patch-er.


    In con-trast to Broth-er Meng, Sis-ter Wun was tiny. Xam was a rel-a-tive-ly short woman, but Sis-ter Wun bare-ly came up to her chin. Like most of the dis-patch-ers she had met, Sis-ter Wun had a cer-tain tired-ness to her, one that spoke of end-less hours of small in-signif-i-cant tasks, none of which tasked her, but which al-lowed her no prop-er time to rest. Wun''s eyes pro-ject-ed qi cease-less-ly, and Xam was sure that the woman saw right through them both in an in-stant.


    "You''re the friends of Sis-ter Ki''el," Wun said, be-fore they''d so much as spo-ken. "I''m Sis-ter Wun. They''ve been pay-ing peo-ple to come in-struct them the past cou-ple days, but not tak-en any work yet. Kind-ly re-mind them when you''re there." With a burst of tar-get-ed in-tent, the woman gave them di-rec-tions, then turned away, look-ing out a win-dow in a clear dis-missal.


    The path be-hind their Hall led to a nar-row and side-less bridge of sil-ver-edged wood planks, which Xam stepped fear-less-ly on. Like every Sect con-struc-tion, it seemed to shel-ter them from the winds around the Isles, and ad-just-ed only gen-tly to the rise and fall of the two is-lands rel-a-tive to one an-oth-er. Bil-low-ing Woods isle had a restive at-mos-phere and a clear walk-ing path, but aside from that, the some-times dense and some-times loose for-est seemed emp-ty.


    They were draw-ing close when Mian sighed. "It''s tak-en us long enough that the in-scrip-tion pro-ject will be re-sum-ing by the time we get there," he said. "Per-haps if we only say hel-lo..."


    Xam looked back over her shoul-der at him, con-sid-ered it for a minute, and then shook her head. "No," she said, though she didn''t im-me-di-ate-ly un-der-stand her im-pulse. "We said we''d see our friend, and we will. It''s not a lot of Points to work on the In-scrip-tion pro-ject, any-way."


    She sensed Mian nod-ding, but she was slow to con-tin-ue walk-ing. It took her a few mo-ments to un-der-stand the ir-ri-ta-tion with-in her, but not too long. In her youth, and in her time with the mil-i-tary, there had been oblig-a-tions, free-doms, and some small au-thor-i-ty. Now that she was out of the Less-er House, and the oblig-a-tions were less... she still felt like she had few-er free-doms.


    And no au-thor-i-ty yet. Or...


    When they crossed a line, Xam felt a fa-mil-iar feel, which she was sure was ei-ther Chi-an or Be-nai''s work, and then she sensed Chi-an''s spir-it en-er-gy, and Ki''el''s mix-ture of qi and aether, both ahead of her. Both also seemed im-me-di-ate-ly aware of her, and she felt some-thing stir with-in her as she sensed Ki''el''s ex-cite-ment.


    Fam-i-ly.


    "Xam!" Ki''el''s voice sound-ed weak-er than be-fore her tribu-la-tion, but the girl''s qi was still ahead of hers by a lot. It was more than quan-ti-ty, and it had been even when the girl was un-con-scious and strug-gling. She was def-i-nite-ly more than Xam was, though ex-act-ly how, it was un-clear. And... for now, Ki''el seemed in gen-uine-ly good spir-its. "Mian! Wel-come. I was wor-ried we would not get to speak soon."


    "Our time isn''t un-lim-it-ed," Xam ad-mit-ted, re-sist-ing the urge to hide her ex-pres-sion from the girl. It was in her na-ture to be a bit of a tease when she had con-trol, but even now, she didn''t feel much like she did. "But we want-ed to see you, and none of the jobs avail-able to us yet are high qual-i-ty." She fi-nal-ly stepped out of the trees, to find that Ki''el and Chi-an were both in front of their small cab-in, and... there were a va-ri-ety of twist-ed bits of wood ly-ing around, many of them crust-ed with sap and with torn and flak-ing bark. Xam glanced around, not-ing that there were sev-er-al around where Chi-an sat... and none near Ki''el.


    Ki''el nod-ded. "They haven''t forced me to work yet, though I will as soon as I can. I... don''t know what I can do for the sect, though. I still shouldn''t use my qi, not for a while yet."


    Mian seemed pained, as he looked at his sis-ter. "Can you still speak with In-tent?" he asked, and Ki''el nod-ded. "Cer-tain-ly you can of-fer lessons in Fire Qi, if your pre-vi-ous ex-per-i-ments are any-thing to go by."


    Ki''el seemed of-fend-ed, and up-set. "I... do not un-der-stand fire qi at all, though. I have no un-der-stand-ing of na-tured qi at all."


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    Chi-an gave her a look, and Ki''el turned to look back at her, the mis-un-der-stand-ing plain on her face. Xam felt like she had told the girl this be-fore. "Not all qi ef-fects are born of qi na-tures. Peo-ple of-ten learn a tech-nique first, then cre-ate a na-ture to ce-ment it, strength-en it, make it sec-ond na-ture." She stepped for-ward. "I am only be-gin-ning to think of what I have learned from the Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall Flower, but al-ready, I could claim to have a ''Crush-ing Wa-ter-fall Fist'' tech-nique." She sum-moned up the im-age she had built--in bits and pieces only, so far--of that crush-ing weight, the un-re-lent-ing mo-men-tum of the wa-ter-fall, and struck at a low tree branch. Al-though it hurt her hand to do it, the tech-nique was enough to break the small tree branch off. "It is not fin-ished. It is not ready. In bat-tle, it would not be enough. It is the be-gin-ning of some-thing, and if I wish to make wa-ter qi my ''path'', it would be one step along that path."


    Ki''el nod-ded, but didn''t seem to quite un-der-stand.


    "When peo-ple of the Sect are try-ing to learn about a qi na-ture, they are look-ing for any kind of ad-vice. As long as the ad-vice is true and help-ful, it will help them en-hance their im-age, shape their in-tent, and repli-cate the ef-fect they wish to ac-com-plish. For me, I have much I need to un-der-stand about flow, mo-men-tum, im-pact..." she trailed off. "Some of this is spe-cif-ic to wa-ter, but much of it is not. And yet, as we un-der-stand more, the im-age grows." She straight-ened. "I be-lieve that there are sev-er-al tech-niques al-ready that you could of-fer in-sight into, but fire is the one that you have al-ready proven you know. While your ad-vice won''t be help-ful to every-one, many will have an im-pres-sion of what fire is only be-cause they have seen fire, felt its warmth. Some of those who of-fer ad-vice on fire qi still only know fire by what they see and sense."


    "I see," Ki''el said, and Xam thought that per-haps this time, she did. She sighed, look-ing at the girl, and turned to look at Mian, who looked back at her, his ex-pres-sion sim-ple... but most-ly un-read-able. Aside from want-i-ng to help the girl, he didn''t seem to have any di-rec-tion.


    "I would like to say some-thing," Xam said, be-fore she could put it off more, and Mian and Ki''el looked at her, both tens-ing slight-ly from the way she said it. But... she bar-reled on, nonethe-less. "If... if we tru-ly are to be-have like a No-ble fam-i-ly, to serve your mas-ter, Ki''el, then we are go-ing to need to have a plan. Al-though many in the Great No-ble Hous-es, es-pe-cial-ly the prodi-gies, are free to choose their qi and their path... the House it-self must have a path. Right now, none of us have paths, but the be-gin-nings of the paths we have are all very dif-fer-ent." She looked over at Mian. "Your Hun-dred Hearts ton-ic. My Thou-sand Mile Wa-ter-fall." She looked at the oth-er two. "Ki''el''s pu-ri-fied qi, and aether. And Chi-an''s spir-it mag-ic, and her spir-it blood-line... if she in-tends to re-main with us." Xam closed her eyes, putting aside the ques-tion of whether she liked or trust-ed the girl yet. "If we wish to be at all se-ri-ous as a no-ble house, what-ev-er paths we put to-geth-er, we should be whole at the end of it. A path that none of us is sep-a-rate from, even as we walk our own ways."


    "That''s true," Mian mused, but from the way he said it, Xam was sure he hadn''t thought about it at all.


    "My path is flex-i-ble," Ki''el said. "I hope to learn in-scrip-tions which I can use the way Sobon does. As long as I can learn what I need to know, I will hap-py to sup-port every-one."


    The strongest one here by far, and she only thinks to sup-port oth-ers. Xam couldn''t dis-like the girl, but some part of her was still of-fend-ed by her sin-cere hu-mil-i-ty. When she didn''t re-ply, though, Chi-an spoke up.


    "The Rag-ing Storm Spir-it Fox blood-line has res-o-nance with wa-ter and air tech-niques, but a ''wa-ter-fall'' would be slight-ly stretch-ing the con-nec-tion be-tween us. At least... I don''t know that I could take your wa-ter or air qi and use it for my own as eas-i-ly, though per-haps you could use mine, as long as I al-low it." Chi-an tilt-ed her head, then looked at Ki''el. "I would still like you to con-tract with a spir-it from my fam-i-ly. I will, too, per-haps at Bis-muth or Dam-as-cus Qi. I could do it now, but..." Chi-an''s voice trailed off for a mo-ment, then re-turned. "For those with-in the fam-i-ly, bind-ing a ser-vant spir-it is a mat-ter of pres-tige. If I sum-mon one too ear-ly, some in my fam-i-ly will con-sid-er me weak."


    "I don''t care what your fam-i-ly thinks," Ki''el hissed at the girl. "You are not weak."


    Xam watched as the oth-er girl smiled back at Ki''el, her eyes flick-ing be-tween the two. They got along well, and there was some-thing there. So... she took a breath, and as she let it out, tried to dis-miss the lin-ger-ing mis-trust. If only it were that easy, of course, but it would be only the first step of many. To dis-tract her-self, she spoke up. "You don''t think your fam-i-ly will mind if you serve a mas-ter who can only take a less-er spir-it guardian?"


    "I... well." Chi-an turned to lis-ten to her, then turned away. "You might be right, but--" Then she paused, frown-ing. "There is... the ward is de-flect-ing more qi than usu-al. Not an at-tack. Some-thing out-side the Sect?"


    Xam frowned, but turned and moved back to the edge of the bar-ri-er. When she stepped through it, though, she felt some-thing--an edge to the qi of the world, dis-tant, but un-mis-tak-ably like an un-sheathed blade. It was too fa-mil-iar to Xam, re-mind-ing her of bat-tle-fields, though what it meant, and where it came from...


    "What is that?" Mian''s voice from next to her was trou-bled, but not as trou-bled as Xam felt. Af-ter a mo-ment, Ki''el and Chi-an also stepped out. "Some-one''s un-leashed qi?"


    "Killing in-tent," Xam said. "Not close. But... un-less I am mis-tak-en, that is to the east. Which would mean..."


    Mian looked at her. "The Star-beasts?"


    But be-fore she could re-spond, they could all feel it, an-oth-er dis-tant sword un-sheathed. Nei-ther was beas-t-ial; both were hu-man, and af-ter some mo-ments of stand-ing and sim-ply sens-ing the qi of the world, they felt the two auras clash.


    "I sensed some-thing like this," Ki''el said. "On the day Sobon was fight-ing. But it was brief. Three pow-er-ful en-er-gies, un-til one fled."


    "If we are sens-ing it from this far away, they are high Flame war-riors," Xam said. "But for two Flame Qi cul-ti-va-tors to clash, with-in the Em-pire... will not the Di-a-mond Lord strike one down?"


    They all stood and sim-ply sensed, but af-ter a time, they only felt more Flame Qi auras be-ing un-leashed, and the Di-a-mond Lord, at the cen-ter of the Em-pire... she could not feel a shake or trem-ble from it at all.


    "What should we do?" Mian''s voice was calm, and Xam chose to take some strength from that, rather than judge him. She took a deep breath, try-ing to find an an-swer.


    "We can do noth-ing," was all Chi-an had to say. "Ex-cept try to ad-vance. The El-ders will all say the same. If any-thing..." Some-thing to the girl''s voice made Xam turn to her, and she found the fox girl was look-ing right at her. "You''re ex-a-clty right, Sis-ter Xam. If some-thing is hap-pen-ing, we should--you all should, at least--be able to stand to-geth-er."


    But Ki''el put her arms on her friend''s shoul-ders. "Chi-an. I meant what I said. I would like you to re-main with us."


    It stung Xam, only a lit-tle, that Ki''el seemed en-tire-ly un-con-cerned with what she might have to say on the mat-ter, but then, whether Xam was the leader of the fam-i-ly on pa-per or not... Ki''el was still Sobon''s ap-pren-tice. She closed her eyes. "Let''s talk in-side the bar-ri-er," she said, and stepped back through, though now she found the calm in-side the bar-ri-er dis-qui-et-ing, rather than com-fort-able.


    They all, by un-spo-ken agree-ment, chose for ''in-side the bar-ri-er'' to mean ''by the cot-tage.'' When they had made them-selves some-what com-fort-able there, by the small fire cir-cle that had been clear-ly used once or twice, Xam spoke again. "If we are a No-ble House... then your mas-ter, Ki''el, is our fam-i-ly''s Ma-tri-arch. The one pow-er and voice that trumps all oth-ers, Sobon--Alas-si--is the one that even fam-i-ly lead-ers bow to. Since you can speak to her, and be her voice, you are sec-ond, at least when speak-ing for her." Xam found it sim-ple enough to say the words, but it was frus-trat-ing just how in-signif-i-cant those words felt, as though a pass-ing breeze could undo them. "Of the rest of us... I am the only one rec-og-nized as a no-ble scion by the Em-pire. For that rea-son, un-less your mas-ter ob-jects... I am, and must be, the head of this house-hold."


    "Are we a part of your Xoi house?" Mian''s voice didn''t sound like it car-ried any judge-ment or hos-til-i-ty. If any-thing, Xam imag-ined that he would pre-fer to be part of some-thing greater.


    "On pa-per, nec-es-sar-i-ly. If I am forced to choose be-tween the Xoi fam-i-ly Pa-tri-arch, and Alas-si..." she hes-i-tat-ed, un-der-stand-ing that--al-though there was no one there to record her words, to hold her to them--say-ing what she meant to say was a large step. "...I must choose Alas-si. Oth-er-wise, there is no mean-ing to any of this."


    "Does that mean you will change your name?" Chi-an''s voice sound-ed in-no-cent enough, but the thought burned Xam''s ears. Say-ing it isn''t do-ing it, some part of her mind ar-gued, but Xam un-der-stood. When she made that choice, she made it for good.


    "I will de-cide lat-er. Un-less the sit-u-a-tion de-mands it, do-ing so would only in-vite trou-ble." She glanced at Ki''el. "But you should speak to--to the Ma-tri-ach. See if she un-der-stands the sit-u-a-tion, and if she needs any-thing from us. If she has time... any ad-vice on our paths as a House would be ap-pre-ci-at-ed, but I sus-pect now will not be that time."


    Ki''el nod-ded. "I will have Kuli send a mes-sage."


    Xam looked around. "And... there are no oth-er ob-jec-tions? To the struc-ture of our house, as I''ve laid out?"


    Chi-an hes-i-tat-ed, and Xam knew she would. "I..." she stopped, and thought for a mo-ment, be-fore speak-ing again. "I don''t know what would hap-pen if I tried to of-fi-cial-ly join your House now. I don''t think my fam-i-ly would ac-cept such a thing. Like with chang-ing your name, try-ing to do it too soon might only in-vite trou-ble. But... I would like you to think of me as one of you." She looked up at Xam, and then at Ki''el. "For now... I would like to be con-sid-ered a sis-ter of Ki''el. Right now, even if I re-turned to my fam-i-ly, I don''t feel like... I would find what I am look-ing for there." Abrupt-ly, her hand reached out and took Ki''el''s, and squeezed it. "Per-haps I am find-ing that here, now."


    Xam care-ful-ly kept her ex-pres-sion even, al-though she al-lowed her eye-brows to raise. "As long as you take good care of your sis-ter, I have no ob-jec-tions," she said, trust-ing that the fox didn''t need to be told that she saw more than she com-ment-ed on.


    "Then I also have no ob-jec-tion to you as head of the Fam-i-ly," Chi-an said. "As long as you take care of us all, I''ll fol-low you."


    Xam nod-ded, feel-ing like she''d just made a promise that she didn''t--couldn''t--re-al-ly un-der-stand.

 [TAS] 42. Kiel - Speculation, Part 4

    [ Sobon, ] Ki''el''s mes-sage be-gan, [ all of us have ad-vanced to Ti-ta-ni-um Qi and fi-nal-ly en-tered the Sect. A friend I made here, Da Chi-an, were giv-en the dis-tinc-tion of join-ing the In-ner Sect im-me-di-ate-ly, while Mian and Xam re-main in the Out-er Sect for now. There was an in-ci-dent, which I will speak of lat-er, but all is well for now. We have be-gun speak-ing of what must hap-pen for us to come to-geth-er as a House--my-self, Mian and Xam, and also my friend Chi-an. Our plan, or our un-der-stand-ing of your plan, is for Xam to be the leader of the house, with you above her as the fam-i-ly Ma-tri-arch, or Pa-tri-arch, in what-ev-er form you are cur-rent-ly. I, when I am speak-ing as your voice, will be above her, but oth-er-wise, Xam is the leader of us. Do you have any ob-jec-tions to this? ]


    Ki''el bare-ly had time to breathe be-fore she re-ceived a re-turn, [ No. ] thought from Sobon, the in-tent read-ing as ''no ob-jec-tion'' rather than ''that is in-cor-rect.'' A hand-ful of heart-beats lat-er, it was joined by oth-er mes-sages, strung out over mo-ments. [ I am sor-ry for be-ing short, I am busy. I have put you in some dan-ger, be-cause of the sword I left you. Be care-ful who knows you have it, or who knows what it is. Some pow-er-ful peo-ple in this world will know me as [An-gel], and know that my ap-pren-tice holds an [Aether Sword]. Oth-ers will ap-pear in oth-er places, lat-er. News of this and more is spread-ing soon, but there are larg-er is-sues. You prob-a-bly feel it. Civ-il war is hap-pen-ing soon-er than I pre-dict-ed, soon-er than we hoped. Your Sect should know more. I must fo-cus for now. ]


    Ki''el blinked, tak-ing far more time to sort through the mes-sages than it had tak-en Sobon to write them. She turned to the oth-ers, hes-i-tat-ing, be-fore speak-ing. "I have sent ...the Ma-tri-arch a mes-sage. She has no ob-jec-tions. She says... that civ-il war is com-ing to the Em-pire."


    Some-how, Ki''el felt that speak-ing those words seemed al-most to re-lease an aether all its own, for all that she put none be-hind it, aether that seemed to echo in the ward-ed area around her house. The echo, though it died down quick-ly, left a lin-ger-ing feel-ing of its own, as Mian and Xam looked at each oth-er, and Chi-an looked at Ki''el. All of them were as ner-vous as Ki''el felt, and Ki''el had not told them every-thing.


    Not that she was sure she should.


    "The sect will be fine un-less it is targeted by an en-e-my," Xam said af-ter a mo-ment, her voice clear-ly dis-tressed. "As one of the Ten Great Sects... there must be some no-ble scions here. At min-i-mum, they will re-call their own be-fore any-thing hap-pens."


    "If we need to flee, we''re go-ing to need to learn how to fly," point-ed out Mian. "Most of the Dis-ci-ples learn some kind of tech-nique or oth-er, but..." He looked to Ki''el.


    "I... used Thrust Qi to re-cov-er from be-ing thrown off the is-land," Ki''el said, her voice un-cer-tain. "But it would not al-low flight. I will re-quest in-struc-tion on the flight stones--"


    "You can''t even use your qi yet," snapped Chi-an, and Ki''el looked to her, sur-prised. "My Rag-ing Storm qi could hold all of us in the air, but I can''t con-trol it well enough yet to be use-ful, or not..." she hes-i-tat-ed. "The spir-i-tu-al space where the Tribu-la-tion hap-pened am-pli-fies my abil-i-ties. I know I could do it there, but not out here."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered. "If we could cre-ate a tal-is-man for sum-mon-ing one of your fam-i-ly..."


    Chi-an gave Ki''el a mea-sured look. "I... sup-pose you could just af-ford the right ma-te-ri-als now, couldn''t you? In the end, mon-ey solves so much." She paused. "You... should also find out what you re-tain from your for-fei-ture. There may be many ma-te-ri-als there, de-pend-ing on what ...Sis-ter Ai, re-claimed. And the rest, of course."


    Ki''el looked at her, but looked away. It was... dif-fi-cult, for her thoughts not to drift back in time. "I hate to think of stolen things as mine," she said, think-ing of shat-tered homes, of graves. "But if some-one comes late to re-claim ma-te-ri-als, or any-thing that we must use now... we can find some way to com-pen-sate them."


    "Don''t be too trust-ing, Ki''el," warned Xam. "Even the El-ders of the sect are wor-ried about peo-ple claim-ing to be owed things from the for-fei-ture that were nev-er theirs. Those who have a le-git-i-mate claim have been giv-en time, and you may give them more. But af-ter a cer-tain time, that must be all." The woman--re-al-ly, she was not that much old-er, Ki''el re-al-ized--tried to be force-ful, and Ki''el was will-ing to al-low that she was right.


    But she also knew it would not come eas-i-ly.


    "For now, if we need ma-te-ri-als or points, I do not ob-ject," Ki''el said af-ter a mo-ment. "If the for-fei-ture con-tains ar-ti-facts, weapons, tools..." she shrugged. "We can al-low them to re-main with the Sect for a while longer."


    "And re-served time with an In-scrip-tion-ist," in-ter-rupt-ed Chi-an. "You re-ceived some from... from the last time," she said, giv-ing Ki''el a look that she felt was judg-men-tal, though she wasn''t sure why. "...but that was a Less-er In-scrip-tion-ist. I asked around about the grades af-ter that. I think the great-est of the tal-is-mans I''d ex-pect you could use right now... would be akin to what the Sect calls Com-mon grade. Time with an in-scrip-tion-ist of that lev-el... it might take more than an hour or two, de-pend-ing on what kind of work the ma-te-ri-als need. I don''t know."


    Ki''el imag-ined she knew some-one, or one of her In-ner Sect ac-quain-tances knew some-one, who could do the work, but she also had no rea-son to play fa-vorites. She shook her head and stood. "We should talk to El-der Gol."


    "Do you still use the Earth-en Recita-tion Hall?" Mian''s voice sound-ed a bit amused. "It''s only the less-er craft hall, af-ter all."


    Ki''el paused, and looked at Chi-an, who shrugged. "We haven''t found out, yet."


    "You should ask the head of the Hall you''re in," Xam said, sound-ing de-fin-i-tive. "She was also dis-pleased that you haven''t asked her about work yet."


    Ki''el frowned at Xam, won-der-ing if the Sect re-al-ly ex-pect-ed her to find some-thing to do be-fore she could even use her qi... but then, Chi-an had most-ly stayed by her side as well. Per-haps it was more about her? She shook her head. "We will go," she said, and start-ed walk-ing, stum-bling only slight-ly and only oc-ca-sion-al-ly.


    It was an im-prove-ment, but she still sensed all the oth-ers watch-ing her ner-vous-ly as she moved.


    Ki''el took in the in-te-ri-or of the Bil-low-ing Woods hall with some won-der. Al-though she couldn''t sense any-thing in-side the many locked rooms, she did note that the meth-ods of ward-ing and seal-ing each was dif-fer-ent, she as-sumed be-cause each was sealed by the per-son work-ing in-side, and not by some-one else on their be-half. Some of the seals, when she looked at them, seemed... strange-ly flim-sy. She was not an in-scrip-tion-ist, cer-tain-ly not yet, but when she stud-ied them, she thought that many of the door seals had im-por-tant pieces, and pow-er-ful pieces... and some-times, the im-por-tant parts were not the pow-er-ful ones, as though care-ful in-tent could shat-ter them with al-most no ef-fort.


    She had nei-ther rea-son to try, nor did she trust her in-stincts. She imag-ined she was mis-read-ing the lay-ered in-tent of the seals, or else there was some-thing she did not sense, but even if she were right, she could only imag-ine she would be caught some-how any-way. But she did won-der if she was cor-rect, did won-der if she were sens-ing things clear-ly. So she con-tin-ued to ex-am-ine the doors, paus-ing when some-thing caught her at-ten-tion, un-til she found the room where Sis-ter Wun was wait-ing.


    "Ki''el. And Chi-an." Sis-ter Wun was short-er than any of them, Ki''el not-ed, and seemed to be in a bad mood, but some-thing about the woman still seemed com-fort-ing to her. "Some-how I don''t think you''re here to find work."


    "We apol-o-gize, Sis-ter," Chi-an said, bow-ing slight-ly. "First... do you--"


    "The El-ders have learned about the sit-u-a-tion be-yond the isles. News will be spread when we are cer-tain that what we have heard is true. It would not be the first time some-one re-port-ing too soon." Sis-ter Wun''s voice was force-ful, but not sharp. "Next?"


    "We need to ask about--"


    "You will also find El-der Gol in the Hall of Heav-en-ly Recita-tion. Nei-ther of those pro-jec-tions is his true body. You will need to fly to reach that Hall, so you should still use the Earth-en Hall." She glanced at Ki''el, and be-fore the girl could speak, an-swered. "I do not read minds. I an-swer the in-tent to speak that you have, be-fore you speak. Or fin-ish speak-ing." She glanced at Xam. "Yes, it is. Yes, it is. No."


    "That sounds ex-haust-ing," Mian said.


    "What''s ex-haust-ing is wait-ing for every-one else to do what they should. Like tak-ing jobs, or get-ting out of my of-fice." Sis-ter Wun turned away, and Ki''el couldn''t help but smile as she turned away.


    "What a con-fus-ing woman," Xam said, when they had stepped away.


    "I like her," Ki''el said, and when the oth-ers gave her looks, just turned away from them, still smil-ing. The woman''s in-tent... she knew how she looked. Un-der-stood it. And if it had mat-tered, she would have done things dif-fer-ent-ly. Per-haps she was not as straight as a blade, like Ki''el like to think of her-self, but there was some-thing to her, a pow-er that she re-spect-ed.


    On their trip down to the Hall of Earth-en Recita-tion, they all saw many oth-ers, in the In-ner and Out-er sects, stand-ing around and sens-ing the still-un-veiled qi in the dis-tance. There were some who were talk-ing pub-licly, oth-ers who were talk-ing pri-vate-ly, but from what Ki''el could hear and sense, they all were con-cerned and con-fused. It struck Ki''el only about halfway there that she was tru-ly one of only a few peo-ple who would have heard any-thing yet. But then... per-haps oth-ers also had ways of re-ceiv-ing mes-sages from their fam-i-lies?


    At the Hall it-self, of course, every-thing was at it had been. The crafters who were at work couldn''t spare the time to wor-ry about any-thing else, and the peo-ple await-ing work watched over what they had re-quest-ed or paced ner-vous-ly. Those peo-ple await-ing time with the El-der did so qui-et-ly, some med-i-tat-ing, oth-ers look-ing around or star-ing out the door, but for now, they were all silent.


    For his part, El-der Gol went about his busi-ness as he al-ways had, and Ki''el re-ceived her place in line silent-ly and wait-ed pa-tient-ly with the oth-ers.


    "Do you know whether the flight stones the Sect mem-bers use are bought from the Hall?" Xam asked the ques-tion qui-et-ly to Chi-an, as they wait-ed, and Chi-an frowned.


    "I re-call ...Sis-ter Be-nai telling me that I would ''re-ceive'' one," she said.


    "In-struc-tion into the use of Flight Stones is a manda-to-ry class, and you will re-ceive a Stone when the Sect deems you ready to be-gin tak-ing it," one of the near-by dis-ci-ples an-swered, in a sim-i-lar-ly low voice. "Ex-cep-tions are made for those whose Path al-lows for flight with-out an ar-ti-fact, but oth-er-wise, you will def-i-nite-ly be ex-pect-ed to use one at some time."


    An-oth-er near-by dis-ci-ple, lean-ing against the wall, turned to-wards them as well. "I don''t blame you for be-ing ner-vous," she said. "When-ev-er there''s any dis-tur-bance in the out-side world, I can''t help think-ing of an Is-land falling, or even be-ing shak-en, and need-ing to catch my-self be-fore I fall. If you have such thoughts, there are ar-ti-facts cheap-ly bought, though in truth, the Sect is quite safe."


    Ki''el nod-ded. Of course, many peo-ple would be ner-vous. "Thank you."


    But the woman pulled out a stone from her pock-et with-out seem-ing to re-al-ly rec-og-nize the thanks, and sim-ply stared at it. Ki''el won-dered if she would speak again... but nei-ther she, nor the Sect Broth-er who had an-swered first, seemed to find a way to stretch the con-ver-sa-tion, or per-haps, not the will.


    In time, Ki''el got her turn be-fore the El-der, and al-lowed Chi-an to pre-sent him with the re-quired items for the tal-is-man. El-der Gol need-ed lit-tle con-sid-er-a-tion over it. [ The only ma-te-r-i-al not al-ready avail-able to you would be the Gold-en Crux Wisp Ore. The Sect pos-sesses enough, but it is cur-rent-ly re-served by oth-ers. Gen-er-al-ly, it is a ma-te-r-i-al that must be pur-chased in a near-by city, and it may not be im-me-di-ate-ly avail-able. ]


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    "Rats," Chi-an said, qui-et-ly.


    But Ki''el frowned. "Can you tell us who has the reser-va-tions?"


    "I will not," El-der Gol said, stern-ly, though his ex-pres-sion was only dark for a mo-ment. "The reser-va-tions are with-in the In-ner Sect. With your re-sources, you should be able to find some-one will-ing to trade the nec-es-sary amount."


    Ki''el frowned. [ Ig-nor-ing ar-ti-facts and per-son-al items... what re-sources and reser-va-tions re-main from my for-fei-ture? And my points? ]


    El-der Gol sent her the list with in-tent, and Ki''el frowned, lean-ing en-tire-ly on Kuli to catch and fil-ter the in-for-ma-tion. It was... a sig-nif-i-cant list, and she had well over 100,000 Points. She bowed, and un-der-stand-ing the El-der''s time was pre-cious, left it at that.


    But as she walked away, she was men-tal-ly go-ing through it. As be-fore, the El-der gave her no in-di-ca-tion of what was ac-tu-al-ly pre-cious, and what was sim-ply giv-en an ex-trav-a-gant name. But she was sure that she could find some-thing worth trad-ing to some-one... per-haps.


    "Who do we ask?" Mian''s words brought her out of her thoughts. "Aside from Broth-er Du, there are the Se-nior Broth-ers and Sis-ter who caught us be-fore..."


    "I know a few oth-ers," Ki''el said, but turned to Xam. "Do you two need to do work for the Sect? I would not wish to get you in trou-ble."


    Xam huffed. "Sure-ly if we were help-ing an In-ner Sect dis-ci-ple to re-solve an is-sue, we would be com-pen-sat-ed? Or does it not count as a job sim-ply be-cause we know each oth-er?"


    Ki''el paused, only re-al-iz-ing what her sis-ter meant af-ter think-ing about it for a mo-ment. "Ah," she said. "I sup-pose I un-der-stand. And... I do ap-pre-ci-ate your pres-ence, but..." she left the word hang-ing for a mo-ment.


    "...but we''re not re-al-ly help-ing," Mian fin-ished for her, and looked to Xam. "We should look into in-struc-tion. Maybe find out more about the Fly-ing Stones?"


    Xam made a face, but nod-ded. "You''re right. Though..." she glanced at Ki''el. "Now, or in the fu-ture, if you could trans-fer some of your points..."


    "Oh." Ki''el hadn''t con-sid-ered it, and looked back at the Hall be-hind them. An-oth-er line had formed for the El-der, and she didn''t wish to wait.


    "You might not have been told yet," Xam said, drag-ging Ki''el''s at-ten-tion back. "Once we en-ter the Sect, we can pay peo-ple us-ing their Sect To-kens. Usu-al-ly, for fair-ness, the Sect is-sues spe-cif-ic pay-only to-kens for jobs, but..." she with-drew a to-ken, one that was dif-fer-ent from the ones they had been giv-en for the Less-er House. "It is not dif-fi-cult to trans-fer points to an-oth-er."


    Ki''el glanced at Chi-an, who shrugged. "I have my own To-ken, but they didn''t give me a new one for you. I sup-pose Sis-ter Wun will have it, or one of the El-ders."


    Af-ter a few mo-ments'' hes-i-ta-tion, Ki''el reached out to Xam''s to-ken, and pushed in-tent at it. [ I will trans-fer 5000 Points. ] She felt a re-turn pulse con-firm-ing the trans-ac-tion af-ter a mo-ment. "I do not know what the ap-pro-pri-ate amount is, or what we may need the points for in the fu-ture, but..."


    "We''ll come to you if we need to use more than a few," Xam said, putting her to-ken away and mak-ing a con-cil-ia-to-ry ges-ture. "Even with me lead-ing the House... they are points that you had to fight to win. I know that you will use what you have to help us all, when and how you can."


    Ki''el nod-ded, feel-ing re-lieved with-out know-ing why. Or... no, it wasn''t even that long ago that she was ir-ri-tat-ed by every-one else spend-ing ''her'' Points with-out ask-ing, and it calmed her to know that Xam did not take such a high-hand-ed view. Every-thing that had been cho-sen had been cor-rect, but... Ki''el did not feel like she need-ed to be cut out of these mat-ters, es-pe-cial-ly when the points had been giv-en to her in the first place.


    They split af-ter that, but find-ing some-one in the In-ner Sect that she knew took longer than she ex-pect-ed. In the end, she found Broth-er Yang prac-tic-ing with a gold-en, drag-on-etched spear against a Sect Sis-ter that Ki''el thought had been with him be-fore, a red-head who fought with her bare hands. Ki''el shiv-ered, though, at the heav-i-ness of the woman''s move-ments, both in her mus-cu-lar body and her qi.


    "Ah!" Broth-er Yang smiled and waved when he no-ticed her. "Sis-ter Ki''el!" When his spar-ring com-pan-ion turned to look, he play-ful-ly swat-ted at her with the butt of his spear, but she blocked it. Both pre-tend-ed not to no-tice. "You have a look, Sis-ter. Do you need some-thing?"


    "I am look-ing for a par-tic-u-lar ma-te-r-i-al, Gold-en Crux Wisp Ore. The sect says all its sup-ply is re-served."


    "Ah." Broth-er Yang''s look de-flat-ed. "I... am one of those who has re-served some of the ma-te-r-i-al, but re-gret-tably, I can-not trade for it, Sis-ter." He tapped the spear-head, which was forged into the shape of a drag-on''s head. "The ar-ray with-in my spear needs to be main-tained and im-proved, and that ore is crit-i-cal to my needs." He paused, con-sid-er-ing. "I be-lieve I may know an-oth-er Sis-ter who has re-served it, and may be more eas-i-ly swayed..."


    Ki''el and Chi-an spent the next few hours bounc-ing around the In-ner Sect, try-ing to find first one Sect Sis-ter, then an-oth-er Sect Broth-er, and then a third, all of whom ei-ther did not have a reser-va-tion or were un-will-ing to con-sid-er trad-ing it. When at last they found some-one will-ing to con-sid-er it, Ki''el found her-self quite sur-prised.


    "I would be will-ing," said the girl, and Ki''el was cer-tain that the oth-er Sect Sis-ter was no old-er than she was--no, per-haps younger. It seemed not to be a case where some-one had sim-ply cho-sen to look young, ei-ther; she had a certain at-mos-phere to her, and the ser-vant who fol-lowed her around looked har-ried. "If you can trade me ei-ther Val-hal-lan Mithril, or suf-fi-cient-ly pure choco-late."


    Ki''el was cer-tain, for a mo-ment, that she had mis-heard. "Choco-late?"


    "Please, mis-tress," the ser-vant begged, but the girl didn''t lis-ten.


    "It has to be ex-ceed-ing-ly pure," the girl said, cross-ing her arms over her chest, clos-ing her eyes, and stick-ing her nose in the air, which didn''t help her avoid her ser-vant''s gaze at all. "Most of the choco-late avail-able in the Sect is the in-fe-ri-or hu-man-farmed cacao. There is a species of Ni-hatl Spi-der-folk who pre-pare cacao for ex-port us-ing an-cient meth-ods, and when prop-er-ly shipped, it re-tains an-ces-tral cacao spir-it en-er-gy. There are sev-er-al cooks in this Sect who are ca-pa-ble of cook-ing with the choco-late, but only one who won''t ruin the fla-vor." The girl paused, then gave Ki''el a weird-ly per-verse look and grin, one that Ki''el felt un-com-fort-able see-ing on one younger than her. "He''s also su-per cute."


    "Mis-tress..."


    Ki''el con-sult-ed with her list, and while she didn''t see any-thing like ...cacao, or choco-late, or what-ev-er, she did have a fair amount of the met-al. "I can trade the Mithril."


    "Great!" In-stant-ly, and with flash-es of qi that were al-most blind-ing to Ki''el, the girl lift-ed her-self up on piles of rock that shot up out of the ground, and leaped off of them over Ki''el''s head, the rock scat-ter-ing into cubes the mo-ment her feet left them. Ki''el, sur-prised, turned, but the girl was al-ready run-ning along, look-ing back over her shoul-der. "Come on, come on! Let''s go to the Heav-en-ly Hall and trade al-ready!"


    Ki''el glanced only briefly at Chi-an be-fore the two of them chased af-ter the girl and her at-ten-dant.


    "How pow-er-ful is she?" mused Chi-an to her, qui-et-ly, as they hur-ried along, not quite run-ning to keep up with the girl, who was tak-ing oc-ca-sion-al breaks to look at things or talk to peo-ple.


    "Stronger than us," was all Ki''el could say, though she had to imag-ine that the girl had a form of Stone na-ture to her qi, one which am-pli-fied her abil-i-ties. Even so... the ease with which she used it, and the ef-fort-less con-trol...


    "A real prodi-gy, then," Chi-an said. "It''s just... strange, to see in some-one so young."


    Do the old-er peo-ple with low-er cul-ti-va-tion look at me and see a girl like this? The ques-tion seemed sil-ly to Ki''el, since her per-son-al-i-ty was noth-ing like the girl''s, but much of her re-ac-tion was sim-ply from the girl''s age. If Ki''el had been as pow-er-ful as this girl was, be-fore the vil-lage was de-stroyed...


    For a mo-ment, she felt very strange, al-most to the point where she had to stop, but she con-tin-ued, dogged-ly. For that mo-ment, she could en-vi-sion her vil-lage still whole, the peo-ple in it hap-py and healthy, fish-ing and liv-ing life in-no-cent-ly. She could en-vi-sion some-one--her-self, an-oth-er, it didn''t mat-ter--sim-ply oblit-er-at-ing the damned pi-rate ship that had ru-ined every-thing. Be-cause of a lit-tle strength, a lit-tle knowl-edge... and if she had the abil-i-ty to make use of it...


    Every-thing could have been dif-fer-ent.


    But the im-age didn''t last, and it couldn''t. There was no turn-ing back time, and there were greater dan-gers in the world than a pi-rate with Gold Qi. But more than that... things would have been dif-fer-ent, wouldn''t they? If she could con-trol stone... would the vil-lage still have been what it was, with the of-ten hand-made wood and stone huts? The thatched roof? There had been some-thing vi-tal in that vil-lage, or she re-mem-bered it as such. And when she en-vi-sioned that prodi-gy-her im-prov-ing it af-ter sav-ing every-one...


    It felt less vi-tal. It only felt like her imag-i-na-tion, and noth-ing else. Per-haps that was the lim-it of her try-ing to imag-ine, to spec-u-late. But she won-dered if there was sim-ply some-thing about the sim-ple life that this life, of qi tech-niques and ad-vanced aethers, was some-how dis-tant from. She... didn''t know, and put it out of mind af-ter a few mo-ments, but the feel-ing lin-gered.


    When they got near to the is-land where the Heav-en-ly Hall resided, Ki''el re-called that it would have no bridge, and she looked at Chi-an. "Can you get us up there?"


    Chi-an hes-i-tat-ed, but the girl''s ser-vant turned and glanced at them. "If you need a lift--"


    "No, I can do it," Chi-an said, firm-ing her re-solve. "But... you''ll have to hold on to me, Ki''el."


    Ki''el did, when they got to the edge, and as she gripped her friend tight-ly, she could feel the swirl of aether, qi, and some-thing else--spir-it en-er-gy, she knew--around Chi-an, and es-pe-cial-ly, around her tail. Ki''el al-most want-ed to touch the girl''s tail, to feel the en-er-gy flow-ing through it, but re-sist-ed, know-ing--or, well, not know-ing. But the dogs she had known in the vil-lage, even be-fore they were bro-ken by the death, had not liked hav-ing their tails played with, and she was also loathe to touch any part of a per-son with-out per-mis-sion. The two to-geth-er sug-gest-ed it would be more in-ap-pro-pri-ate than most things.


    When Chi-an at last sum-moned enough Storm Qi to lift them off the ground, un-steadi-ly at first, Ki''el had to re-sist the in-stinct to chan-nel qi with the Thrust in-tent, to sim-ply move them the dis-tance. But she had nev-er ex-per-i-ment-ed with it prop-er-ly, and her chan-nels were still burned out. All she could do, un-less it were ur-gent, was trust Chi-an.


    But Chi-an stead-ied her use of qi, and then with a strong push, the two of them crossed the dis-tance to the oth-er is-land. Her con-trol left some-thing to be de-sired, and Ki''el was close enough to hear the girl''s heart pound-ing, but she held on and closed her eyes, let-ting her anx-i-ety flow away. When she opened her eyes again, it was be-cause they were stand-ing on sol-id ground, and she stepped away from Chi-an, nod-ding at her. "Thank you."


    Chi-an looked em-bar-rassed, but smiled at her. "I still need prac-tice, but that went well."


    "It did." Ki''el re-turned the smile, and then the two turned to-wards the hall, where the girl was al-ready scam-per-ing in-side. "We should go."


    The Heav-en-ly Hall was some-thing more than sim-ply a mir-ror of the Earth-en Hall. Not only was the build-ing built of fin-er ma-te-ri-als, but there were nu-mer-ous and high qual-i-ty ar-rays across and around it, and the many craft rooms all had some-thing that the Earth-en Hall''s craft rooms had not--walls and doors, block-ing out dis-trac-tions and hid-ing the crafts-men''s se-crets. Ki''el looked around at the many closed doors, won-der-ing just what was go-ing on in each, what tools were in them... but no. She looked back to where the girl''s at-ten-dant now stood wait-ing, even as the girl her-self had scam-pered off, putting her ear to closed doors and glanc-ing and sniff-ing around the open ones.


    The line was longer here, but some-how moved more swift-ly, and soon enough, Ki''el made the trade, and the El-der Gol who was here--who in-deed, looked no dif-fer-ent from the El-der Gol that she had seen in the Earth-en Hall, and who she could not find any ev-i-dence was not real--promised that all of the re-quired items would be avail-able.


    [ Can you rec-om-mend an In-scrip-tion-ist for this task? ] Ki''el fo-cused that in-tent on the El-der, whose gaze in re-turn was quite even.


    [ I can per-form that ser-vice, but we ask that you ask the head of your Hall. They have the tools to know who has the time and skills. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, but nod-ded, and they set off. Sis-ter Wun arranged every-thing for them, and said that she ex-pect-ed the job to com-mence to-mor-row morn-ing.


    As Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed to ask about her own Sect to-ken, the woman frowned, then glanced around the room. "I will put in a re-quest for your up-grad-ed To-ken," she said af-ter a mo-ment. "The is-sue was de-layed while you were in the Heal-ing House, when it was un-clear whether you would be-come an Out-er, In-ner, or Core dis-ci-ple. It was de-cid-ed, but nev-er quite fi-nal-ized. I will have it for you to-mor-row."


    Ki''el frowned. "Am I not con-sid-ered part of the In-ner Sect?"


    "If you were not, you could not have trans-ferred the funds to your sis-ter," Sis-ter Wun said, and Ki''el felt a cer-tain dis-com-fort at the fact that the woman knew that much. Or... per-haps, dis-com-fort at know-ing that there was still so much go-ing wrong in the Sect, if the heads of each House could know so much about what was go-ing on? "There are sim-ply cer-tain mat-ters that take time. Please be-lieve that I, more than most, am ir-ri-tat-ed by this. You only need to come back to-mor-row. I will make the arrange-ments."


    So they did, Ki''el and Chi-an step-ping out-side as late af-ter-noon turned to-wards dusk. "I''m glad it''s worked out," Chi-an said, look-ing at the sun peek-ing through a near-by is-land''s trees. Ki''el fol-lowed her gaze, watch-ing the light flick-er as the small gaps in the branch-es shift-ed. She took a deep breath, think-ing of the many times she had tak-en the morn-ing breath with oth-ers, though... she hadn''t quite done it so con-sis-tent-ly as she did at first. She looked at Chi-an, see-ing the girl stare un-wa-ver-ing-ly at the light, and felt some-thing stir with-in her.


    I just want this peace-ful life to con-tin-ue, a part of her in-sist-ed, and Ki''el dwelled on that feel-ing, but ul-ti-mate-ly, let it go. She would not be stay-ing in this sect for-ev-er, and... she would not wish to. There was more be-yond, and more good days, she hoped, would fol-low. Days with her friends, and... per-haps days with new friends.


    "What are you think-ing?" Chi-an''s voice in-ter-rupt-ed her, and Ki''el re-al-ized that Chi-an was look-ing at her, and she looked away, her thoughts scat-ter-ing in em-bar-rass-ment.


    "I..." it took her a mo-ment to trace her think-ing. "I was think-ing that, af-ter a long time, I can be-lieve that I will have friends in the fu-ture. And it is a good feel-ing." She took a ner-vous breath, and tried to ex-hale the anx-i-ety. It didn''t quite work. "I hope that it is true. That things will work, and that we will be fine. That we will make more friends, and have more suc-cess."


    She left the rest un-said, and was sur-prised when Chi-an did not. "But you''re afraid," the girl said, the words lead-ing some-where, but she didn''t con-tin-ue.


    "I am," Ki''el said, but she also didn''t con-tin-ue, and Chi-an did not press her fur-ther.


    The two watched the set-ting sun a lit-tle while longer, then went to get food.

 [TAS] 43. Kiel - Speculation, Part 5

    It took sur-pris-ing-ly long for the El-ders to fi-nal-ly speak on the mat-ter.


    The next morn-ing, Ki''el re-ceived her In-ner Sect to-ken, and not long af-ter-wards, she and Chi-an went back to the Hall of Heav-en-ly Recita-tion to meet with an in-scrip-tion-ist. The crafts-man was sur-pris-ing-ly an-drog-y-nous, and their spir-it seemed mut-ed, dull, which was un-usu-al for what Ki''el had seen of the In-ner Sect so far. But when she met their eyes, there was an in-ten-si-ty there, shin-ing up from deep be-neath oth-er things.


    Ki''el was sur-prised to find that the ''in-scrip-tion-ist'' also need-ed to do met-al-work-ing, lay-er-ing the Gold-en Crux Wisp Ore onto a base they forged out of Danc-ing Sun Cupric Steel, only af-ter al-loy-ing por-tions of each with oth-er ma-te-ri-als, some of which Ki''el would not have ex-pect-ed to sur-vive a cru-cible of molten met-al. She had half ex-pect-ed that the non-struc-tur-al ma-te-ri-als would have had their essence ex-tract-ed some-how, but each seemed to be ac-tu-al-ly com-bined into the met-als, some-how--with the por-tions of met-al af-fect-ed by each kept sep-a-rate from one an-oth-er, at least un-til one had cooled and been shaped, and the next was be-ing ap-plied.


    Ki''el was con-cerned, but not en-tire-ly sur-prised, when the crafts-man asked Chi-an for blood to com-plete one part of the tal-is-man, and both of them watched care-ful-ly, but no amount of blood was wast-ed or stolen away. The met-al into which Chi-an''s blood was in-fused be-came only a small piece, con-cealed deep with-in what would end up be-ing a most-ly sol-id tal-is-man, with lay-ers of met-al placed di-rect-ly on top of one an-oth-er with no room to spare. Many of the in-ner lay-ers were also etched with script, only to then have molten met-al poured over-top the etch-ing, and Ki''el had no idea whether or how the etch-ings were kept dis-tinct from the met-al atop them.


    In all, it hum-bled Ki''el, who had thought that her mas-ter''s un-der-stand-ing of aether script was the pin-na-cle of crafts-man-ship. As she stud-ied the in-scrip-tion-ist care-ful-ly lay-er-ing in-tent through the de-cep-tive-ly thin met-al tal-is-man, com-bin-ing the prop-er-ties of ma-te-ri-als, script, and lay-ered in-tent with no flaws that she could de-tect, she un-der-stood that script-ed items were an art-form far be-yond what she had so far un-der-stood.


    She felt, though, as the process was wrap-ping up, that the ex-pe-ri-ence firmed her re-solve to study script and in-scrip-tion, rather than weak-en-ing it. She al-ready knew that Sobon''s scripts had in-cred-i-ble abil-i-ties--the blade, the base-ment, the fly-ing frame that he had cre-at-ed to save her, heal-ing scripts, weapons--and she was sure that they rep-re-sent-ed only a frac-tion of his knowl-edge.


    If Ki''el could ex-plore all the knowl-edge of the world--even sim-ply the knowl-edge avail-able in this sect--she could forge things that would do what she wished. If she need-ed a sword, she would have a sword; if she need-ed a room, she would have a room. If she need-ed to heal, she would; if she need-ed to kill, she would.


    By the time the tal-is-man was fin-ished, more than two hours had gone by, the time eat-en up most-ly by de-tail work, as the in-scrip-tion-ist was jus-ti-fi-ably care-ful not to make any mis-take with the ex-treme-ly fine done to the in-ter-nal and ex-ter-nal lay-ers. The last of the scripts to be done was on the out-side, on the rear face that had so far been left plain, and as far as Ki''el could tell, that script was left in-com-plete when they turned and pre-sent-ed it to Chi-an for in-spec-tion.


    The oth-er girl looked it over, as though a vi-su-al in-spec-tion of the out-side would have of-fered any in-sight that watch-ing it be con-struct-ed had not, be-fore nod-ding. "Thank you."


    "That was the job," the in-scrip-tion-ist said, mild-ly, and again Ki''el was un-able to tell for sure their gen-der, though her guess was more fe-male than male. In the end, she mere-ly thanked them as well and let them go, watch-ing them move away with a grace-ful walk that still, to Ki''el''s look, seemed some-how ex-haust-ed.


    "It it not in-com-plete?" Ki''el asked, when the in-scrip-tion-ist had walked away. "That script on the back--"


    "Is filled in when you make a con-tract," Chi-an an-swered, turn-ing and of-fer-ing the tal-is-man to her. "The en-tire form of it will shift slight-ly when that hap-pens. For all the work that our Sect Broth-er did, an-ces-tral qi will over-write many of the scripts he laid in it."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered the tal-is-man in her hands, the met-al al-ready cool in her hands, de-spite be-ing con-stant-ly held by the crafter ever since it was forged. Even-tu-al-ly, she looked at Chi-an. "And you think--"


    "If you want to be able to im-press a mem-ber of the fam-i-ly, you will need a fair amount of qi," she said. "I don''t quite know how the tal-is-man ver-sion is sup-posed to work--but I was told that us-ing high-er qual-i-ty qi is nec-es-sary to even at-tract a greater spir-it, much less bind them to serve."


    Ki''el gri-maced. "Bind-ing..."


    Chi-an didn''t look at or away from her, but sim-ply kept star-ing ahead for sev-er-al sec-onds, but nod-ded. "You are kind, Ki''el, and they will have the op-tion to refuse. But spir-its are also taught to de-fend them-selves, taught that the world at large is hos-tile, and that they must choose a place and re-main there, be-cause it will be safer than be-ing un-bound. Be-ing cho-sen is a sign of adult-hood, and they seek it, as long as they are giv-en good terms."


    Ki''el looked at Chi-an. "Terms?"


    But the girl be-gan walk-ing with-out an-swer-ing, and Ki''el let her lead, con-sid-er-ing as she went that there would nat-u-ral-ly be terms, if the spir-it has a right to refuse. What that in-volved--safe-ty, qi, knowl-edge, pow-er, food... she was un-sure--she would doubt-less find out. But for now, she was once again wait-ing to be able to use her qi...


    "We should stop by the Heal-ing House," she said, be-fore they got too far, and Chi-an nod-ded, choos-ing an-oth-er path only when it branched a while lat-er. When they ar-rived, a Se-nior Broth-er--it was Broth-er Yong this time, who had treat-ed her the first time she came to the House--was stand-ing at the door-way, for now idle, and his eyes locked on to her as she moved clos-er, study-ing her be-fore she got close.


    "Your merid-i-ans are heal-ing well," he said as they drew clos-er. "Is there a fur-ther prob-lem, or are you just check-ing in?"


    "Only check-ing," Ki''el said, and the broth-er nod-ded, let-ting them in. They stepped into a side room and Ki''el let the heal-er study her body briefly, his hands usu-al-ly not touch-ing her body, ex-cept in a few places along her arm and neck and near her core, places where even Ki''el could feel her en-er-gy flow was still ab-nor-mal.


    "Be-cause your qi is pure, you could use a [small amount] with-out do-ing dam-age," Broth-er Yong pro-claimed af-ter a few mo-ments, phras-ing his in-tent so that Ki''el un-der-stood what he be-lieved safe. "If you feel rest-less, I would en-cour-age you to [very slow-ly] emp-ty your en-tire core and then [very slow-ly] re-fill it. Main-tain-ing an ef-fect with [min-i-mal draw] is ac-cept-able, but it will lim-it the amount you can use for oth-er things, and slow your heal-ing."


    Ki''el held those in-tents in mind, let-ting Kuli file them away, and nod-ded. "How soon do you ex-pect I could do more?"


    "Emp-ty and re-fill your core at those rates, and you should feel the max-i-mum strain that you should ex-pect your spir-it to han-dle. As your spir-it heals, you will feel less strain do-ing com-mon tasks. Any more strain than that will in-ter-fere with heal-ing." He paused only a mo-ment. "I would ex-pect weeks more be-fore you are com-fort-able us-ing qi in any real quan-ti-ty, with-out dam-ag-ing your-self fur-ther. Be cau-tious with your us-age, but ex-er-cise your spir-it, and it may only be that long."


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    Ki''el nod-ded, and af-ter speak-ing with him a lit-tle while longer and re-ceiv-ing some med-i-cines in case she strained her spir-it, they re-sumed the walk back to their home in the In-ner Sect. She looked at Chi-an. "I as-sume that is not enough--"


    "How much strain does it take you to cre-ate one of your cy-cles? To main-tain it?" Chi-an stepped on her ques-tion with the im-pa-tience of some-one who had want-ed to speak, but not to be the first one.


    Ki''el con-sid-ered, and with the help of Kuli, an-swered. "It varies by the size of the cy-cle. The small-est have al-most no draw. The ones I used in my tribu-la-tion... ob-vi-ous-ly not. I would think that I could... per-haps sus-tain one that con-tained a fifth of my core? If I drew it out slow-ly, as Broth-er Yong in-sist-ed."


    "Can you con-trol the qi in your cy-cle''s... thorn?" Chi-an seemed un-sure about how Ki''el thought of the tech-nique, though she was sure she had ex-plained it. "At least well enough to of-fer it to a spir-it?"


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, and spun up a very small qi cy-cle as they walked, feed-ing it slow-ly from her core, then ma-nip-u-lat-ing the thorn. It was not so much a ques-tion as to whether or not she could--in-stead, she paid very care-ful at-ten-tion to how the qi flowed through her, from her core, through her spir-it and body, touch-ing on her mind and arms.


    "If I use less," she de-cid-ed. "...I nev-er paid at-ten-tion to how ma-nip-u-lat-ing qi used my spir-it be-fore."


    "I guess in-jury does that," Chi-an said, then looked at her. "If you can hold a fair part of your qi out of your core, you should be able to make a con-tract. But prac-tice first. Signs of weak-ness won''t im-press."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered more as they moved. Be-yond the qi in her core, of course, there was the qi stored in her sword, any aether she could cre-ate... and also, her mas-ter''s aether, which she didn''t ex-pect she would be us-ing. Even if she could cre-ate a strong bond with some-one be-cause of it, it would be... fool-ish. More, now that Sobon had said that it was dan-ger-ous to let oth-ers know about the sword.


    Some in the sect, per-haps many in the sect, al-ready knew of it. Who be-yond here, though? If she showed such a thing to a spir-it of Chi-an''s fam-i-ly, would knowl-edge spread be-yond them? Should she al-low it to?


    They re-turned to their house, and Ki''el chose to rest while Chi-an oc-cu-pied her-self oth-er-wise. It was some hours af-ter that they fi-nal-ly re-ceived in-tent puls-es from their Sect badges, ones that en-cour-aged them to gath-er at their Is-land''s Hall.


    Ki''el had so far not known any of her neigh-bors on the is-land, but when she and Chi-an met with the few oth-ers gath-ered there, she found that their spir-its, at least, seemed fa-mil-iar to her. She could iden-ti-fy peo-ple who had tak-en and sealed some of the rooms in the Hall, or whose hous-es she had passsed when en-ter-ing the res-i-den-tial is-land, even if their names and faces were en-tire-ly new.


    They wait-ed un-til some-one--or per-haps every-one--had ar-rived, and then their badges all pulsed in uni-son, and El-der Sang ap-peared be-fore them, the man''s pro-jec-tion not trans-mit-ting any of his pow-er, even though its fla-vor seemed cor-rect.


    "Dis-ci-ples," he said, his voice sound-ing a lit-tle cold. "We apol-o-gize for tak-ing a while be-fore ad-dress-ing your con-cerns. We are cer-tain, now, of two things, and can only spec-u-late on oth-ers. The first is that the [Djang Ren Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly] has re-belled, open-ly. They are fight-ing for con-trol over the East Cen-tral and North-east re-gions of the Em-pire, in ad-di-tion to the area they al-ready con-trol in the North. They make claims that the oth-er news... seems to sup-port."


    "That news is that the Di-a-mond Lord has an-nounced a se-ries of events in-tend-ed to find a suit-able re-place-ment, an heir. A be-ing known only as [An-gel] is cre-at-ing sev-er-al ar-ti-facts, and mas-tery over those ar-ti-facts will de-ter-mine the over-all out-come. Those ar-ti-facts will be dis-trib-uted at a se-ries of twelve, non-lethal tour-na-ments, the first of which will be in two months, and con-tin-u-ing for sev-er-al years."


    "The four ar-ti-fact kinds are these: The [Di-a-mond Throne], the [Crestan Crown], the [Fairy Orb], and the [Aether Sword]. There will be many of each, though how many and how they will be dis-trib-uted is un-known."


    When Ki''el heard the words, heard the in-tent, she knew that her group was the first told about this, and she looked at Chi-an, who looked back at her. Mere mo-ments lat-er, she felt an aether echo, as though some-one else had heard of the [Aether Sword] and knew what it meant, and mo-ments lat-er, from an-oth-er place in the Sect, an-oth-er echo, and then an-oth-er.


    Ki''el swal-lowed, hard.


    "The Djang Ren in-sist that the Di-a-mond Lord is no longer fit to rule, that the Djang Ban are fall-en and un-wor-thy, and that the Ren shall be-come the new mas-ters of the Djang Em-pire. De-spite this, the pro-claima-tion from the Di-a-mond Lord also per-mits the Ren into the tour-na-ments, as well as oth-er fac-tions the Em-pire has in the past for-sak-en." El-der Sang''s voice was un-pleas-ant, but clear. "Keep that in mind if you de-cide to par-tic-i-pate. It may be the Em-pire''s in-ten-tion to keep the tour-na-ments non-lethal, but that is no guar-an-tee."


    "For the Sect, we will find par-tic-i-pants wor-thy of send-ing to the Tour-na-ments, and as-sist those here with prepar-ing. Only cur-rent mem-bers of the Out-er, In-ner, and Core sects will be con-sid-ered. We be-lieve cur-rent-ly that the Sect will re-main safe from the re-bel-lion of the Ren, but will un-der-stand if any-one choos-es to leave the Sect to pro-tect, or seek pro-tec-tion from, their fam-i-lies. A leave of ab-sence may be re-quest-ed for mem-bers of the In-ner and Core Sects, such that you may re-join with-out cost at a lat-er date, how-ev-er you will not be spon-sored by the Sect for any tour-na-ment if you do not re-main here."


    "We will share fu-ture news as we can. We en-cour-age every-one to con-tact their Fam-i-lies and en-sure that your wills and theirs are aligned. We will not in-ter-fere with any Fam-i-ly who wish-es the re-turn of their scions, and will de-fend all res-i-dents of the Sect from all oth-ers who tar-get them." Ki''el was un-sure why that was phrased in such a way, but filed it away. "Be-yond that, I have noth-ing to share for the mo-ment."


    A cou-ple peo-ple tried to ask El-der Sang''s pro-jec-tion a ques-tion, but it dis-ap-peared with-out any re-sponse. Ki''el felt Chi-an pulling her away, and the two of them hur-ried away, back to their home, Ki''el sens-ing the eyes of Sis-ter Wun on them as they went.


    "We need Be-nai," was the first thing that Chi-an said, af-ter they were a ways away. "She can pro-tect us."


    "Can she?" Ki''el was un-sure. "Against peo-ple in this sect, and any-one who would chal-lenge it?"


    "She is far stronger than she gives any sign of," Chi-an said. "I don''t know how strong. But she was an ac-quain-tance of the An-ces-tor--the orig-i-nal an-ces-tor, founder of my fam-i-ly." She glanced around, but seemed not to sense any ob-servers. "Her blood-line is known as the Half-di-vine sil-ver tor-toise. She ex-cels in de-fens-es, wards, and do-mains. I imag-ine that if she de-sired to pro-tect the en-tire Sect against a threat, she could--but she is here for the sake of my fam-i-ly, and those with spir-i-tu-al beast blood in gen-er-al, not for the rest."


    Ki''el raised an eye-brow, but giv-en all the hy-per-bole she''d heard, she wasn''t sure how se-ri-ous-ly to take that blood-line name. "Half-di-vine?"


    "Ac-cord-ing to the sto-ry, An-ces-tor found Be-nai as a young woman de-fend-ing against a cul-ti-va-tor with Flame Qi, when she was not yet even in Gem-stone Qi." Chi-an looked back at her, the look on her face un-read-able. "How true that is I have no idea. But I don''t know any-one who could take a strike from such pow-er-ful qi. For cer-tain, her de-fens-es are greater than any-one else''s by far."


    They ar-rived at the edge of their prop-er-ty, at last, but Chi-an paused with-out en-ter-ing. "You should gath-er your qi and pre-pare to use the tal-is-man. I will see if Be-nai is will-ing to come. And I will ask if Mian and Xam can live here, even if they re-main in the Out-er Sect."


    Ki''el felt a chill. "Are you sure--"


    "You are far more of a tar-get than I am, and it''s best if you stay with-in the wards," Chi-an said, her voice firm. "The rest, we will fig-ure out soon enough."


    Ki''el bit her lip as her guts twist-ed anx-ious-ly. When at last, she said, "Al-right," and stepped through the bar-ri-er, she still felt like she was mak-ing a mis-take, leav-ing Chi-an alone, but she could not deny that her Sword was sud-den-ly a far more dan-ger-ous thing to car-ry, and that oth-ers might well find rea-son to chal-lenge her for it, in one way or an-oth-er.


    All she could re-al-ly do, though was watch Chi-an hur-ry away, and then re-turn to the house to med-i-tate. She de-stroyed the small-er cy-cle she had made ear-li-er, and formed one some-what small-er than the largest she thought she could rea-son-ably use--then be-gan to fill it with en-er-gy from her core. As she sat and fo-cused on slow-ly mov-ing the qi out, let-ting it join the Cy-cle, Ki''el pulled free her aether sword and ac-ti-vat-ed it, set-ting it in her lap, plac-ing her hand on the blade, feel-ing it.


    She was not fo-cused on her mas-ter''s aether, but she knew that it was there, could feel it. In-stead, she fo-cused on the blade it-self, the con-fi-dent strength of the aether that was so straight-for-ward, so clean. At a mo-ment like this, when her spir-it was burned and her merid-i-ans ached, she could wish that her body was so clean, rather than the com-plex mess that it was.


    Some-how, she found the act of mov-ing her qi med-i-ta-tive, and to-geth-er with the tired-ness from her in-jured spir-it, with-out re-al-iz-ing it, Ki''el soon dozed off, snap-ping back to re-al-i-ty once or twice, each time think-ing only of how tired she was, be-fore doz-ing off again.

 [TAS] 44. Various - Turning Points

    [ The Pa-tri-arch him-self is mov-ing. ]


    The words in the mes-sage were enough to crush any hope that Djang Ren Xari had. Al-though her fam-i-ly was still the Ren, she was far enough from the di-rect line of suc-ces-sors that she might have hoped to be for-got-ten, if the mat-ter were small. But when the Pa-tri-arch moved, so moved the en-tire Ren clan.


    The rest of the mes-sage was no more en-cour-ag-ing. Al-though her fa-ther''s word-in-tents made it clear that the Ren view might be slight-ly bi-ased, it sug-gest-ed that the Ren and Ban were now in a strug-gle to de-ter-mine who would con-trol the Em-pire, and the Di-a-mond Lord would not in-ter-fere. There was some oth-er fac-tion--led by some for-eign en-ti-ty called [An-gel], who was in the eyes of the Ren, an un-wel-come in-ter-lop-er al-lied with the Ban, but per-haps too weak to change mat-ter--who was hop-ing to de-cide the lead-er-ship of the Em-pire by peace-ful means, with tour-na-ments and ar-ti-facts, but the Ren would not have the Em-pire tak-en away from them by any means.


    There was a note, a de-tached aside, that caught her at-ten-tion. That this [An-gel] had an ap-pren-tice who wield-ed a spe-cial [Sword]. Though the de-tails had not been ful-ly trans-mit-ted to them, the frag-ment-ed in-tent of that [Sword] spoke to Xari.


    Giv-en the way her fam-i-ly''s qi worked, with its threads and chains, Xari had to be care-ful not to think hard about Ki''el, not while her fa-ther was con-tact-ing her, and even then, she was sure that her fa-ther sensed that she held a se-cret. That much, per-haps, he him-self could dis-miss, and keep hid-den from those above.


    The last words, though, were the ones that tore at her most deeply.


    [ Sui, no longer of the Ren, stole ar-ti-facts from a mas-ter which might have been the same An-gel, or an-oth-er like them. We can ex-pect no peace with this third fac-tion, or with the Ban, what-ev-er pret-ty words they use. We are or-dered to trust none who do not sub-mit to the Ren, in-clud-ing the Sects. Our Fam-i-ly Leader is lead-ing us to re-call all those cur-rent-ly at a Sect. You are not to leave un-til we fetch you. Gath-er all those who will sub-mit or ally them-selves. Give no sign to the rest. ]


    Xari sig-naled her ac-cep-tance and obei-sance in re-turn, but she was shak-ing. Only when the last thread of the mes-sen-ger spell had fad-ed did she turn her mind to the ter-ri-ble fate that must be com-ing. And she feared, that for all the re-sources of the Moon-stone Is-land Sect, they would not be able to han-dle a Ren Fam-i-ly Leader.


    And she knew, too well to sim-ply fear, that if the Fam-i-ly Leader did not trust the Sect, they would de-stroy it, rather than al-low it to nur-ture en-e-mies. And if she gave any sign... she would not be able to hide that from any-one in her fam-i-ly.


    Could I re-cruit Ki''el? That thought was one of dozens of oth-ers, but it stuck out in her mind, sourly. The thought--the mere pos-si-bil-i-ty--that Ki''el was the ap-pren-tice of some strange An-gel, one that the Ren were al-ready en-e-mies with... it re-volt-ed her, to think what her fam-i-ly had done, was choos-ing to do now. But there was no re-bel-lion, not even the op-tion to choose death. For oth-ers, per-haps, but the Pa-tri-arch''s [Adamant Threads] had the strength to bind any-one, and while he was loath to use them on mem-bers of the fam-i-ly, he would--if any-one dared rebel. She had not met the Pa-tri-arch, and dis-trust-ed the fam-i-ly line that he was fair... but she had to hope, that at the very least, the clan that she would be fight-ing to serve was wor-thy.


    She had no choice but to serve... but she could serve poor-ly. Fail to bring things up when she should. At the very least, she would ob-serve be-fore she made rash choic-es. But... she still must serve.


    She put her thoughts aside and be-gan search-ing out her friends, one by one, to see which of them would be will-ing to side with her fam-i-ly. She couldn''t threat-en--not yet--and she hoped she would nev-er need to. But join-ing with the Ren would be far bet-ter than death.


    <hr>


    Shi-da Ken had been as-ton-ished to re-ceive an hon-ored mem-ber of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly. It felt very strange, even as a man who was well aware of his sta-tion, to bow so read-i-ly and so deeply to some-one who had come to vis-it him.


    "You are Lord Shi-da, Lord of Emer-ald Val-ley, cor-rect?" Djang Ban Zen-long was not a well-known name in the Em-pire, for many rea-sons. He had not ex-celled or risen high, by the stan-dards of the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly--he was not even at Flame Qi, de-spite his great many decades, and served the Em-pire as a for-eign trade ad-min-is-tra-tor, mid-grade. They had met, briefly, many years ago, when Ken had tak-en con-trol over the city of Emer-ald Val-ley, a mo-ment that was clear-ly more im-por-tant to Ken than to Trade Ad-min-is-tra-tor Zen-long. "An [Ally] wished to en-sure that you are briefed on the on-go-ing sit-u-a-tion." The in-tent, though Ken was not par-tic-u-lar-ly clear on it, sug-gest-ed that this ally was... Lady Alas-si. Or, Sobon.


    "Of course, Lord Ban," Ken bowed again, wait-ing for the news with what he would learn was the wrong kind of an-tic-i-pa-tion. He was ex-cit-ed; he should have been ter-ri-fied.


    He would be soon.


    It was less than a day af-ter Lord Zen-long left that Lord Shi-da be-gan to sense the mur-der-ous auras with-in the Em-pire. Shi-da warned those who he con-sid-ered friends or pow-er-ful back-ers to leave the City, and some did, while more sent fam-i-ly away while re-main-ing them-selves. And only two days af-ter that, a dis-as-ter swept through the re-gion.


    It could have been worse. The Ren sent pow-er-ful mas-ters, but those mas-ters stood by and watched, most like-ly wait-ing to see if Lady Alas-si would ap-pear to pro-tect the city once again.


    She did not, and those mas-ters left with-out lift-ing a fin-ger.


    What tore through the de-fens-es of the City were a dozen or more cul-ti-va-tors in the Earth-ly Gem phase, and none of them spared the weak. When all was done, what re-mained were only the lo-cal no-ble fam-i-lies--and only those fam-i-lies who were will-ing to swear to the Ren fam-i-ly. Like Lord Shi-da him-self, they were all weak cul-ti-va-tors, far be-neath the no-tice of the Ren, and the chains and threads used to bind them were suit-ably weak.


    Shi-da, hav-ing al-ready sworn loy-al-ty to Alas-si, was pre-pared to die, but the agent of the Ren who stood be-fore him had a strange light to her eyes, a light that he should have been even more ter-ri-fied of than he was.


    "I sense that the Ban have been here," she said, her Ren threads co-a-lesc-ing into a spiked whip. "I will show you, and these peo-ple, what hap-pens to those who con-sort with the Ban."


    The only rea-son Shi-da Ken es-caped the slaugh-ter of his city, and the only rea-son why the Ren didn''t both-er to en-slave him, was be-cause they whipped him un-til he was all but dead, and left his wounds open to the crows as they left, laugh-ing. The few city no-bles who re-mained to watch were cowed by the dis-play, too bro-ken to re-sist, and Shi-da Ken only sur-vived be-cause the last Ren to leave turned around and shout-ed a com-mand back, per-haps on a whim.


    "Make sure he sur-vives," he said, the same ug-li-ness that had been in the woman''s eyes sat-u-rat-ing his voice. "He is your Lord, af-ter all."


    Lord.


    As Shi-da Ken fad-ed in and out of con-scious-ness, med-i-cines keep-ing him from dy-ing, though none were strong enough to sim-ply heal him. His night-mares were of faces that be-came blood-ied bones, be-came ash. Of hands that reached out to him, seek-ing a savior, turn-ing to grotesque rot-ting hands as the ap-proached, but nev-er dis-solv-ing, al-ways reach-ing.


    Lord.


    How long he re-mained in be-tween, he didn''t know. The night-mares grew worse only in that his mind be-gan to fail, the im-ages run-ning to-geth-er like paint-ed mud in the rain, the pain no longer seem-ing dis-tinct from his core be-ing.


    Un-til one day, he awoke, healed, in a torn and half-de-stroyed bed in his own de-stroyed room. He sat up with great dif-fi-cul-ty, feel-ing un-com-fort-able, un-sure. There was a woman there, more beau-ti-ful than he had ever seen--so beau-ti-ful that he could al-most not see the ru-ins of his own manor that they were both sit-ting in, the ru-ins that pro-vid-ed but the nar-row-est of shel-ters from the rain that poured over the city.


    "You are Shi-da Ken," the woman said, sim-ply, her voice cut-ting through the sound of the rain ef-fort-less-ly. "I am Djang Ban Ferai. Zen-long is my Un-cle." She was sit-ting on one of Ken''s up-hol-stered chairs, though it had been dam-aged, and what re-mained of it was in-signif-i-cant. "I was only meant to check on you. We had not heard." The woman got out of her chair--Ken''s chair--took two steps for-ward, and then flat-tened her-self into a kow-tow.


    Even in his near-ly-deliri-ous state, Ken felt in-tense angst over such a beau-ti-ful woman bow-ing be-fore her, and tried to move, to strug-gle out of bed--but found he could bare-ly move. Even healed, his bones and mus-cles had no strength.


    "This Djang Ban Ferai has failed you. Our Ban House-hold has failed you. You who are an ally of our [Ally]." The woman''s words were cold. "I swear that un-til this is made right, I will pro-tect and guard you and this city of Emer-ald Val-ley with my life."


    Some part of Shi-da Ken stirred at the words, and he forced him-self to his feet, find-ing that he had been dressed in lit-tle more than a dress-ing gown while he slept. He had... too many thoughts run-ning through his mind. Some part of him dwelled on the woman''s beau-ty, but the part of him that had ever been called Lord--that still hoped some-day to be wor-thy of the ti-tle--un-der-stood just how im-por-tant those words were.


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    "Lady Ferai," he said, and it sur-prised him how bit-ter the voice that came out was. Not be-cause he was not bit-ter--he had cursed his miss-ing al-lies in his own head and out loud ever since the be-gin-ning of the Ren at-tack. But he had nev-er heard such poi-son in his own voice be-fore. "It is true that my Emer-ald Val-ley had no al-lies when the Ren at-tacked. It is true that I cursed your un-cle and your fam-i-ly. I even cursed my own Pa-tron." Un-steadi-ly, he walked over to her, un-sure what his next words would be, but he couldn''t help see-ing Lady Alas-si''s face as he moved.


    "But the same Pa-tron once told me that the sys-tem that I be-lieved in would stand by and watch as I was de-stroyed."


    He found the words were true even as he said them. The woman looked up, but did not rise, and Ken only found the courage to meet her eyes, de-spite know-ing the dark-ness that must be with-in them.


    "She said that mat-ters of fate were at play. That she would have great en-e-mies. That there were dan-gers too great for her to save me from." He found that his voice was break-ing, and he found it dif-fi-cult to con-tin-ue look-ing at any-thing, as if his eyes and face want-ed to rebel from his con-trol, but he sim-ply closed his eyes in-stead, tak-ing deep breaths, try-ing to calm that in-side of him which would not be calm.


    Un-til at last, he found words again. "Tell me, Lady Ferai--if fate it-self had not in-ter-vened... is there even the small-est chance I would be still stand-ing here? Still alive?"


    But Shi-da Ken found that those words were not for the beau-ti-ful woman, the woman who came from the Im-pe-r-i-al Fam-i-ly, the woman who must cer-tain-ly have enough au-thor-i-ty to save him and his peo-ple, if it came down to it. No, those words were for him, for those scars that now ran through him, scars that he knew would nev-er heal.


    "No." Lady Ferai''s voice roused him, and Shi-da Ken opened his eyes, to see that she had not moved an inch. "I was as-ton-ished to hear how long you re-mained alive de-spite your wounds. At your lev-el... it should have been im-pos-si-ble."


    Shi-da Ken sighed, let-ting his eyes close again. Was this some-thing that Lady Alas-si had pre-pared? Was it luck? A god, per-haps? He had no idea. When he spoke, he bare-ly un-der-stood what he was say-ing, but he felt the words burn them-selves into his qi. "What-ev-er I must do to re-pay this debt, to fate it-self--or to my Pa-tron--I will do, with all of my life." And he opened his eyes and looked down on the woman who still knelt be-fore him. "Tell me, Lady Ferai... is there such a path? For the two of us, and those that re-main in this City?"


    The fact that the woman didn''t im-me-di-ate-ly re-ply told him that the an-swer was not ''yes''--but also, that it was not ''no.'' And that would have to do.


    <hr>


    Djang Ren Maria, one of the Ren Fam-i-ly Lead-ers, was giv-en the ap-point-ed task of lead-ing the van-guard when the Pa-tri-arch test-ed the Ban. The parts of her that should have known how fool-ish the task were said noth-ing; she was not even aware that she was fol-low-ing blind-ly. At Blue Flame Qi, the peak of Im-mor-tal Flame, she was aware that she was not a match if the greats of the Ban fam-i-ly moved against them. And the Pa-tri-arch''s test of choice... was to at-tack the Di-a-mond Lord''s Great Moun-tain.


    They flew, of course, that be-ing the least one could ex-pect of peo-ple of their sta-tion. Their en-tire for-ma-tion was cen-tered on a palan-quin upon which rest-ed the Pa-tri-arch, and Maria felt proud that she had been cho-sen, with-out con-sid-er-ing any-thing else--her low-er sta-tion among the Ren Fam-i-ly Lead-ers, or why the Pa-tri-arch would move for the first time in cen-turies, de-spite his phys-i-cal con-di-tion. She could only fo-cus on what was ahead of her, the alarms with-in her psy-che that should have been rag-ing mys-te-ri-ous-ly silent.


    Nat-u-ral-ly, they were in-ter-cept-ed, well away from the Moun-tain.


    The Ban fam-i-ly were a wide group, in some ways wider than the Ren. Maria her-self was not Djang, hav-ing mar-ried into the fam-i-ly, but her qi res-onat-ed well with the fam-i-ly''s threads and chains. Her own chain sword was a bru-tal weapon, and she de-ployed it im-me-di-ate-ly, rais-ing her aura with mur-der-ous in-tent as she sur-veyed the Ban who had come to face her. While many of these were Djang, she did no-tice Djang Ban Ba-jal, and Djang Ban Ro''tea, both for-eign-ers who had been brought into the Ban fam-i-lies as she had been, though what pity or sym-pa-thy she might have had for them was not to be on dis-play to-day.


    "You may not ap-proach the Great Moun-tain." Djang Ban Reix-u-an''s voice was crys-tal clear, though the woman did not stand at the front of their for-ma-tion. The Ban fam-i-ly leader''s sword man-i-fest-ed near-by, the qi in the air drop-ping pre-cip-i-tous-ly as the woman gath-ered it into the del-i-cate-look-ing blade that was her qi na-ture. "The Di-a-mond Lord has for-bid-den it."


    "Is that so?" The voice of their Pa-tri-arch sound-ed be-hind Maria, and she felt a thrill, but kept her eyes on their en-e-mies. "Will the Di-a-mond Lord grace us with his pres-ence, then? Or is it as we have all felt--that the Di-a-mond Lord is bro-ken, a worth-less rem-nant of a man? If he will ap-pear be-fore us, then this Djang Ren will--"


    There was a flick-er of qi in the dis-tance, though not of the in-ten-si-ty any of them ex-pect-ed from the Di-a-mond Lord. They all paused, won-der-ing what to ex-pect--


    The first sign any of them un-der-stood was the in-tense flare of pow-er, fol-lowed by a wind-blast, and a pow-er-ful noise, as a shin-ing ball of pow-er went from in-cred-i-ble speed to stopped dead be-fore them. Maria made a point to force her-self to look de-spite the pain and wind, and saw that what had ar-rived was not the Di-a-mond Lord, but a mis-shapen and weak fig-ure in-side of a float-ing crys-tal ball. Out-stretched in six di-rec-tions from the ball were phan-tom wings, al-ready fad-ed and re-treat-ing, which must have been re-spon-si-ble for stop-ping it ap-proach. Al-though it should have been the Ban''s ally, even an ally of the Di-a-mond Lord him-self, the fig-ure was dressed only in plain white cloth, and was bare-foot, show-ing ugly, doll-white flesh that did not match the face at all.


    "You are the Ren." The voice that came out was al-most that of a mor-tal''s, al-though it car-ried well enough de-spite the dis-tance.


    "And you must be the so-called [An-gel]." The Pa-tri-arch''s voice was sneer-ing, and this time, his palan-quin opened up, the top falling away and the sides drop-ping, leav-ing only a fig-ure on a throne. Maria didn''t dare look, but she felt the Pa-tri-arch''s qi stir-ring. "Pa-thet-ic. Dis-gust-ing. Is that even sup-posed to be a hu-man body?"


    "You are well aware that your own Ren Sui is re-spon-si-ble for this." The An-gel''s voice was not cut-ting, and its qi did not stir. It was sim-ply... cold. Clear. "He was the one that tore apart this bor-rowed body and left me for dead."


    "So it was you. I was ea-ger to see if you would show your face if we moved. I even brought a gift." With a flick-er of the Pa-tri-arch''s qi, Sui--that now-brain-dead, once-fool-ish mem-ber of their clan--was plucked from a sealed crate and thrown into the air where the An-gel, or the Ban, could catch it.


    The An-gel watched it fly, and let it fall, their face dis-play-ing no emo-tion. "While I''m glad you do not em-brace some-one as fool-ish as Ren Sui, it''s ob-vi-ous that you mis-un-der-stand."


    "There is noth-ing to un-der-stand or not un-der-stand," Ren said, his voice drip-ping acid. "There are the strong, and the weak. Sui pro-voked pow-ers too great for him to de-feat and ran to cow-er in the em-brace of my fam-i-ly. But you and the Ban, to-geth-er, lack the pow-er nec-es-sary to de-feat me. Es-pe-cial-ly you, who was de-stroyed at the peak of your pow-er by that trash. Do you tru-ly dare to stand be-fore me?"


    Maria felt the Pa-tri-arch''s Adamant Threads flash out, most-ly targeting the An-gel, while oth-ers targeted those of the Ban who seemed weak enough to reach. Djang Ban Reix-u-an''s shin-ing qi rapi-er flick-ered out, cut-ting away most of those threads that ap-proached the Ban, while oth-ers un-der her com-mand caught the rest.


    Those that targeted the An-gel... stopped in midair be-fore it, and Maria could feel an ab-solute de-fense there, a pow-er greater than she could sense, or else one that con-tained no pow-er at all. She re-pressed a shud-der, think-ing only of how she could by-pass it if she need-ed to.


    "You tru-ly are all chil-dren." The An-gel''s voice came back sound-ing... sim-ply dis-ap-point-ed. The orb around it shrank down into a crys-tal ball the size of its head, which po-si-tioned it-self be-neath the an-gel''s feet, so that it could sim-ply stand there, in open space, ap-par-ent-ly de-fense-less, as it con-tin-ued talk-ing. "Vi-o-lent, cru-el chil-dren, from a back-wards world. No, you do mis-un-der-stand, Ren of Clan Ren. You be-lieve that pow-er is spe-cial." The An-gel moved for-ward, the ball warp-ing into a strange crys-talline bridge, then back into a ball, as it moved, keep-ing it al-ways sup-port-ed in the air. "Pow-er is in-evitable. Be-ing wor-thy to wield pow-er is not."


    Do not speak to me of pow-er.


    Maria shiv-ered. The words had not been trans-mit-ted with qi, nor spo-ken aloud. To her, they sim-ply seemed to be. A mo-ment lat-er, the throne and palan-quin of the Ren Pa-tri-arch dis-in-te-grat-ed, leav-ing only a be-ing sur-round-ed by Adamant Threads, held up by qi of a mag-ni-tude Maria her-self could not com-pre-hend. Those threads lashed out at the An-gel again--


    And again, they were stopped cold, even when they sought to en-cir-cle that be-ing, even as they pressed in from every an-gle.


    "Your [Red Threads] will not reach me." The An-gel''s voice was strange, and Maria blinked. That was not the name of the Pa-tri-arch''s pow-er... and yet, it was fa-mil-iar. But Maria''s eyes were drawn to the fig-ure of the an-gel, which drew forth a sword han-dle, one that pro-duced a seem-ing-ly nor-mal blade af-ter a mo-ment, one that only weak-ly pulsed with en-er-gy... at first. "[Sev-er.]"


    The An-gel dropped their shields only for a mo-ment, bare-ly long enough to swing that sword, but the shock-wave that leaped from it seemed to deny every-thing. Maria watched, turn-ing with all of her speed to watch the cut as it trav-elled through open space, know-ing that it was strange--a pow-er with the den-si-ty to match her own, per-haps even greater, but it gave off no qi waves, no light, noth-ing, as though every scrap of its pow-er was con-cen-trat-ed on its pur-pose, its in-tent.


    Where that blade trav-elled, even the Adamant Threads of the Pa-tri-arch van-ished, sev-ered as though they were noth-ing more than a child''s toy. And the cut-ting shock-wave passed straight through the Pa-tri-arch--or what Maria thought had been the Pa-tri-arch. When the shock-wave had passed and a strange headache came and went through Maria, she saw only a com-mon mem-ber of the Ren fam-i-ly, with the Pa-tri-arch''s [Red Threads] now scat-ter-ing from his core, the squirm-ing mass-es of them be-neath the man''s skin slow-ly ceas-ing to move.


    Only one thread kept its in-ten-si-ty, and it curled into the air, pro-ject-ing in-tent to the Fam-i-ly. [At-tack.]


    Maria only had a twitch-ing re-ac-tion, only a shad-ow of an in-stinct, that she should fol-low the Pa-tri-arch''s com-mands, and she found that odd. But... she was a Fam-i-ly Leader, and when her brain caught up, nor-mal loy-al-ty over-rode the squeamish feel-ing that she had, on see-ing the Fam-i-ly Leader ma-nip-u-late and sac-ri-fice a mem-ber of the fam-i-ly. She put out of mind the strange free-dom that she felt, the odd lack of re-stric-tion. She sim-ply turned, and her Sword Whip lashed out at the An-gel, who she thought might still have low-ered shields.


    But her weapon was stopped by noth-ing, as the Pa-tri-arch''s threads had been, and she had re-grets, look-ing up at the An-gel and the pow-er that had re-pelled and struck down the Pa-tri-arch''s pro-jec-tion like it was noth-ing. But the An-gel only turned away, nod-ding to the oth-ers, and Ban surged ahead, giv-ing Maria more tar-gets, let-ting her put the in-vin-ci-ble An-gel out of her mind for the mo-ment.


    Maria end-ed her life as a rear-guard for the hu-mil-i-at-ed re-treat of the rest of the at-tack force. In the end, she couldn''t curse the An-gel, even to her dy-ing breath, and she was see-ing the Ban too clear-ly, some-times as if for the first time, to re-al-ly hate them. They were scared, and fight-ing for their lives. Why were we even here? She was un-sure, but as she watched the oth-ers get away, her body falling in pieces to the ground far be-low, she hoped that some-one among those that had sur-vived would find the an-swers.

 [TAS] 45. Kiel - Fires, Part 1

    Ki''el awoke to find more than just Chian and Benai outside of her house. It was enough of a surprise that she was to her feet in a moment and to the door as quickly as she could be, despite just waking leaving her feeling strangely strained. Outside, Chian and Benai spoke with Mian and Xam, but also, Brothers Taru and Jito from the lesser sect, and... Brother Du''s friend, Brother Bon?


    "Ki''el." Mian gave her a lopsided smile. They had all either paused what they were saying, or finished a last thought, before turning to her, but Mian was still the first to speak. "You''re awake."


    "I was tired," was all Ki''el could think to say, though she knew it sounded dismissive. "Why is everyone...?"


    Ben Jito and Fei Taru both stirred restlessly, as though they were the most certain that they didn''t belong, though Ki''el''s eyes passed the both to land on Brother Bon. The older Sect Brother, who also wore the robes of the Inner Sect, didn''t immediately meet her eyes when she glanced at him, but when Ki''el''s look didn''t relent, he spoke.


    "It barely took moments," he said, the words not immediately making sense to Ki''el, though he paused to dwell on them as though they were packed with meaning. "The rumors," he finally clarified, looking back at her. "It only took moments for the rumors to spread throughout the Sect. That you were the Angel''s apprentice, wielding some sacred Sword. Some of us have separately heard that the Angel, though crippled by some prior injury, stood up to the Ren family Patriarch with that sword alone. That it bridged more than twenty Steps--sorry, I mean, that it allowed the Angel to fight someone six whole phases of qi above them. If that were true, it would be a sword of incalculable power. That may be only a story, but it is a powerful one."


    Brother Bon continued without pausing. "And although it is clear that several Elders are keeping an eye on you, there are too many who think that you are fair game to duel, now that you are in the Inner Sect. I know you achieved something amazing in your Tribulation, Junior Sister, but there is a world of technique and subtlety, of experience and cruel intent. I remember your Intent from when we spoke before--not only the clarity with which you conveyed the Intent of fire. But your Heart''s Intent. And it is something worth protecting, if someone like me can do so."


    Ki''el didn''t understand, and after a moment, Fei Taru stepped forward.


    "Sister Ki''el," he said, after a moment. "I don''t mean this to sound insulting, but... to myself and to Jito, you are just a kind young girl, a child. We can''t." He looked at his partner, who looked back, and Ki''el was at a loss for what their shared look meant. "We can''t do anything to protect you. But if we stood anywhere but between you and trouble, we wouldn''t feel like adults."


    Ki''el... did not understand those words, at all, but when she blinked, she felt unshed tears in her eyes, and was not sure why.


    Xam sighed, loudly, and Ki''el looked at her, but the woman had adopted a pose, one that seemed almost theatrical. "The pains of running a Noble House," she said after a moment, but smiled, sweetly, at Ki''el, the smile having no falseness to it that she could see. "When the tiger drives monkeys from a forest, they will climb the tallest building they can see. We aren''t even that large, yet, but you still attract all sorts, Ki''el."


    Ki''el... was only mostly sure she understood the idiom, and from the look on Brother Taru''s face, she understood it to be somewhat rude, but she still had to smile, slightly. "If you say so, Sister Xam," she said, but her mood lowered. "But... what can I do?"


    "You aren''t supposed to do it all," Mian said, shaking his head. "Didn''t Chian say you had a task? We were talking about more shelter here, but you don''t need to worry about that." He glanced at Bon, meaningfully, and the other man shrugged.


    Ki''el looked around, but the looks around her merely seemed worried. Eventually, she nodded, and looked at Chian, who smiled at her. After hesitating, Ki''el said, "Since I have rested... I will gather my qi."


    "Do you need me to keep you awake?" Chian''s voice had a humorous edge, but it seemed a real question.


    Ki''el looked at the other girl for a long moment, before shaking her head and moving inside. After moving as much of her qi out as she could... Ki''el took hold of the sword, again, lightly touching the purified tribulation qi stored within. She knew that it was strange qi--although the foreign intent should have been removed from it, some of the qi seemed to only contain Sinister and Righteous aethers, while some of it contained Genesis and Consumption... and some of it contained Acceleration and Reverse. Although her technique had been able to refine all of them, that was only with Kuli''s help, and her own understanding of those advanced aethers was still weak.


    But... unlike the advanced aether that Sobon had sealed within the sword, that strange mixture of qi was hers. She could feel it. And if she were trying to attract a greater spirit... should she not use the most advanced qi that she could?


    With some effort, Ki''el drew out just a little of the time-touched qi. It felt... unusual, heavy and slippery, and it brought to mind broken memories from when she was suffering the aftereffects of the tribulation, and was barely able to control her qi, which had unlocked Genesis and Consumption. This, too, she felt almost unable to control... but with some effort, she manipulated it, willing herself to do nothing with the qi, nothing except feed it back into another Qi Turning Cycle.


    Her first attempt stripped away the time aethers from the qi, and Ki''el discarded it. Her second and third attempts were the same; in the third attempt, Kuli even helped, but the intent came out twisted, impure. Ki''el tried a fourth time without Kuli''s help, holding the concept of time aether in her mind as best she could... but it was another failure. Acceleration and Reverse were... difficult to conceive of.


    What insight did I have before? Ki''el''s memories were unsteady, twisted, but she felt certain that it was, in a strange way, about people. She did her best to calm herself, trying to find the chain of thoughts locked in those damaged memories.


    Aether was... like a person? Or, as Sobon had said, like a bubble. At first, it chooses how to react to each person that it comes across--that was the first layer. Then... it maintained alliances even when separated from their allies? And that was the Space layer? And then...


    [Specialization.] The concept almost seemed foreign to Ki''el when her memory clicked with it, but a part of her understood. Like Qi Natures themselves. time aether focused on accelerating something, or reversing something. It was not the power to accelerate everything, just as Genesis Aether didn''t touch everything. Space reached out in specific ways, and Time accelerated certain things. Time aethers were all about accelerating something specific, with different types or blends of aethers accelerating different things.


    And purifying time aethers meant allowing those time aethers to keep that potential, while not yet picking what they specialized in. Ki''el felt her heart almost burst as the qi within her system began to fluctuate, but it wasn''t burning through her merdians or even rioting in her core. Instead, it felt like...


    It felt like some of the qi within her body was just a touch more slippery than before.


    But Kuli caught Ki''el''s thoughts before they could go astray, and carefully, and very slowly--slower than the Healer had recommended, because that felt appropriate for this heavier qi--Ki''el formed another Qi Cycle that contained the tribulation qi tainted with time aether. She watched it grinding, noticing that this cycle seemed to actually have some purification to do, and once she had filled the cycle, she left it at that, seeking out her core and trying to find peace once more.


    I don''t even understand Space yet, Ki''el complained inwardly. And the third aether is so heavy, and my meridians burn so much... But she couldn''t help the pleasant shiver that ran through her, the feeling like she was doing something right. She understood, without needing to be told, that qi containing the time layer of aether would be much stronger--but also, far more complicated to maintain. Surely, a small mistake in the use of time qi would cause it all to spiral out of control, if not immediately, then in time. If one part of a spell, one part of a carefully designed intent, was faster than another... or was held back more than another... if two pieces working together did not always mesh correctly...


    How would she apply it? For something as simple as fire qi? Instinctively, she understood--fire qi might preserve fuel and oxygen to use later, or it might consume all of the fuel and oxygen in the same moment. Or it might allow the reaction, but keep the heat and light from escaping, preserving it until it was ready to release it all at once. Together with space qi... she could easily envision gathering an enormous amount of energy and releasing it at once, or ensuring that a fire never wanted to be put out, no matter what you tried to do to its fuel and oxygen and heat.


    But then... wasn''t that just fire qi?


    Ki''el closed her eyes, feeling like she did, and did not, understand. Kuli spoke of Fate aethers as transferring energy across time. For something as simple as Fire Qi, there will always be energy that is unused, energy that is wasted. Gathering unused energy from every fire that you have set, every fire that you have passed, or have extinguished, for years... releasing it all at once... this is the potential of Fire Qi. Fire that never goes out, even when its form suggests it should, fire that seems to spring forth endlessly, fire that can be moved away from its source, fire produces no light, or too much...


    Subtly, she felt Kuli gathering her thoughts, and Ki''el did her best to organize those thoughts, envisioning an Intent for [True Fire Qi] that made use of every layer of aether that she even thought she understood, and storing it all within a canvas that Kuli provided her. When she was done, Ki''el reviewed the thought--immediately finding things that she disagreed with, and she tweaked them, considered them, changed how they were phrased, how they were used. and she noticed Kuli putting subtle lines through the thought, lines that she thought broke the whole concept up by which layer of aether it referenced.


    The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.


    { Your definition of [True Fire Qi] is highly imperfect, and it would be dangerous to attempt, } Kuli eventually said, and Ki''el deflated immediately. { Your concept it what Fire Qi could be is not entirely wrong, but you hold the human spirit--and raw aether--in too high an estimation. Both qi and aether scripts dedicate large portions of their intent to managing the load the effect places on the user or substrate. Truly powerful weapons require managing many smaller energy channels that merge to create a more powerful effect only in a highly controlled way. }


    Of course, Ki''el thought, glancing back at her intent. I have no idea what my limits are. But the augment''s chiding rekindled something in her, an interest and an enthusiasm. As she reviewed the intent... her mental eyes were drawn to the portion of the intent that she thought resonated with Fate aether. It could... in theory, pull enormous amounts of fire from the future or the past for use now. Because she had added no limits... it could pull more energy from other times than Ki''el could possibly survive. It was effortless for her to imagine herself exploding from pulling too much fire qi into herself all at once.


    From that perspective alone, Ki''el understood that the design was foolish, and she almost trashed it. In the end, though, she simply issued one simple command to Kuli. Never let me do something so foolish. And she felt Kuli stir, in what she decided was acknowledgement. She had felt Kuli do something similar, before.


    "Ki''el?" Chian stuck her head in, and Ki''el opened her eyes and turned to face her friend. "Oh... a second ring? It''s... different." Without Ki''el even saying anything, the other girl walked closer and closed her eyes. "The tribulation qi that you stored. It''s... denser than your normal qi."


    "A higher tier of qi, I think," Ki''el corrected. "I... felt like it would help, to offer that to a spirit."


    "It will certainly offset your sign of weakness," Chian said, her eyes still closed. She knelt down next to Ki''el. "And it... really is still your qi, somehow, isn''t it?"


    "It is purified by my intent," Ki''el said after a moment. "Unless I am failing... it is definitely mine."


    { You are not failing, } Kuli answered her silently. { Because of what you mean to do, I would not allow you to proceed if you were wrong. }


    Chian just nodded, and Ki''el thought the girl had definitely not heard Kuli''s thought. "When will it be ready?"


    Ki''el considered the cycle. It was... not proceeding too quickly, but the qi was also relatively pure to begin with. She brushed it with her intent, channeling a little more aether to accelerate the process, only until she felt herself approaching the safe limit. "It may be hours, still, but not too many."


    Chian bit her lower lip, and Ki''el realized the girl was worried. "You can''t feel it," Chian said after a moment, "But the world outside... feels more dangerous. I worry... we worry."


    "I may not need to use it all," Ki''el said after a moment. "There is a little already--"


    "No," Chian said, as she stood. "You''re right. Using as much high-quality qi as you can would let you attract a strong spirit. If there''s reason for you to rush, we''ll let you know. Otherwise, rest and prepare."


    Ki''el nodded, feeling strange as she watched her friend worry about her. Was it... really so odd? Or had it really been so long, since it had felt normal to be worried after by a friend? "Thank you, Chian," she said, and there was something to her own voice that she couldn''t identify.


    Chian just smiled back at her, but Ki''el saw it fading as the girl turned back towards the door.


    <hr>


    There has to be more that I can do.


    The same thought ran through Ki''el''s head over and over as she sat there, but she could feel the burden on her spirit simply from maintaining her qi turning cycles. She considered, briefly, revisiting the idea of fire qi... but no, she had put too much thought into that one topic for today. She was tired of it.


    Kuli, she said after considering several questions. Tell me about swords.


    Kuli considered the question for a while. { A sword is a [weapon] is [sharpened] to [cut] and often [pierce] any [weaker] material, such as flesh. Because it is [hard], it is often also used to [block] strikes. }


    The various intents that Kuli layered one after the other each made sense, though Ki''el wasn''t entirely sure that the whole concept was contained with them. Still, she closed her eyes, reflecting on the strange subtlety that lay within the augment''s precise language. It can only cut what it weaker. Weakness is... a material that fails first, whether it shatters like ceramic, or is cut apart like cloth. It is... hard, which means that it must be shattered, unless it is cut by something harder? Ki''el frowned, having troubule following the thread.


    { There are numerous places where qi and energy change those simple rules, } the augment admitted. { But swords are an [ancient] weapon, from a time before qi use is common. I chose only to include those aspects of a sword that do not involve qi and aether. }


    Ki''el conisdered that, but eventually nodded. Does cutting really only come down to... being [sharpened] to a narrow edge? Nothing more?


    { A [sharp edge] concentrates [pressure]. }


    Ki''el felt the concept rushing through her mind. Force and area... so great power behind a narrow strike is more difficult to endure than the same power across more space. All of that felt natural, as natural as biting and tearing with her teeth. Idly, Ki''el clicked her jaws together, as she considered. More than that... Kuli chose to convey the intent of [weapon]... That felt odd, but in keeping with the way Ki''el and Sobon had continued to be, always worrying about seemingly normal things. A weapon is... a tool used in conflict. Of course it is, but is she saying more? Ki''el didn''t ask Kuli, instead continuing to meditate on the idea. A sword is more than only used to harm. As Kuli said, it can be used to block, but is it also more?


    She considered it for several more moments, before nodding quietly to herself. [I am a blade]... but I am not necessarily a weapon, am I? She rolled the thought around. Even if I was a weapon, my purpose would not only be to destroy. It would be to protect, by fighting if I must, but... can I not also protect other ways? Can''t a sword protect in other ways than by being used? It is only a [tool] for conflict. There are many Ways.


    { A blade is sharp, and [hard] } Kuli added, and Ki''el noted that the augment did not add intent, this time. { It concentrates its effort on one thing, and it endures. }


    Something in the augment''s mental tone made Ki''el''s thoughts slip. Concentrates. Specializes. Ki''el considered that. If I am going to specialize... No, that thought felt wrong. Ki''el frowned, and rephrased it. At any time, I pour all my energy into... she paused, rephrasing it again. I consume the present to create the future?


    { No, } Kuli interjected, and Ki''el felt like the single word from her companion was a censure. { You are capable of doing everything that aether does. It is your will and intent to accomplish things, and you do. }


    Everything. But wasn''t that so very different from being a blade? Indeed, wasn''t that was Ki''el felt was wrong about trying to expand on the thought. Everything she tried to say about a blade was too little, too limiting. No matter how she tried to think about blades, her thoughts seemed shallow.


    { A blade is [True], } Kuli finally answered. { To use it, or to oppose it, are actions with [Consequences]. }


    Ki''el understood, not only from the intent her augment put into the words, but by her choice of words. [True Blade Qi], like [True Fire Qi], was a concept that could be encapsulated into Truth Aether, using all layers of aether beneath it, and all of the layers would have consequences. At the lowest level, it would cut others while strengthing itself; it would have allies and enemies; different parts would work harder to cut, and would resist being cut; and Ki''el could envision [True Blade Qi] as being a thing that echoed throughout time, in ways that were difficult to put into words.


    With some difficulty, Ki''el tried to conceptualize that ideal [True Blade Qi] and place it on a mental canvas, and this time, she didn''t require Kuli''s help to see several ways she had made dangerous and foolish mistakes. Isn''t that cutting intent too active? Did I even phrase it right? Why do I act like a sword must endure its own sharpness--isn''t the sharpness only the form of it? But I gave a concept of energy to sharpness, and now that sharpness must reside next to the strength of the blade. Or must it? Isn''t the entire blade sharp, even if its effect is at the edge?


    In time, Ki''el set aside that thought as well. Am I foolish, Kuli? she asked, after calming her mind slightly.


    { You are young, } Kuli answered. { And when I tell you that you have made a mistake, you want to do better. Foolish people do not care about doing better. They believe that there will be no consequence to disregarding the truth. }


    Ki''el considered those words for a long time, until at last, she felt the last of the tribulation qi filter through her Qi Turning Cycle, and she stood. When she went to the door... she was surprised, to find that things outside had changed, and she had not been aware. Clearly Bai Benai had placed another set of wards on her home, to allow her to focus in peace. Since others had clearly been working on making another building out of wood and stone, that made some sense.


    Still, the choice rankled her when she saw that Brother Bon was injured.


    "What happened?" She knew that her voice snapped, and the others paused, looking over at her. "Why is Brother Bon hurt?"


    "It was nothing," Brother Bon tried to say, but Bai Benai broke in before he could finish.


    "You are a part of the Inner Sect now, Ki''el," the woman''s voice was hard. "It is expected that Inner Sect disciples will engage in non-fatal duels to measure their skills against one another, test the purity of their convictions and the efficacy of their qi. If you are upset about seeing others wounded, you should simply leave the Sect entirely."


    Ki''el felt a surge or anger flood through her, but she also felt Kuli, like a cool wood sprite in the back of her mind, touching her and offering calmness, even if it was only a taste. Ki''el took a moment to listen to that feeling, to experience that calmness, and when she spoke, her words were cutting. "But this was targetted at me."


    Somehow, she got the impression that Benai was impressed. "Of course," she said, after a moment. "And it won''t be the last time. Are you prepared?" Her deflection of Ki''el''s next statement was unapologetic, undisguised.


    Ki''el felt herself still breathing more deeply, in anger, but she let the complicated tangle of feelings flow away. "Yes," she said. "I believe so."


    "Good. Chian," Benai turned, but Chian was already moving over to Ki''el, taking a place beside her. "Remember. In the spirit world, there is only dominance and submission."


    Ki''el felt a twitch, an old memory, of her grandmother''s insistence on the nature of qi. Only... the woman had said the nature of qi was violence and submission, and Sobon had said it was wrong. Was there something to it? How could there be? As far as Ki''el knew, her family had no ties to spirits--no one in the island did. Instead of dwelling, Ki''el focused on the old woman''s words.


    "Animals, even spirit animals, must know who leads and who follows. Foxes in particular are wily, and will often believe that they can be [the leading shadow]," the woman said, her intent painting a detailed image of a shadow that pulls a child into the forest, where a predator--or perhaps, the animal''s true self--lies hungrily, waiting. "But equally, they will happily be the [shadow underfoot] if you are strong," that intent showing a shadow that forms a bridge over a dangerous river.


    Ki''el shivered, feeling uncomfortable with the idea, but Chian''s firm nod suggested the girl believed every word that the older woman said. And so Ki''el accepted it, letting Chian lead her back inside, and the two knelt down, the talisman laid on the floor before them.


    "You don''t have to be evil to be strong," Chian said, and Ki''el realized that the girl had sensed her reactions to what Benai said. "You should... try to be the girl who cut a man in half for trying to throw her off the island. Not cruel, but there are consequences to crossing you. That will be enough."


    Ki''el meditated on that advice, stabilized her spirit, and finally nodded. Following Chian''s advice, she began to pour power into the talisman--from her lesser, normal-qi thorn, not the one with the advanced qi. As she felt the talisman''s power begin to merge with hers, and felt a strange, keening call throughout her spirit, she closed her eyes, and focused once more.


    [I am a blade.]

 [TAS] 46. Kiel - Fires, Part 2

    If feed-ing the Rag-ing Storm Fox tal-is-man qi felt in-stinc-tu-al and al-most easy, the tug of war that came next did not.


    A keen-ing call of spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy emit-ted from it, one that seemed to pass eas-i-ly through the wards, and there were dis-tant echoes, echoes that not only pierced the bar-ri-er on the way back, but seemed to strike Ki''el like a sud-den gust of storm wind. If she had been stand-ing, per-haps she might have been knocked over, but there was some-thing on the oth-er side, some-thing al-most like a spir-i-tu-al place or plane, and Ki''el felt some-thing ap-proach-ing. Sev-er-al some-things. Preda-to-ry some-things.


    Ki''el half ex-pect-ed Kuli to have some mir-a-cle an-swer to this, but the aug-ment re-mained silent, and Ki''el sim-ply had to dim-ly sense the cir-cling spir-its. At last, she sensed one ap-proach-ing, and she of-fered it a touch of qi--from the ad-vanced thorn. But that spir-it, though it was in-ter-est-ed, was sud-den-ly dri-ven back when an-oth-er spir-it snatched at the qi in-stead, some-thing larg-er, more dan-ger-ous. It stole the qi away with-out giv-ing any-thing, or tak-ing any re-spon-si-bil-i-ty.


    Right. In-tent--no, Con-se-quence. Ki''el stead-ied her-self, and pro-ject-ed into that spir-i-tu-al space as firm-ly as she could. [I am a blade.] Many of the weak-er spir-its fled, but Ki''el of-fered the qi, again.


    And again, a spir-it snapped at it greed-i-ly. Ki''el, though it burned her to do it, twist-ed the qi and slashed at the thief, and it scat-tered away, per-haps un-harmed--Ki''el was not quite able to sense for sure. She pro-ject-ed again, more con-fi-dent, this time. [I am a blade. Join with me.]


    Again, a thief tried to take the of-fer-ing for noth-ing, and again, Ki''el twist-ed the qi at it, and this time, she felt sure she had struck it. Again, she of-fered qi, de-mand-ing that a spir-it join her, and again, an-oth-er thief ap-peared.


    The next time, Ki''el felt the thieves step back, al-most in recog-ni-tion, as an-oth-er fox spir-it moved for-ward to-ward the of-fer-ing. It came close, ex-am-ined her qi close-ly... and, even-tu-al-ly, turned away. Even so, the thieves didn''t move... for a long mo-ment, un-til at last, one snapped to-wards her, and she drove it away. But she of-fered the qi again, and again, and one more time af-ter that.


    The last time, Ki''el felt very strange-ly, as though the fox wasn''t stand-ing up-right and walk-ing on the ground around her. It was more... like it was un-der-ground, if the ground it-self were empti-ness, and what was sky to Ki''el was ground to it. From be-low, it looked down at her qi, then moved clos-er, tast-ing it. Ki''el of-fered more, and the spir-it fox came clos-er, cir-cling around un-til it could look at both her, and the qi, in its strange up-side-down way.


    [I am a blade,] Ki''el said again, not sure what else to con-vey to the crea-ture.


    [I am a bolt of light-ning,] the fox an-swered. [Wait-ing for the one mo-ment, of all mo-ments, to shine bright-est, and strike hard-est.]


    [Will you join me?]


    [You are not ready. You are small-er than you want to look.] The light-ning bolt fox bent down to ex-am-ine the qi of-fer-ing again. [This is a lie. But it is a tasty lie.] It looked at her. [Will you have more next time?]


    Ki''el felt her heart flut-ter. She... al-though it sound-ed so much like the fox was re-fus-ing her, she felt hope. [I have a lot more. And I ex-pect to get more next time.]


    [I will con-tract tem-porar-i-ly. And I ex-pect to be fed.] The light-ning bolt fox moved its head down--or, from Ki''el''s per-spec-tive, up--so that it was right near where Ki''el was of-fer-ing her qi, as though she could sim-ply reach out, and...


    Ki''el felt strange, like her hands were ac-tu-al-ly touch-ing a fuzzy an-i-mal, un-til the mo-ment when she felt a sear-ing pain--not in her qi chan-nels, but from and around the tal-is-man. She flinched back, but a mo-ment lat-er, she forced her-self to look, and there sit-ting be-tween her and Chi-an was a fox, the tal-is-man hang-ing from its neck on a small bead-ed neck-lace. It was only a small fox--small enough that Ki''el could hold it in her arms--and its qi did not seem in-tense, but some-thing about it def-i-nite-ly seemed more than Ki''el could oth-er-wise ex-plain.


    "Che-ja Meixu?" Ki''el was not sure what the words from Chi-an, sud-den-ly, were; it took her a mo-ment to re-al-ize that it was the spir-it''s name, as broad-cast by its qi. "Are you--"


    [Oh, one of the in-her-i-tors.] Miyu moved so sud-den-ly that Ki''el was star-tled, duck-ing be-hind her back and away from Chi-an. The small crea-ture had no com-punc-tion against rub-bing right up against Ki''el when it moved, stay-ing very close. [I thought I smelled your grand-fa-ther, but it was you. Don''t you try to or-der me around. I''m not go-ing to lis-ten.]


    "Meixu--" Ki''el be-gan to speak, but the fox nipped in her gen-er-al di-rec-tion.


    [Food first,] it said. [The tasty lie.]


    "Lie?" Chi-an asked, but Ki''el of-fered it more qi from the tribu-la-tion thorn. To her sur-prise, the small fox only took in a por-tion of it, and seemed to tear or chew at it for a mo-ment be-fore set-tling.


    [Yes, in-her-i-tor. A lie. Fake own-er-ship of fake qi with a faked pu-rifi-ca-tion, won with bor-rowed pow-er.] The fox''s claws dug into Ki''el''s sect robe sud-den-ly, and she yelped as the weight of the crea-ture pulled at her robes, as it scam-pered its way up to her shoul-der. [But shar-ing good food is still good man-ners. This one is pleased.]


    Chi-an was scowl-ing at the fox, for some rea-son, but Ki''el, when she turned and found her-self look-ing in its eyes, was sur-prised to find that they were very... or-di-nary. When the spir-it crea-ture turned its eyes to meet hers, she thought she saw a flash of guilt, and a wor-ry that she wouldn''t ap-prove of it. And she reached up, as much on in-stinct as any-thing, and brushed its cheek with her fin-ger, and it pushed back against her, rub-bing as though it took real emo-tion-al sup-port from the ges-ture.


    Ki''el felt some-thing stir-ring with-in her heart, some-thing she wasn''t sure she had felt so pure-ly in a long time.


    "Ki''el, that--" Ki''el looked back to Chi-an, but some-thing about her look made the girl pause, and shake her head. "No, nev-er mind. But keep... keep Meixu close, al-right? He may look small, but he''s smarter than he looks."


    [Small.] Meixu hissed at Chi-an. [You''re small, in-her-i-tor. I am the size I like be-ing.]


    "Enough." She glanced at Ki''el. "Let''s let them know you suc-ceed-ed."


    Ki''el hur-ried to her feet, find-ing that the small weight of the spir-it fox threw off her bal-ance more than she would have guessed, but Meixu seemed con-tent to cling to the shoul-der of her robes and sim-ply peer around as she stepped out-side.


    Ki''el no-ticed im-me-di-ate-ly that there were more peo-ple with-in the bar-ri-er--even though it had only been a few min-utes, she thought. Or had it tak-en longer than she re-al-ized? Broth-er Du was there, and also... El-der Sang? Ki''el eyed the el-der un-com-fort-ably, but he stood to one side, eyes closed, as though try-ing to see noth-ing, hear noth-ing.


    "Ki''el." Broth-er Du bowed. "And a new friend. I apol-o-gize--"


    "What''s hap-pen-ing out-side?" Ki''el hadn''t got-ten an an-swer to that last time, and had let it pass, but... she didn''t like be-ing treat-ed like she couldn''t han-dle the truth.


    "...There are mem-bers of the Ren fam-i-ly in this sect," Broth-er Du said. "And they are al-ready mov-ing."


    Ki''el glanced to El-der Sang, but the man said and did noth-ing. Af-ter a mo-ment, she looked back at Broth-er Du. "And they are af-ter me? Us?" She knew, in truth, that it must be the sword--as Broth-er Bon had said be-fore. But... even know-ing that her mas-ter had left in-cred-i-ble pow-er with-in it...


    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.


    Broth-er Du shift-ed, un-com-fort-ably. "Sis-ter Ki''el... war is not like peace-time. It is like noth-ing you have known. There are worlds of pain and suf-fer-ing that an army will in-flict in or-der to gain an ad-van-tage, to keep their en-e-mies from gain-ing an ad-van-tage, or to take an ad-van-tage away. There is--"


    This time, Ki''el felt it--a shiv-er run-ning through the bar-ri-er that Bai Be-nai had laid around the prop-er-ty. The oth-ers shift-ed to look, but the fig-ures that were com-ing down the path were not at-tack-ing--and Ki''el rec-og-nized the one at their head.


    "Sis-ter--"


    But Du held out a hand, and Ki''el stopped. Ki''el looked, just looked, at Sis-ter Xari as she stood on the oth-er side of the bar-ri-er, and with her--sev-er-al peo-ple. No-bles, Ki''el had to guess, and none of them weak.


    "Keep the girl safe." Ki''el blinked, sur-prised that Bai Be-nai had snuck up be-side her, but the woman stepped for-ward with a heavy re-solve that Ki''el couldn''t un-der-stand.


    [Of course I will. Who do you take me for?] Ki''el only dim-ly reg-is-tered the spir-i-tu-al trans-mis-sion from the fox on her shoul-der, be-cause in truth...


    In truth... Ki''el was be-gin-ning to un-der-stand. She had har-bored a hope, even just a fleet-ing hope, that this Sect would be her home. And like every home that Ki''el had... it was about to be torn away from her. The is-land. Emer-ald Val-ley. She wasn''t even al-lowed to fol-low Sobon to wher-ev-er he was, though she would have giv-en up all the sta-bil-i-ty in the world to be with him. He had fall-en from the stars, crossed the whole Djang em-pire and a great sea, to keep her safe.


    And he wasn''t here.


    Ki''el wasn''t even aware of step-ping back, and the oth-ers didn''t look. Be-fore she un-der-stood what was hap-pen-ing, she had moved back into the shad-ow of the hut, the small lit-tle build-ing that she had just start-ed--just start-ed--to dream of mak-ing into a home.


    A lit-tle table. Chairs. She and Chi-an with mat-tress-es on the ground next to each oth-er. Maybe they would talk late into the night. Learn-ing about qi, work-ing for the Sect. Some-day when she was healed, when she was stronger.


    Mian and Xam would come. Maybe they would set-tle here, too. Ki''el stum-bled, un-see-ing, over a root, but caught her-self with-out falling down. The spir-it fox sent her a spir-i-tu-al trans-mis-sion, but Ki''el ig-nored it. And... Ki''el re-al-ized that Kuli was there, but not an-swer-ing. Why?


    { The chances of dy-ing here are high, } Kuli an-swered, and Ki''el froze. { I have been syn-chro-niz-ing with a spir-it god. In ex-change for a high-er like-li-hood of sur-vival-- }


    "Are you mak-ing de-ci-sions with-out me, too?" Ki''el whis-pered to no one.


    { What-ev-er your cul-ture may be-lieve to be the age of adult-hood, you are only halfway to bi-o-log-i-cal ma-tu-ri-ty, } Kuli an-swered, the aug-ment-ed voice stiffer than Ki''el had ever heard it. Less... per-son-able, maybe even less hu-man. { Ki''el. This sit-u-a-tion may be be-yond our con-trol even if I-- }


    There was a shat-ter-ing sound, and Ki''el felt the bar-ri-er col-lapse. But Ki''el was now be-hind the cot-tage from the in-vaders, and al-though she fum-bled out the Aether Sword and ex-tend-ed it, the blade felt un-com-fort-able in her hand.


    [ For what it''s worth, ] Meixu said, [ I''m def-i-nite-ly go-ing to ig-nore what you say and do what I want, some-times. But not when it mat-ters, like now. What do you want me to do, hon-ored con-trac-tor? ]


    Ki''el heard the words, un-der-stood them, but her mind was frozen. Was there any-thing she could do? Was there some-thing she should do?


    { You should hide, } Kuli ad-vised. { As long as you are un-able to use ei-ther qi or aether-- }


    Un-able. The word stabbed into Ki''el''s mind. She was un-able to if. She was un-able to with-out. If she want-ed to live a nor-mal life, with-out in-jury.


    { Even if you in-jure your-self, you can-not com-pare your-self to any of these op-po-nents. }


    Ki''el found her-self look-ing down at the sword. But... no mat-ter how she looked, she could still imag-ine the sword shat-ter-ing, some qi mas-ter of in-sane abil-i-ty tak-ing it in their hand and snap-ping the thing. Af-ter all... the sword didn''t even ex-ist half the time. It was only there be-cause aether willed it to be.


    Ki''el opened her mouth to say some-thing, but the en-tire is-land shook, and she felt an-oth-er, more dis-tant bar-ri-er crack. She shiv-ered, know-ing that some-thing pow-er-ful was there, forc-ing its way into the sect--but it wasn''t flar-ing its qi, wasn''t broad-cast-ing its pow-er to the whole world. What-ev-er pow-er it was us-ing to force open the bar-ri-er--


    "Ki''el!" The voice of Sis-ter Xari brought Ki''el back to her-self. "Last chance! If you want to save your-self and your friends, you must sur-ren-der to my fam-i-ly." There was a note of re-gret there, but Ki''el didn''t no-tice, didn''t care. How could she? How could Ki''el care... and how could Xari ask her such a thing?


    But... there was also the se-ri-ous-ness to the girl''s voice. Was... had her friends al-ready been de-feat-ed? Was every-thing over? Had she just not sensed it? Ki''el start-ed to move for-ward, but the tiny claws of the fox on her shoul-der tensed, just enough that Ki''el paused.


    [ There''s been no com-bat, not yet, ] Meixu said. [ This place--not the house, the is-land--is ac-tu-al-ly pret-ty stur-dy. Un-less things get pret-ty se-ri-ous, there will be rocks to hide un-der. Don''t wor-ry too much, child--I mean, hon-ored mas-ter. ]


    Some-thing about the spir-it''s voice stirred an ir-ri-ta-tion in Ki''el''s mind. Was she re-al-ly be-ing so un-rea-son-able? But then again... wasn''t she just stand-ing there, still in shock? Ki''el took a deep breath. She had... she had just been think-ing that she want-ed to know the truth. That she didn''t want things hid-den from her.


    Though it was un-wise, Ki''el fi-nal-ly, res-olute-ly, took a step for-ward, back around the cot-tage. The oth-ers were arranged in vague cir-cles, as though try-ing to pro-tect the house, but Ki''el knew that it was point-less, if it came to it. Al-though it felt in-sane to do, she took just one more step, and when that failed to make every-thing set on fire, she took an-oth-er.


    Fire, some in-sane part of her mind mused. Maybe set-ting every-thing on fire wouldn''t be so bad. Some-times.


    "Ki''el." Xari''s voice was pained, not that it mat-tered any-more. Ki''el locked eyes with her, and no-ticed sev-er-al oth-ers turn-ing to her as she moved clos-er. "If you join us--"


    "You are of the Ren?" Ki''el''s voice, to her own ears, was too steady--far too steady. Where was the ter-ror? The anx-i-ety? Where was ab-solute de-spair that was cours-ing through her veins? Why wasn''t that all there, in her voice?


    "I..." Xari paused. "Yes. I can''t choose my fam-i-ly, Ki''el. And I can''t run away from them. The Ren blood-line is all about chains and strings that bind us to-geth-er. You saw my Mid-sum-mer Danc-ing Moon." Xari scowled, but the ex-pres-sion passed. "There is no go-ing against my fam-i-ly once you are bound. I would have pre-ferred to sim-ply not no-tice you and your sword, but oth-ers have al-ready spread the word."


    Xari. The walks through the sect had been... it hurt her heart to think of life with-out such a sim-ple thing. "Why must every home be tak-en from me? Every dream? Every small com-fort?" Ki''el bare-ly heard the words leave her mouth, but she tight-ened her grip on the sword.


    "Ki''el." Xari''s voice... no, Ki''el wasn''t sure that she cared. "Come with me."


    Ki''el weighed the sword in her hand, against the sog-gy weight that held down her heart. In truth... she want-ed a home, bad-ly enough that she might have done some-thing fool-ish, if not for Kuli, and the strange pres-ence of the spir-it fox on her shoul-der. But in-stead, her voice came again, far too lev-el, far too calm. "What is the An-gel to you?"


    Xari shiv-ered, step-ping back. "So it''s true? You''re...?"


    "What is he to you? To your fam-i-ly?" Ki''el''s voice was in-sis-tant.


    Xari looked at Ki''el, but af-ter a mo-ment, it seemed the girl had no way to meet her eyes. "An en-e-my."


    Kuli. Ki''el felt that her will was lead-en, but still the aug-ment stirred, re-ar-rang-ing things in Ki''el''s mind, un-til she had a full thought, a fin-ished in-tent. It was not at all com-plete--only a clean-er, safer ver-sion of what she had done be-fore. But Ki''el filled the blade with the in-tent, and she felt the aether at its core re-spond.


    [ True Sword Qi ]


    Ki''el felt like she was mov-ing in slow mo-tion. Not... be-cause she was see-ing things so quick-ly, not be-cause every-one else seemed to be re-spond-ing slow-ly. No... her body and mind just seemed so heavy, heav-ier than they had ever been. Xari flung her-self away, clap-ping her hands to-geth-er and send-ing her [Mid-sum-mer Danc-ing Moon] qi out, while the two who had been be-side her--no-bles, both, drew weapons and ig-nit-ed their qi.


    And the qi, in truth, hurt Ki''el--just be-ing close to it seared her, but it did not re-pel her sword. Some-how, Ki''el''s sword con-sumed qi from the sword and just kept cut-ting, through qi dense enough that it want-ed to phys-i-cal-ly force Ki''el back, to burn away her skin. And Ki''el not-ed, though she didn''t care ei-ther way, that the sword seemed to length-en, at first just enough to cut the man charg-ing at her... but then, it kept go-ing.


    [ Oh dear, ] Ki''el dim-ly heard Meixu say, as she stum-bled, thrown off bal-ance by the oth-er un-veiled qi, the one who hadn''t been in the way of her sword. And she felt her-self yanked back-wards, though she wasn''t sure how or why.


    She was so tired, so scared... but she looked up, see-ing Mian and Xam there, look-ing down at her, wor-ried. And she felt Xam lift-ing her up, but didn''t know why she would need to be car-ried... but also, she couldn''t move.


    "You did fine," she thought Mian was say-ing, but she wasn''t sure if she was hear-ing him right, or just imag-in-ing that she did. All she could do--


    No, there was one thing she could do. One thing she couldn''t stop her-self from do-ing.


    Ki''el just bare-ly man-aged to half-turn her head down-wards be-fore she threw up.

 [TAS] 47. Sang - Fires, Part 3

    Hanzen Sang was the youngest El-der--by age and tenure, both--in the Moon-stone Is-land Sect, and also, only the sec-ond El-der to be ac-tive-ly re-cruit-ed since the found-ing of the Sect. This was not, how-ev-er, be-cause he was a ge-nius of qi, or in-scrip-tions, or alche-my, or any oth-er gen-er-al top-ic. In-stead, a younger Sang had de-sired his own float-ing is-land for his home, and had come to the Sect in-tend-ing to re-search the qi that held the Moon-stone Is-lands aloft, and he threw him-self into that re-search with re-lent-less, reck-less in-ten-si-ty.


    Be-cause of that, Sang knew all too well that the dif-fer-ence be-tween var-i-ous phas-es of Qi was not men-tal, not a mat-ter of in-tent. It was im-pos-si-ble for a younger cul-ti-va-tor to dis-play the same qi as a more ad-vanced one. Sang had un-der-stood the Moon-stone Is-lands'' qi when he was no more ad-vanced than young Ki''el--though he had been sub-stan-tial-ly old-er, hav-ing fo-cused on his re-search rather than cul-ti-va-tion. But his every ef-fort to bend qi to his will failed.


    This con-tin-ued un-til he broke through to Quartz Qi, the be-gin-ning of Heav-en-ly Gem phase, and he fi-nal-ly be-gan to un-der-stand that each break-through grant-ed au-thor-i-ty.


    Heav-en-ly Abode Qi--Sang''s per-son-al re-fine-ment of the Moon-stone Is-land con-cept--had been cor-rect in the-o-ry from the be-gin-ning. Sang knew, be-cause he ref-er-enced his old notes, go-ing back fur-ther and fur-ther un-til he was de-ci-pher-ing scrib-bles from thir-ty years pri-or, but all of those old notes were cor-rect. Once his qi had the prop-er au-thor-i-ty, he could cre-ate mas-sive float-ing is-lands not dif-fer-ent from the Sect''s foun-da-tions--and he had. Some of the Is-lands still a part of the sect to-day were is-lands he sup-port-ed us-ing those orig-i-nal notes, which were clos-er to Moon-stone Is-land Qi than Heav-en-ly Abode Qi. But pri-or to that break-through--all else equal but for that one crit-i-cal piece of au-thor-i-ty--there was noth-ing that Sang could do, no mat-ter how he gath-ered his qi, no mat-ter how he forged his in-tent, no mat-ter what lay-ers of in-scrip-tion he laid down or how he split his pat-terns among scripts and ar-ti-facts--not so long as those scripts and ar-ti-facts were pow-ered by his own qi.


    He had come to un-der-stand since then that it was an iron-clad rule--one''s qi had a cer-tain au-thor-i-ty, which shift-ed as one ad-vanced. Un-til a cer-tain au-thor-i-ty was gained, cer-tain things were im-pos-si-ble.


    El-der Sang stood qui-et-ly by as he watched young Ki''el per-form an im-pos-si-ble feat--or per-haps, a hereti-cal one.


    Sang un-der-stood, of course, that the ar-ti-fact that young Ki''el wield-ed was cre-at-ed by a mas-ter, and that mas-ter''s au-thor-i-ty might be res-i-dent with-in the weapon. He was pre-pared, in one sense, to have sensed a for-eign tint to the qi that the Aether Sword re-leased, a tint that would be the mas-ter''s qi re-spond-ing to the wield-er. And there was--per-haps--just a trace of it.


    But what he sensed more than any-thing was the girl''s in-tent. He had sensed her cre-at-ing the in-tent, wrestling with it, sensed the burn-ing of her chan-nels as she ex-ert-ed her-self--and un-der-stood what hap-pened next, per-haps in-cor-rect-ly, as the sword grant-i-ng au-thor-i-ty to the girl''s in-tent. How much au-thor-i-ty was im-pos-si-ble to tell; all he knew was that she achieved what she at-tempt-ed. Per-haps it was un-lim-it-ed, and per-haps not.


    Sang knew all too well the stages. Bright Met-al al-lowed you to con-nect your qi, but the dis-trib-uted struc-ture could not be treat-ed as a sin-gle whole for most pur-pos-es. At Earth-ly Gem, the qi that you stretch across space could be-come whole and sol-id, sim-pli-fy-ing bar-ri-ers sub-stan-tial-ly, but no mat-ter how much qi he poured into it, the qi was sim-ply not in-tense enough to hold to-geth-er such a mas-sive ef-fect as a Moon-stone Is-land. Heav-en-ly Gem had been an in-fu-ri-at-ing step for-ward, for Sang, be-cause it added a touch of in-ten-si-ty to one''s qi, an in-ten-si-ty and sin-gu-lar fo-cus that tru-ly be-gan to re-shape what was pos-si-ble with qi. But for Sang''s pur-pos-es, it was use-less--he need-ed his en-tire, dis-trib-uted qi struc-ture to hum with that vi-brant in-ten-si-ty. With-out that, hold-ing up an en-tire float-ing is-land with qi alone was im-pos-si-ble, no mat-ter how much en-er-gy you threw at it. And Heav-en-ly Gem re-fused to al-low that--the in-ten-si-ty could be gath-ered at any point, but the whole of his qi could not be im-bued with that strength, no mat-ter the in-tent, no mat-ter the clever arrange-ment of scripts. It felt like a be-tray-al that Sang reached the Moon-stone tier of Qi but was un-able to cre-ate a Moon-stone Is-land. Only at Tran-scen-dent Gem Phase had his qi gained that au-thor-i-ty, and when he had it, every-thing sim-ply worked.


    Ki''el''s [True Sword Qi] was at that phase, and per-haps be-yond. And it was her qi, with her in-tent. He had watched it hap-pen. If Hanzen Sang had such a tool at his dis-pos-al when he was at Bis-muth Qi, he could have--slow-ly, with ef-fort--recre-at-ed the en-tire Moon-stone Is-land Sect.


    Sang was not a war-rior by na-ture, and his qi was not suit-ed for com-bat. But El-der Sang was not an id-iot. He had watched gen-er-a-tions of war-riors grow, since be-com-ing an El-der, and had been beat-en over the head--some-times metaphor-i-cal-ly, some-times lit-er-al-ly--by how some peo-ple did not de-serve the au-thor-i-ty of high-er tiers of qi. Not only would they use it for bru-tal vi-o-lence, but many were sim-ply too stu-pid to use greater pow-er with-out de-stroy-ing them-selves, and every-thing around them.


    And this was what the An-gel wished to hand out. A war-rior''s weapon, one which would grant the wield-er Au-thor-i-ty. Even Sang might not have un-der-stood, when he was younger, that an Aether Sword might be used to cre-ate float-ing is-lands as eas-i-ly as it cut them apart--not un-less he was told.


    Sang watched young Ki''el''s Sword Qi cut straight through an In-ner Sect dis-ci-ple, a no-ble, at Opal Qi--high Mor-tal Gem. High enough to be able to cre-ate qi bar-ri-ers, but not high enough to im-bue them with in-ten-si-ty. But Ki''el seemed to lose con-trol of the strike, as with the last time she used her sword to at-tack, and it flashed for-ward, cut-ting what-ev-er was be-hind the man.


    The no-bles had each brought be-tween one and three re-tain-ers, and nei-ther the two re-tain-ers in the way of the blow had the pres-ence of mind to dodge the strike, or even throw up a bar-ri-er. Why would they, when a Young Mas-ter was be-tween them and the blow? One was lucky enough to only lose half of a hand and part of a shoul-der, but the oth-er... lost more than enough.


    And the strike con-tin-ued on, past them. A part of Sang''s mind watched it go with re-mark-able de-tach-ment, not-ing that it cut a sig-nif-i-cant depth into the ground, and the same for an-oth-er is-land above them in that di-rec-tion, while scraps of the qi ex-it-ed the Sect, the bar-ri-ers that re-mained al-low-ing qi out but not in. Un-less he missed his guess, it would con-tin-ue on well past his abil-i-ty to sense, though not for-ev-er. The pro-jec-tion was co-he-sive and in-tense--a mark that nor-mal-ly in-di-cat-ed Tran-scen-dant Gem and be-yond.


    But also... giv-en its in-ten-si-ty, it did not ap-pear to be a spe-cif-ic "cut-ting" in-tent, only "sword" in-tent. It did cut, but Sang knew well what cut-ting in-tent with that in-ten-si-ty did. He had re-paired the foun-da-tions of sev-er-al Moon-stone Is-lands where stray cut-ting in-tent had cleaved rock like wa-ter. This did cut rock, but it did not con-tin-ue care-less-ly. It re-mained [Sword Qi], and it did only what a sword did.


    Fas-ci-nat-ing, if still dis-heart-en-ing.


    But... Ki''el was in no con-di-tion to con-trol that pow-er, as Sang knew she would not be. In a sin-gle blow, she blew through what-ev-er pow-er she was us-ing, burned her merid-i-ans again, and was im-me-di-ate-ly strug-gling to re-main con-scious. Her com-pan-ion fox spir-it--Sang was glad that she had ac-com-plished that, at least--im-me-di-ate-ly pulled the girl away, but that did noth-ing about the no-ble step-ping for-ward, face twist-ed with hate. Djang Ren Xari, for her part, kept her dis-tance, and her face looked... con-flict-ed, but she didn''t raise a hand to stop the oth-er.


    Sang might have wast-ed words on the man, or the Ren, un-der dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stances, but his mind was full of too many oth-er things, and the mo-ment passed.


    Sang forced him-self to step light-ly, mov-ing be-tween Ki''el''s re-treat-ing form and the no-ble--Tan Fong Men-shi, if he re-called cor-rect-ly--more than quick-ly enough that the man had time to re-act. And he did re-act--by draw-ing a long and wicked-ly sharp blade from his space ring, al-ready un-sheathed, a howl-ing scream of heat and vi-o-lence be-gin-ning to form around its edge, and he be-gan to swing, his In-tent mur-der-ous.


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    Sang sim-ply brought his hands up, and pulled his fin-gers in like he were snatch-ing at pup-pet strings. Stone and root, dirt and heart-wood, gold and crys-tal... the fun-da-men-tal el-e-ments of a Heav-en-ly Abode were al-ways around him, and form-ing a small foun-da-tion, and with his pow-er and in-tent, im-bu-ing it with a sol-id de-fen-sive for-ma-tion was only a mo-ment''s work.


    Af-ter all, El-der Sang had long since reached Mor-tal Flame, and had the Au-thor-i-ty to draw pow-er from his own Greater Self. It was risky, in cer-tain cir-cum-stances, but un-de-ni-ably faster than draw-ing qi from the world, and with-out ex-haust-ing him-self as quick-ly as emp-ty-ing his dant-ian did.


    [ Heav-en-ly Abode: Seal of Re-jec-tion ]


    Sang''s qi sang out with the tech-nique name, and the no-ble''s qi snarled back its re-ply, the sword seek-ing out a flaw in his spell-work.


    [ In-fer-no Blade: Howl-ing Fang Strike ]


    "De-sist," Sang said, try-ing to fill his words with more au-thor-i-ty than he felt, or ar-guably, had un-der the cir-cum-stances.


    "You have no right to stop my vengeance," the no-ble''s voice was be-yond un-yield-ing, and he drew back the blade only enough to repo-si-tion it for an-oth-er thrust.


    "Your ally can be--"


    "Men-shi!" Xari''s cry went un-heed-ed, just as Sang''s words did. The swords-man''s qi fo-cused down into the finest point he could cre-ate, and Sang knew that in truth, his qi was not that of a war-rior''s.


    Al-though Sang had the more ma-ture qi, for an at-tack-er, Heav-en-ly Gem--the mo-ment where that in-ten-si-ty was un-locked the first time--was the mo-ment when any-one could be-gin to be tru-ly dan-ger-ous to an op-po-nent. Al-though Sang''s scripts were well-fin-ished and had many re-dun-dan-cies, they had weak-ness-es, and he knew they did. All one had to do was be clever about how your pow-er was used, and any qi above Heav-en-ly Gem could the-o-ret-i-cal-ly pierce Sang''s bar-ri-er.


    To-day would mark the first time that Sang had ever seen that in a real fight, but then, Sang didn''t get into a lot of fights.


    "Sang!" A scream from be-hind him seemed odd-ly out of place. Xoi Xam, he re-al-ized, was call-ing out to him. He flicked his hand out, cre-at-ing a Foun-da-tion with sim-i-lar ease to the last one, but some-what larg-er, and flicked it in her di-rec-tion, as-sign-ing scripts to it with his right hand, fin-ish-ing well be-fore his left arm fin-ished falling limply against his body.


    Sev-er-al cut mus-cles and ten-dons in the shoul-der, pos-si-bly nerves, Sang mused qui-et-ly to him-self. Straight through the bone, of course. That would be a ter-ri-ble prob-lem to heal. The sword was with-drawn with-in a mo-ment, and Sang pushed the foun-da-tion away, trust-ing that the oth-ers would un-der-stand. If no one else, his nephew would, as-sum-ing they went to him, or he caught up with them. Heav-en-ly Abode foun-da-tions weren''t that dif-fi-cult to un-der-stand, if some-one only showed you the way.


    [ Heave-ly Abode: Pri-ma-ry Foun-da-tion ]


    Sang moved back with more grace than he felt, his fin-gers al-ready twitch-ing, and the next sword strike was stopped by a stream of ma-te-r-i-al com-ing out of the ground, form-ing a Foun-da-tion around the blade. He had every right to be an-gry, of course, but Sang was not the an-gry sort of cul-ti-va-tor. He was not the bat-tle kind of cul-ti-va-tor. He was not the killing kind of cul-ti-va-tor.


    His op-po-nent, how-ev-er, was.


    [ In-fer-no Blade: Lion''s Claws, Un-sheathed ]


    Five blades of fire carved open gash-es in Sang''s chest, even as he moved back again, avoid-ing a killing strike. He hadn''t been think-ing; he poured his qi into his body''s cy-cle, re-in-forc-ing it and al-low-ing that in-ten-si-ty to coat every inch of his skin and to fill his bones.


    "That''s more than enough," Sang said, and he felt the trem-ble of Au-thor-i-ty be-hind his words, an in-ten-si-ty that he knew struck against Men-shi''s low-er, Star Ruby Qi. The next time that the sword came for Sang, he caught it--be-tween his fin-gers. "I de-test vi-o-lence, but you will cease."


    He sensed it be-fore they did, of course, but not fast enough.


    Two pres-ences, both a match for his qi, had en-tered the Sect through the hole in the out-er wards, but only now, only here did they re-veal them-selves. Both were Ren; al-though Sang couldn''t iden-ti-fy ei-ther by sight, their qi shout-ed their Qi Na-tures too loud to be ig-nored. [ Silk-steel ] was the more dan-ger-ous one, the man glar-ing down at Sang with the in-ten-si-ty of an en-ti-tled man whose do-main had been trod upon by an un-wel-come peas-ant. Be-side him, the woman''s [ Gold and Sil-ver Paint Strokes ] were even now weav-ing a ta-pes-try into be-ing that Sang could do noth-ing about--but that, at least, was un-like-ly to slaugh-ter him out-right.


    Col-lec-tive-ly, the three of them, and the two be-low, felt Her stand up.


    Sang al-most sagged in re-lief, but the wield-er of [ Silk-steel ] only need-ed to ges-ture sub-tly, and his vo-lu-mi-nous robes be-gan to send out streams of raz-er-edged cloth to-wards Sang. So Sang called again on the Moon-stone Is-lands, and his own Greater Self, and even the ma-te-r-i-al he kept in his Space Ring--


    And still the cloth cut straight through his leg, leav-ing noth-ing be-hind from the low-er fe-mur down.


    Sang twist-ed his qi, hold-ing him-self up-right and pulling him-self away, but he too could feel the me-thod-i-cal pace of the Moon-stone Is-lands'' mas-ter. She did not rouse her-self too of-ten, and was not ea-ger to get into a fight. She might, just might, be-come en-raged if Sang died be-fore she got there... but that was of lit-tle use to Sang, now.


    "Fa-ther, stop!" Xari''s voice cut through the air, but Sang thought that the younger woman''s voice was less like-ly the rea-son the man stopped than be-cause the woman''s tech-nique com-plet-ed.


    [ Gold and Sil-ver Paint Strokes: Pic-ture of the Un-re-pen-tant Con-demned ]


    The seal-ing tech-nique that slammed into Sang would have left him com-plete-ly un-con-scious, if he was not cy-cling the qi of his Greater Self through his body. As it was, he could dim-ly feel his fu-ture self--and that gave him strength, be-liev-ing that he would not die here, had not al-ready died here. But his sense of pre-sent self van-ished, leav-ing him in an in-be-tween state.


    He had heard of it be-fore, be-ing sealed while con-nect-ed to one''s Greater Self, but to ex-pe-ri-ence it was... some-thing else. He might have ex-plored it... if he could do so, and also, if he had con-fi-dence that he would keep his san-i-ty. But al-though he sensed his greater self, while sealed, his mind slowed to a crawl, and then ceased.


    When he re-turned to his prop-er self, he was gasp-ing on the ground, more than halfway healed, El-der Onda''s heal-ing pat-tern re-vers-ing the dam-age be-fore Sang him-self was quite aware of it. And she was there, the two Ren glar-ing at her, but they re-fused to budge.


    What-ev-er had been said be-fore he awoke, Sang only heard si-lence now.


    "I don''t care," she fi-nal-ly said, the head of the Moon-stone Is-land Sect turn-ing away from the war-riors who had am-pu-tat-ed and sealed him. "But the next time you ar-rive here with hos-tile in-tent, I will not feel in-clined to for-give you."


    "Hon-ored Founder--" the woman with the Gold and Sil-ver qi, whose name he could not place, be-gan.


    "Go," Onda snapped back at them, his voice harsh. "There are more peo-ple in this sect you need to wor-ry about of-fend-ing than just the Princess."


    For some rea-son, the man--if he were Djang Ren Xari''s fa-ther, that would make him Samar--scowled, and puffed him-self up, look-ing en-tire-ly too proud. "Un-like my wife, I don''t hold any sil-ly at-tach-ment to this sect. I well re-mem-ber most of you, and how ut-ter-ly near-sight-ed you all were. My ad-vance-ment may have stalled, but I don''t fear you in bat-tle. Not af-ter what I have learned, and done, in the fam-i-ly since then."


    "Is that so?"


    The voice that came from be-hind Samar was small, and Sang glanced past, feel-ing a bit too pained to find any amuse-ment in the woman who came up be-hind the two of them. "No fear at all?"


    Sang heard Onda chuck-le a lit-tle, and want-ed to smack him. [Fo-cus on heal-ing me, would you?]


    [ As if I couldn''t do that while jug-gling knives, ] Onda re-turned, but the mous-tached man let the amuse-ment fade from his face. [ Pity we won''t ac-tu-al-ly see her fight. ]


    [ Peace is not a pity, ] Sang re-turned, but glanced back and forth be-tween Samar and Futi, won-der-ing if the woman would ac-tu-al-ly dare show her cards again. The terms of the ban-ish-ment... but then, if the Di-a-mond Lord were tru-ly dead...


    "Our dear Sect Aunt," Samar said, af-ter a long mo-ment when Sang imag-ined he had forced him-self to ra-tio-nal-ize what was in front of him. At least, his voice was for-mal, now. "Here to pun-ish me? No longer afraid of the Em-pire''s re-stric-tions?"


    "Be care-ful what you as-sume, and about whom, Ren Samar." The small woman scowled at him, but looked to the woman next to him. "Wu-lai. It has been too long."


    "Sis-ter Futi." The woman bowed. "Apolo-gies, but it seems we won''t be hav-ing that drink any time soon."


    Futi looked past them, and past Sang, to the re-treat-ing own-er of the Sect. "No. But I sup-pose I may find the time, some day, to bring wine to your grave-stone, to drown the for-got-ten days. If you die in such a way that leaves a body to bury."


    Sang could feel some-thing em-a-nat-ing from the three of them, emo-tions long buried per-haps, but he was not so adept with peo-ple as to un-der-stand it, and not so clear head-ed to care. At least his pain was eas-ing, enough to re-mem-ber what had come be-fore. He glanced to Onda. [ The kids? ]


    [ Away, ] Onda an-swered, with-out de-tails. And in truth, Sang shouldn''t have asked, not where the ques-tion or an-swer could be over-heard. But it was good for his heart to be-lieve that young Ki''el and her group were not ac-tive-ly be-ing chased by these mon-sters.


    At least... un-til he re-al-ized that he did not see Tan Fong Men-shi, nor any sign that he had been wiped out by some-one else.

 [TAS] 48. Xam - Fires, Part 4

    Xam had not meant to cry out, when she saw the Elder get stabbed. And she only felt worse, when Elder Sang took that as an excuse to turn his attention away from the enemy, producing a large rock slab that he flung their way. The slab was not enormous... but it did crash through Ki''el''s small cottage, and several trees, on its way to them, making Xam sure that it would trap them all and crash them into the forest.


    Somehow, though, the slab touched the ground and bounced up and over them, just barely high enough to clear them, the sound of snapping trees almost deafening as it went. She noted, with the absurd focus that danger brought her, several runic formations on the slab, but it was well out of her reach.


    The same, apparently, could not be said of Brother Bon.


    The man leapt from a standing start and twisted, landing on his feet and clinging to the platform with his hand on the runic controls. Whether by his qi or the platform''s, he remained stuck there, and Ki''el''s new fox spirit seemed to have the same idea, dragging Ki''el out of Xam''s hands with a seemingly effortless leap, and clinging to the platform even before Brother Bon was able to get it to steady, and level out. [ This way, children! ]


    Xam wanted to scoff, and settled for an ugly snarl, but before she could move, she felt something odd, and turned, feeling like she was moving in slow motion. She didn''t have to look far--the source of the feeling was Chian, who was standing up from the ground, an odd look on her face, her fingers flexing experimentally around the haft of Ki''el''s weapon. Xam had not processed the idea that Ki''el had dropped it--she had noticed, she now realized--and she was glad, in a way, that Chian had noticed it before they got taken away. But... there was something off, something wrong.


    She realized only afterwards that Chian''s qi--no, her spirit beast qi in particular, had been swirling around the sword.


    In only a few moments after that, Chian had pulled everyone still on the ground into the air, with an intensity and strange weight to her qi that didn''t belong. Xam flinched back from it; the motion was absurd and violent, and when Chian pushed them all towards the platform, it was jarring, and Xam landed hard enough that she felt her knee twist the wrong way, though not enough to harm her. Xam took a long moment, at first to grab at her knee, and then to confirm that the others were on the strange stone platform, and that it was moving away, before she turned back to look.


    Chian still hovered there, even as the stone moved away from her. She looked down at the sword, confused, but Xam''s eyes flickered down, to the battle that they were leaving behind.


    "Chian!" she shouted, at the same time as the fox spirit''s qi seemed to lance out with intent. [ Hurry, inheritor! ]


    Their words interrupted Chian''s thoughts, and she seemed to push herself towards them, but Xam''s eyes remained locked behind her--at the figure who had stabbed Elder Sang, and at Sang himself, who was now unveiling his qi, its intensity churning around him.


    A moment later, two figures rose into view from behind a nearby island, but Brother Bon was swift, pushing their own island away. Xam only had a moment to watch Elder Sang''s reaction, and then the platform ducked down behind the edge of their own island, descending rapidly, Chian chasing after them in erratic bursts.


    A moment later, they felt the qi of the entire Moonstone Island Sect shift, and Xam realized that what she had taken as background was one person''s aura. But they only had a moment of peace to reflect on it, because behind Chian, another figure dove off the edge of the island, chasing after them, his qi already unveiled. It was a Gem Qi, red with asterisms--Star Ruby, two full phases ahead of them. At least... ahead of her, and Ki''el, and Mian, and...


    "Chian!" Xam was sure that the girl should have been able to sense the aura approaching, but Chian was still wrestling with the blade, and its effect on her spirit energy.


    The man above--Tan Fong Menshi, his qi screamed at them--was already marshalling fire qi around his sword, and Chian wasted time turning to look. Xam feared the worst--for a moment.


    [ Silver Tortoise Aegis ]


    The effect that closed around Chian was so vivid that Xam would have thought, for a moment, that it was an actual silver tortoise--even though it had appeared in fragments, like a painting torn to shreds was repaired through some spell. But when it formed--no, even before then, each of the scraps of qi that gathered to create it were unbelievably thick with more than just power. They bore weight unlike anything Xam had ever seen.


    From her perspective, there wasn''t even anything to notice when Menshi''s blade struck the barrier. Rather, after a moment, Chian turned back and flung herself after them, and the tortoise shaped barrier moved, as though it were a living things, repositioning itself in open air to glare at its target.


    But Menshi was in no way deterred. He ducked and tried to dodge past the tortoise, but wasn''t stupid enough to not pay it any attention; when its head snapped towards him, he accelerated away, swinging his sword at its face, which...


    Xam, internally, reasoned that a tortoise-shaped defensive formation would have no reason be weak to strikes in the face, though perhaps it was a spirit as well?


    Whatever the reason, the [Inferno Blade] technique splashed away from the [Silver Tortois Aegis] without any hint of penetration, but Menshi was flying, now, after them, through some technique that was not obvious. Although the tortoise moved again to try to block the way, the possibility that he would sneak by was real.


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    Of course, Xam only had to look over at Bai Benai, and the unstressed look on her face, to know that he would have no more luck even if he got all the way to them. Even so...


    Chian crashed down next to her a moment later, and with what seemed like great effort, she found a way to deactivate Ki''el''s aether sword. What she said a moment later didn''t quite... enter Xam''s brain properly, but she thought it was, "Ancestor''s rotting asscheeks".


    She... was probably wrong.


    "Xam," the girl said after a moment, though she didn''t move her hands. "Take this sword from me. Please."


    Xam reached out and pried the hilt away from her, realizing that there was something different from the last time she had held Ki''el''s weapon, as though a veil which should have been over it had been dropped. She knew that she should have simply put it in her storage ring, but she couldn''t help the moment of reflection, the moment of wondering what the sword could do in her hands.


    Her eyes caught a flicker of light, and she ducked as though to dodge, but Benai simply waved a hand, and the spike of flame--of [Inferno Blade]--splashed away like nothing. Xam scowled anyway, and stored the blade, before she did anything stupid like drop it. "Thank you, Sister Benai."


    Xam felt a strange tension, and the woman half turned to look at her, but the tension vanished. "It feels strange to be addressed like that when in battle," she said after a moment. "In the Sect, it''s rare for--" she blocked another [Inferno Blade] spike, "--disputes to get serious, especially once someone understands who they are dealing with."


    "I do wonder why he''s still attacking," mused Brother Bon, from behind them both. "With you, and me, and Du..."


    Xam blinked. Brother Du was still here? She glanced around, but didn''t see him. "Brother Du?"


    "Not here," Benai said, coldly. "At the edge of the island, looking down from above."


    Xam felt a moment of irritation, but why? She looked up, but was no longer in a place to see Brother Du''s figure even if he was exactly where Benai had said. For certain, she trusted Du to act as he believed he should... and Benai enough would be able to protect Ki''el. But... had he not let Menshi by? Why? And why was the man still attacking?


    A few moments later, Xam felt another shift in the qi around them, and turned to see another person approaching--but it had a strange threadlike sense to its qi, and she scowled, already certain that she knew why.


    "The Ren are troublesome," Benai sighed. "It would be better if the one who fought was not a spirit beast, but..."


    But the only other person here who could use qi offensively was Brother Bon, and he was stabilizing the Foundation as it flew down and away from the Sect. It was him, her, Ki''el and Mian, Jito and Taru, Benai... and...


    Xam turned to look at Ki''el, and the spirit animal that was perched atop her. Somehow, that spirit animal''s calm struck her as too deep, almost like Benai''s. Xam half wished she had a fan or prop to hide her face, but now was not the time for posturing. "Meixu," she said, struggling to pronounce the spirit''s name. "You are... strong, are you not?"


    [ I''m not eager to fight a family famous for its binding techniques, either, ] the fox said. [ If my contractor ordered it, I would, but... ]


    "I''m not going to order you." She withdrew Ki''el''s sword again, and held it out before her. "But I wonder if you would be willing to borrow Ki''el''s weapon and defend her with it?"


    Even before she felt the wind shift, Xam knew that she had hit the fox in its weak point. The tremble that she felt, the shift in the whole world''s qi... it was not the kind of phenomenon that occurred with weak qi. It hadn''t even occurred when Benai created her [Silver Tortois Aegis].


    A person--a whole human being, as far as Xam could tell--plucked the sword from her grasp, and Xam noticed only a moment later that he had very strange, foreign clothes, and very sharp talons at the end of his fingers. Only when she looked up, and then back at Ki''el, and then back at the foreign-looking man, was she certain that this was Meixu, the fox spirit. But what level of qi he had was impossible for her to tell, even before he flicked out the sword, closed his eyes, and released something into the world.


    What was clear was that a moment later, storm clouds had rolled in from every horizon, and where those clouds surrounded the two figures--Menshi, and the other from the Ren--there were black beasts ducking in and out of the cloud banks, almost too quick to see.


    Menshi flared his qi and struck out at the clouds, but Xam had no reason to think that he would be a match for this spirit beast''s technique. The Ren elder--or perhaps less than that?--also unleashed a qi technique, one that stabbed at the clouds around her, weaving back and forth until it created a zone around her.


    [ Crystal Blood Thread: Cat''s Cradle ]


    "A false domain," scoffed Meixu. "The wasted efforts of a qi cultivator trying to achieve something qi simply cannot."


    Something qi cannot do? Xam filed that thought away, but in spite of that, Meixu did not attack, either. After a moment, the Ren''s blood threads lashed out to surround Menshi as well, scattering the stormclouds as they went. A moment later, both charged after them, but they were far behind, and Benai''s tortoise barrier was still in between them.


    "I thought perhaps they understood, and were simply brazen," Benai said into the silence, and Xam heard Meixu chuckle. "It seems they have never learned the character for ''death.''"


    "I am enjoying this source of power too much," Meixu returned, looking down at the sword in his hands. "I am too tempted to delay things and continue tasting it. But, it is also not the right energy for one such as me." He looked back over his shoulder, meeting Xam''s eyes easily. "Girl. Friend my contractor. Discover for yourself whether or not I am strong."


    A single swing of the sword ended it. It was too quick. The sword in Meixu''s hands was fast enough, but the mass of air that it commanded had to travel thousands of times faster--and it did, smashing the two pursuers out of the sky in less than an instant, and transforming the overcast sky into a strange double-cyclone, one that quickly scattered into dozens, then perhaps hundreds of smaller tornadoes, all of which carved paths across the landscape below them.


    By the time Xam understood what she was even looking at, the sword had been pressed into her hand, and Meixu, that fox, was laying down on top of Ki''el''s chest, as peaceful as any housecat she had ever seen.


    Xam did not know what to say, or do, or think after that. Chian and Sister Benai were one thing--assuming the woman was willing to work with them at all--but if someone like this was going to follow Ki''el, to be part of the family that Xam had to somehow manage?


    Perhaps... perhaps the structure of their Noble house was going to have to be somewhat more complicated than she had thought.

 [TAS] 49. Kiel - Fires, Part 5

    By the time that Ki''el awoke, many things had changed. She had feared as much, of course, but what seemed strangest was that they were still--or once again--on a floating platform, high above the world, though not so high as the Moonstone Island Sect, still visible above them.


    Her immediate thought was that they should return--that the sect was safety, and home. But... that thought did not survive for more than a few moments. It wasn''t an intellectual choice; it wasn''t anything, really. But the thought that the sect had been, or would become, her home, hit her hard.


    It had been meant to be. But was it?


    "Ki''el." Chian was sitting next to her, and Ki''el knew that the spirit fox that she had bonded with--Meixu--had noticed her waking, but said nothing. Kuli, too, did not interrupt her thoughts, as the augment most often did not. "Are you hurt?"


    That was its own question, and Ki''el closed her eyes again, feeling the burning through her spirit. It was worse, but not so much more that she couldn''t function. In truth, most of what she had done was simply to command the sword; its aether didn''t flow through her. But... commanding that mass of aether had needed her to spend no small amount of qi. Or perhaps... perhaps Ki''el had done so out of instinct? She was not sure.


    "I am fine," she chose to say instead, though of course that was too optimistic. She chose not to try to sit up, because she felt like it would not work out well. "Everyone else?"


    There was something of an awkward pause, before Chian answered, "We were chased away, but Elder Sang left us this platform. Sister Benai and your companion Meixu kept us safe. Meixu... borrowed your sword, and returned it. As did I."


    Ki''el looked and met Chian''s eyes. The girl looked... nervous. "The sword is fine?"


    "I have it," Xam answered. "I believe it is fine. It is in my ring, but I will return it when you wish."


    In truth, Ki''el didn''t have any need for it now, and she was not feeling particularly well. At first, she thought it might be the damage to her spirit, but... "Are we moving?"


    [ Don''t tell me you''re motion sick, ] Meixu scolded her. [ Aren''t you an island girl? ]


    Ki''el forced herself to sit up, and when she could see the distance, and the horizon below, some things started to slowly fall into place. A disorientation that she had not understood... but also, when she was able to put that aside, there seemed to be... a crack.


    { You are not imagining it, } Kuli admitted. { Your spirit is damaged, not from your use of qi... but from what you have lost. }


    Lost? Ki''el, instinctively, looked around, but the people she expected to be there were. Did something happen to Sobon? The sword?


    { Ki''el. } The words of her augment were serious, but not harsh. { You lost a future, a dream that you had made into a pillar in your heart. It was only just beginning to develop, but losing it is still serious. }


    Ki''el found herself staring into the distance. The words, if they were merely spoken, might have slipped past her, but Kuli''s words were Ki''el''s thoughts. And Ki''el understood, if not as well as the augment, that there was something fundamentally true there.


    [ That mind enhancer of yours is wise, ] Meixu volunteered, and Ki''el turned to look, surprised that it could hear Kuli, given that she was sure her augment had not been projecting. [ Grieve while you have a chance, girl. If you forget why you are grieving, it will never end.]


    "We aren''t sure what to do," Chian said into the quiet, with somewhat awkward timing, and Ki''el realized that she had not heard the spirit fox''s transmission. "But... even with the Sect''s permission, and protection, I worry that we will not be safe there. That you will not be safe there."


    And there it was, again. A future stripped from her. The crack in Ki''el''s spirit felt almost tangible, as she confronted the thought. She had built it up in her mind--as a place where she could be safe, where she would learn so much, where she would become a person who her master wished her to be. Sobon had said that he had expected her to grow strong enough to help. How could she do that anywhere else?


    "I don''t think it''s unsafe to return," Brother Bon said from somewhere to Ki''el''s right, though she had paid the man little attention when looking over the others. "The Elders of the sect are all masters, and the true master of the Moonstone Island sect..." he paused, as she turned to face him. "Are you aware of her?"


    "I believe I have met her, at the trial." Ki''el had no idea how strong the woman who appeared to run her hearing was, but the smallest motions from her were respected by the assembled Elders.


    "Of course. But have you heard who she is?" When Ki''el could only look at him blankly, he looked away. "I... only know it as a legend. It may be untrue. But I was told that she was one a princess by birth, of a mountain nation, and... one of the wives of the Diamond Lord."


    Wife of the Diamond Lord? Ki''el had no idea what that made her in imperial politics, though from the look on several faces around her, she trusted it was substantially important. "That means she is strong?"


    Brother Bon chuckled. "I can see how your thinking varies by the look on your faces. Sister Ki''el cares little for politics, but trusts that a strong man wants a strong partner. Sister Xam was not thinking about her strength, but about the politics. Brothers Jito and Taru had no idea the Sect was so well connected. Brother Mian... I believe was distracted."


    "I''ve never seen the woman," Mian said, looking away. "My imagination ran away with me."


    "If you are imagining a gentle flower, you''re far from the truth." Brother Bon''s voice still contained a humor, though it hardened. "It is said that none of the Diamond Lord''s wives were anything but the fiercest of warriors, all flowers plucked in their prime. Often by force, though the blow was softened by the Diamond Lord''s protection thereafter." He paused. "Not all Empresses--though there is no such title in imperial politics--not all became heads of houses or even cared what happened to the children they bore for the Diamond Lord. But all were changed."


    Stolen novel; please report.


    [ That is an interesting version of the story, ] Meixu''s musings, from nearby Ki''el''s head, sounded very loud to her. [ And not entirely wrong. But it feels the wrong time to be wrapped up in legends. Do you wish to return to the Sect? There is much there for you if you return, and much danger if you stray away from it. But there is no question that you will be found, if you return. ]


    "No."


    Ki''el found that she was unable to make the decision any other way. It wasn''t as though she thought about it. If she were to put it to words, she would say that she could no more easily return to the Sect than walk on a broken leg, wield a sword with a broken arm. Perhaps--just perhaps--it would be possible, with great difficulty and immense pain, but every part of her rebelled at the idea.


    Of seeing the home where she and Chian had been hoping to live. Walking the roads that she and Xari had walked. It was a senseless thought--no, not a thought. It was only pain, like the pain of thinking of her home, of the many people from her village that were missing, perhaps slaves to some Djang household or other. Perhaps tortured, perhaps dead.


    Why does everyone home get taken away from me?


    "I don''t disagree," Xam said, though Ki''el only understood her words later, with the help of Kuli, who listened when she did not. "Perhaps later, we can return. I suspect the Sect will allow it without even requiring us to pay, though... if they do, it will be complicated. We don''t have that much money."


    "Few people do," agreed Fei Taru, his voice quiet even in Kuli''s retelling.


    "But we do have a property writ, one that Ki''el''s master gave us to start our house. And money to begin such a task." Xam''s voice, though it sounded firm, held doubts, doubts that only intensified Ki''el''s refusal to listen in the moment.


    At that time, though, the fox Meixu moved into Ki''el''s lap, and she found herself petting him, the fox clearly encouraging the behavior by choosing not to flee from or react to her touch. It calmed her, steadied her, to feel his fur through her fingers.


    "A property writ?" Brother Bon asked after a moment. "What is that, exactly?"


    "A simple notice, signed by a Djang military commander, requesting that some allowances be made when we attempt to purchase property in an area where it is usually restricted. As payment for services to the Empire." Xam''s voice was, in Kuli''s opinion, attempting to project pride, although she understood the topic poorly. "It comes with a list of places where it might be respected... and one is not far from here."


    [ What sort of places? ] Meixu''s projection sounded guarded.


    "The closest is within the Shadowed Fang Mountains, just to the north," Xam answered, as Ki''el began to recover enough that Kuli started to catch her up on what had been said so far. "My understanding is the area is known for its mining, and there is a minor industrial city there. It sits on a military route, one used for pacifying Starbeasts further north and west."


    Xam paused only briefly before she changed subjects. "The next closest is in the opposite direction, and would bring us back in the direction of Emerald Valley, where I met Ki''el and Mian. Since Emerald Valley is already known to our enemies as well, I would imagine it has already been attacked and is under invesetigation; I wouldn''t recommend getting too close, but there is a river city there which may provide an opportunity."


    "The remaining three noted locations are all in the eastern half of the Empire, and will take more effort for us to reach, especially now. In the north, a port city--"


    "We should go to the mountains." Ki''el finished catching up to the conversation in time to break in with her suggestion--she did not view it as an order, herself. In truth, she was mostly just hurt, scared. "Find a quiet place. Where we are not known."


    There was a silence. { They will listen if you insist, } Kuli translated for her, and Ki''el looked up, realizing that everyone was looking at her. She... was not used to the idea. No, rather... even if Kuli insisted that others would listen, the idea made little sense to her, not in the moment.


    [ Young Ki''el is not as certain as she sounds, but... ] Meixu translated for the rest, not including Ki''el in that part of his transmission, though he included her for the rest. [ For my part, I agree. These mountains of yours, they are very tall? Shrounded in clouds and mist? ]


    "Yes," Xam said, and Ki''el looked to her, surprised by the sudden brightness in her sister''s voice. "And some are active volcanos, glowing at night with hellish lights. I have not been, but many artists have become famous depicting its peaks and valleys, especially at dawn and dusk, when the deep shadows reveal the hidden glows." Xam paused, seeming suddenly embarrassed. "I know... that this is hardly the time. But they are truly lovely paintings."


    [ Storm shrouded peaks are the natural playground of a Raging Storm Fox. Though... I have become quite comfortable with the lowlands as well. It would be an ideal place for this young Inheritor to grow. ] Meixu turned his head to look at Benai. [ And you, sister. Unless you plan to run back to the Sect this moment? Another charge, perhaps? ]


    A part of Ki''el, though she didn''t focus on it, noted the difference in how Meixu treated Benai, rather than Chian. It should have felt natural, given the difference in age, wisdom, and power, but...


    "The families can contact me if they need me," Benai said, after a moment of silently mulling the question over. "I''ve no contract with the Sect itself. And no one there now needs my guidance."


    "Then I suppose we''re agreed?" Xam''s voice sounded somewhat pleased. "Brother Bon? How far can we take this stone platform?"


    "Elder Sang''s [Foundation] will persist indefinitely, but I can''t power it for more than two, three hundred li at a time." Brother Bon sighed. "If Brother Du had come..."


    "What about me?"


    The question came from nowhere, and Ki''el blinked, having to look around even to find the sound of the voice. But there, not far away, on his own small rock platform, somehow giving away almost no qi signature, was... "Brother Juno?"


    "Sister Ki''el!" He grinned and waved at her. "I meant to come by and see how you''re doing, but I wonder... what have you learned?"


    Ki''el paused, the obvious answer coming to mind, but... she frowned. "If Brother Juno is wondering what we can pay him for his services..."


    "She does learn." Juno''s rock shifted towards them without obvious effort on his part, though the movements of the rock seemed almost playful, joyous. "In this case, rather than payment in advance, I''ll ask for a simple favor, since I was listening quite well to everything you''ve said so far." He moved in, the rock coming right next to their platform--their Foundation, according to Brother Bon. "Nothing complicated. Room and board, when I ask for it. For life."


    Ki''el instinctively bristled at the idea of such an open-ended request, but to her surprise, Xam snapped her fingers immediately. "Done," she said. "But so long as you stay, you will have to do work."


    "Ah, a businesswoman." Brother Juno feigned a swoon. "A woman after my own heart. Don''t fret, lovely one. As long as you pay for materials, and don''t ask too much of my time, I''m happy to remain busy." He ignored Mian''s discomfort at the flirting, and leaned on his arm like he was quite satisfied with himself. "And a mining city would be quite the place for someone adept at metal folding."


    Metal Folding? But Ki''el looked down, feeling again like the whole reason why Juno was here--why any of these people were here--was all because they all thought that Ki''el was something special.


    If so, they thought something that Ki''el, herself, did not.


    She grit her teeth, though, and bowed her head. "Thank you, Brother Juno."


    "Don''t worry too much about it, Ki''el. Especially now. I mean look at you! You seem about ready to fall over, even though you''ve only just awoken!" Juno seemed to spring effortlessly off his rock, catch it, and store it away in his space ring all in one motion. "Rest, girl, and let the others work for a while. Bon, I''ll take control."


    Bon relinquished control of the Foundation, and Ki''el laid down, finding that Meixu curled up next to her head almost immediately. There''s something about that fox, Ki''el thought, though she didn''t know what or why. Something strange in how he had treated her--all of them. An earnesty that she had not expected.


    But Ki''el found herself drifting off again only too soon, the thought soon forgotten.

 [TAS] 50. Kiel - Burden, Part 1

    Two weeks lat-er, Ki''el was stand-ing in an of-fice cham-ber in the re-mote city of Red-fang Wall. Al-though her cul-ti-va-tion had re-cov-ered much in those two weeks, her headache re-mained, and had even grown over time--for a dif-fer-ent rea-son.


    The civil-ian mag-is-trate of the city had re-fused to con-sid-er the prop-er-ty writ with-out the ap-proval of the lo-cal mil-i-tary com-man-der--but the lo-cal mil-i-tary com-man-der was out fight-ing Star-beasts, and by rep-u-ta-tion alone, he would not re-turn for months. In the-o-ry, his sub-com-man-der held enough au-thor-i-ty to val-i-date the writ, but she had been en-tire-ly ob-sti-nate about meet-ing any-one non-no-ble, to the point where they all knew noth-ing else about her. And al-though Xam was tech-ni-cal-ly of a no-ble fam-i-ly, the sub-com-man-der''s aide laughed off the idea that the Xoi, be-ing mer-chants, were wor-thy of be-ing called such. If any-one else in their mot-ley crew was of no-ble birth, none had spo-ken up when Xam ex-plained the sit-u-a-tion.


    Tech-ni-cal-ly, Mian was sup-posed to be pre-tend-ing to be a dis-graced mem-ber of no-bil-i-ty--but he and Xam had ex-pect-ed more time to put to-geth-er a con-vinc-ing act. Xam was con-vinced that, for now, his na-ture was far too gen-tle and frag-ile to play at be-ing a no-ble, es-pe-cial-ly the kind of no-ble who could force a small mil-i-tary func-tionary to yield to him.


    Xam had a cer-tain... en-er-gy, when she talked about train-ing Mian to be-have dif-fer-ent-ly, but Ki''el did not un-der-stand why, ex-cept to as-sume it had some-thing to do with her sense of style. Ki''el was not, gen-er-al-ly, a fan of her sis-ter''s style and pre-sen-ta-tion, which was much more in line with the few lo-cal no-bles they had man-aged to cor-ner for more in-for-ma-tion about the lo-cal cir-cum-stances.


    It was one of those lo-cal no-bles who was re-spon-si-ble for Ki''el be-ing here, now.


    Zhu Dan Long was an ob-nox-ious, over-weight bul-ly of a boy of about Ki''el''s age, and be-ing no-ble, he was wait-ing at the cusp of Gold Qi in or-der to en-ter a sect. De-spite that, he had ap-par-ent-ly been taught quite a bit about the qi of bat-tleax-es--a spe-cial-ty of their fam-i-ly--in or-der to ex-cel when he fi-nal-ly was ready. But he was quite ar-ro-gant about it, and swore that he could de-feat Ki''el in sin-gle com-bat, with him-self still in Gold and Ki''el now two stages above him, in Bis-muth Qi. If he should fail, all he had to do was vouch for them, al-low-ing the sub-com-man-der to val-i-date the prop-er-ty writ.


    If he suc-ceed-ed... he said some-thing about mar-riage? Ki''el didn''t see a rea-son to care what the boy thought.


    And so Ki''el was wait-ing in a side of-fice when Zhu Dan Long ap-peared, his chub-by fin-gers adorned with far more rings and his arms and legs fes-tooned with bracelets. With much help from Kuli, Ki''el scanned over the var-i-ous adorn-ments, find-ing (with no sur-prise) that each was a script-ed tal-is-man of one kind or an-oth-er. Some were mere en-hance-ments to the boy''s strength or qi, while oth-ers were trig-gered ef-fects.


    It made Ki''el slight-ly ner-vous to con-sid-er what might come next, but she had not been en-tire-ly idle the last two weeks


    In truth, Ki''el was... still ex-treme-ly de-pressed. And the fact that the two weeks had both dragged on and slipped by in-di-cat-ed even to Ki''el''s young mind that she was not well. Kuli had tried to help, but... in gen-er-al, the aug-ment had told her to sim-ply grieve.


    And that was com-pli-cat-ed.


    But she had also tak-en to med-i-tat-ing on space aether. It was a part of her qi now, but Ki''el felt a stub-born pride in fol-low-ing her mas-ter''s foot-steps, and Sobon had used raw aether. Al-though she had no idea how his weapons worked--in-deed, she was able to re-call some of the aether scripts he had made, and even the ones that were for seem-ing-ly sim-ple weapons had been com-plex--but the foun-da-tion had been aether with-in Ki''el''s grasp.


    With-in two nights of med-i-ta-tion, she had done some-thing dan-ger-ous enough that Kuli had to in-ter-vene, but that was slight-ly dif-fer-ent.


    "Al-right, girl," Zhu Dan Long''s voice broke into Ki''el''s ir-ri-tat-ed thoughts. "This is the great Zhu Moumu Fengxi, and he will vouch for the le-git-i-ma-cy of our duel."


    Ki''el eyed the man, and even she could see that he was an un-trust-wor-thy sort. It was there in the oili-ness of his qi, the bit-ter stink sur-round-ing his body, the silk robes that must not have been cleaned in months, and the pos-ture that re-mind-ed her-self more of sulk-ing is-land chil-dren than any-one she had met since.


    Some-thing about the way she looked at him clear-ly ir-ri-tat-ed the man, be-cause he ges-tured at her wild-ly while his oth-er hand went to a sword on his belt. "What the hell are you look-ing at? I am great! And I''m not go-ing to let you es-cape from this no-ble and hon-or-able duel that we''ve got set up for you."


    Be-side her, Ki''el felt Xam stir-ring, prob-a-bly in anger, but she just glanced past the man to the boy stand-ing slight-ly be-hind. "This is re-al-ly the best you could find?"


    For what-ev-er rea-son, that up-set Fengxi enough that his qi start-ed to shake--and un-like most of the qi Ki''el had en-coun-tered so far, it did shake, its cir-cu-la-tion un-sta-ble and its... its tone off, too sharp and flat at once. The man''s qi was at Ti-ta-ni-um, but noth-ing that the man did could con-vince Ki''el that he ac-tu-al-ly knew how to use it.


    "Hon-or-able Un--the great Zhu Moumu Fengxi only needs to vouch for the re-sults of the duel," Zhu Dan Long said. "He is un-ques-tion-ably a mem-ber of the no-bil-i-ty, and we have al-ready told the hon-ored Sub-com-man-der that we will be hav-ing our duel. To-day."


    "Ki''el..." Xam''s qui-et voice was full of cau-tion, but Ki''el had quite enough.


    "Fine. A duel." She itched to pull out her aether sword, but she had giv-en it--and her space ring--to Xam for now. Xam, and most every-one else she''d talked to, had all agreed that the duel was go-ing to be stu-pid, and un-fair, and some were still against Ki''el try-ing it. They wor-ried that the boy''s script-ed items would give him a sig-nif-i-cant enough edge to over-come the dif-fer-ence be-tween their cul-ti-va-tion. In the-o-ry, he wasn''t sup-posed to have any--any duel in-volv-ing a no-ble be-low the age of adult-hood should have re-quired both sides to pre-sent any ar-ti-facts they in-tend-ed to use, be-fore the duel was agreed upon. Since they had al-ready agreed, it should have been noth-ing more than the boy had on him at the time.


    In prac-tice, every-one had ex-pect-ed this, but Ki''el had every rea-son to ig-nore those wor-ries.


    The back door to the of-fice opened into a small-ish cleared space es-pe-cial-ly for du-els, and there were sev-er-al spec-ta-tors--all but one in gar-ish fin-ery that matched the boy''s. The last was the mil-i-tary aide who... who in Ki''el''s eyes seemed un-ac-count-ably se-ri-ous.


    She had ex-pect-ed the aide to be like the boy and his fam-i-ly--so full of her-self that she could not imag-ine Ki''el win-ning a duel against a no-ble child. But some-thing in the woman''s bear-ing sug-gest-ed that she thought the out-come was in doubt. It was in the in-tense scruti-ny, the cal-cu-lat-ing glances around the are-na and at the spec-ta-tors.


    "Fine then, this stu-pid--eh." Fengxi caught his words, glanc-ing up at the boy''s fam-i-ly, then looked away. He didn''t seem at all in-ter-est-ed in the oth-er woman. When he start-ed again, his tone was so bland and even that it felt life-less. "The no-ble art of bat-tle is one in which the tal-ents of the younger gen-er-a-tion are on dis-play. Let none in-ter-fere in this most an-cient and no-ble of tra-di-tions. For no-bil-i-ty is the true spir-it of the war-rior, and the true spir-it of the no-bil-i-ty is the spir-it of the war-rior. Fight not to kill or maim, but to prove that you bear a vic-to-ri-ous char-ac-ter." There was a mo-ment in which Ki''el had the strangest im-pres-sion the man want-ed to col-lapse, but he re-cov-ered with-out any vis-i-ble mo-tion. "Be-gin."


    Ki''el could tell the mo-ment that Long threw his qi into the var-i-ous baubles on him, but that didn''t take any ef-fort on her part--all of the rings glowed and made var-i-ous nois-es, and the bracelets twist-ed the qi in the air around him. She had to re-vise some of what she had thought when Kuli had ex-plained the func-tions on the items--she had thought the light and sound glyphs were for at-tack-ing, dis-tract-ing.


    When the boy charged at Ki''el, though, she could at last ad-mit he was faster, if still not as fast as pi-rates, or the mur-der-ous Mofu thugs. More im-por-tant-ly, she watched the boy''s qi, as he tried to swing his fist and ac-ti-vate one of his at-tack rings at the same time.


    A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    He... well, one could say that he suc-ceed-ed.


    Al-though Ki''el dodged the at-tack, it seemed to ex-plore in midair. Ki''el might have been con-vinced that was on pur-pose, if she flinched away from watch-ing the at-tack take place. But she saw the boy pro-ject a volatile pack-et of qi... and then pro-ceed to punch it. And she saw the red-ness on his hand, the gri-mace on his face.


    "Thun-der punch!" Long yelled, per-haps be-liev-ing that she would mis-take the sound of his voice for a tech-nique name echo-ing via qi. Ki''el paused, won-der-ing ex-act-ly how stu-pid the boy had to be, to think such a thing, but he took the mo-ment of her dis-dain to move in again and at-tempt a high kick.


    It was not dif-fi-cult for Ki''el to step back, and with a men-tal nod to Kuli, she be-gan to take the fight some-what more se-ri-ous-ly, gath-er-ing her in-tent. Al-though she had to split her at-ten-tion to do it, the boy''s strikes and ''qi tech-niques'' were ridicu-lous-ly daft and easy to avoid.


    Ki''el''s tech-nique... was, ad-mit-ted-ly, an-oth-er cheat. Sort of.


    She had want-ed to recre-ate Sobon''s tele-ki-net-ic aether pat-tern us-ing her qi, but ap-par-ent-ly, the wide dif-fer-ence be-tween qi and aether meant that aether scripts could not sim-ply be fed qi--but be-yond that, Ki''el''s mem-o-ry might have been some-what faulty. Be-tween the two, Kuli had been will-ing to pro-vide a very ba-sic tele-ki-net-ic script for Ki''el to prac-tice with, one that com-bined her ex-ist-ing un-der-stand-ing of Thrust Qi with a ba-sic abil-i-ty to tar-get points in space.


    In short, she could push things around, but not hold them. Yet.


    Even so, Ki''el felt no rea-son to hide this much, and when she had dodged an-oth-er kick, and the boy seemed more or less off bal-ance any-way, Ki''el sim-ply ges-tured, and her qi spoke. [ Re-mote Thrust. ]


    Zhu Dan Long might have im-pressed Ki''el if he had man-aged to land on his feet, af-ter he was flipped head over heels, but he start-ed com-i-cal-ly flail-ing while in the air, and al-though some-one com-pe-tent might have got-ten their feet un-der them, Long did not. In fact, as Ki''el watched the mo-ment where he might have got-ten his legs into po-si-tion, she mar-veled at how he man-aged to pull his legs fur-ther from un-der-neath him-self, and even pulled his over-weight butt out of po-si-tion, so that he land-ed square on his low-er back, and im-me-di-ate-ly flopped back-wards onto his head.


    He yelled, twitched like he want-ed to grab at his back, and then start-ed to cry.


    "Ah..." Fengxi glanced at Ki''el, then at the boy. What-ev-er re-ac-tion he was sup-posed to have, Ki''el guessed that what fol-lowed wasn''t it. "That''s... not right. That''s a vi-o-la-tion of the rules. You for-feit."


    Ki''el glanced up at the mil-i-tary aide, whose face went from star-tled to ex-haust-ed in only a mo-ment.


    "She vi-o-lat-ed no rules," Xam said from Ki''el''s cor-ner, but Fengxi wan-dered over to-wards the boy, haul-ing him to his feet, de-spite the boy al-most scream-ing from the move-ment. "And as I re-call the orig-i-nal rules, Long was not sup-posed to use ar-ti-facts in the first place. Ki''el did not."


    "I saw no ar-ti-facts," Feix-an said cool-ly, ig-nor-ing the glow-ing and hum-ming baubles even when Long stuck a meaty, blow-ing hand right in his face. "I think you''re mis-tak-ing the hon-or-able marks of sta-tion--"


    "If you feel that this duel is un-fair, then fight me," Ki''el in-ter-rupt-ed, cut-ting off both Feix-an and Xam''s re-tort. She point-ed straight at him, eyes un-wa-ver-ing. The words didn''t come nat-u-ral-ly, but Xam had been in-sis-tent; in the world of the no-bil-i-ty, wrongs could be made right with vi-o-lence, and since they both ex-pect-ed the boy to try to cheat, Xam had in-sist-ed Ki''el be pre-pared.


    The script, such as it was, was for Ki''el to of-fer a duel ''with what-ev-er ar-ti-facts'', and Ki''el would re-trieve her aether sword. But Feix-an did not stick to the script.


    The words, "I ac-cept," bare-ly passed his lips be-fore the man was a blur of mo-tion straight at Ki''el, and she only sur-vived be-cause she still had her Re-mote Thrust pat-tern ac-tive. Ki''el threw her-self safe-ly back and away from the man, but by now, his sword was clear of its sheath, and the man''s eyes were track-ing her, his foot-steps sur-pris-ing-ly un-err-ing.


    Ki''el [ Re-mote Thrust ] again, throw-ing her-self well over Feix-an''s head, then [ Thrust ] her-self an-oth-er time to make sure she was out of his range when he turned alarm-ing-ly quick-ly and swung. What-ev-er Feix-an''s flaws might have been, he seemed to be at least com-pe-tent at this.


    But when he be-gan mov-ing af-ter Ki''el again, she sensed no qi in his mo-tions, none in his sword. Al-though she was be-gin-ning to feel some-thing like in-tent, it was more.... in-tent to kill, not qi in-tent.


    Ki''el tar-get-ed his legs and [Re-mote Thrust] them out from un-der-neath him, and he went down in-stant-ly, land-ing on his own sword in such a way that when he got up, there was a slash across his chest, but he was still star-ing at her, with a dead-eyed stare that would cer-tain-ly have ter-ri-fied her a few years ago.


    Ki''el thrust the man''s whole body away the next time, hard enough that he slammed into the wall a good six feet away, but he got up again with-out any sem-blance of fear or any real show of pain. In-deed, his eyes and face only seemed to be-come more twist-ed.


    Why? Ki''el kept back from the man, but spoke clear-ly. "You refuse to yield?"


    "You''ll have to kill me," Feix-an said, an edge to his voice that sound-ed... en-tire-ly too much like it had al-ways been there, if Ki''el was hon-est. And she felt his qi stir-ring slug-gish-ly again, er-rat-i-cal-ly, but she couldn''t sense him ac-tu-al-ly do-ing any-thing with it.


    Ki''el glanced up, at the mil-i-tary aide, know-ing that in the mo-ment she looked away, Feix-an was al-ready charg-ing at her again. But she did not see any sign in the aide''s face or be-hav-ior that she dis-agreed.


    Ki''el [Thrust] her-self away one last time, but then fo-cused. "One last chance," she said, but her mind was chang-ing gears, and Kuli, with some re-gret, of-fered her what she asked for.


    "[Fuck you!]" Feix-an''s voice, un-ac-count-ably, screamed some-thing ter-ri-ble at Ki''el with dis-gust-ing, oily black in-tent, but she just blinked, Kuli shel-ter-ing her mind from the er-rat-ic thought, even as Ki''el brought her qi and in-tent to bear again.


    [ Less-er True Fire Qi: De-stroy. ]


    It was not a tru-ly pow-er-ful qi. Ki''el had no ac-cess to time aether, and her space aethers were weak and in-com-plete. But she had un-der-stood one or two things about nat-ur-al fire, and it was not dif-fi-cult to un-der-stand how they chan-neled into True Fire Qi.


    Fire gen-er-at-ed heat and light. Light could make more heat--she took Kuli''s word for it--and heat and fuel made fire. If her fire qi could re-cap-ture the heat and light giv-en off, a small spark could be-come a much greater fire very quick-ly.


    It was... not sup-posed to hap-pen that quick-ly.


    Ki''el would re-mem-ber for a long time that the first thing to catch was a stain on his silk cloth-ing. Oil, she thought. The hole that ate through his cloth-ing gave off no light, no burst of heat, and for a mo-ment, noth-ing else hap-pened. But her in-tent had been bru-tal--gath-er-ing pow-er to de-stroy what-ev-er it touched. And the pow-er that it stole from his van-ish-ing cloth-ing col-lid-ed a mo-ment lat-er with skin.


    Ki''el had nev-er wit-nessed any-thing as grue-some as watch-ing the man''s guts burst into light-less, heat-less fire, leav-ing be-hind all that which did not burn--all that which was not fuel. Gore and wa-ter poured out of the hole, even as the hole grew, and the man fi-nal-ly screamed.


    Ki''el re-mem-bered the mo-ment when the fire con-sumed enough of his tor-so that it split apart. She could see his spine, re-sist-ing only slight-ly bet-ter. And she re-al-ized fi-nal-ly, once and for all, that prac-ti-cal ap-pli-ca-tions of qi were so much more dan-ger-ous than she had ever un-der-stood. Yes, Sobon had blown peo-ple apart, and she had killed with a sword. Yes, she had... yes, but...


    Ki''el turned around and threw up on the ground. By the time she dared turn back around, noth-ing was left of Zhu Moumu Fengxi ex-cept a dis-turbing-ly wet pile--of what, she hoped nev-er to learn.


    A sound drew her at-ten-tion, and she turned to see the mil-i-tary aide look-ing down at her.


    "Points for ef-fi-cien-cy, mi-nus points for the weak stom-ach. But at least you aren''t just an-oth-er non-sense pre-tender." She scowled. "I will tell the sub-com-man-der that you are at least a halfway de-cent fight-er. For your age, and ad-vance-ment. And I will pass on the Zhu''s..." she glanced at the fam-i-ly across the way, though Ki''el did not turn to see their re-ac-tion. "...rec-om-men-da-tion that the sub-com-man-der hear your case. Come by to-mor-row." Her gaze flick-ered over to Xam, but then she turned and walked away.


    { Test-ing un-known qi like that is dan-ger-ous. } Kuli''s voice broke into her thoughts, dis-ap-proval stark in the aug-ment''s tone. { I made sev-er-al changes to your qi and in-tent for safe-ty. We will re-view it lat-er. }


    Xam, when she came up to Ki''el, also had a dan-ger-ous look, but at least her sis-ter kept her-self on task. "We should go," she said, and then straight-ened and bowed to the view-ing Zhu. "Hon-or-able spec-ta-tors, thank you for your time."


    Ki''el ig-nored most of what she heard be-hind her as she fol-lowed Xam. It wasn''t hard, be-cause the Zhu were not loud in their whis-pers, but nei-ther were they silent. Ki''el def-i-nite-ly heard "Ruth-less," "Mon-ster", "Witch", and some oth-er un-pleas-antries, but she spent no ef-fort to un-der-stand the sen-tences they were a part of, and Kuli did not in-flict them on her.


    When they passed out of the du-el-ing space and into the of-fice be-hind, there were three men with clean-ing sup-plies and a stretch-er. Ki''el con-sid-ered warn-ing them what they would face, but couldn''t quite stom-ach it.


    What are we even do-ing here? Ki''el wasn''t sure where the ques-tion came from, ex-act-ly, but nei-ther could she re-al-ly an-swer the ques-tion. If it came down to this or go-ing back to the Sect... well, hope-ful-ly, this hur-dle was now be-hind them. But what would come next? Was this even the right path to take? Was this even a place they want-ed to be in, in the long term? Was their new no-ble house re-al-ly go-ing to take root in the same soil as fam-i-lies like this?


    She did her best to ap-pear calm as she fol-lowed Xam, but in-ter-nal-ly, she want-ed to just go hide some-where and sulk, again. When had she gone from Sobon''s ap-pren-tice, a ris-ing star in the Moon-stone Is-land Sect... to some witch brat who killed a man in a duel? Just to get some-one to look at pa-per-work?


    Was this re-al-ly who Ki''el was? Who she would be?

 [TAS] 51. Kiel - Burden, Part 2

    Ki''el was, frankly, sur-prised at how many peo-ple the as-sis-tant al-lowed in to speak. It wasn''t even the kind of ques-tion she would have thought to ask, but then, there were many things that Xam was do-ing that made a great deal of sense to Ki''el... when she learned, usu-al-ly af-ter-wards, that they had been done.


    So Ki''el and Xam were ac-com-pa-nied, strange-ly enough, by Broth-er Juno, Sis-ter Be-nai, and Meixu--who had been get-ting more and more ir-ri-ta-ble when-ev-er Xam or one of the oth-ers had said that he could not ac-com-pa-ny Ki''el some-where. It had reached some kind of peak af-ter Ki''el''s duel... but she had not been there when the fox had ar-gued with Xam about it.


    Some-how, al-though she un-der-stood Meixu to be a high-ly in-tel-li-gent beast, more like a per-son than any-thing, the fox had seemed to want al-most the kind of com-forts that she would ex-pect of dogs or cats. He hadn''t de-mand-ed more qi, or any-thing else of her, but had stub-born-ly pressed him-self up against Ki''el as though her mere pres-ence were ward-ing off some kind of aw-ful feel-ing in-side of him. So she had pet him, and al-lowed him to stay close, and no one had ar-gued or even said a word when he re-mained by her side for this meet-ing.


    Ki''el, for her part, was un-able to ex-plain how she felt about Meixu, ex-cept that the fox ap-peared... cold. Not emo-tion-less, but like she had felt in-side liv-ing alone. Cold... like a body that strug-gles against an emp-ty world, not the kind of cold that em-braced such lone-li-ness, grow-ing hard be-cause of it.


    Ei-ther way, Ki''el found her-self flank-ing Xam as they ap-proached, with Juno on the oth-er side... and Be-nai be-hind Ki''el, and a lit-tle to the side. It felt like a strange for-ma-tion, but she didn''t spend much time think-ing about it. In truth, she found it a lit-tle ex-cit-ing, and in-ter-est-ing, but... it was hard for those feel-ings to push their way through the weight that had been on her mind for a while. A weight that Kuli was do-ing... some-thing to tend to, but she was yet un-sure what or how.


    The mil-i-tary as-sis-tant who had said "come to-mor-row" had ap-par-ent-ly only lat-er con-firmed a time with Xam, and so it was late af-ter-noon be-fore the five of them showed up, but the as-sis-tant only word-less-ly al-lowed them into an of-fice, stand-ing back as though wor-ried about be-ing seen as part of their en-tourage.


    The sub-com-man-der in the of-fice had the kind of en-er-gy that Ki''el had, in her fan-tasies, wor-ried she would have. Per-haps, she had en-vi-sioned her only af-ter she sensed her qi? It didn''t mat-ter. There was a ten-sion wrapped around and through her spir-it, that might have dragged her down, but some-thing also pushed back from with-in, and there was some ad-di-tion-al struc-ture or strength that Ki''el couldn''t even quite sense. Ki''el might have been in-ter-est-ed to find out more... if such a thing were re-mote-ly pos-si-ble. But Xam sim-ply marched into the room, to a spe-cif-ic dis-tance be-fore the sub-com-man-der, and salut-ed.


    "Xoi Xam, of House Xoi, for-mer ad-ju-tant to Gen-er-al Gaum, thanks the Dis-trict Sub-com-man-der for meet-ing with us."


    The woman''s face was stone, though Ki''el sensed twitch-es of qi through-out her even as she waved a hand dis-mis-sive-ly. "Gen-er-al Gaum... that old lech-er. Still us-ing his mil-i-tary cred-its to gath-er wild flow-ers in-stead of wolves." She held out her hand, and Xam pro-duced the writ from her space ring im-me-di-ate-ly, hand-ing it over. The Dis-trict Sub-com-man-der only glanced over it briefly. "Rai Su Anin...? Of the South-east-ern block, not too far from the Heav-en-fall Scar front. Odd of her to pro-duce such a writ, though..." she glanced up at Xam, and then around at the oth-ers. "As far as I can tell, the one who the writ was in-tend-ed for is not here."


    Ki''el swal-lowed a sud-den ner-vous lump, but stepped for-ward. This, at least, Xam had giv-en her in-struc-tions on. "That would be my mas-ter, Shi-va Alas-si. This is with her per-mis-sion, and it will also be with her funds--"


    "Right, that much is fine." The woman flicked the pa-per back at Xam sud-den-ly enough that the young woman had to fum-ble to catch it. "Your in-ten-tions aren''t to de-ceive or get away with some-thing, and I don''t get the im-pres-sion that you''re wor-ried about be-ing caught. What you seem to be wor-ried about most, and cor-rect-ly, is whether or not I ap-prove. I do not."


    Ki''el flinched, and at a small qi pulse from Meixu, she stepped back to where she had been rel-a-tive to Xam, leav-ing the ne-go-ti-a-tion to her. But... in the mo-ments that fol-lowed, Ki''el re-al-ized that she did not feel an over-rid-ing sense of fi-nal-i-ty to the woman''s words, and al-though Xam also seemed to take a mo-ment, she did speak up.


    "We are aware, of course, of the many bonds and ex-pec-ta-tions upon a no-ble house. It is our ex-pec-ta-tion that we will be able to quick-ly rise in stand-ing, enough to meet the Di-a-mond Lord''s stan-dards--"


    "Sup-pose for the mo-ment I be-lieved you," the Sub-com-man-der in-ter-rupt-ed again, her voice a mix-ture of tired and an-noyed. "What ex-act-ly are you ex-pect-ing to be able to pur-chase, with what funds, in or-der to pro-vide what ser-vice?"


    Ki''el sensed a twinge of aether--not quite qi--through Xam, as the girl re-strained some thought or feel-ing, though she did a de-cent job of not show-ing it out-ward-ly. "This Xoi is not fa-mil-iar with the prop-er-ty avail-able, but we are no stranger to hard-ship or la-bor. We would glad-ly take a wild moun-tain ter-ri-to-ry, not large in size, to pro-vide both safe-ty to the cit-i-zen-ry, and qi craft-ing..."


    "The es-tab-lished trade clans have most of the use-ful min-ing ter-ri-to-ry, and the mil-i-tary clans con-trol the en-tire bor-der. The ''wild moun-tain ter-ri-to-ry'' we have avail-able is harsh, un-suit-able even for clans whose ex-per-tise are known." There was a mo-ment, just a mo-ment, of si-lence, as though the Sub-com-man-der was al-low-ing them to process what she had said, be-fore she con-tin-ued. "Even that ter-ri-to-ry, be-ing sov-er-eign ter-ri-to-ry of the Em-pire, is not to be hand-ed out to name-less, back-er-less clans--and if you had a backer or were wor-thy of your name, you would not be here. We are not in the habit of al-low-ing chil-dren to pre-tend to be no-bles. If you want to es-tab-lish a clan, you need to prove that you have what it takes to be wor-thy of a no-ble ti-tle."


    The si-lence that fol-lowed felt like it was prompt-ing, but al-though Ki''el knew that Xam had pre-pared for this, the girl didn''t seem to find words for sev-er-al sec-onds.


    "If I may be al-lowed to speak?"


    Ki''el blinked, turn-ing to look, but it was Broth-er Juno who spoke up, and Ki''el thought she saw a look of ex-treme dis-taste flow over the Sub-com-man-der''s face for a mo-ment, be-fore she nod-ded. A mo-ment lat-er, so did Xam.


    "If I may be so bold, Sub-com-man-der Rui Han Jei-ha, you have us at a dis-ad-van-tage." Broth-er Juno''s voice... sound-ed far more re-laxed than Ki''el would have ex-pect-ed. "I trust you un-der-stand that we are all well aware of our faults. And it is com-mon play among the no-bil-i-ty, and oth-ers in high so-ci-ety, to pre-tend to have no faults, even when they are ex-posed by oth-ers. But--my apolo-gies--this Hanzen Juno is but a hum-ble cul-ti-va-tor of the Moon-stone Isles In-ner Sect, with a form of qi that, as you have al-ready no-ticed, is not turned to a mar-tial bent, and lim-it-ed only to Tran-scen-dent Gem."


    Ki''el... blinked, still not hav-ing known what qi Broth-er Juno had or how strong he was. Still... Tran-scen-dent Gem was still sev-er-al phas-es ahead of her, was it not? It was a re-spectable ac-com-plish-ment, cer-tain-ly?


    "I was won-der-ing why some-one use-less like you was here," Sub-com-man-der Rui''s voice was some-how both blunt enough to car-ry no in-sult with her words, and si-mul-ta-ne-ous-ly cut-ting enough that Ki''el felt like it had some-how gone right to the heart of Broth-er Juno''s words.


    "Ex-act-ly so." Juno''s words showed no sign of dis-tress or hurt, though there was per-haps a bit of ex-tra guard-ed-ness there. "But let us ex-am-ine this ris-ing house, if you would. To the right of Lady Xoi you will no-tice the Young Mis-tress of our house, the same who, you have doubt-less heard, ac-quit-ted her-self ac-cept-ably in a rigged duel, de-spite her young age and some-what shel-tered up-bring-ing."


    Shel-tered? That was not what Ki''el would have called her-self, not af-ter spend-ing so many years with-out ac-tu-al shel-ter from the wind and rains, but she said noth-ing.


    "Her mas-ter is the ris-ing house''s ma-tri-arch, dis-tinct from that of House Xoi, but it is our young mis-tress her-self who man-ages to at-tract the var-i-ous pe-cu-liar tal-ents to her. My-self, Lady Xoi, and the oth-ers who you have no doubt al-ready cor-rect-ly cat-e-go-rized, are by no means the only ones that she has at-tract-ed, but rather a sam-ple." Broth-er Juno''s voice was steady, al-most amused, al-though it re-mained guard-ed enough that he did not sound dis-re-spect-ful. "She is un-de-ni-ably a prodi-gy, though if I may, Sub-com-man-der, I would make a dis-tinc-tion here, af-ter spend-ing many years, my-self, in the Sect."


    Juno paused, as though he was ac-tu-al-ly ask-ing per-mis-sion to add a clar-i-fy-ing point, and if so, he must have sensed some kind of agree-ment from the Sub-com-man-der that Ki''el did not. "I have spent more than twen-ty years in the Sect, fif-teen in the Out-er Sect and five more in the In-ner, and I have seen a num-ber of prodi-gies, ones who I would cat-e-go-rize as ei-ther ''id-iots,'' ''brats,'' or ''ge-nius-es''--some-thing that I''m sure the Hon-ored Sub-com-man-der has her-self no-ticed among the ris-ing and falling clan scions un-der her care.


    If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Ki''el looked to the Sub-com-man-der, and there was, per-haps, a small af-fir-ma-tive quirk to her mouth, but she said noth-ing.


    "The dis-tinc-tion, as I have ob-served it, is this: any prodi-gy will be some-one who ac-com-plish-es things far be-yond what should be safe for them. ''Id-iot prodi-gies'' will be im-pressed that they ac-com-plished such a thing and pa-rade it around in front of oth-ers, as though step-ping slight-ly fur-ther than oth-ers makes them unique or spe-cial. A ''brat prodi-gy'' will only ever be com-par-ing them-selves to an ide-al hand-ed to them by some-one else, usu-al-ly their fam-i-ly or mas-ter--and I won''t lie, I''ve seen that in our young mis-tress once or twice."


    "But a ge-nius prodi-gy is one who is dis-ap-point-ed in them-selves for not yet be-ing able to achieve what they know is pos-si-ble. They are the kind in too much of a hur-ry to grow up, too ea-ger to car-ry their share of the bur-den. They are the sort who are only be-neath drag-ons be-cause their wings have not yet grown." Ki''el couldn''t help mov-ing her head so that she could see Broth-er Juno, and she saw him glance her way, the look on his face flash-ing to dis-ap-proval at her for break-ing for-ma-tion, but... Ki''el could still only re-luc-tant-ly turn away.


    What Broth-er Juno was say-ing... like what many peo-ple said about her... did not make sense. Did it?


    "Our Young Mis-tress is with-out a doubt one of those, and it is ex-act-ly for that rea-son that strange folk gath-er around her. Peo-ple who have tast-ed the im-pos-si-ble, but can-not have faith, can-not gath-er the strength. Ones who would ride a drag-on--"


    "All very elo-quent," the Sub-com-man-der broke in, her voice once again some-how both blunt and dead-ly. "Your point?"


    "It''s sim-ple," Juno said, and al-though Ki''el knew it was bad form, she saw him break his pos-ture to just give an ex-ag-ger-at-ed shrug, from the cor-ner of her eye. "We didn''t come here be-cause it was ide-al, we came be-cause it was the clos-est. You are ful-ly aware of the dan-gers the Em-pire is fac-ing. We op-pose the Ren, and we are strong enough to car-ry our weight, or we will be. If that doesn''t match your lo-cal pol-i-tics or if you''re un-in-ter-est-ed, then we go else-where. We will be an-noyed if we wast-ed our time here, but it''s our in-tent to serve both the Em-pire and our-selves. The be-hav-ior of this city has al-ready been an in-sult, and we won''t suf-fer too much more. If you''re go-ing to say ''no'', at least have the de-cen-cy to do it quick-ly. It will be a long trip to the next place."


    Ki''el could feel a spike in the Sub-com-man-der''s qi, though the woman held it in check. Out-ward-ly, she gave no sign of any-thing more than con-tin-u-ing dis-in-ter-est, and even her spir-it seemed--on one lev-el, at least--to be placid, un-af-fect-ed. But Ki''el un-der-stood that Broth-er Juno''s words had been a chal-lenge, es-pe-cial-ly to a woman who--ac-cord-ing to her as-sis-tant, at least--had been com-plete-ly un-in-ter-est-ed in meet-ing any-one who was not no-ble.


    Af-ter a mo-ment, Sub-com-man-der Rui turned to look at Ki''el. "You, ''young mis-tress''."


    Ki''el blinked, but stepped for-ward. "Yes?"


    "What does no-bil-i-ty mean to you? Feal-ty? You aren''t even of Djang birth, that''s ob-vi-ous. Is-lander, I think."


    "Il-lan, Sub-com-man-der."


    "Il-lan. That cov-ers a lot of sea ter-ri-to-ry. And even this far from the coast, I''m not ig-no-rant of what Djang forces do to is-landers when they can get away with it. I''ve seen slave auc-tions even this far in-land, and Il-lianos are not too un-com-mon there." There was a sour dis-taste in the woman''s voice, but Ki''el bare-ly heard it.


    Not over the flick-er-ing fear and anger that surged through her.


    "To serve as a Djang No-ble means sup-port-ing the Em-pire above all else. It means rec-og-niz-ing rights guar-an-teed to the cit-i-zens and the no-bil-i-ty, in-clud-ing forced servi-tude." Her words were cold, and Ki''el felt them pierc-ing into her spir-it. "This is not a false ques-tion. It is not a joke, or a trap. The fate of your house rests on what you say next. What is your an-swer?"


    What was Ki''el''s an-swer? To what no-bil-i-ty meant? Or feal-ty? In the face of such... dis-gust-ing...


    Un-bid-den, Ki''el re-called when Sobon, short-ly be-fore he left, was speak-ing of his home. Of... of a world that was very pow-er-ful, very ad-vanced, but where--in Sobon''s con-fused lan-guage--every-one was part of a ''grand so-ci-etal ar-ray'', where every-one had a pur-pose, and every-one had to ful-fill their pur-pose in or-der for that ad-vanced world to func-tion. And... Sobon had said that this world was back-wards, bar-bar-ic, cor-rupt and vi-o-lent. She couldn''t dis-agree with that, of course.


    Still... Ki''el took a deep breath, try-ing to find an an-swer in those thoughts, and what she her-self be-lieved be-fore and af-ter hear-ing them. And... she could not ig-nore Sobon''s ques-tion about myth, ei-ther. It felt too hon-est to speak of that here, but she couldn''t doubt how it ap-plied--how peo-ple must be-lieve in some ''myth of the Djang Em-pire'' or sim-i-lar. Sobon had said as much be-fore.


    Af-ter a long mo-ment, Ki''el spoke. "My... mas-ter spoke of peo-ple work-ing to-geth-er to-wards some-thing greater, but that''s too lit-tle. It says noth-ing about the Djang, or about my peo-ple. Or about my fam-i-ly, who were kid-napped by Djang slavers. Or about me, when I was ab-duct-ed and to be sold to slavers my-self." She re-fo-cused on the Sub-com-man-der long enough to see the woman''s stone face shift, for a mo-ment, be-fore her com-po-sure re-turned. "I do not un-der-stand much of how the Djang view them-selves, but I do un-der-stand that great ideas re-quire much hard work, peace, and or-der. An em-pire that could con-quer the world can-not be built with-out those things."


    From what she could tell, from the Sub-com-man-der''s face, what she had said was not wrong... yet.


    "But what has hap-pened to me, and to my peo-ple, is proof that the Djang are not ready to con-trol the world. That the Ren are re-belling is proof that even among the Djang, the Em-pire''s foun-da-tion is not sol-id enough. I do not seek to de-stroy the Em-pire. I do not seek re-venge. I do de-sire to see great things be done. I wish to see peace and or-der. I be-lieve that ab-duct-ing peo-ple, en-slav-ing peo-ple, flies in the face of that peace and or-der. It flies in the face of every-thing that the Djang should be-lieve, if they want to do great things. It does dis-gust me, and I do wish to be rid of it... if I could."


    Ki''el felt some-thing over-flow-ing with-in her as she spoke, an an-guish and anger that poured out like wa-ter from a jug sud-den-ly top-pled. She found her-self meet-ing the eyes of Sub-com-man-der Rui. "You say that you have seen things, that you are not an id-iot. I am meant to as-sume that you also dis-agree with what is done, though you did not say that. Base Com-man-der Rai also dis-agreed with what was done, but did noth-ing. I trust you were both think-ing that so long as you sup-port the peace and or-der of the Em-pire, then you sup-port the Em-pire it-self. But al-ready, to-day, ''peace'' and ''or-der'' are gone. If you wish to see the Em-pire do great things in your life-time, it will only be af-ter peace and or-der are ob-tained."


    Be-hind her, Ki''el heard Be-nai speak up. "The girl is im-pas-sioned, and stray-ing from her points, but she isn''t wrong." Ki''el had to re-sist the urge to turn, or speak up. "Those of spir-it beast blood-lines have long felt op-pressed, but those who were alive at the time of the Di-a-mond Lord''s as-cen-sion re-mem-ber be-ing hon-ored and beloved for their strength and beau-ty. In an era of peace, those old mon-sters re-mained silent in or-der to hon-or the ones who loved them, but they have not been loved by the Em-pire since that era be-gan. ''Feal-ty'' and ''no-bil-i-ty'' have been col-lars that we put on our-selves, out of love and re-spect. As long as the world is wor-thy of that love and re-spect, we have no rea-son to re-move them. But." The woman''s last word had a fi-nal-i-ty to it, an un-re-pen-tant re-fusal to fin-ish the thought.


    "We are here ask-ing to join," re-mind-ed Broth-er Juno quick-ly. "To pro-tect and to build, not to con-quer. That should be cel-e-brat-ed in an age like this one, should it not?"


    Sub-com-man-der Rui''s eyes shift-ed around, but her face and body re-mained sto-ic. The flow of her spir-it and qi, Ki''el not-ed, had slowed, though ex-act-ly what that meant, she was un-sure.


    "And you all agree, that you are here to pro-tect and build, and not to con-quer?" There was a cer-tain... mis-trust in the Sub-com-man-der''s voice.


    Ki''el could do noth-ing but nod, and she thought she saw the oth-ers to her left do-ing the same. When the Sub-com-man-der''s eyes fell on Meixu, the spir-it at her shoul-der trans-mit-ted only gen-tly. [ I am bound by con-tract to serve my Mis-tress, here. If I weren''t, I would leave rather than try to claim this place. ]


    There was an-oth-er long pause, but even-tu-al-ly, the Sub-com-man-der leaned back in her seat and let out a very long, very un-la-dy-like sigh. "Fine," she said, her voice los-ing a lot of pol-ish and be-com-ing a low-er, al-most rum-bling noise. Her at-ten-tion snapped back to Xam. "Orig-i-nal-ly, I only hu-mored this be-cause I''ve had to fight off id-iot suit-ors like that Zhu brat, and any woman with the back-bone to spit in their faces can at least be re-cruit-ed as a sol-dier. That wouldn''t be enough to get you a real piece of prop-er-ty, but it would be a foot in the door." Her gaze shift-ed to Ki''el, then back. "I''m still not con-vinced how valu-able you lot are, but with the Ren in open re-bel-lion, we can''t af-ford to ig-nore some-one who choos-es to side with us and against them."


    "It just so hap-pens that a trade house here--pre-dictably a very poor, stu-pid one--sud-den-ly tried to get into the Ren''s good graces. We in-ter-cept-ed their mes-sages and put them to the sword. Lo-cal pol-i-tics means we have to put most of the par-cel up for auc-tion, the kind of auc-tion you like-ly won''t be able to af-ford, but large sec-tions re-vert-ed to mil-i-tary con-trol, be-cause they were wild, con-test-ed, or ad-ja-cent to the de-fense zones."


    "De-pend-ing on what ex-act-ly your busi-ness is, we might be able to find a small sec-tion for you. Per-haps with enough wild zone at-tached that your spir-it beast al-lies can have their own domi-cile." Her eyes flick-ered to Be-nai, and Meixu. "But prob-a-bly not enough for each to have a sep-a-rate do-main."


    "I am be-low; he is above," an-swered Be-nai, her voice com-plete-ly un-both-ered.


    Com-man-der Rui made a dis-mis-sive ges-ture. "I''m not here to en-sure you''re hap-py, and I won''t be the one who does the ne-go-ti-a-tions. You''ll speak to the land min-is-ter and the sur-vey-or each sev-er-al times be-fore any-thing comes back that has to ac-tu-al-ly be agreed to. And you won''t be able to talk to them un-til the city mag-is-trate ac-cepts my rec-om-men-da-tion and lets you meet with the City Lord. He also has the op-tion of re-ject-ing your writ, but if he does, it will be for po-lit-i-cal rea-sons--or cor-rupt ones." Her voice chilled with those last words, but she moved on too quick-ly to let them dwell on it.


    "Doubt-less you al-ready un-der-stand this, but be-fore you meet the City Lord, you need to de-cide once and for all whether you will call your-selves a trade house or a mil-i-tary one. A no-ble trade house won''t get you much at-ten-tion in this city, but not call-ing your-self one drops your chances of hav-ing any use-ful re-sources on your prop-er-ty to about none. The mil-i-tary here needs the help, so that will open doors for you... but we will ex-pect things you may not be will-ing to give." Her gaze, again, moved to Ki''el, and then away.


    "Thank you, Sub-com-man-der Rui," Xam bowed, and Ki''el fol-lowed suit. "We will take your guid-ance to heart."


    "Go," was all the Sub-com-man-der said, pick-ing up an or-nate pen and be-gin-ning to write some-thing even be-fore they were out the door.

 [TAS] 52. Kiel - Burden, Part 3

    Two days lat-er, Ki''el felt a strange urge to go out into the city of Red-fang Wall. Al-though the group in to-tal had not been idle, the city bu-reau-crats had kept Xam and Broth-er Juno oc-cu-pied with, ac-cord-ing to their retellings, an end-less back-and-forth se-ries of tasks scat-tered across the city. Even so, they''d yet to meet with the City Lord--al-though ap-par-ent-ly, de-spite Sub-com-man-der Rui''s cyn-i-cism, they were be-ing al-lowed to move for-ward in the process any-way.


    The urge to wan-der felt un-nat-ur-al enough to con-cern Ki''el. She was be-gin-ning to spend more of her days med-i-tat-ing and re-build-ing her qi, even think-ing on qi and aether again... but not so se-ri-ous-ly as to have made any no-table progress. The sud-den urge had come on quick-ly, and it was all too spe-cif-ic, but when Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed, Kuli had in-sist-ed that it was fine.


    { I have been send-ing mes-sages to near-by spir-i-tu-al gods. This one would pre-fer to meet in per-son. You are free to refuse... but I be-lieve it would be good for you. }


    [ Is that what all that was, ] Meixu added from Ki''el''s shoul-der. The fox had con-tin-ued to be over-ly af-fec-tion-ate with Ki''el, though she was be-gin-ning to sense a sta-bi-liz-ing of his spir-it. [ You needn''t wor-ry, then, young Ki''el. It''s a city de-ity, it will be quite safe. ]


    Al-though Ki''el asked the oth-ers--most-ly Chi-an and Mian--if they wished to come, in the end, she set out into the city with only Meixu, the fox rest-ing once more on her shoul-der.


    It was a pleas-ant walk, most-ly. The city was far from lev-el, the roads go-ing up and down a num-ber of hills as it went. Sim-i-lar-ly, the... aether of the city seemed to vary wild-ly, with some ar-eas fresh and up-beat, oth-ers heavy and sod-den, oth-ers sick-ly or in-flamed. At the worst... Ki''el was aware enough of her sur-round-ings to no-tice sev-er-al of the city''s Djang giv-ing her strange or dirty looks as she moved through cer-tain parts the city, es-pe-cial-ly in the ar-eas with the worst aether, but she did her best to put them all out of mind. She had... un-com-fort-able thoughts, as to why they might look at her like that, and all of those thoughts would pull her out of the mo-ment and put her in dark places, if she let them.


    Those looks and thoughts van-ished when Ki''el turned onto a wide and steep stair-case carved into a rocky, forest-ed hill-side. The en-trance was flanked by wide walls dec-o-rat-ed with im-ages of a large, preda-to-ry crea-ture that Ki''el did not rec-og-nize, walls that sup-port-ed some spir-i-tu-al bar-ri-er around a moun-tain or large hill. Through that gate, every-thing seemed like it might have been a dif-fer-ent world en-tire-ly--the smell of the air, the feel of the aether, the sounds... even the sun seemed a bit brighter, even if it was in the same po-si-tion in the sky.


    [ It''s a spir-i-tu-al bar-ri-er, ] Meixu in-formed her when she was stopped to mar-vel at the dif-fer-ence. [ It marks the do-main of a spir-it beast turned god--some-thing that they tend to cre-ate when they de-cide to set-tle down in a place. ]


    "Do all gods have shrines like this?" Ki''el had seen small-er wor-ship sites in her youth, of-ten small-er fam-i-ly sites, but she nev-er had any im-pres-sion of pow-er from them, not like this.


    Ki''el felt the fox on her shoul-der shift-ing, and she turned to look at him, but the fox''s eyes were the same as ever--guard-ed, and un-sure. [ Spir-it beasts and spir-i-tu-al gods are a var-ied group, ] he said af-ter a mo-ment. [ Stay-ing in one place to act as a pro-tec-tor is usu-al-ly be-cause they have formed a con-tract, and those might have pow-er to spare. But not every-one is like that. ]


    Ki''el looked around, feel-ing the dif-fer-ence, be-fore turn-ing back to the stairs and con-tin-u-ing to walk up. "The bar-ri-er is some kind of nat-ur-al spir-i-tu-al abil-i-ty?"


    [ More like a script, ] Meixu an-swered. [ If you went hunt-ing, you''d find places where it''s be-ing sup-port-ed. Don''t, though. ]


    Ki''el gave the small fox a look that told him that she wasn''t stu-pid.


    It was a long stair-case, seem-ing to Ki''el to be far longer than the hill should have been tall. By the time she felt she should have reached the top, look-ing ahead, she only seemed to be halfway there, and she was be-gin-ning to sense some-thing lurk-ing in the trees that flanked the stair-case, prowl-ing around her.


    { We are in-vit-ed, } Kuli an-swered her hes-i-ta-tion. { The guardians are not hos-tile. }


    This was feel-ing more and more like an-oth-er sit-u-a-tion where Kuli had been mak-ing de-ci-sions on Ki''el''s be-half with-out her knowl-edge, but un-der the cir-cum-stances, she did not feel in-clined to ar-gue. In truth, she had no in-ter-est, right now, in watch-ing over every-one else''s de-ci-sions, even as they ap-plied to her. She just want-ed... well, she wasn''t sure what, at the mo-ment.


    Ex-cept a home. That... she was be-gin-ning to un-der-stand that the feel-ings she''d had when she left the sect were not go-ing away, not calm-ing down. Dulling, per-haps, but no more than that.


    When Ki''el fi-nal-ly reached the top of the hill, she found the tem-ple to look al-most for-eign to her. She had seen cer-tain el-e-ments of Djang ar-chi-tec-ture, sure, but this... whether it was a re-li-gious tem-ple or sim-ply a build-ing to pro-vide com-fort to a spir-it beast, it cer-tain-ly didn''t look or feel like nor-mal build-ings, even in the Djang style. The hill-top it-self had been cut per-fect-ly lev-el, and there were five build-ings, four at cor-ners around the cen-tral fifth. The four out-er tow-ers were three sto-ries tall, and each lev-el had wide ve-ran-das around a small-er, sealed in-ner sec-tion, the walls of which were dec-o-rat-ed with more im-ages of the same beast that had been at the en-trance.


    The cen-ter build-ing had five sto-ries, with the fourth and fifth sto-ries hav-ing the same wide ve-ran-das and the same dec-o-rat-ed walls. Strange-ly, the fourth sto-ry also had four wide walk-ways that con-nect-ed to the third floor of each of the tow-ers, slop-ing down as though it might have been a roof--but it was clear-ly meant to bear weight. The fifth floor was the only place Ki''el could see with an open door-way, but she could see noth-ing with-in from so far be-low.


    All around the build-ings were var-i-ous idols and totems, of-ten with heavy use of met-als like gold and sil-ver, and clear-ly pre-cious gems mark-ing cer-tain fea-tures. Most of them were carved with ob-vi-ous script and suf-fused with en-er-gy, and though Ki''el could not see them close-ly enough to try to iden-ti-fy the char-ac-ters of the script, none of them gave off nor-mal qi pres-sure. Even the ones that seemed to be peace-ful in na-ture gave off aether waves that felt harsh to Ki''el, and she won-dered if that was the de-ity''s na-ture, or the in-scrip-tion-ist''s, or... some oth-er fac-tor.


    There was one hu-man-look-ing at-ten-dant stand-ing in the plaza calm-ly, as though wait-ing for Ki''el. It... her in-tu-ition about the per-son was very strong-ly that they were also of spir-it beast blood, but there was no out-ward sign that she could see, ex-cept per-haps a dis-tinct fa-cial struc-ture, but that could have been for more com-mon rea-sons. Ki''el hes-i-tat-ed only briefly be-fore ap-proach-ing the per-son and bow-ing, not quite sure how to broach the top-ic.


    "You are the Lady Ki''el and the [ Su-pe-ri-or As-sis-tant ] Kuli, cor-rect? And one guest." Her eyes flicked to Meixu, who did noth-ing to cor-rect her or pro-vide in-for-ma-tion. "Our lord is await-ing your pres-ence on the fifth floor."


    Ki''el re-mained bowed for a mo-ment. "If you would show me the way..."


    "I was won-der-ing if you would try to jump," the at-ten-dant laughed cheer-ful-ly. "You would have found your qi abil-i-ties sealed with-in this bar-ri-er, but some are sim-ply so im-pa-tient. Of course, we will take the main stair-case." The woman ges-tured to the build-ing be-hind her, where a door-way slid aside with-out any ob-vi-ous use of en-er-gy, and no ap-par-ent per-son there to have done it.


    Ki''el was slight-ly cu-ri-ous, but she had no doubt it would be triv-ial to hide such work-ings in a well-built tem-ple.


    Fol-low-ing the woman up the stairs took longer, again, than Ki''el felt it should, and she found that the woman man-aged to get far ahead of her de-spite Ki''el nev-er feel-ing like she slowed down or need-ed to rest. She frowned, but made no at-tempt to ar-gue or to com-plain, es-pe-cial-ly since the woman ahead seemed pa-tient.


    The stair-way only led to a closed hall-way, with many slid-ing doors on ei-ther side of the hall-way, doors that some-how blocked any aether that might have passed through them as eas-i-ly as they blocked the light. It mere-ly led to an-oth-er stair, and Ki''el felt sure, this time, that each stair-way was longer than the last. A part of her want-ed to com-plain, feel-ing like the re-stric-tion must be some kind of tease or abuse, but she re-mained silent, mov-ing stub-born-ly up stairs and down hall-ways un-til at last she reached the fifth and fi-nal floor. Al-though she got the im-pres-sion that the climb had tak-en far, far too long, when she looked ahead, the shad-ow of the sun through the door did not seem so dif-fer-ent than it had been.


    In be-tween her and the open door, of course, was a mas-sive spir-it beast.


    [ Ban Molu Rotan ] was the beast''s name, ac-cord-ing to its qi, and it was a very large striped cat--and Ki''el could feel in-tense pow-er ra-di-at-ing from it in gen-er-al, but also ra-di-at-ing from its claws and fangs in par-tic-u-lar. She had no rea-son to have doubt-ed that it was an in-cred-i-bly pow-er-ful beast--but it was also clear-ly pre-sent-ing it-self as such. Ki''el bowed again be-fore it, still un-sure why she was here.


    "Lord Molu Rotan, I pre-sent to you the young mis-tress Doua Ki''el, the [Su-pe-ri-or As-sis-tant] Kuli, and the [Po-lit-i-cal Ex-ile] Meixu."


    Po-lit-i-cal Ex-ile? Ki''el felt her-self freez-ing, but she felt no change in the fox on her shoul-der, not even any sign that he was bow-ing or oth-er-wise be-ing po-lite to the lo-cal guardian de-ity.


    [ Meixu? Oh... from the old days. ] The mas-sive beast got to its feet and moved clos-er, but al-though Ki''el no-ticed with her eyes and from the shift-ing spir-i-tu-al pres-sure, it seemed to make no sound, and she did not feel any flex or shift in the floor be-low her as it moved, de-spite its size. Ki''el not-ed that the woman who had led her in re-treat-ed qui-et-ly as the de-ity ap-proached her, and shut the door a mo-ment lat-er. [ I sup-pose this is a sign of old wounds heal-ing? ]


    [ There is no fur-ther need to for-give, but some things will nev-er be for-got-ten. ] Meixu''s men-tal voice re-mained steady. [ The girl re-minds me of my daugh-ter, is all. ]


    His daugh-ter? Ki''el re-sist-ed the urge to turn and look, but she could tell that her own qi was in flux. Was that what seemed so strange in how Meixu was treat-ing her? Or was there even more still un-spo-ken?


    [ I see. And you, Su-pe-ri-or As-sis-tant. ] Ki''el felt the mas-sive beast''s eyes lock on her, though its spir-it and in-tent seemed to pass her by al-most en-tire-ly, doubt-less lock-ing on to Kuli her-self. [ You said that you are re-strict-ed in how you can broad-cast mes-sages be-cause of your host. I trust this is eas-i-er? ]


    { It is. Young Kuli''s spir-it has re-cov-ered much, but I would not have wished to hin-der her any fur-ther. And... I be-lieve she would be in-ter-est-ed in hear-ing what I will tell you as well. }


    [ The mat-ter of the so-called wis-dom of the (Ri''lef). ] Ki''el felt a strange sense at the word as it flowed through her, a hes-i-ta-tion, like the word felt for-eign to the one speak-ing it, even as it was passed along clear-ly. [ Their [ web of fate ] is not small, and they strike me as gen-uine, but I de-test be-ing en-snared in things I do not un-der-stand. I may al-low you to make your case... if you can pro-vide what was promised. ]


    Ki''el paused, sur-prised, and with some ef-fort, fo-cused her thoughts on Kuli. [ This mat-ter is about the peo-ple who cre-at-ed you? ]


    Ki''el felt the at-ten-tion of the spir-it beast turn to her, but not mean-ly. Ki''el felt her-self flush, though she should have known that the de-ity would be able to hear her ques-tion. [ You were not aware? ]


    { Ki''el is still a child, and she has many more im-por-tant things to wor-ry about. But yes, Ki''el. The Ri''lef have long ne-go-ti-at-ed with the spir-i-tu-al gods of this world, in the in-ter-ests of keep-ing bal-ance. Al-though you are my pri-ma-ry con-cern, I re-main in con-tact with my cre-ators, and was asked to per-form a few tasks should the op-por-tu-ni-ty arise. Now, more than ever, this is nec-es-sary. } There was only a brief pause. { Guardian De-ity Molu Rotan. Of the many se-crets of qi and spir-it en-er-gy, the most com-mon among guardian deities is why the two seem to be the same, and yet dif-fer-ent, is that not so? It is not so much a se-cret as it is knowl-edge be-yond that of this world, and it is knowl-edge that can be passed, with some ef-fort. }


    At last, the spir-it beast stopped star-ing at Ki''el, turn-ing and mov-ing back to where it was lay-ing be-fore. Be-fore it had even sat down, though, it spoke again, a strange-ly in-tro-spec-tive tim-ber to its qi. [ Qi and spir-it en-er-gy are [yin] and [yang]. Qi ab-sorbs, car-ries, am-pli-fies the pow-er of the world, while spir-it en-er-gy re-jects it, com-bats it, dom-i-nates it. This much is known. ] Some-thing in the spir-it beast''s trans-mis-sion, though, held doubts, per-haps even deep ones.


    { The pow-er that you call Spir-it En-er-gy, and the pow-er you call Qi, are both craft-ed el-e-ments, gifts from the Grand Mas-ters of the Heav-ens. As your words sug-gest, they are re-flec-tions of one an-oth-er, but I gath-er from your words that you do not un-der-stand why. } There was a pause. { Ki''el. While we talk, can you cre-ate two of your aether cy-cles? One left, one right? }


    Ki''el... had itched to do that for a while, but Kuli had sug-gest-ed that she wait. Now, though, the tim-ing of the aug-ment''s re-quest struck her as odd. "Did you ask me to wait only so that I could do it now?"


    Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.


    { No. I wor-ried that you would use the aether and do more to slow down your heal-ing than to help it. But... it will be a help-ful demon-stra-tion for now. }


    Ki''el frowned, but cleared her mind, find-ing that Kuli man-aged to help her do that even as the aug-ment con-tin-ued to speak. { There are forces in the [uni-verse] more fun-da-men-tal than qi and spir-it en-er-gy, and young Ki''el was taught to use some of them by her mas-ter. You have like-ly seen how the qi and spir-it en-er-gy mir-ror each oth-er, pro-gress-ing sim-i-lar-ly, but the way they re-act to in-tent and their meth-ods are very dif-fer-ent. }


    It was Meixu who re-spond-ed to that. [ Every spir-it beast that tries to learn qi tech-niques dis-cov-ers that very quick-ly. Qi at first ap-pears un-sta-ble and vi-o-lent, but it is the way we use the pow-er, not the pow-er it-self. ]


    Ki''el found her-self al-most au-to-mat-i-cal-ly gen-er-at-ing a small Right-eous Aether cy-cle first, and was able to put to-geth-er a Sin-is-ter Aether cy-cle in only a few more mo-ments, tak-ing the time to make them as close to the same size and thread di-am-e-ter as she could. When she fin-ished both, she felt Kuli re-leas-ing her, and then catch-ing her up to the con-ver-sa-tion, she found her-self won-der-ing again just what--or who--Meixu was. But... more than that...


    "Are you say-ing that spir-it en-er-gy is based on the op-po-site of Truth aether?" Ki''el held the two cy-cles be-fore her, and she felt the spir-it beast be-fore her scan-ning the two small cir-cles float-ing above her hands.


    { Yes. Aether comes in tiers, the low-est tier be-ing what Ki''el has pro-duced here. At every tier, there are two ways of us-ing the aether, and they are op-po-sites, in a sim-i-lar way to how these two en-er-gies ap-pear to be mir-ror op-po-sites. At the low-est lev-el, as a con-se-quence of their na-ture, one [Op-pos-es] and one [Sup-ports]. Each lev-el is built on the lay-ers be-neath them, and each lev-el uses all the forms of pow-er be-low them. Even at the sec-ond lay-er, [Space Aether], one must [Sup-port] one thing and [Op-pose] an-oth-er at the same time. }


    [ That en-er-gy is very small and thin, ] Rotan''s pro-jec-tion held a kind of lazy cu-rios-i-ty, but it also felt more in-tense to Ki''el, per-haps be-cause he was no longer shield-ing her from it. [ Far thin-ner and pur-er than ei-ther qi or spir-it en-er-gy. More fun-da-men-tal, you say. ]


    { Qi and spir-it en-er-gy are de-signed to ease the tran-si-tion, so that [chil-dren] do not make great and pow-er-ful mis-takes. } Kuli''s men-tal tone re-mained mat-ter-of-fact, de-spite what Ki''el might have ex-pect-ed to be a con-de-scend-ing use of the idea of adults as child-like be-ings. In-stead... Kuli''s in-tent seemed to very care-ful-ly weave to-geth-er the idea that peo-ple, even-tu-al-ly are ex-pect-ed to grow past the stage, and that it is not shame-ful to be ig-no-rant for a time. { The low-est lev-els of qi and spir-it en-er-gy have all aether above this lev-el sealed off, but it is still a more pow-er-ful en-er-gy. In truth, both qi and spir-it en-er-gy are of the fifth lay-er of aether, and their [weight] can-not be com-pared to that of the real thing. }


    There was a si-lence af-ter that, as the guardian de-ity, and Ki''el, and Meixu all con-sid-ered what had been said. Af-ter a mo-ment, Rotan spoke. [ There is a lim-it to how strong one can grow, in ei-ther spir-it or qi, then. ]


    { The lim-i-ta-tions on this world have more to do with this world''s youth than the fact that the nat-ur-al en-er-gies are of only a cer-tain com-plex-i-ty. With the right ed-u-ca-tion, more is pos-si-ble than any on this world may ever ac-com-plish, us-ing far less. }


    Ki''el was only half pay-ing at-ten-tion. She had a ques-tion... but she thought it was not wise to ask, nor even think it. She had no idea how sub-tle a though the guardian de-ity may be able to pick up. In-stead, she tried to find some-thing else, an-oth-er thought to dis-tract her, and end-ed up speak-ing a ques-tion. "I un-der-stand that qi is based on Truth aether, which tries to cre-ate the ef-fect we de-sire...? But what is its op-po-site?"


    There was a pause, and Ki''el felt the aether around her stir-ring for a long mo-ment be-fore Kuli replied. { Truth and Con-tra-dic-tion are the two forms of Con-se-quence Aether. Just as Right-eous and Sin-is-ter aether re-in-force or weak-en body and soul, [Truth] can cre-ate or re-in-force an ex-ist-ing [law], while [Con-tra-dic-tion] weak-ens or re-moves a [law], or cre-ates an ef-fect [sim-i-lar] to a law be-ing re-moved. }


    Ki''el... had felt, be-fore, when oth-er peo-ple felt shock at her words. And she had felt, at the Sect, the strain on her qi when she forced her-self to speak a whole thought into oth-ers'' minds, when do-ing so changed how they thought, fun-da-men-tal-ly. Now... the words that Kuli spoke rang so com-plete-ly true, and some-how still man-aged to get tan-gled up in Ki''el''s mind... and Ki''el was sure it was not only her. From the sud-den snap in the aether around her, she thought that Kuli had done some-thing to off-set the strain on her when pro-vid-ing that in-for-ma-tion to the spir-i-tu-al de-ity.


    Even so, Ki''el felt an in-tense pain shoot through her merid-i-ans... and also, through her mind.


    The con-cept of a spir-i-tu-al [law]... it tan-gled through Ki''el''s thoughts and mem-o-ries in a strange way. Such a law was a thing both true, and some-times fake; it could be made true, with pow-er, but if it was cre-at-ed, then its cre-ation was a part of its own law. And law, both true law of the uni-verse and false law cre-at-ed by peo-ple... all of that could be bent with spir-i-tu-al pow-er... but they wove through cre-ation it-self, or they could. But...


    Ki''el did not un-der-stand. And she did not mean to un-der-stand, did not de-sire it, or not ex-act-ly. She un-der-stood that this was all far above her, things that she nev-er should have been ex-pect-ed to un-der-stand. But some-how, with but a few touch-es to her mind, Kuli still man-aged to pull her tan-gled thoughts into fo-cus, guid-ing them into or-der.


    Qi ef-fects were cre-at-ing and en-forc-ing laws; they start-ed very small, but could be-come very pow-er-ful. Ki''el''s sword qi and fire qi had been sim-ple "laws" that had spe-cif-ic, de-ter-mined ef-fects. That was a frame-work that she felt Kuli cre-at-ing.


    Ki''el''s thoughts, with the help of her aug-ment, straight-ened out the rest in mo-ments. If qi was a ''sim-ple cre-ation'', then a ''sim-ple re-sis-tance'' would be sim-i-lar-ly unim-pres-sive--just a re-fusal to be af-fect-ed by some-thing. The in-tent might need to be phrased a dif-fer-ent way, and there might be dif-fer-ent con-se-quences, but both pow-ers could ac-com-plish the same over-all goal--just as Ki''el might win in com-bat by strength-en-ing her-self or weak-en-ing her en-e-my.


    The true pow-er of such laws, Ki''el un-der-stood, was that they could tru-ly set what the uni-verse un-der-stood as ''true''--if giv-en enough en-er-gy to per-form the task. Some-how, Ki''el''s mind drift-ed again to Sobon''s de-scrip-tion of his home-world, of the idea that all the peo-ple in that world were a part of a grand ar-ray, a work-ing that con-trolled the civ-i-liza-tion as a whole. Per-haps they did, or per-haps they did not, make use of such aether, but... Ki''el un-der-stood that the pow-er to ''de-ter-mine what is true'' changed the fates of not only peo-ple, but cities, na-tions... worlds.


    As soon as Kuli let go of her mind again, Ki''el felt the pain re-turn, if much more weak-ly, and she felt her thoughts scat-ter, the strange vi-sion of an-oth-er world fad-ing but not dis-ap-pear-ing. She sat up with-out much of a strug-gle, hold-ing her head... and looked ahead of her, to see the large spir-it beast guardian de-ity also paw-ing at its head, as though nurs-ing a sim-i-lar headache.


    [ You don''t do things by halves, ] Meixu com-ment-ed, though the fox was also up-right and look-ing at Ki''el... or at Kuli. She might have thought, to look at him, that Meixu had re-ceived no sim-i-lar shock or break-through, but Ki''el had been close enough to him and for long enough to tell that he was ac-tu-al-ly in spir-i-tu-al tur-moil as well, and sim-ply re-tained his poise. [ A fas-ci-nat-ing in-sight, though I won-der how prac-ti-cal it is. In truth, does it change any-thing? Do we treat ei-ther qi or spir-it en-er-gy dif-fer-ent-ly now? ]


    { Let the oth-ers re-cov-er first, } Kuli chid-ed, though a mo-ment lat-er, an-swered. { It was re-quest-ed that we pro-vide proof that we--the Ri''lef, not Ki''el--are be-ings of great knowl-edge and wis-dom from the heav-ens. With this, there should be no doubt of that. }


    [ No. ] Rotan re-moved his paw from his head and looked at it, grouch-i-ly, as though the mas-sive thing had some-how been the cause of his pain--or as though he ex-pect-ed to find blood on it. But the beast sim-ply sat up a mo-ment lat-er. [ But you said that spir-it en-er-gy was cre-at-ed by this law-re-mov-ing pow-er. How does one cre-ate with re-moval? ]


    { Spir-it en-er-gy, like qi, is aether that re-stricts its own use. Qi ''cre-ates'' seals on its pow-er, while spir-it en-er-gy ''re-jects'' its own pow-er, un-til cer-tain mile-stones are met. You are cor-rect that it is more com-pli-cat-ed than that... but that is a mat-ter that should be left alone. Those who are wor-thy can reach the cor-rect heights in time, while those who are un-wor-thy... should not be giv-en a path for-ward, or not com-mon-ly. }


    [ Per-haps so. ] Rotan stood up ful-ly, and then stretched his mas-sive back, his fore claws ex-tend-ing as he also stretched his legs out. [ Very well. This Ban Molu Rotan will en-ter-tain the idea of join-ing the Ri''lef [web of fate]. But I would still pre-fer to un-der-stand what it does, its pur-pose. ]


    { [Sa-cred] en-er-gy con-nects across time and space, sim-i-lar to how guardian de-ity wor-ship is per-formed, } Kuli an-swered, im-me-di-ate-ly. { Those deities who need strength to de-fend their charges may bor-row from those who have enough, at the times they have enough en-er-gy, while those who of-fer their en-er-gy will not be asked to suf-fer in or-der to strength-en some-one else. }


    Ki''el con-cealed a frown. She un-der-stood--or had been told--of Sa-cred aether, and also its mir-ror, Cor-rupt aether. But... Ki''el stopped her thoughts af-ter a mo-ment, un-will-ing to wor-ry about some-thing that should be asked of Kuli in pri-vate.


    [ This much we are aware of, ] Rotan ad-mit-ted af-ter a few mo-ments of think-ing about it. [ It is the role of a guardian de-ity to over-see the fates of those in their do-main. How-ev-er... your an-swer gives no in-di-ca-tion of what fates you think are go-ing to be too great for us to con-tend with in-di-vid-u-al-ly, of when the pow-er will be used or why. ]


    { A com-plete con-tract will be pro-vid-ed to you. The terms of when it may be used, and when it may not, are laid out care-ful-ly. }


    This time, Ki''el was sure that she sensed Kuli send-ing a mes-sage, per-haps to the [Tidal Coro-na], and al-though it was faint, she was sure that she sensed a mes-sage in re-turn, one that she thought Rotan re-ceived. The large crea-ture tilt-ed its head and closed its eyes, fo-cus-ing on its thoughts.


    [ I will con-sid-er the terms. You may go. ]


    This time, Ki''el did not mis-take the words for a mere in-vi-ta-tion, even for a mo-ment, and bowed and turned away im-me-di-ate-ly. She was sur-prised, when she got to the door she had come in through, when she re-al-ized that Meixu had stayed be-hind... but when the door opened in front of her, she stepped through with-out hes-i-ta-tion, trust-ing that the fox was more than wise enough to know what he was al-lowed to do... or at least, what he could get away with.


    She felt slight-ly more con-cerned when the door shut be-hind her, with Meixu still on the oth-er side, but she forced her-self to walk away de-spite that. Ahead of her, an-oth-er door opened, show-ing a stair-case, though Ki''el was... un-sure whether it was the same stair-case she had come up.


    { I am sor-ry. }


    Ki''el paused in her steps only for a mo-ment, but found that the sim-ple words from Kuli did ease a ten-sion with-in her, a frus-tra-tion. Tell me, she said, leav-ing the words open. What ex-act-ly the aug-ment felt sor-ry for would change how she felt about it.


    { I have not for-got-ten that you wished to be a part of de-ter-min-ing your own fate. In a way, this meet-ing has changed your fate in ways you can-not un-der-stand. Molu Rotan will watch over you, and it will be for the best, but... I did not ask, or in-form you. } There was a pause. { I also wish to thank you. For not speak-ing the ques-tion that came to mind. It would have been safe to think about--Molu Rotan does not read minds--but the un-ease in your heart would have caused him con-cern. }


    What lies above Truth and Con-tra-dic-tion? Could I pos-si-bly reach it? But Ki''el was no fool. She could bare-ly be-gin to touch on Space aether, let alone Time, Fate, or Con-se-quence. Even so... she yearned to at least know the name. What great pow-er was there above Con-se-quence Aether? A pow-er so grand that every use of it must in-volve the use of both Truth and Con-tra-dic-tion at once? Ki''el shiv-ered, just think-ing about a be-ing whose aether could cre-ate or de-stroy whole qi na-tures as an ac-ci-dent, as it per-formed some oth-er task.


    { Not only am I un-aware of the an-swer to your ques-tion, my peo-ple are, to the best of my knowl-edge. And... it is for the best. Even the Ri''lef would cov-et pow-er if they had the name of it, just as you have come to wish for the pow-er of Truth and Con-tra-dic-tion af-ter hear-ing how they work. While some-one should un-der-stand such mat-ters, so that is-sues can be dis-cov-ered and ad-dressed... it can-not be al-lowed to spread as freely as oth-er mat-ters. }


    Ki''el... would not have said that she wished for the pow-er to use Spir-it En-er-gy, but her mind had be-gun to think about it, to ques-tion whether it would be the right tool for cer-tain things. But even then, she had no idea whether it was tru-ly all that help-ful. Is there any ad-van-tage to qi and spir-it en-er-gy over aether? When prop-er-ly used?


    Ki''el had a strange feel-ing at that, and re-al-ized only af-ter some re-flec-tion that it was Kuli feel-ing sur-prised at her ques-tion. { Qi and spir-it en-er-gy are in-tu-itive ways to use aether. Their ad-van-tage is be-ing able to learn them and use them quick-ly and eas-i-ly. But be-cause of their na-tures, aether, qi, and spir-it each make cer-tain tasks more dif-fi-cult. Raw aether use re-quires ed-u-ca-tion, more than you may ever be pro-vid-ed with on this world, even with the help of Sobon and the Ri''lef to-geth-er. Some tasks that would take cen-turies of ef-fort to [re-search] the aether script to ac-com-plish can be cre-at-ed as qi or spir-it en-er-gy ef-fects in decades or less. }


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, some part of her mind ea-ger-ly en-gag-ing with the com-pli-cat-ed thoughts. Then... when you say that I cov-et Truth and Con-tra-dic-tion, you are wrong, she de-cid-ed af-ter a mo-ment. I am not in-ter-est-ed in fast ways to grow stronger. I sim-ply wish to fin-ish learn-ing, and when you teach me that there is more yet to learn, I find my-self think-ing ea-ger-ly about the day when I un-der-stand enough to see be-yond the next door.


    Ki''el felt the aug-ment''s aether shift slight-ly. { What if I told you that there are some things you will nev-er learn? }


    There are, Ki''el agreed, with only a mo-ment of thought. But I do not like it when you tell me you know, now, what I will not learn. Per-haps you are right, per-haps you are wrong. But to say that I will not sounds like you wish for my ig-no-rance, in fur-ther-ance of a goal I do not un-der-stand. What if my learn-ing things will be help-ful? What if it will be easy for me? What if I can be trust-ed? Will I still not be taught? If there are no teach-ers, no way to learn it, then we will dis-cov-er that at the time, and there will be no one to blame. But my life is al-ready full of strange things. Per-haps life will sur-prise you, as it does me.


    Ki''el could tell that her aug-ment was con-sid-er-ing those words for a time, and then that it chose to sim-ply re-main qui-et for a while af-ter that, de-spite per-haps hav-ing fin-ished its think-ing.


    When at last Ki''el reached the bot-tom of the stairs and the en-trance to the Tem-ple build-ing, she found the woman who had led her up stand-ing there, with Meixu sit-ting placid-ly on the floor next to her. Al-though Ki''el did not get the sense that she had in-ter-rupt-ed a con-ver-sa-tion, she still felt awk-ward, as though their pa-tience in wait-ing for her was dis-guis-ing some-thing else, though what, ex-act-ly, she was un-sure.


    [ Thank you, cousin, and per-haps we will have that drink soon, ] were Meixu''s part-ing words to the woman, who sim-ply bowed, the near-by door slid-ing open of its own ac-cord. The fox leapt again to Ki''el''s shoul-der, and looked at her, and this time, she stud-ied his eyes for a long mo-ment be-fore look-ing away. Know-ing that Meixu had said some-thing about a daugh-ter... there was some-thing there, a deep re-gret.


    "Good-bye, [Po-lit-i-cal Ex-ile] Meixu." The woman gave a toothy grin, but bowed. "Good-bye, Young Mis-tress Ki''el, [Su-pe-ri-or As-sis-tant] Kuli."


    When the doors had shut be-hind her, and they were be-gin-ning to walk down the long stair-case out of the tem-ple, Ki''el fi-nal-ly asked. "Ex-ile?"


    [ The Di-a-mond Lord did not keep my fam-i-ly safe, de-spite a promise. I broke our al-liance the day I found out, along with many oth-er things. I was po-lite-ly in-vit-ed to nev-er re-turn, and I agreed. ] Meixu''s thoughts did not con-tain the kind of feel-ings Ki''el might have ex-pect-ed. They were... dry, per-haps. No longer fresh. [ I can feel that in-vi-ta-tion is no longer bind-ing, but some ar-ti-facts re-main, es-pe-cial-ly among those old enough to re-mem-ber. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered those words, and thought long and hard about ask-ing more ques-tions, but her mind was al-ready full of oth-er things, and she found that she felt bet-ter think-ing about aether than about her newest com-pan-ion''s painful past. An-oth-er time, she promised her-self, be-fore her thoughts bent once more to the idea of spir-i-tu-al laws, and the pow-ers that en-forced and re-strict-ed them.

 [TAS] 53. Kiel - Burden, Part 4

    "You don''t think she needs to know?" Ki''el looked at Meixu, not stop-ping her walk back to their inn. She had been think-ing about how to sum-ma-rize what she had heard to Chi-an, and won-dered if the fox had any sug-ges-tions.


    Meixu looked back at her, qui-et-ly.


    [ She is not a spir-it beast, ] Meixu an-swered af-ter a while. [ The en-er-gy that she is pro-vid-ed as an in-her-i-tor al-ready con-tains her Grand-fa-ther''s do-main, so she has no need to change it, only to mas-ter its use. ]


    That... was not how Ki''el thought about qi use, and it was not how she felt about spir-i-tu-al pow-er af-ter what she had heard. And al-though it had been a while since the two of them had spo-ken of it... Ki''el still re-mem-bered Chi-an say-ing how she had strong in-stincts, to fear and to hate.


    To think of it... Ki''el had not spoke much with Chi-an since they had left the Sect, not about things like that. And... the girl had doubt-less changed. How much, she had no idea. But... what she wor-ried about now, was be-ing a per-son who kept se-crets from her friend, se-crets that might mean a great deal, help her ad-vance rapid-ly.


    "Do you not think that it will help her? Are you sug-gest-ing it would make it hard-er for her?" Ki''el found, when she spoke, that her voice sound-ed harsh-er than she meant it to, but it also didn''t quite feel wrong. She felt like the ad-vice was... hurt-ful, or might be.


    [ You are a kind girl, young Ki''el, but most peo-ple are not ready for se-crets un-til they have mas-tered the ba-sics. ] But Meixu glanced away, and Ki''el thought from his face that he was not done with think-ing about it. [ ...But I sup-pose, if you are hop-ing that she will keep up with your ridicu-lous pace... teach-ing her such things will be nec-es-sary. ]


    Keep up? Ki''el still felt far be-hind where she ought to be, even as a part of her re-al-ized that she had passed all of Ti-ta-ni-um Qi with-out even mean-ing to. But she had also spent her child-hood lost and alone, know-ing and do-ing noth-ing while oth-ers pre-pared. She glanced away. "Was the rev-e-la-tion ...mean-ing-ful to you?" She was still sure that the fox had only been pre-tend-ing to not be af-fect-ed by it, but she want-ed to know what he thought.


    [ I have al-ready ex-plored both qi and spir-it en-er-gy in my life-time, ] Meixu an-swered, and Ki''el not-ed silent-ly that it did not an-swer the ques-tion. [ I have built and re-ject-ed. The con-cept that was pro-vid-ed, of spir-i-tu-al law, is... a clar-i-fi-ca-tion of thoughts many have had. But the use of that knowl-edge is in care-ful-ly re-fin-ing the in-tent of our do-mains, and the girl doesn''t have one. She bor-rows an im-age and do-main some-one else cre-at-ed. ]


    Ki''el had not meant the ques-tion to come back im-me-di-ate-ly to that, and she turned her at-ten-tion back to the city, feel-ing a grow-ing mote of frus-tra-tion in her chest, but she took a breath and let it out. "...I have found that un-der-stand-ing qi is eas-i-er once I un-der-stood aether," she said af-ter a long mo-ment. "Even when the two are very dif-fer-ent, to un-der-stand what lies be-neath changes my un-der-stand-ing of qi."


    [ You also aren''t us-ing some-one else''s qi na-ture, but learn-ing to make your own, ] Meixu an-swered. [ Most young mas-ters of no-ble fam-i-lies are in-her-it-ing their qi na-ture from an an-ces-tor or an-cient tome, and while they may need to un-der-stand how qi is de-rived... they do not need to un-der-stand the fi-nal form of it un-til they are ready. ]


    Ki''el found her-self un-ex-pect-ed-ly tense. It was... noth-ing that she could put a rae-son to, ex-cept that she felt like she ought to be able to share what she un-der-stood with Chi-an, to help her grow. It felt... un-nat-ur-al, that Meixu seemed to be re-sist-ing that. "Per-haps she does not need it, but... would it harm her?"


    There was some-thing like a sigh from the fox on her shoul-der, and Ki''el looked at him again, try-ing to un-der-stand what the man was think-ing, but he was silent for a long mo-ment. Ki''el found a con-ve-nient place along the road to pause and stand in a shad-ow for a mo-ment, won-der-ing what he might say.


    [ Per-haps she is, and per-haps she isn''t ready, ] the fox said, af-ter a much longer mo-ment than Ki''el might have ex-pect-ed. His voice, broad-cast by qi, was deep-er, melan-choly. [ Young Ki''el... Con-trac-tor. It is not for me to tell you what to do or what pow-er to give to your al-lies. But a part of me yearns to once more be ig-no-rant of the tallest moun-tains in the world, in or-der to ex-plore them again with eyes like a child''s. When some se-crets are learned, the sun and moon and stars are no longer watch-ing over us, but mere-ly cold re-flec-tions. ]


    [ In truth, young Ki''el, if you raise your In-her-i-tor friend high enough, she will have no choice but to learn to reach past her an-ces-tors. At that time, she will need to ex-plore how spir-it en-er-gy re-jects the world. And you can cer-tain-ly tell her that it is a re-flec-tion of qi, try to ex-plain what you un-der-stand of this ''aether'' of yours. But even if you are will-ing to learn all of the se-crets in your youth and spend your life-time learn-ing to ap-ply them, many wish to spend their youth, at least, im-mersed in sto-ries of im-pos-si-ble things and the mighty he-roes that ac-com-plished them any-way. To dream of be-ing one who shat-ters hori-zons and reach-es the heav-ens, soar-ing over drag-ons to be-come a star, re-turn-ing home to be-come a sec-ond sun. ] The small fox on Ki''el''s shoul-der looked up at the sky, at the twist-ing and bro-ken clouds that were blow-ing slow-ly past.


    Ki''el fol-lowed his gaze, but was sure that she saw noth-ing. In-stead, her mind had latched on to what Meixu had said... in a way the fox had not ex-pect-ed.


    "Meixu," Ki''el asked af-ter a time. "What does myth mean to you?"


    [ Myth? ] The fox turned back to her, and Ki''el was sure that she saw sur-prise in the fox''s eyes. Af-ter a minute, the gaze... per-haps stopped fo-cus-ing on her, or at least, not so in-tent-ly. [ There was a time--a very long time--when there were many myths about me. Peo-ple will al-ways tell sto-ries about the pow-er-ful peo-ple, and es-pe-cial-ly beasts--and in a way, that helps us. When we find that we are not pow-er-ful enough to live up to the myths oth-ers have made about us... it can be easy to re-ject that, turn-ing that frus-tra-tion with one-self into pow-er. ]


    [ But more of-ten, the myths peo-ple tell about us are hor-rif-ic, ] Meixu con-tin-ued. [ I... af-ter I was ex-iled from the Em-pire, I trav-elled the world. I took on a hu-man form to dis-guise my na-ture, did my best to learn qi in or-der to blend in. I fell in love with a hu-man woman... more than once. But each time, even-tu-al-ly, my true form was dis-cov-ered, and most of the women I loved, the women I mar-ried... af-ter-ward, when they looked at me, they saw the hor-ri-ble myths, the false-hoods, the cru-el sto-ries meant to di-vide man and beast. Those who did not leave me be-hind were killed by oth-ers. ]


    Ki''el... was un-sure what to say about that. She looked down, think-ing of her vil-lage again, about how lost she had felt af-ter every-one had van-ished. And Ki''el... had no rea-son to find fault with her-self. She could not imag-ine be-liev-ing, af-ter such a thing, that all that death had been be-cause of her.


    Af-ter a long mo-ment, Ki''el asked a sim-ple ques-tion, hop-ing it was not rude. "...I thought that spir-it beasts could not have chil-dren with hu-mans?" Kuli had said as much.


    [ Ah? ] The fox''s head turned in a way that sur-prised Ki''el, and the look on his face was... strange. [ Is that... well, that doesn''t... seem to be wrong. ] He glanced away. [ ...The daugh-ter I spoke of ear-li-er was with an-oth-er fox. I did... try to have chil-dren with hu-man wives, but... to no avail. I did adopt chil-dren through the years, as well, but... ahem, that isn''t the point. ]


    "I re-mind you of a fox-child?" Ki''el looked at the fox on her shoul-der, though a sound near-by--of foot-steps--re-mind-ed Ki''el that this was the kind of con-ver-sa-tion per-haps best not had in the mid-dle of the city, even qui-et-ly. She start-ed walk-ing again, pro-ject-ing her thoughts, still some-what awk-ward-ly, back to Meixu. [ What was she like? ]


    [ Mai was a sweet child at first, but af-ter she ...lost her old-er sis-ter, she be-came very se-ri-ous, fo-cused on grow-ing up as quick-ly as she could so that she could take care of her-self. As a fa-ther, watch-ing her hurt me, be-cause she could no longer have faith that I would pro-tect her. No mat-ter what I wished or what I did, it felt like she nev-er had a child-hood or a youth of her own af-ter that. There was lit-tle joy, and it felt like every scrap of hope she found she had fought for. As some-one who loved that child... I felt like I had failed her, even be-fore... she died. ]


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    There were sev-er-al ques-tions Ki''el want-ed to ask, but too many of them seemed like they would have only sad an-swers, and so she walked in si-lence for an-oth-er few min-utes.


    When at last she spoke again, she had de-cid-ed to change the sub-ject back once more. [ To you, the myths of oth-ers were a weapon against you? ]


    [ Hum, ] Meixu an-swered, his thoughts clear-ly shift-ing. [ They were a tool that some peo-ple clear-ly want-ed to use to de-fend their peo-ple. There''s noth-ing wrong with telling peo-ple that beasts can be dan-ger-ous. But myths are passed down by peo-ple who do not un-der-stand the pur-pose, and they be-come warped in the retelling. Some-times, on pur-pose. ] He looked over at her. [ Telling lies, you un-der-stand, is a form of pow-er, just as telling truth can be. If you can con-vince some-one of some-thing, then you con-trol how they will act in the fu-ture. The sto-ries we tell our chil-dren, and the sto-ries that are told to adults who do not un-der-stand, both shape them as though the words them-selves were true. Some-times, that means that they be-lieve ter-ri-ble things. ]


    Ki''el stopped. In truth... she had not heard any-one speak so much on the top-ic. She had be-lieved that Sobon un-der-stood some-thing im-por-tant about myths, but this... this felt more re-al-is-tic, more ground-ed, than she had ex-pect-ed. Af-ter a mo-ment, she forced her-self to con-tin-ue walk-ing. [ So it is... con-trol? ]


    [ An at-tempt, ] Meixu an-swered, the tone of his men-tal voice a clear-er re-but-tal than his words. [ Just as qi and spir-it en-er-gy them-selves are only at-tempts to ac-com-plish some-thing. It is a pow-er that might be able to con-trol, but it is as like-ly to fail. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that. When... when she had spo-ken with Sobon, she had been... per-haps naive, talk-ing about myth as sim-ply peo-ple''s ig-no-rance. And... in some ways, what Meixu an-swered did not ad-dress, how, for ex-am-ple, her grand-moth-er had ex-plained qi to her. It was... not an at-tempt to con-trol her, as she doubt-ed it was an at-tempt to con-trol her grand-moth-er when it was taught to her. But...


    [ My mas-ter once said that strong myths can gain pow-er of their own, be-com-ing ...like a prophe-cy, in some strange way. That qi gets tied up in them, and... and... ] Ki''el re-al-ized that she couldn''t quite trans-mit what she want-ed, be-cause she wasn''t en-tire-ly sure what she was try-ing to say.


    [ Prophe-cy... ] Meixu mused on that. [ An in-ter-est-ing ob-ser-va-tion. But, I think that ''qi'' would be the wrong con-cept, there. The foun-da-tion of qi is al-ways learn-ing; spir-it en-er-gy, in con-trast, is of-ten emo-tion-al, a re-fusal to ac-cept some-thing. Spir-it en-er-gy is far eas-i-er to use in ig-no-rance, to build on lies. ] He paused for a mo-ment, clear-ly think-ing. [ Per-haps there is a ''spir-it'' of myth, in that sense. And if so, it would not sur-prise me if it can be wor-shipped as a spir-it beast can be, and if not pro-tect-ed, warped. And who would cre-ate pro-tec-tions for some-thing like a sil-ly myth? ] Meixu shook his head, and then the rest of him-self, be-fore set-tling. [ We are al-most back. Have you cho-sen whether you wish to ex-plain things to your In-her-i-tor friend? ]


    Ki''el had to pause and al-low her think-ing to shift, though she did her best to cap-ture her thoughts for now in men-tal space that Kuli pro-vid-ed. [ I will. She de-serves to know. ]


    [ I will an-swer ques-tions if she has them, but I will let you take the lead, ] Meixu an-swered, al-most im-me-di-ate-ly. [ Try to leave some mys-tery for her. It dri-ves young peo-ple to ex-plore, which can be just as im-por-tant as grow-ing stronger. ]


    Ki''el con-sid-ered those words as she round-ed the last cor-ner to where their inn was. It was an up-stand-ing place, if rel-a-tive-ly small; the man who owned it was qui-et and pro-fes-sion-al, and his two young sons had both been ea-ger to as-sist when-ev-er they had any is-sue or ques-tion. When it came into view, Ki''el not-ed that Mian was stand-ing out-side, look-ing a bit ner-vous.


    "Ki''el!" He sound-ed a bit re-lieved. "I... sor-ry, I don''t know why I didn''t come along with you. I should have." If his gaze shift-ed to the fox on Ki''el''s shoul-der, she was still too far away to tell for sure. "Even with Meixu with you... a girl shouldn''t walk through the city alone."


    [ Not gen-er-al-ly, but she was pro-tect-ed this time, and every-thing was fine, ] Meixu an-swered, some-what more loud-ly. [ A few strange looks, but noth-ing worse than that. ]


    Mian nod-ded. "Did you find ...what you were look-ing for? And things went well?"


    "Yes," Ki''el an-swered. "The city''s guardian de-ity was will-ing to lis-ten to Kuli, and I was able to lis-ten to an in-ter-est-ing con-ver-sa-tion." She paused only briefly. "Is Chi-an still around?"


    "Yes, though she talked about go-ing down to the baths." Mian opened the door as Ki''el got near, and the two of them went in-side.


    In the end, in-stead of bring-ing the top-ic up im-me-di-ate-ly, Ki''el let Chi-an con-vince her to go to a near-by bath-house, with Mian com-ing along on the walk just to keep up ap-pear-ances. Meixu... re-fused to go, de-spite what he''d said ear-li-er, say-ing some-thing about how he wouldn''t be wel-come.


    Be-cause of the hour, per-haps, the bath-house was not busy when they ar-rived, and Ki''el was able to se-cure a room for only the two of them. Ki''el made sure to study the qi scripts, in the places where they were ex-posed, both for the baths them-selves, and what Kuli sug-gest-ed were pri-va-cy scripts around the edges of the room. Both were sur-pris-ing-ly com-plex for what they did, but Ki''el was able to pick out some ob-vi-ous con-cepts, such as ''heat'' and ''wa-ter'' and ''noise.''


    When she first sank into the hot wa-ter, Chi-an let out a strange-ly des-per-ate sigh of re-lief, one too cute for Ki''el to make any at-tempt to copy. Still... she put one foot in the wa-ter first, ex-per-i-men-tal-ly, feel-ing the heat start off at un-pleas-ant be-fore be-com-ing sim-ply too warm. But, trust-ing Chi-an, she stepped in fur-ther, and again, un-til she was up to her hips in the hot wa-ter.


    It... was start-ing to feel bet-ter, at that point.


    "Have you nev-er had a hot bath?" Chi-an looked at her strange-ly, the girl hav-ing only her head above wa-ter.


    "The peo-ple of my vil-lage did not have qi or scripts," Ki''el an-swered, mov-ing deep-er into the wa-ter. "They would boil wa-ter some-times, but... it was of-ten too hot." In the time she was with Lui and Sobon, she had gone out to a bath-house there, but had re-fused to go in. The peo-ple who ran that bath-house had the wa-ter filled with some kind of scent that she did not like, and the wa-ter had looked un-usu-al, per-haps as a re-sult. This ap-peared to sim-ply be clean wa-ter.


    "Ah." Chi-an ducked her head ful-ly un-der-wa-ter, com-ing back up a few mo-ments lat-er with her hair ful-ly soaked, and she got up, run-ning her hands through it. "Script-ed baths are the best, though. You don''t have to wor-ry about get-ting the wa-ter dirty, usu-al-ly, and the tem-per-a-ture is al-ways just right." A mo-ment lat-er, she ducked her head back un-der-wa-ter, and Ki''el saw her play-ing with her hair un-der-wa-ter.


    Ki''el knelt, then sat, in the wa-ter, feel-ing a rapid change as the wa-ter be-gan to heat her core in-stead of her limbs. As she felt the warmth be-gin-ning to spread, she could feel her stress be-gin to melt, and could ad-mit that there was cer-tain-ly some-thing to be said for a good bath. It was... not quite like swim-ming, and this bath wasn''t deep enough at its deep-est to let her more than pre-tend to swim, but it was good nonethe-less.


    When Chi-an came up out of the wa-ter, Ki''el not-ed that her Rag-ing Storm Qi--or rather, her blood-line''s Rag-ing Storm spir-it en-er-gy--had cre-at-ed a thin lay-er of wa-ter around her un-der her con-trol, and Chi-an was run-ning it through her hair, sweep-ing out what-ev-er had been caught in there, restor-ing some of its col-or in the process. She watched for a mo-ment, be-fore broach-ing the sub-ject.


    "When I was meet-ing with the Guardian Beast..." it felt weird to speak of, and she want-ed to rush through it, but how even to be-gin? "...Kuli want-ed to speak with it, as I said be-fore, and in ex-change for it lis-ten-ing, Kuli spoke with it about the na-ture of spir-it en-er-gy."


    "Spir-it en-er-gy...?" Chi-an turned to look at her, a look of sur-prise on her face. "Is it re-al-ly that dif-fer-ent? I ad-mit it''s strange, hav-ing qi that al-ready has in-tent in it, but..."


    "Meixu says that it''s dif-fer-ent when you are cre-at-ing your own, but he doesn''t think the dis-cus-sion would be all that use-ful to you."


    "Hm, maybe." Chi-an closed her eyes for a mo-ment, and Ki''el thought that she looked odd with all the wa-ter mov-ing through her hair. "I''d like to hear it some-day, but right now, I''m wor-ried about oth-er things. I don''t have a place where I can safe-ly play with ...spir-it en-er-gy, not un-less we find a house."


    Ki''el felt a twinge, be-cause she want-ed to talk about it with her friend, but sim-ply nod-ded. "I would like to tell you, when you are ready."


    Chi-an nod-ded, and let her-self drift away in the bath, again, and Ki''el, though it felt weird to do it, dunked her head into the hot wa-ter, and be-gan scrub-bing out the dirt that had got-ten into her own hair.


    It be-came ob-vi-ous as she did that she had not tak-en good care of her hair... not that she re-al-ly cared all that much. She resur-faced, run-ning her hands through her hair, but it felt too thick in her fin-gers, coarse and un-pleas-ant.


    "Can I?" Chi-an moved clos-er, and Ki''el turned to let the girl touch her hair. Chi-an''s stormy wa-ter en-er-gy tin-gled as it moved across her hair and scalp, and Ki''el did her best not to make strange nois-es as it did. "You haven''t washed your hair in a while, have you?" Chi-an tsked at her.


    "Not well," she said. "A lit-tle bit... a while ago." She had tried to wash it in the bath-house, but the soaps they had all smelled aw-ful to her.


    "I can tell," she said. "You know, one of the perks of... of my fam-i-ly, is that there is a pow-er specif-i-cal-ly for clean-ing hair. I guess... I guess they like to keep clean, you know?"


    Ki''el sup-posed it was nat-ur-al that a spir-it fox blood-line would want to keep their fur clean, but re-spect-ed Chi-an''s para-noia about speak-ing aloud on the mat-ter.


    Af-ter re-lax-ing and talk-ing about small mat-ters some more, Chi-an and Ki''el left the bath-house feel-ing fresh, find-ing Mian wait-ing out-side for them. The man, too, seemed to have washed him-self a bit, though Ki''el thought he must not have soaked as thor-ough-ly as they did. On the walk back, though, Mian did com-ment, "The hot wa-ter cer-tain-ly does help. It al-most feels like my bur-dens are lift-ed, a lit-tle."


    Ki''el con-sid-ered that, but al-though her body felt stronger... if she had felt bet-ter in the mo-ment, it had not last-ed. There was too much... and she had no idea what was right, what was com-ing, or whether she would ever be-long any-where.


    And that... that bur-den was some-thing she sim-ply didn''t know how to car-ry, and no amount of hot wa-ter could wash it away.

 (Writing Update)

    Hi all,


    So the last few updates I''ve been behind and had to catch up at the last moment, and I''m in that position again.  While I could certainly push out another chapter, I feel like I''m back in a place I''ve been in my previous books where the story suffers if I push it too hard--I don''t have time to keep all the characters in mind or do much else than build towards the plot points in the distance.  I can do that, but with the partial chapter I already have written for 55, I realize I haven''t touched on some of the minor party members, and was about to just... completely ignore their existence, which would require me to retroactively justify it.  Which... to be fair, Brothers Jito and Taru are basically hangers on, but not addressing them being there is still not addressing them being there.


    I said in a previous author''s note that I am approaching an unstable time and will need to take time off from writing, and maybe I just ought to start now.  I was half hoping I would be able to reach the end of this book and tie everything together before I do that... but the other side of that coin is that if I get to the end of the book and stop, I very well might not pick up writing the next part of this story for a while.  I''ve already been feeling an urge to go back to another story for a while instead.


    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    I do absolutely intend to finish this volume, and I don''t think I''ll have too much trouble finding a good stopping place... but honestly, right now, I''m out of sorts, for reasons that have nothing to do with the story itself.  So I think taking a break now might just be for the best.  I''ll keep working on this, and hopefully get a bit ahead for when I do come back, but no promises on that--I do my best writing when I''ve got an audience of more than just myself.


    Sorry for the delay, and for the last few chapters being a bit weird.


    --Sayu

 (Writing Update - Again)

    I... guess I hadn''t even realized that it''s been six months.  Time hasn''t exactly been flowing by quickly, but it still seems like it shouldn''t have been that long.  This post is going to be very honest, and very behind-the-curtain, but I don''t know what to say about it all, really.


    I am... not doing great.


    I moved halfway across the country and still don''t have a decent job.  I moved in with family but still feel mostly alone.  I''ve been trying to pick my writing back up but it feels wrong.  I was able to write a chapter or two for TPC/TAS, but it just made it feel more wrong.  I''m starting to think that, because of things I did earlier in the story (TAS) that I don''t necessarily like... I may not be able to just snap back into place with this even if I want to.


    My writing style has always been very exploratory, and I''ve done a lot of writing for all of my stories that was entirely improv, and that comes with making mistakes.  I''ve had to rewrite things before, and at least two of my previous stories are stuck in place because I ended up in a place I don''t like with them.  Order & Lost is waiting on me to probably back off a few chapters and rewrite them, and with Tower of Stone and Sky I realized that I don''t actually want to write a story about literally building stuff.  Apparently I didn''t learn that lesson, because the sequels to SFD and GoE both have building components that I don''t feel ready for.


    I have always enjoyed the art of storytelling.  When I''m alone, I daydream, crafting stories for myself alone that cross and span worlds, genres, universes.  But those daydreams don''t have the problem of canon.  If I want to ignore weeks of canon and do something differently, I can.  If I want to make something cool, the only person I need to convince of its coolness is me.  I don''t have to try to describe it to anyone, I just have to have the concept in mind.  If... you have any understanding of where Tower was when I stopped it, I was just about to start literally building a tower of stone and sky, and I realized that I just am no good at describing things.


    For this story... it''s a combination of things.


    At the time I started to have Sobon doing background things with the Founder, I knew I was probably overstepping, but now I feel certain that I don''t want that to dictate the pacing of the rest of the story, and the way it''s going, it has to.  Especially the part with the, like, multiple tournaments to distribute multiple artifacts... I don''t hate the artifacts themselves, really, but Ki''el''s story was always calling for something far more slice-of-life.  Distinct from Sobon''s story, she was supposed to cultivate the "right" way, slowly--or at least, not at Sobon''s blistering pace.  She would explore all of the systems that Sobon was skipping.  That plan was shot in the foot by Sobon and the Founder.  Not even specifically by the civil war--but by Sobon making Ki''el special enough to draw their attention.  At that point, either Ki''el is forced into a "Young master" role and speedruns sect life, or she flees it.  The decision to take the second option feels enough like her that I don''t argue it, but it definitely makes the whole rest of the story very different.  And I still am not entirely sure, myself, whether the tournaments are even going to work the way Sobon and the Founder suggest they should, because of... well, everything.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.


    In truth... I could probably still work with it.  I don''t like it, but I probably could.


    The chapters I have written are essentially Ki''el and the rest exploring the local options and finding one that works.  I don''t dislike the place I have them settling, but it all seems so small.  With the civil war in the background, with Sobon tied up doing things, with Ki''el feeling so far behind... I don''t like it.  I could probably work with it, but again... my style has always been very instinctual.  Writing something I don''t like is hard.


    Meanwhile, I''m not even sure in my day to day life that I can put as much time and effort into writing as I should, if I want to produce something of good quality.  I''ve tried.  I''ve sat down and tried to convince myself that it was writing time, and I start on something and get a little into it and then just lose track, lose focus, lose heart.  I''m depressed, miserable, doubting myself every step of the way, not only in writing but in everything else.  I''m in one of those nasty places in my life where I''m more likely to just run away, and that sucks.  It''s also not like I have a writing partner or anyone to keep checking in on me and keep me focused when I can''t do it myself.


    It feels like the "right option" for TAS is to either rewrite a lot of things, or at least, change some of the background Sobon canon and then back off to the point where Ki''el was forced to flee and instead continue the Sect arc.  But I''m not sure of that, either.  One thing''s for sure--the story feels too confused, not in the sense of "the world is confused and you''re just a person living in it" but in the sense of "the author promised us this was going somewhere and I don''t see it."  Again--I have always "written" stories for myself, and so, I''m absolutely one of my own readers.  It''s one of those things that can be hard to admit to myself, that I''m writing a story I don''t want to read, but... I think that''s kind of where I am right now?  At the very least, I''m not sure I could write what comes next, and I definitely feel like it would benefit from some rewrites.


    For all of that... I can''t promise anything.  I''m sorry.  I don''t know what my situation is or will be.  I''m hoping to get on depression meds someday soon, but that''s harder when unemployed, and when I am employed, I''ll have less time.  Believe me, I want to be writing.  I''m not myself when I don''t write.  I began to realize that after I first started posting on the site, and it feels more true every time I take time off from writing.  Storytelling is in my blood, but something about what I''ve done makes it all hard for me to do, especially alone.  And... I dunno.  I don''t have any local people--here or where I used to live--or even any online friends that I can talk about writing with, talk about my stories with.  I''d much rather be back in a place where I''m just throwing chapters down every few days, but I don''t know how to get back to that when I''m as depressed as I am, as confused as I am, as lost as I am.


    I''m going to try to make sure that the story doesn''t just get dropped here.  I don''t think that the story itself has done anything to deserve to be dropped.  But right now I can''t do anything, and having taken a step back... I do think that the first step here might be backing up a bit.  I... I just don''t know.


    Sorry that I took six months to get back to you at all.  I''ve had a couple chapters, as I said, but I don''t want to start posting again until I have reason to think I''ll be back for real.  The other side of that is, if I do start posting again--whether it''s continuing from here, rewriting, or working on something else--it will be a commitment to continue.  I hope that will happen, and sooner rather than later.


    To all of you who have read and enjoyed The Power Cycle and The Aether Sword, thank you... and, I''m sorry.