A place for the placeless. That was Saketa’s impression as she strode through the converted commercial building. There was pain here, in the air, in the demeanour of the people, in the marks of ill health on their faces. But there was also a counter-current. That much was clear, both to her sensitivity and to her plain eyes.

Her guide walked her past a room filled with cheap cots, where addicts were going through withdrawal, tended to by people in no uniform or formal gown. The walls were decorated with simple tapestries and other crafts made from cheap materials, and they passed by a room set up for the purpose. There was also a meditation room, and one where a large group carried out a softly-spoken conversation, while sitting on small chairs.

There were children, and the elderly, and they seemed to rather delight in one another’s company. Clothes were cleaner and in better shape than might be expected for many of the people milling about, and Saketa glimpsed a room set aside for that, as well as dedicated workers. There were big couches, cooking stations, sanitation stations, and all of the equipment looked old and used, but maintained.

Her caller was near the very back, and it was as she expected. The door to the room was closed, but she could tell who, or rather what, he was right through it.

“Ah, the door being closed… it means not to interrupt,” her guide said. He looked nervous, and Saketa reminded herself what kind of scene he’d arrived at. “This won’t take long. Do you… do you have an appetite?”

“I do,” she admitted, and he hurried ahead to a side room. It proved to be the shelter’s kitchen. Two long tables were set up, leaving a rather narrow space for getting around.

“Brenna,” her guide said, which Saketa took to be the name of the woman leaning against the counter, and followed it with a few words in the local language.

Brenna glanced at Saketa, then opened a cabinet and took out a square-shaped container. It held a small meal’s worth of something brown, and she put it on some sort of cooking station. The machinery flickered to life at the touch of a button, then died.

“I can eat it cold,” Saketa assured her. “It is no issue.”

“This is no issue either,” the woman told her, and fiddled with the machine in a fashion that indicated familiarity. “Please, won’t you sit?”

With the offer made, Saketa did sit. On some level it felt wrong. The fight and resultant failure were both still too fresh in her system. But her body was happy to rest.

Once the machine behaved, the cooking itself took only seconds, and Brenna let the container stand on the counter for a few moments more while she heated up a mug of water. Then she sprinkled something into it, and brought both over to Saketa along with utensils.

“Thank you,” Saketa said.

“It is nothing,” the woman said. She was probably in her forties, and had a rather sad face. “I help, in what little ways I can.”

“If only everyone did as much,” Saketa replied, then started eating. She supposed it was some sort of vegetable goop, with bits in it that might have been bread. It was perfectly serviceable, and so was the tea, or whatever it was. The woman sat and the man stood. The latter tried to wear an overt face of cheer, while the woman sat and seemed to be taking Saketa in.

Saketa was content to just focus on her meal, and hurried it down. A few seconds after she finished she heard a door open and close. She stood up as footsteps approached, and in walked the man who’d called her here. He wore a plain robe of soft, soothing blue, had close-cropped hair, and carried with him an aura of great calm and peace.

“Greetings, child of Kalero” he said to her in Barda. “I apologise for keeping you waiting. An unexpected patient came in.”

“Greetings, Aman of Jeala,” she said in turn. “That is a good reason to delay.”

“I am glad we agree.”

The aman said a few words to the guide, who promptly walked off. Brenna stayed where she was, and the blue-robed man sat down opposite Saketa.

“I am Aman Kendrel,” he said.

“I am Saketa Kan Tiro. I must say, you are far from home.”

“We both are. Though, of course, your people are more known for travel than my own. But we each have our purpose, and neither is bound to a location. I opted to drift, and see where chance would take me and where I might be needed.”

“Did you set all of this up?” she asked, and indicated their surroundings.

“There was a precursor to all of this, though in a different location. With support, I have been able to make more of it.”

“This is… this a good place,” she said. “I sense it clearly enough. You have done well.”

“This is a good start, I suppose,” the aman replied. “I hope it will grow into a wider trend for this troubled area. But pride is an insidious enemy.”

“I know,” Saketa replied. “I know. You are hoping to attract more people to your guidance?”

“I am hoping to start a spiritual trend that will in time grow on its own, without any need for a central figure,” Kendrel told her. “Should that happen, I will continue on my way on the sea of stars.”

He held his hands out.

“But what of you? I only became aware of you a couple of hours ago. You are new to the capital, and, I would venture, the planet as well.”

“If you are advanced enough on your people’s Seven Paths,” Saketa said. “Then you will also know of the place of power a mere bolt shot from your sanctuary here. And the corruption that has set into it.”

“Of course. There is-”

“Then why not do something?” she demanded to know. “An aman has power. Of a sort.”

“Our ways are not violent. You surely know this,” he told her patiently. “We operate in the long term. A slow nurturing of the spirit, in time, wipes such evil things out of a society.”

Saketa sighed.

“I… respect your people,” she said, fighting a certain amount of frustration. “The children of Kalero do. There is value to the work you do, even if you could be more active about it. But not every hurt can be soothed away, and there isn’t always time for a gentle hand. Sometimes quick action and amputation are required.”

“Yes,” the aman said. “Your people’s… ancestral enemy. The Long Hunt never truly ended. Can you tell me exactly what transpired tonight?”

“I knew of an old place of power in this capital,” Saketa said. “I found he has used it to train up a small cult. A pack of acolytes. He has left other such footprints across the worlds. I bested and broke one guardian and tried to interrogate her, but a second one showed up. A young man. A boy, really.”

She folded her hands.

“They usually are young,” she muttered. “Young and angry. They are the easiest to draw in and control.”

A hint of sadness made it through Kendrel’s nigh-unnatural calm.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Yes. It always is. And on that subject, I do believe Brenna wishes to speak with you.”

Saketa turned to face the woman. A few seconds passed before Brenna spoke, and when she did so it was in heavily accented Barda.

“I knew what you are, right away. Even without the suit.”

She pointed at the tattoos on Saketa’s forearms.

“My grandparents were from the Outer Fringe. That is why I speak the language. They moved here before having my father, and each generation becomes more Yvennan. But the stories endure. Stories of… of the conflicts there. Of Wardens and Amans and Grey Dancers and the Seers of Kanakkik. And… the Vartana Exiles.”

Saketa didn’t like to hear the title spoken, but said nothing. Brenna took a small break to gaze down into her lap. Then she looked up again, with an air of forcing herself to say the next words..

“That boy you mentioned… was he broad-shouldered, dark-haired, with a big birthmark around his left eye?”

“He was,” Saketa replied. “I only saw his face briefly, but I caught that detail. I thought it was makeup of some kind.”

“It is a birthmark,” Brenna assured her. “It is the reason I named him Kio. It is a real name here, but it also means ‘spot’.”

“He is your son,” Saketa stated.

“He is,” Brenna said.

The woman looked off at nothing, with a hand on her mouth and a dull ache in her eyes.

“I had him seventeen years ago. I was…”

She closed her eyes a bit.

“I will not burden you with a detailed story of my life, but I was unprepared for motherhood. That much is abundantly clear to me as I look back. And we were poor. That certainly didn’t help matters. We lived not that far from here, in an area of predators and gangs and violence. That is probably why he is so taken with… with strength, and with having something to belong to. His childhood weighs him down. His childhood, and my failures.”

Aman Kendrel did not reach across the table to clasp her hand. But in the corner of her eye Saketa saw the man close his eyes, and she felt the quiet healing he exuded. After another brief pause Brenna continued.

“Now he has fallen in with this… terrible company. I haven’t seen the rest of them, or the man who leads them, because hardly anyone has. They are little more than rumours. I have tried to seek Kio out, but he will not see me. And anyone he is familiar with, anyone who might be willing to help reason with him… I just do not trust they would come back in one piece.”

Saketa looked at Kendrel.

“I tried,” the man told her. “I found young Kio. He could not raise his hand against me, but he simply would not listen. My talk of calm and inner peace, of living with others in acceptance, it all translates directly into weakness to him. Perhaps… perhaps he will listen to a warrior.”

“Warden, please be honest with me,” Brenna said. “Is my son lost to me?”

Saketa couldn’t help but feel the pain in the woman’s face for herself.

“It was only a brief engagement,” she said. “But I could tell he has not undergone the razing yet. That is what closes the door between them and the rest of humanity. For all time.”

“Is that what awaits my boy?” Brenna asked weakly.

Some perverted impulse wanted her to say “Not if I kill him”, but she crushed it down into the dark corners of her mind.

“Perhaps,” Saketa said. “But only if his mentor wills it. But they always take on more acolytes than they… graduate. People with power comparable to your own are harder to control.”

“And if he does will it?”

“I meant what I said about the door closing, Brenna,” Saketa said. “It does not open. Those who carry on the title of Vartana go all the way into the darkness. They have nothing left but hate and rage and fear. All of mankind’s worst impulses, with nothing at all to temper them.”

Brenna looked down, and nodded.

“I did ask for honesty.”

The woman reached for her. Saketa saw what she was doing and held her hand out with some reluctance. Brenna closed both of her hands around Saketa’s. They were toughened from a lifetime of hard work, but the grip was soft, pleading.

“Can he be saved?” Brenna asked, though it was more of an imploration.

Saketa hesitated.

“He has sipped from a very poisoned well,” she then said.

“But can you try? I have nothing to offer you in return, but will you try. Even if…”

Brenna looked away for a breath, then turned back to Saketa.

“Even if he is lost to me, and will not see me again, I want to… I want to at least have him in my heart. I don’t want him to lose himself. I want to know he is out there somewhere, alive and safe”

There was a lot of blood in that basement.

“He is a danger,” Saketa said. “But I…”

The words felt heavy on her tongue.

“I will try, Mother Brenna. I will try.”

Brenna squeezed her hand, then patted it.

“Thank you. Thank you. That is all I can ask.”

Brenna stood up.

“Now, I agreed to help in the recovery room. Good fortune, Warden.”

She walked away, carrying a burdened spirit with her as she went. Saketa turned her attention back on the aman.

“Word reaches me, through the people I tend to,” he said. “I do not know where your quarry spends his time. I think he might travel back and forth, either from offworld or some distant corner of Yvenna itself. But... you know of the crash? The crash of that Alliance warship?”

“The reason everything is so tense? Yes, I have heard of it.”

“One of many reasons,” Kendrel said. “But yes, it certainly has not helped. And I think I see your quarry’s hand in that calamity. But I have also gotten the impression that he has allies besides his misled acolytes.”

“Those Pure Blood cretins?” Saketa asked. “Or Authority agents? Either would be in character.”

“I am unsure. But I understand there is a man here in the capital who is looking for answers of his own, regarding the crash. He has been at it for some time. Perhaps he has had luck.”

“Surely the authorities themselves are looking into it,” Saketa said. “I get the impression you mean he is not official.”

“Yes. And he is an offworlder. From the Core, if some of my contacts are correct. And he has been looking into things for at least some days now, through venues the authorities do not have good access to.”

Saketa thought it over. This seemed slightly more promising than simply ringing doorbells around the place of power, though that wasn’t saying much.

“Where might I find this man?”

“He seems to mostly stay within the Bembab District. Supposedly one can get into contact with him by going to the Red Rest Hotel, and asking for Piter Ken.”

“Bembab. Red Rest. Piter Ken.”

Saketa nodded.

“I can try. Thank you, Aman. Was there anything else?”

“Regarding your hunt? No. Though you might contact us in the days to come, in case I learn anything new. You can get a contact card near the entrance. But… I feel I must bring up-”

“Of course you can tell that my spirit is uprooted. And of course I know you can tell, and you know that I know.”

“Of course,” he said. “I feel the weight upon you. I feel your pain. And of course you know that this is no mere platitude on my part.”

He looked at her with that agonising sincerity of his kind, mixed with the strength to bear all that limitless empathy.

“Are you certain that the battlefield is where you should be right now?” he asked gently.

She clenched her jaw, but couldn’t work up the frustration to do it very hard.

“Where else should I be?” she asked, feeling defeated.

“With the elders of Kalero, perhaps?” he asked. “With friends? You are of course welcome to stay here if you like. There is healing in helping. And-”

“And who will stop the Exile if I do not?” she asked dully. “And what about Kio, son of Brenna? I help by fighting. It is my only skill. I devoted my entire focus to it, as I grew up. On being the best Warden I could possibly be. N-”

She fell silent.

“Please continue, Saketa of Kalero.”

Saketa shook her head and stood up.

“I am wasting time,” she said. “There is a Vartana Exile on this planet. And if not, then his trail is. And he has done quite enough harm as it is. And it seems I am the only one on this planet with the potential to stop him.”

“We are more useful to others if we remember to look after ourselves as well,” the aman said. “But it is your choice.”

“It is. Thank you for your assistance, Aman. I will try to make something come out of it.”

“Just one moment more,” he said, and took her wrist as she walked past him.

Once again her annoyance lacked any real fire. The man closed his eyes for a couple of breaths, and Saketa felt the aches and minor burns from her fight fade away. It was a touch of the other side of things, the half of the balance she was so badly missing. Healing and kindness and positivity.The glow. It even affected the self-inflicted tensions in her muscles, many of which she hadn’t even noticed until they melted away.

And then he let go.

“I cannot leave such things alone,” Kendrel said. “That is all. Good fortunes, Warden. And please care for both yourself and others.”

“Farewell.”

Saketa walked away. She passed by the same rooms as before, ending with the recovery room. She glanced into it in passing, and saw Brenna holding the hand of a young girl who was lathered in sweat, groaning painfully and twitching on her cot. A sad, pained woman doing what she could.

Saketa took a contact card from a stand near the door, and exited.