Serenity held the fist-sized chunk of crystal out on his open palm so that everyone could see it. It was one of the smaller chunks he’d picked up, but he could still feel a resonance from it. If anything, it seemed stronger than before, but for once Serenity did not feel the strong pull to eat it. He knew he could, but it was more like seeing candy or smelling delicious food when he wasn’t particularly hungry; he’d enjoy it, but it wasn’t necessary.
“That is from this world’s World Core?” The World Shaman tried to keep his tone level, but it was clear that it was a real question.
“Thousands of years ago, at least,” Serenity agreed. “I’m not sure where it was for much of that time, but at some point, still thousands of years ago, it ended up in the nexus over A’Atla. I picked it up there.”
World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart reached out a hand to touch the chunk of World Crystal. Serenity couldn’t help but notice that despite his horns, Senkovar had normal-looking human hands with fingernails instead of the claws Serenity’s chimera form had. Senkovar seemed to be a lot closer to human, the way Serenity’s “human” form was.
The World Shaman concentrated for a moment after he touched the crystal. “You’re right, it’s a World Core fragment. It’s had its history washed clean, probably by that nexus you mentioned. It doesn’t resonate properly with this world, though you’re likely correct about where it came from. You said the World Spirit confirmed it?”
Serenity nodded, then added, “She said she couldn’t take it back, either. Is that because it was in the nexus for so long?”
The World Shaman shook his head. “Probably not. It’s extremely difficult to return removed crystal to a World Core. Even when it’s possible, it leaves a scar that damages the World; it’s slower but better to allow the World to grow normally. The only time I know of where that isn’t true is …” The World Shaman stopped and shook his head before substituting words that were obviously not what he’d intended to say originally “...not relevant here. What is relevant is that your World has blessed the core fragment you’re holding.”
As far as Serenity could tell, it looked the same as when Serenity picked it up. “How can you tell?”
“It’s holding Faith. Not much, but it doesn’t take much for a blessing,” the World Shaman stated. “I can feel the Faith, but I can’t access it; your world hasn’t acknowledged me.”
Serenity’s mind skipped back to Lykandeon, who used a chunk of World Core material ripped out of Lyka’s World Core to form the World Core for the small moon Aeon, then used that to store his Faith energy. Serenity was pretty sure he’d stolen that from Lykandeon, but he was also confident he hadn’t put any into this World Core chunk. He was confident he’d know; more importantly, he didn’t feel like there was anything that belonged to him inside the fragment of World Core crystal. “Is that the only thing that can do it? At the time, A’Atla was ruled by someone called a god, and there was at least one godswar fought nearby; could it be left from that?”
Faith wasn’t an energy Serenity thought about much. He could somewhat detect it, but that was mostly because of the effects it had on mana when they were used together. That was the only way he’d seen it used; he suspected that without mana it wasn’t very effective against things that weren’t directly within the god’s domain. After all, if it had been, someone would have used it to kill the Final Reaper. He wouldn’t have been able to see it coming.
The World Shaman frowned. “There’s only one way to find out; someone attuned to the planet would have to try to use the Faith. Well, that or a priest of the god in question, but it doesn’t sound like you have a good guess for which deity it might be.”
Serenity shook his head. He had a more important question, anyway. “Why would a world use Faith energy?”
“Why not?” Senkovar said it with a smile. “Worlds have a lot of it because people believe in them. A lot of it is tied up in being a world, following what people believe, but some can be directed to other uses. Faith is flexible. It’s not like mana; Faith doesn’t accomplish anything on its own. Adding Faith to anything makes it work a little better, happen a little easier, or be a little more powerful, so it’s well worth using.”
That definitely sounded like the World Shaman had used Faith energy at some point. Of course, if Worlds used it, that made a lot of sense; wasn’t a World Shaman sort of like a priest for a world?
Could he learn from the World Shaman? He still didn’t know anything about his own divinity; he’d sort of started to accept that it was real, even if he didn’t really want it, but he had no idea what to do with it. He couldn’t accept having a power and not learning how to use it, but he’d had no idea where to begin. He certainly wasn’t going to train to be a priest of a god he didn’t believe in and he’d never even heard of anywhere that trained gods. Were they supposed to be priests first?
Serenity shook himself to toss away the useless questions. He’d explore that later. For now, he wanted to see if he could find the Faith the World Shaman was talking about.
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Mage Sight didn’t do it. Serenity couldn’t see anything other than mana and essence; they were both present but not particularly strongly. It looked more like residue than an active spell or enchantment, so it was probably just left over from the time in A’Atla’s nexus. He sighed and looked at the World Shaman. “I can’t see it. The Faith, that is.”
Senkovar shook his head. “You don’t see it, you feel it. I’d tell most people to give up, but you’ve talked to Gaia. You might be able to feel Her power. How do you talk to her? Do you need to meditate?”
Serenity shrugged. “I just reach out, like when you’re talking to a telepath and are overlapping auras. That does have to be in a ley line; her presence isn’t reachable otherwise.”
World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart gave Serenity a long, searching look that examined him from his head to his feet and back up. “Are telepaths that common on this world?”
Serenity shook his head. “No, they’re very uncommon. I just happen to know a couple. They’re related to each other.” He wasn’t certain why he’d added the last part; maybe it was to emphasize just how uncommon telepaths were?
Other than Russ and Rissa, who was really more of an empath than a telepath even if she’d learned some telepathic Skills, Serenity hadn’t met any on Earth. He couldn’t really count Ita, after all; not only was she not managing their conversations with the Mind Affinity, she wasn’t even from Earth.
Wait. Was she using Faith to help her with her mental communication with him? That might explain why she was able to make it work only with him, through the Shameful One / Shameless connection. It was an abstract connection, rather than the physical ones she usually used, but she was able to talk to him by mind across some very long distances with apparently very little effort. If Faith really made things easier, that might make a lot of sense.
“You’re lucky, then.” Senkovar didn’t sound like he envied Serenity. If anything, he sounded doubtful. Serenity couldn’t blame him too much; if the telepaths were anyone other than the people they were, Serenity wouldn’t have been very happy about it either. Since the only one of the tree that could actually read his mind rather than deliberately projected thoughts was Russ and Russ appreciated the quiet of Serenity’s mental control, it wasn’t a problem.
“I’d have to teach you my method of reaching a Spirit before I could teach you how to sense Faith, and that’s …” Senkovar paused. “I’ve been putting off having a long talk with you in private. Before we talk about training, we should talk about other things.”
“You can’t talk to him alone,” one of the guards interrupted.
Serenity turned towards the guard. He was pretty sure this was the rude one, but he couldn’t be certain. They dressed similarly and he hadn’t paid that much attention. He could figure it out if he had Aide pull up the footage, but for now it didn’t seem important enough. “What?”
Serenity wasn’t the only person to ask a confused question in response to that.
The guard seemed to take that as a request for an explanation. He didn’t even look at Serenity; instead, he kept his attention on Senkovar. “I’m your guard. That means I have to be with you. If it was you and Lord Cymryn, I could guard the door, but he isn’t an Imperial citizen. He isn’t even human! I can’t leave you alone with him.”
Under other circumstances, Serenity might have approved. A bodyguard was supposed to stay with their protectee. Under these circumstances, it was a stupid stance. “Why would your presence matter?”
The guard finally turned enough to look Serenity in the eyes. “It’s my duty to protect him.”
Serenity knew better than that. No one would assign a low Tier guard and expect them to guard someone significantly higher Tier than them, not if the protectee had a combat Path. Serenity could see the way Senkovar moved; he definitely knew how to fight with his body, which meant he almost certainly had a combat Path. Serenity would have bet on more than one; World Shaman sounded like it was in a mage or priest Path line, which meant that it was separate from whichever set of Paths were related to how Senkovar moved.
No, the reason the guards were there wasn’t for protection. They might be there so that someone could watch for threats when the World Shaman and Lord were otherwise busy; attention was valuable even if it was lower Tier. Having more eyes available was really the only protection-related reason Serenity could think that two Tier Threes would be “guarding” two people who were roughly Tier Five and Tier Ten.
Before Serenity could say that, Senkovar gave his own guess for why they were there. “No, it isn’t. That’s not why you’re here; you’re here to watch me. That’s fine most of the time. As your masters already know, I’m not willing to have you present for Clan matters or training unless I have accepted you as an apprentice. Which I haven’t and am not going to. There are a great number of reasons behind this and you don’t get to know them.”
“But-”
“Silence.” Lord Cymryn cut off whatever the guard was going to say. “Both of you will attend me this evening. We are going to go out and look around the city without any aid other than Serenity’s driver. Janice, I believe her name was?”
Serenity nodded. That was her name. Just as importantly, he trusted Cymryn enough to know that he wouldn’t try to hurt Janice. He might try to trick her into saying more than she should, but that was actually a good thing right now. Serenity needed the Empire to understand more about Earth so that they wouldn’t think it was weak.
Yes, he could beat back a real invasion if he had to, especially with the aid of Earth’s militaries. It was better if he didn’t have to.
Senkovar slowly nodded once. “We will talk while you are out seeing the area.”
However much Serenity wanted to object to having plans made without his input, it was hard to in this case. He did want to talk to Senkovar without anyone listening and he did want Cymryn to find out more about Earth.