Pirin settled into a routine. In the morning, when he woke up, he and Gray searched for any sign of the transport vessel where Lady Neria kept the control dagger mobile.
He expected them to launch patrolling birds, and thus, there was a significant overlap that he could expect to encounter. But in the scale of the ocean, the chances of encountering the ship were miniscule at best.
At least, if they were just searching an empty ocean.
But Pirin knew roughly where the ship would be. Lady Neria wouldn’t let it stray too far away from the facility, or she wouldn’t be able to find it when she needed and take the dagger for herself. But too close, and the security measure it provided would be useless.
They narrowed it down to a half-circle of ocean a few miles across. Better, but not perfect.
“You should know when you’re getting close,” Nomad told him. “The dagger must have an immense spiritual weight if it can funnel such a powerful spiritual resonance to the Weaveling army.”
So, when Pirin flew, he focussed on his core and continued to develop his spiritual senses. When Gray flipped over and rolled, his senses screamed out a faint warning of danger, which wasn’t at all present when they were upright. When they passed the Featherflight, there was a voice in his gut alerting him to Nomad’s impressive power, and then more faintly, Myraden’s strength.
He was starting to understand what his instincts truly were. It was the feeling you got when you knew something was wrong, or when you knew which way to walk in the woods without having to look up at the sky.
But he still hadn’t sensed the dagger or the ship.
In the afternoons, he practiced using his techniques all together. He improved his manifestation and fortification techniques, and he took his mask on and off to transition between Gray’s Essence and his pure Essence easier.
Halfway through the afternoon, he took a break to feed Göttrur and Gray. Göttrur got pure Essence, which he practiced manifesting as pellets before feeding to the miniature fox.
He could manifest pure Essence the same as gnatsnapper Essence, but it didn’t synergize as well with his sword. Still, though, he could use it to strengthen his sword. It could use up another wizard’s Reign or meet a complex technique head-on.
Once he fed both of the animals, he faced them and spoke to them both, without pushing them intent. Göttrur should have been getting enough sapience by now—especially being a wraith focussed on memory and mind—and Gray needed to learn the common tongue without a crutch. At first, he pointed out common objects and taught them basic words, but they were starting to pick up on sentence structure as well.
Göttrur yipped and Gray chirped. They wouldn’t ever have the organs or voice boxes to reply in Low Speech, but they could understand and reply to him with their own sounds, so that had to count for something.
After he fed the animals, he and Myraden spent the rest of the afternoon sparring in the cargo hold. They had created a small arena in the middle of the cargo elevator, and though it was tighter than most sparring pits, it served their purpose well enough. The upper platform was alright for sparring, but it wasn’t exactly fair to Myraden, since Kythen wasn’t nearby to draw Essence from.
Under Nomad’s watch, they practiced using fortification and manifestation techniques, bolstering their body and weapons, and clashed. The first day, Myraden beat him thirteen out of fifteen matches. She was a more experienced warrior—even if Pirin had been learning to use a sword for two years, she’d been practicing with spears for at least ten, if not longer.
Not to mention, she was used to using Essence while fighting, and Pirin wasn’t.
But on the second day, Pirin only lost ten out of fifteen. She was predictable, and Pirin could predict, even if he couldn’t match her raw experience. He wove closer into her defenses, and when she tried to unleash a sweep to push him back, he knew precisely how to counter. He ducked just in time and pointed the tip of his sword up at her throat, or pointed a half-formed Shattered Palm at her gut (then discharged it into the floor so as to not do any damage).
On the third day, he tied it up. He lost eight out of fifteen matches, but they both agreed on one more, and he won it, putting them eight-to-eight.
By the fourth day, he knew all her attacks and exactly what to do to make her use them. He won eleven out of fifteen.
When they both laid on the floor, panting, Pirin whispered, “Guys…I have an idea.”
Nomad loomed over them both with his arms crossed. “An idea, hm?”
“I do better with planning and an analysis of my opponent,” Pirin said.
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“Of course,” said Nomad. “Everyone does. I reckon you won’t always have that luxury.”
“Pirin…does especially well with it,” Myraden said. “Not everyone can take what they know in the heat of a fight and use it against an opponent, but…”
“...But he has a strong analytical mind,” Nomad finished, nodding. “What’s your idea?”
“The Memory Chain contains a thousand lifetimes’ worth of memories,” Pirin said. “What if there was a way to draw on that experience, analyze a person, and provide a…combat analysis, I suppose, of an opponent, in real time?”
“You would be the first elven king to use it in such a way,” Nomad said.
“What did they use it for, then?” Pirin asked.
Sitting up, Myraden provided, “Broader political analysis. Strategy. Advising. Minor mind-twisting spells.”
“But would my idea work?” Pirin asked.
She only shrugged.
“I don’t see why not.” Nomad walked to the edge of the arena and leaned against a stack of wooden crates. “History has a habit of repeating itself. Eight wizard-kings kept a balance of power for each of their kingdoms, then came the Unbound Lords. Or Emperors making the same mistakes as their forebears—a tale as old as time. Nations form and die, fatherless fathers leave abandoned sons.”
Pirin sighed. “But there has to be a reason that no one has used it like this before.”
“Try, and see what happens.”
He glanced at Nomad skeptically.
“Genuinely, I’m curious,” the man said. “You bring up a valid point.”
“I don’t even know how I’d go about starting a technique like that,” Pirin said. But it had been a while since he had even tried looking far into the past with the Memory Chain. If he could lock onto an impression of an opponent, only the vaguest impression, he might be able to withdraw anything that reminded the Memory Chain of that sensation.
He sat up in the center of the arena and folded his legs beneath him. Gray hopped over from the edge, with Göttrur sleeping atop the saddle. I believe in you! Gray said. For what it’s worth. I also very much want you to make this technique work, because I don’t want us to die when we fight someone much more powerful than us…
“I’ll do my best, Gray,” he whispered, only half-pushing with intent so she’d have to think a little bit about what he said.
I know you will! Just making sure you know my opinion on things!
“Your willpower has improved greatly since you last attempted to look into the distant past,” Myraden said.
“That would improve your ability to keep control of the Chain, yes,” Nomad provided.
For the rest of the day, and well into the evening, Pirin experimented with the technique. He cast himself into the distant past, viewing memories of the kings and queens before him. He even found a few memories that he was pretty sure belonged to Hir Venias.
But without anyone to target with the memories, it didn’t really do him much good. He was just looking at images from the distant past—memories that weren’t even his.
Though, he had to admit an improvement. Instead of destabilizing and giving him a headache, or pulling into a blur of motion, the images of the distant past stayed clear for as long as Pirin desired. He kept the full Reyad active with his mask affixed tight to his face, and that had to help, but extensive use of the Memory Chain had never been easy.
Since he knew Myraden well, it wouldn’t be a fair test. He focussed on Nomad—how his core felt in the presence of a powerful wind-mage, how the man swaggered around, and how he spoke.
Pirin pulled on all the memories he could muster, and the Chain provided him with a buffet of results, piecing together similar opponents based on how the past kings of Sirdia felt. All the distinct memories collided with his mind at once and fed him a surge of different messages and fighting techniques.
He performed three runs of the technique, trying to draw out as much as he could, then he returned to the cargo hold. Myraden was feeding Kythen and saying goodnight, and Nomad laid atop a stack of crates with his hands behind his head.
“Nomad,” Pirin said. “I challenge you to a duel.”
Nomad sat up and laughed. “That fast? Let’s see what you’ve got.” He floated down from the stack of boxes.
And Pirin realized that he had nothing. He’d absorbed a little bit of experience on wind mages, but it wasn’t anything enlightening or battle-winning. He took in some information on how to deal with a laid-back, powerful opponent, but it was only a faint experience that he felt in the back of his mind, and there was nothing he could do with it.
Nomad crushed him in five seconds, precisely.
“Better than most people,” Nomad said. “I’ll give you that. Lady Clase only lasted two seconds against me. But…that won’t win you the day. I suspect you’ll need more than just review, and many hours of it, until you come close to having anything resembling a predictive ability.”
Gray let off a sound that reminded Pirin a bit of laughter, and Göttrur, now awake, yipped.
Pirin laid face-down on the deck, his shoulder aching from where Nomad had struck him. Still, he rolled over and said, “If I use the Chain for that long, my mind would burst. Too many memories. It’d all be too much.”
“And that, I expect, is why no one tried to do it before.”
Pirin exhaled quickly. “I’m not giving up.” He glanced at Göttrur and Gray, then down at his own gut. “And I have advantages that other kings could never have conceived of.” He flicked his own belly. “I think I can make something work.”
“Perhaps you should keep trying with Myraden, though,” Nomad said. “I really don’t want to hurt either of you by accident, and it may be more effective with her to start with. You know her better, but I’m sure there are still a few things you could learn about her, and you don’t have a perfect tally against her yet.” He raised his eyebrows teasingly.
Gray chirped a few times, almost like another laugh.
That night, when Pirin went up to the top platform to keep watch, he brought Gray and Göttrur with him. He took off the mask and activated the Memory Chain, then focussed on the vague impressions Myraden left in his mind.
He’d perfect this technique, whether Nomad thought he could or not.