Saketa played with the contact card she’d taken at Aman Kendrel’s sanctuary. It spun between her fingers, from one side of the hand to the other. Occasionally she would shift it into her palm and look up at it as she lay on the floor. Then the spinning would continue.

She thought of Brenna, that sad-faced mother of a lost son. The interior of this cargo train was a far cry from decked out, but she had passed some sort of communication array in her search for a place to lie down. It would be a simple thing to just get up and check if it could make general calls. It actually seemed quite likely, as a precaution in case of some disaster.

Saketa spun the card one way and then the other, then stopped for another lingering look at the contact information.

A part of her felt that it was only right to at least keep the woman in the loop. But she couldn’t lie, and the truth was far from any kind of comfort. What could she say other than ‘We failed to kill one another’, or ‘He is alive for the moment’?

The cruelty of it all was that if Saketa did indeed strike Kio dead on their next encounter then she would have to make the call. She had witnessed grief plenty of times; a Warden’s duty brought one to scenes of violence and chaos and loss. One had to learn to maintain a certain amount of stoicism in the face of it all, but simply shutting one’s heart down was a step down a dark road.

She spun the card one way, then the other.

Saketa’s agitation finally manifested as energy that pushed her up into a sitting position. She put the card on the floor and opened up her bag. Out came the little notebook and the pen. There was just enough light from the permanently glowing fixtures on the walls to read by. She put pen to paper and finally didn’t bother looking for the right words. She just let them come.

Every man and woman I’ve ever killed has been someone’s child. There is no escaping that, even if there is no point in dwelling on it. Is it hypocrisy to be haunted when I’ve seen a mother’s anguish up close? Is it just human? Where is the line between just human and hypocrisy? He is a killer, and I strike those down when they pose a threat to me or others. I strike down in defence, as a Warden should. I strike down, I meditate and purify, and I move on. But behind me is a hole where a person once was.

Saketa sighed and hesitated, but the gates had been opened and the flood continued.

This is the universe. Loss and battle and predation and mistakes and foolishness. No doubt many of these parents were indifferent, to produce such destructive children, but no doubt some were like Brenna. Failures, at least in their own perception, but not out of malice or a lack of caring. I told her I would try. I told Brenna I would try to reason with her son and bring him back to her, or at least out of the cult so she could keep him in her heart. I warned that it was unlikely. Should I have been more firm on that? Should I have just told her to start grieving? Empty hope can be so very cruel. Was I weak to not be more honest in the face of a mother’s anguish?

Saketa swallowed. She tilted her head back until it impacted with the metal wall, then yanked it back forward.

Or was I weak to not try harder when I finally met him? It was the hate, the darkness, rising within me upon the sight of him, the feel of him, the slaughter they committed. I knew the words to say, I’ve been taught them, but

She clenched her jaw, squeezed the pen, and fought an urge to stab it into the notebook.

I have the means to succeed. I have always had them. I was given them by great and wise trainers and millennia of accumulated tradition. I have the means and the duty to fix things, but I fail myself and others time and time again. I SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS.

Her writing had shifted to a big, ugly scribble that ripped up the paper, like a little girl writing with the pen clutched in her fist.

That was it, wasn’t it? Her failures to perform according to her supposed abilities.

Saketa tapped the pen against the notebook, but nothing more was forthcoming. She evidently had nothing more to acknowledge to herself.

She put the two items away. Then she held up the card for a few more seconds. Her angry tension deflated into plain gloom and she melted up against the little corner she’d found for herself. Her arm dropped limply down, and the card stayed between her fingers seemingly only because it wanted to.

After a few breaths of playing a puddle she put it back into one of her belt pouches. Brenna would have to wait just a little bit longer in the awful limbo she was trapped in.

# # #

Getting out without being noticed by the scant crew was a simple matter of waiting by a window as the moment approached. She fixed on a good spot in the landscape, one she could see coming for a while, then Shifted just before her car passed it by.

The train ran on with its soft hum, and soon vanished into the hills.

She was alone out in the wilderness, far in the north of Yvenna’s sole continent. The elevation was considerable, the air had a chill to it and while there was plenty of plantlife it mostly lay low to the ground. This was a land of slopes and hills and rocks.

Saketa dully noted that under other circumstances, in a different state of mind, she might have quite liked it. As it was she just spent a few moments savouring being out of that train car and did some stretches and kicks. Then her hunt continued.

Orienteering based on the maps she’d looked up was easy enough, and for the next few hours it was a simple matter of trudging on. The route usually lead upwards, with only the occasional dip down an ancient waterway. Shifting would have made it all quicker and easier, but there was a chance that the Exile would sense power being used. Slim though it was, she would not risk announcing herself. Not at this final step.

So she endured the walk. She nibbled away at the last of her travel food and refilled her water bottle from streams. And she walked. She did slow katas with the sword in an effort to reach her warrior spirit. And she walked.

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What remained of the daylight began to fade away, but she did manage to see the distinctive, spiky peaks slowly come into view. Here Warden Urinn had found one of the planet’s other places of power, those three hundred years ago.

Garro Top, the place was called, and it should perhaps have been her first stop upon arrival. But a metropolis was much easier for a cult leader to recruit in.

Cold air blew down from those peaks, bringing a faint fog with them. The surrounding vegetation was dying, pitted as it was against forces that even hardy high-altitude survivors couldn’t prevail against. And she simply felt it, just as she had in the slum. The wellspring of energies, and how they had been tainted. Any possible doubt had been gone. This was the place. The only remaining question was whether she would find the Exile and his disciples waiting, or if she would get to set up an ambush.

The last of her food was gone, and waiting to grow hungry would not improve her odds. So she had a sip of water, squatted down to pee, then stood up and tried to prepare. The coat came off, opening her up to the universe just a little bit more, and along with her bags it got stuffed up against the base of a distinctive-looking rock. She adjusted the knife sheath yet again and drew the sword.

It remained as poor a replacement for her real one as ever. But she rested the dull side of it against her forehead and closed her eyes for a few breaths. And as she sheathed it again she felt just a little bit ready for this.

She began the final ascent.

There were ghosts of ancient steps in the slopes; stones almost entirely overgrown and buried by time and nature. It occurred to her to use a less obvious way up, but the incline didn’t get any gentler and she opted for preserving her strength.

The fog grew thicker as the air cooled, and with the sun fully out of sight the sky was darkening fast. The ancient stairs zig-zagged from one natural landing to another, and by the time Saketa reached the largest of the bunch she could feel the energies begin to nibble away at her.

There was enough light left to see that the vegetation was fully dead and rotting away with no renewal to replace it. A brook trickling down from above kept the soil soggy and added to the growing fog. Boulders bigger than Saketa herself were strewn about without any pattern, sent tumbling down from above by erosion or some ancient geological event. They felt like good ambush spots and she did her best to weave between them without ever getting too close. But a few did still sneak up on her, appearing like ghosts out of the blowing, swirling fog. There was no way to be truly stealthy on the soggy, sucking ground, so all she could do was keep her sword and wits at the ready.

She arrived at the next set of stairs; the final stretch, she believed.

The fog and the gloom allowed her only glimpses of the surroundings as she went up. Some of it was rocks and some of it was worn-down ruins, set up by muscle power in the steepest slope yet.

Here, in another time another culture had set up a temple; the sort of faithful who practised in isolation and challenging circumstances. Here the Vartana Exile had set up his main stronghold on this planet, and his Purist allies had known it. Here he’d drawn his victims with promises of power and importance, and poisoned their souls.

Despite the straining walk, her body simply would not warm up. The darkness cut deep, into body and spirit alike, and Saketa moved her arms as she went, hoping against hope to keep their strength alive.

She reached the top. The ground evened out and the fog swirled around definite structure and pattern. The roof had long since gone, as had several walls, and those that remained had had their top chipped away at in irregular fashion, giving them a jagged, saw-toothed look.

The ground was solid and dry enough for stealth again and Saketa slowly advanced, expecting a fight at any moment. There was surely too much energy here for it to just come from the place itself. Her enemy was here.

She was in some sort of courtyard, or perhaps a severely degraded entrance hall, and the cut stones underneath her feet were less overgrown than down below. Something drew her nearly straight ahead, towards a relatively intact part of the ruins.

He appeared out of the fog, standing on top of some sort of landing or stage, about two man-heights tall. It was Kio, and he had his weapon.

Saketa stood on the balls of her feet, ready to dodge in any direction. But the boy just stood there for the moment, watching her, tense as a raptor about to strike. Saketa fought the darkness, she fought the memories and the way he represented both, and she found her words.

“I know what you are,” she said. “What you have done, and what you have been told. This is a very old fight that my people know very well. There is nothing unique about your situation, or the things you have been taught.”

Her calm felt a thin layer of ice above a brutal river, but it held for now.

“And I can tell you with true confidence that I know what awaits you. It is just more of the same. More darkness. More anger. More hate. More poisoning of your spirit. And there is no award that awaits you for enduring it all. No enlightenment, no truth of yourself, no discovery you couldn’t have made on your own. Your master has great power, and you have been witness to his character. Has he ever struck you as satisfied?”

“It is about survival!” the boy replied, in a familiar programmed fashion. “The brutal truth of mankind! What truth would YOU offer, ghost of Kalero?”

“How about balance?” she replied. “Human nature is split down the middle. Trying to be entirely one over the other will lead you nowhere.”

She took one single strengthening breath.

“Your mother feels she failed you. Perhaps she did. I do not know. But I know she still loves you. Even… after all that has happened, you have someone willing to show you love. And power alone will never love you back.”

She could see Kio’s face, but not its subtle movements nor the eyes. But she did catch a very slight change in his body language. His head tilted down just a bit. His shoulders slumped just a fraction.

Then his head cocked, and she sensed his reply coming.

“I have crossed the lines,” he said. “There is no way back.”

“There is,” she insisted. “Until you undergo the razing. Having done something once is a poor reason to continue doing it.”

“I am a warrior smeared with blood,” he hissed out.

“And what of it? Just stop. Just walk away.”

He shook his head, but there was an air of desperation to it.

“I am on a path…”

“Just listen!”

“You waste your breath, Warden.”

She’d heard the voice once before. On a short bit of video footage from a few months into her hunt.

Avanon, the Vartana Exile, walked into view and joined Kio on the edge of the landing.

“It is all coming to an end,” he went on in a raw voice. “We are riding the start of a wave that will reshape the galaxy. In time it will wash to your world and finish the work started by that invasion.”

He looked down at her with hatred and she reflected it right back.

“Human nature?” he went on. “We overcome humanity. We transcend its limits. The weak will yield to US; to those with will and strength! And the Long Exile will be avenged at last!”

“You are no Ancient,” Saketa told him. “You never set foot in the Valley of Vartana. You have no actual grudge against my people. You were once just like that boy, and those others you’ve sent to die in your place. Taken in and fed an inherited hatred passed down a long line of mentors. Simply because you need someone to hate.”

She stood ready to react from a leap down to the yard.

“Well, here I am. Finally you stand before a real child of Kalero. Come down and fight me.”

He hesitated a moment before replying, and she thought she detected some affect in the dismissive arm-sweep that followed.

“Why should I bother? You are diminished, aren’t you? A mere candle where a fire should be. As could be expected of a false bearer. You may as well serve as a final test.”

He put his hand on Kio’s shoulder.

“Kill her!” the Exile shouted.