Feeling a slight tug around his waist, Ray whirled, grabbing hold of the small arm. It was a kid, barely ten.

“You know the punishment for thievery, kid?”

Fear transformed into rage in the blink of an eye. “Who you calling kid? I ain’t no kid.” Then, rubbing the welts on his arm, the kid gave Ray his most sagacious smile. “Besides, was teaching you a lesson, ain’t I?”

Despite the ridiculousness of that statement, or maybe because of that, a smile threatened to break loose. “What lesson would that be?”

“Gotta be watchful as the Pentaguards.” The kid did a quick snort, followed by spitting a huge load of phlegm at the speed of an arrow onto the sidewalk. “City of thieves and gods, this is.”

Ray gave a tired sigh. “Littering is also a crime with fines up to five silvers.”

The kid glanced at the various detritus and animal excrement scattered around the sidewalk, including something that looked to have originated inside a human being. “Yeah, nobody’s gonna notice my little contribution to the welfare of our fair city. Life’s a tragedy.”

Looking at the prematurely wise dark eyes, Ray felt a pang of sadness. “Where are your parents?”

Another round of spitting followed, this one even more forceful. “Dining with Aimin,” came the harsh reply. “Or so the priests tell me.”

“If only we’re all so lucky.”

The kid’s right hand subconsciously drifted over to his belly. “Yeah. Lucky.”

Even knowing what the answer was going to be, Ray couldn’t help but ask, “Would you like to come with me to the orphanage?”

The kid narrowed his eyes, looking over his gray cloak. “You’re the Cleric who keeps kids in rooms big as cages.” He backpedaled, ready to run.

As with most of his cloaks, the Uni badge on the upper right breast could be, and was, hidden using a custom-made flap. To an untrained eye, he could easily have been a prosperous merchant’s older son on his way to an evening rendezvous with his dear one. Even the quality of the fabric had been carefully chosen to give the impression of prosperity, without being too ostentatious, or eye-catching.

“What makes you certain that I’m a Cleric?”

“Got eyes, ain’t I?”

“Yes.” Also, even better instincts than most street-urchins.

The hint of fear in the kid’s eyes was overshadowed by the resolute kernel signature. The challenging gaze and the implied question, or accusation, touched the hidden shame in Ray’s heart.

Swallowing the lump in his throat, he said, “I admit the living quarters could be better.”

“Kids are meant to roam free. Play with Aimin’s green earth under their feet and Anantika’s wide blue sky over their heads. Or so Gaffe says. Tend to agree. Not that I’ve seen either.” The kid gave an oddly sincere look. “Maybe I’ll look you up then. When the orphanage has ‘em.”

Then, with a lightning quick turn, he melted back into the crowd, leaving a stunned Ray regretting the fact that he didn’t even know the kid’s name.

Finding a solitary street-urchin in a city of millions was not going to be easy, but still Ray made a note in his pocketbook, and hurried on his way to the powercar depot. He was running late for Jovan’s bi-weekly sparring session.

A spare room had been converted to accommodate the occasional bouts of fighting. As Ray approached, lack of sound, especially the distinctive sound of hand hitting flesh, made him wonder if the session had been canceled. But the presence of a visibly agitated Gavin in front of the open door instantly ruled out that particular possibility.

“I’m assuming the session ended prematurely,” Ray said, noting the man’s shifty eyes. “Or did you unilaterally decide to forego today’s fighting against my express orders?”

“No, no. Not that,” assured the oval-shaped man. “It simply couldn’t last as long as it usually does.”

“Why not? Did he break through?”

“No, Master.” Gavin met his eyes for the first time. “He gave up.”

The despair the boy must be feeling was reflected in the man’s eyes, though for comically different reasons. Promotions weren’t easy to come by for a man of his talents, or lack thereof. Nepotism can only take you so far.

“Refused to fight?”

“Yes, Master.”

“You seem to be under the impression that he has a choice in the matter. Let me, for the last time, disabuse you of that notion. Where is he now?”

“In his….room. Recuperating.”

“Excellent. He and I need to talk,” said Ray, as an idea he had been toying with for weeks began taking shape. “Jovan needs someone out of his reach, someone at the root of all his troubles, to direct his anger. To heighten his rage. A steady lamp of hatred that burns long and bright. I’m going to give it to him.”

“Who, sir?” asked Gavin, as always totally oblivious to the all-important subtext.

“Myself, of course.”

At the eastern end of the depot, in the middle of a small patch of teak and sal forest, existed an old storage block that consisted of a set of four underground chambers heavily reinforced with concrete and iron. Even before his feet hit the bottom step, a dank smell of rusted iron reached Ray’s nostrils, making them twitch. With no ventilation and weather in firm grips of the Monsoon, it was not the most comfortable of accommodations. Ray’s senses informed him that the only appreciably large Crown Chakra in the entire subterranean complex had already noted his arrival, courtesy of an above average sense of hearing, which had only become heightened after months spent in solitude.

“When Gavin informed me that my favorite pet project had suddenly lost his zest for revenge, I thought my ears were playing tricks on me,” Ray said after reaching the last cell at the end of the short corridor.

There was no movement in the shadowy cell beyond the iron-reinforced grill, but Ray detected an ember of burning hatred in the kernel signature easily enough. A couple of weak signatures near the back wall indicated the rats had finally found a way inside the small chamber, though they hadn’t gotten bold enough, or hungry enough, to approach the sole occupant yet. Hopefully, the snakes won’t be far behind. Kraits, Cobras, Pythons, even King Cobras were quite commonplace in the Uni.

As for the occupant himself, he appeared to have one foot inside the Eternal Halls already. Ray couldn’t quite make out the bruises all over the boy’s head and torso, but the turbulent kernel signature indicated the body’s natural defense mechanism was hard at work trying to repair the damage.

“Came to gloat?” croaked the weak voice, one which was wheezing due to a damaged lung. He had taken quite the beating over the course of the past week. “Congratulations. You’ve succeeded in breaking me.”

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“Breaking you was never the goal,” Ray replied, letting a bit of sincerity sneak through his carefully controlled signature. Even without Awakening his Heart, Jovan should be able to sense that the sentiment was genuine. “It was simply a side effect. An immensely pleasurable one. In my line of work, one takes all the small pleasures wherever one can find them.”

That stoked the dying embers, as a venomous voice replied, “One of these days, I’m going to make you pay for all the suffering you’ve caused.”

Ray let out a derisive laugh. “Not as a mundane, you’re not.”

“Don’t underestimate the common man. Even the First Emperor was a mundane.”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that a mundane man, who is both clever and resourceful, could cause me trouble, even kill me. But you’re going to do neither, because unless you successfully trigger your Second Awakening, you won’t be leaving this facility alive.”

In the weak gaslight, a gaunt battered face leaned into the grill. “Then, I’ll simply have to Awaken it, even if it kills me.”

A very familiar set of brown eyes stared back at Ray with unrestrained hatred. He was intimately aware of all the myriad of emotions they hid, as he’d seen an identical pair of eyes countless times in the mirror – back when he was twelve.

“That’s the spirit!” He held out a hand. “But first, drink up.”

Taking the cork off the vial of greenish fluid, Jovan tentatively sniffed at it. The sweet soothing smell of clove and nutmeg brought a confused frown to his purplish-yellow face. “Minor Healing Potion? Must’ve cost a fortune.” As the only son of a moderately prosperous wine merchant, he was already acquainted with the distinctive smell such brews gave off. “Why invest so much time, effort, and gold into me? Surely there is another reason beyond a perverted sense of pleasure.”

“There is. You have been fortunate enough to be gifted by Aimin Himself. I want you to make full use of that gift. Don’t you want that as well?”

The boy, who was almost a young man, shook his head in despair. “I was once a devout Aiminist like you. The past couple of years has turned me into an atheist.”

Then, after tipping the contents of the vial into his mouth, Jovan asked a question that left Ray momentarily stunned. In all his long years, such a ludicrous question had never occurred to him once.

“What function does Aimin serve? Why would I even bother worshiping Him when all He’s brought me is pain and suffering?”

When Ray opened his mouth to explain, Jovan added, “And don’t give me that Eternal Halls nonsense. I mean what purpose does He serve here and now?”

“That is a question which would take an eternity to answer. But always remember one fact above all else; He created us. Created you.”

“Indirectly, yes. But that was millennia ago. He’s been dead for over a thousand years. What function does He serve now? Priests and believers alike commit horrible acts in His name, then justify them by quoting His Tenets. Or, as in your case, commit horrific acts of torture despite claiming to believe in His Tenets. The other religions are no better either.”

Ray stilled the bubbling cauldron of anger in his heart. “I cannot speak for others, but I have my reasons for acting the way I’m acting. Letting you go without Awakening will end up killing countless innocent civilians. You know this to be true, yet resist the training regimen.” Then, sensing the irony of the situation, a sad smile formed on his lips. “Also, Aimin doesn’t need to serve us. We are His humble servants.” Some of us more than others.

“Hypocritical servants, more like,” said Jovan, then his eyes widened in agony, and he collapsed into a fetal position, whole body shuddering in pain.

“It’s a standard Potion, not the Minor kind. Much faster acting,” Ray informed the boy writhing in pain at his feet. Then, taking the key from his pocket, he opened the door, and waited for the Potion to do its job. “Of course, for those who aren’t accustomed to it, the accelerated Healing comes at a price.”

Jovan coughed up dried blood, phlegm, and saliva. “Doesn’t everything?”

Ray unfastened a small bottle from his belt. “I knew you were an avid learner,” he said, handing him the bottle, which Jovan grudgingly accepted.

After satiating his thirst and overcoming the inevitable bout of weakness that follows all intense Healing sessions, Jovan straightened himself up, then glanced around in confusion, especially at the open door. “What now? Can I leave?”

“Yes, you can,” said Ray, causing a glimmer of hope to appear in Jovan’s eyes. “If you can get past me.”

As expected, hope turned to rage in the blink of an eye, and he launched himself at Ray, mostly by instinct, as the move had no thought or planning behind it. Ray easily avoided the raised fist and subsequent kick, and in the process, placed himself between Jovan and the stairs leading to the surface. Leading to freedom.

Sound of dripping water coming from the cell beside Jovan’s indicated another spell of the Monsoon had begun. Some of the liquid spilled onto the corridor outside the cells where Ray and Jovan faced off in combat, making their footing treacherous.

All the indirect training Jovan had received in the past year showed its worth as almost immediately, he calmed down and waited for Ray to make the first move, knowing his only chance at freedom would come through a mistake on the Cleric’s part. In a direct confrontation, he had less chance of success than rainfall in the Redstone Desert.

But Ray wanted the boy agitated, off-balance, angry. And most of all, filled with rage. So, with a burst of reddish-orange essence through the right Palm, he commenced the fight by launching a small fireball at Jovan’s shoulder. Despite clearly having anticipated such a move, the close confines left little room for dodging, and a visceral scream of pain echoed throughout the complex.

In the following moment, through the haze and smoke, the tall burnt figure of Jovan barreled into Ray, who twisted his upper body and grabbed the boy’s shoulder with his right hand as he passed. The subsequent smell of burnt skin and howl of pain threatened to break through Ray’s facade of a ruthless teacher, but he clamped down on all such soft emotions. “Admirable tenacity. But I can sense you even when I can’t see you.”

Knowing ranged combat was Ray’s forte, Jovan closed the distance, engaging him in hand-to-hand combat, which, unfortunately, met with limited success.

Due to his Awakened Spine Chakra, the true nature of which even now Ray had to assiduously hide using the ingenuous Potion called the Elixir of Illusion, he was able to evade most of the punches. Occasionally, he would use Manipulation through the Palm Chakras, thereby fanning the flame of rage in his opponent, whose kernel signature enabled Ray to gauge how much success his moves were having.

“Every single opened or Awakened Chakra offers physical advantages,” Ray said in a teasing voice. “You have no hope of ever beating me without Awakening your Heart first.”

Instead of denying what he knew to be true, Jovan gritted his teeth while panting in exhaustion. “I’m going to kill you one day. Mine will be the last face you see before you meet your Creator.” The way he said it almost made it sound like an oath, to himself.

Even as his strength flagged, Jovan’s determination and rage did not. The boy was close to the edge, very close, but slowed circulation of kernel in his Crown and dilated channel implied it wasn’t close enough. Out of the two, only the latter was primed for a breakthrough.

As a result, after evading a kick, Ray blocked the subsequent labored punch and threw the boy clear across the corridor to smash into the back wall of his cell, much to the displeasure of his two little cellmates, both of whom rushed out of their hole, chattering in protest. Then, perhaps sensing the mood in the room, they turned tail and scampered back inside.

“Keep that flame alive. Rage is the key to unlocking the Awakening, as I told you earlier,” Ray said, looking over at the boy, who, even half a bell ago, was teetering on the edge of despair and fury. Now, he was definitely leaning toward the latter, though still not quite ready for the fall. The flow of kernel indicated today wasn’t going to be the day he tipped over.

“So what did the sparring session teach you?” Ray asked after locking the door of the cell.

With a mighty heave, Jovan pulled his battered body off the wet stone floor, and sat with his back to the only piece of furniture in the tiny room; an iron bed. Puzzlement was vividly written across his entire face, which was bruised all over again.

“What?”

“Just as there is no point in reading a book if you don’t become a better person for reading it, there is no point in taking a test, like sparring with a Master, if you don’t learn something new. So, what did you learn today?”

“About what?”

“About yourself. About the world around you. Both are one and the same, really.”

“I learned something that I already knew. Need to Awaken the Heart to kill you.”

Ray noted the choice of verb but forbore to mention anything. Unfulfilled obsession was as good a path to rage as any. Before he could proceed, however, an unexpected question once again brought him up short.

“What did you learn?”

“I learned that a novel question can be just as thought-provoking as any answer.” Then, after pondering for a while, Ray added, “and as for the answer to that question – what purpose or function Aimin serves – it varies from person to person. For you, as for millions of others, He is hope personified. Pray to him, and your wish would be granted. But never expect it to come in the next blink or without a price, though you seem to have already learned that particular lesson quite well.”

By now, the tiny waterfall in the adjacent cell had turned the corridor into a small stream, especially the left side. Sound of three sets of heavy shuffling feet, including a familiar hobbled gait, announced the arrival of Gavin, flanked on either side by two rough-looking soldiers; Modinal and Dadinal, the brothers chosen for the task of unlocking Jovan’s inner rage. All three of them took in the scene of a pristine Ray standing in front of the locked door of the cell holding a young man who looked ready to commit murder and mayhem, and wisely decided to let silence be their guide while they analyzed the blood-stains on the stone floor where the long arms of the Monsoon hadn’t reached yet.

“Remember your oath and train hard. Awakening the Heart is a matter of time. Once you do, serve Aimin by making full use of His gift. Then, after you’ve succeeded in accomplishing that goal, we’ll spar again,” Ray told his unwilling pupil. “I dare say it will be a very different fight.”

“You bet, it will!!!”