The Gom Jabbar

> "Every soldier of the Red King learned that skill comes from experience, and experience comes from pain. They were the most skilled army because of what they had endured. They endured their own hands, that they might overcome the enemy's endurance."

>

> -from "Fourth Song: Song of the Red King"

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The ansible message was worrying, to say the least.

"Ansible call me as soon as you receive this message." It was signed Nomar Thule.

Dialing another person on the ansible as though it were a phone was a costly thing to do, though it was nothing for Aymon. Even for people who had ansible permissions (a vanishingly small number), calls were reserved for life-and-death situations. Aymon didn't like that one bit, and he also didn't like being ordered around by the upstart, Nomar Thule. Still, when he got the message, he had no choice but to comply. He didn't want to jeopardize the relationship between the Empire and the Guild.

He sat in the small room in one of the lower levels of Stonecourt that was reserved for just this purpose. The ansible wasn't here, of course. It was many kilometers away, well outside the city limits and deep underground. It wasn't a fragile thing, but it wouldn't do to have just anybody have access to it. So it was kept out of sight and well protected from any accident.

Halen was with him, and they were alone in the room, though the normal guards were on duty outside. Aymon knew how to work this machine well, and he sent a text message to Thule confirming that he was ready to talk. A few seconds later, Thule responded in the affirmative, and Aymon initiated the call.

"Thule," Aymon said, when the beeping sound of the call connecting stopped, and a loud static hiss replaced it. Aymon turned the volume down. "What was it you wanted to speak to me so urgently about?"

There was a long, pregnant pause. It took several seconds each way for messages to travel. Far, far, far faster than light (Thule's location data indicated that he was on one of the outer planets), but still a very noticeable delay, mainly due to the machinery of the ansible itself, rather than the travel time of the message across the reaches of space. Halen sensed Aymon's anticipation, and put a calming hand on his upper arm.

"Thank you for calling me, First Sandreas. I don't know if you'll like this news or not."

"Spit it out. You're wasting my time." Every second of silence felt like a year off Aymon's lifespan.

"We found your ship," Thule said.

That was not wholly unexpected, as it was one of the only reasons why Thule would be requesting a conversation with him, but it did completely blind Sandreas in terms of the speed of their encounter. It had only been a few weeks since he had given that command, and the universe was a large place. It shocked him to think that they could have found the First Star so quickly. He had been expecting it to take a year, at least, and that was thinking that Yan, or whoever else was directing the ship, would get careless and slip up and take the ship into a populated area. They had already gotten sloppy, what with talking to Olms.

Halen, though normally a stone in terms of expressing his feelings, had tensed up beside him. This was probably just because they were in private; he could let his emotions show rather than keeping his normal professional detachment.

"Did you destroy it?" Aymon asked. He couldn't quite keep the odd tone out of his voice. It was one thing to order the ship destroyed, along with his two former apprentices. It was quite another to think that it actually may have happened.

"We found it. We haven't caught it yet," Thule said. His voice was crackly and weak over the connection, and in the background of his call there were odd noises like the rhythmic beating of a drum.

"Where did you find it? Are you tracking it?"

The pause after those questions seemed longer than usual, and Aymon began to wonder if he had suddenly struck a nerve.

"I would prefer not to say," Thule said.

Aymon muted the mic. "Seriously?" he asked Halen.

"Press him on it," Halen said mildly. "His own refusal to answer probably says enough anyway."

Aymon unmuted the microphone. "Thule, it's my prerogative to know these things. What's your hesitation in telling me?"

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm a schoolchild," Thule said. "I would simply prefer to keep the Guild's secrets."

"Guild secrets are dangerous things," Aymon said. "And they have a habit of getting out. Where did you find the First Star?"

"Give me something in exchange?"

Aymon's face darkened. He didn't like Thule, and it seemed as though Thule felt he could get away with more now that they weren't face to face. He took a deep breath. "I cannot promise anything to you," Aymon said. "Especially without knowing what nature the information is."

"Say you won't interfere in this operation," Thule said.

"Is this another secret station? God, Thule, haven't you learned your lesson?"

"The Guild has its needs," Thule said. "It's not anything you don't already know about, in some sense."

"The location, please, Thule."

Halen sent him a silent thought, with his hand on Aymon's arm. "It may be a dark station that they run in order to have access to the black market. Yan could have easily made her way to a place like that and not realized she was being surveilled."

Thule sounded slightly resigned when he spoke again. "Because you took away the base we were using for our ship," he began, "we did need to find another place to work on it."

Halen sent another thought across their physical connection. "Yan walked right into the place where they were building their ship?" His mental voice was tinged with confusion, but also a feeling of thoughtfulness. "Thule wouldn't be worried about this if it was just a new station. And Yan wouldn't likely bring them to the one star system where..."

"Malstaire," Aymon said. "You've taken over the old base there."

The several seconds of waiting ended with Thule sighing loudly. "Yes."

Aymon's voice was dryer than bone. "You realize you put all your people at risk," he said. "That star system is dangerous."

"The stars are not likely to do anything for the limited amount of time that we spend there," Thule said. "It isn't permanent."

"I should hope not. In any case, it won't be when those stars explode."

"Don't send your Fleet ships there," Thule said. "The number of people there is so minimal it's not worth you worrying about."

"Even though saying such things would usually indicate you are lying to me," Aymon said, "I'll take your word for it, just this once. As a favor."

He felt Halen send amusement back to him. "Of course we're going to investigate when this all blows over," Halen said over their connection.

"No need to antagonize him," Aymon said silently. "He's techy enough as it is."

"Thank you," Thule said.

"Now, I suppose the more pressing questions I have are the following: what was my ship doing at Malstaire, and why, if this is the place where your own fast ship is getting repaired, did you not immediately give chase?"

"Our ship was not there at the time. It was out picking up supplies, including the message that it was supposed to be chasing your ship."

"Fine." It wasn't ideal, but he also wasn't surprised that the supership occasionally made jaunts away from its home base. Other Guild ships probably had better things to do than to muck around with getting deliveries and playing errand boy for Thule and his company.

"And as for what your ship was doing at Malstaire, it was very odd."

That gave Aymon pause. He had assumed that perhaps his wayward apprentices were also going to use the abandoned buildings there as a home base.

"Describe the encounter," Aymon demanded. "Did they just jump into the system?"

"I've been told by my people on the ground that they jumped into the system, then sent a shuttle down to the planet. They landed on the airfield, and one of my people briefly had a conversation with them that ended in..." He paused. "You didn't tell me that one of them could use the power," Thule said. "That changed the dynamic."

Aymon tensed up. "What happened? Describe the people who were on the planet."

"Two people. They both wore suits, so my person couldn't see their faces. All I know is that one of them used the power to smash open the front of my man's suit. He almost died. They left immediately after that."

"I'd bet they thought they were landing on an empty planet," Aymon said. "Did it look like they were going down to do anything in particular?"

Thule sounded tired. "Does it really matter?" he asked.

"I'm curious. Indulge me, if you have the information," Aymon said.

"They were carrying a box, about a meter long. They claimed it had an ansible in it."

In terms of things that did not bode well, that one was high on the list. If Kino, and Aymon betted it was Kino who had smashed a person's suit in, had an ansible which she was attempting to place well within Imperial territory, that meant only bad things in terms of what moves that little group was planning to make. They were communicating with the enemy (an enemy who had the power and desire to build ansibles, apparently), and they needed the ability to communicate within the Empire to without. It was probably very, very lucky that the group hadn't managed to plant their ansible on Malstaire. Well, it would have been luckier still if they had planted it, then had flown away, and the Guild lackeys on the planet had investigated it or destroyed it. They might have been able to glean something, or lay a trap.

Or, as Thule had implied, it wasn't actually an ansible. There was no way of knowing, technically, but needing to put it on a planet made sense. They needed that big of a gravity well to function.

Aymon's thoughts all flashed through his head quickly, and expressed themselves as an audible sigh. "And I assume they took it away with them as they ran."

"Of course," Thule said. "I am certain they considered the place abandoned, and were surprised when one of my men showed. I can't blame them for running, though I can blame them for almost killing one of mine, and you for not telling me that one of them was a power user."

"I'm sorry," Aymon said, though he wasn't actually sorry. "It's like that, sometimes."

"Perhaps. But I have to say, this makes our little deal a lot less pleasant," Thule said. "I don't fancy the odds of any ship against a sensitive."

"They won't be able to touch your ship," Aymon said.

He could just imagine Thule crossing his arms on the other end of the line. "Did you ever hear the stories, or watch the recordings of what happened when your apprentices were on the Sky Boat?"

"Do you think I'm that bad of a master?" Aymon asked. "Of course I did." In fact, he vividly remembered watching Yan as they went over the encounter in the simulation room. Kino had been there, too. The memory was bitter at the front of his mind.

"Two almost completely untrained, and definitely unprepared, Academy graduates wiped out the entire force of a battle hardened pirate ship. It was a slaughter on their shuttles. You may think that I'm cold hearted, but I don't want to order my people up against that. There's basically no way for them to win."

"There are ways to defeat sensitives on ships," Aymon said. "I am also the leader of the Fleet."

"The Fleet is an exploration force," Thule said dismissively. Aymon could have laughed, but he didn't.

"They train extensively, should the need arise. They are also adept at hunting down pirates."

"Not pirates with sensitives," Thule said.

"They train with their own sensitives, and plan extensively. I should tell you, Thule, I myself took down a pirate ship with a sensitive on it when I was no older than you are now." Aymon's voice was light, but Halen's hand was heavy on his arm.

"I don't have the time to waste to be on there myself," he said. "If I did, it might even the playing field. But I have more important things to do than to pretend like I'm hired muscle."

"Are you requesting support?" Aymon asked.

"Are you offering to loan me a sensitive?" Thule asked.

Before Aymon could say anything, Halen spoke in his mind. "Don't even think of letting Sid know that he was asking for this."

Aymon responded with a mental laugh, but Halen's tone had been serious. It was clear that Sid should be kept away from this at all costs-- it was far too dangerous to let him anywhere near Yan and Kino.

"How about this?" Aymon asked. "You let us know where you think that this ship is headed. If you can get a good track on it, we can send a Fleet ship."

"And the Fleet would provide the firepower?"

"Yes."

The pause was long as Thule considered. "We'll get you that track," he said. "It might take some time."

"I hadn't expected anything different," Aymon said.

"How soon can a Fleet ship arrive, once I give you a meeting location?"

"I can't give you an answer on that," Aymon said. "But there are Fleet ships stationed across the Empire. I'm certain that one of them could get to you in a reasonable timeframe."

"Hm."

"Well, is that all the information that you had for me?" Aymon asked.

"Unfortunately, yes," Thule said.

"I thank you for it," Aymon said. "Please contact me again when you have an update."

"I will."

Aymon ended the call on his end without any further preamble, then stretched and looked at Halen. "What did you think of that?"

"He's smart," Halen said. "And he thinks like a Guild spacer, through and through."

"What do you mean?"

"Nobody else would be so hesitant to put their ship in harms way," Halen said with a shrug. "A pirate would take that fight."

"And they'd lose."

"Maybe."

"Perhaps he just doesn't want to reveal the full scope of his supership's power," Aymon mused.

"I somehow doubt that," Halen said. "He has nothing to hide from you in that respect. If anything, he probably wants to disguise how weak it is."

"You really think it's so half-finished?"

"It takes a lot to run a ship," Halen said. "Especially one of that size. With a skeleton crew, and we know they don't even have greenhouses set up..." Halen trailed off with a shrug. "It doesn't matter. I think the ship is weak, and Thule agrees with me."

"We'll have to coordinate some sort of message system to get the Fleet in the right place at the right time," Aymon said. "I don't want to miss our chance."

"If they feel like they're being traced, the smart thing to do would be to go into hiding," Halen said.

"That would have been the smart thing for them to do in the first place," Aymon snapped. "But here we are."

Halen frowned, sent a gentle touch of calm through the power toward Aymon. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I know."

"Shall I break the news to Sid, or shall you?" Halen asked.

"I'll do it," Aymon said. "How's his training going, by the way?"

Halen pursed his lips. "Good."

"Why do you look like you've eaten a lemon?"

"I'm coming up on the wall of how hard is too hard to push him."

Aymon looked at Halen and considered the situation for a second. "He needs to be able to survive anything that's thrown at him," Aymon said. "I don't think that you should hold back."

Halen was silent for a long moment, and Aymon wished that he knew what he was thinking.

"I'll talk to him about that, too, when I see him," Aymon said. "I'll find out what his limits are."

"I wish I could say that it wasn't his limits I'm worried about," Halen said.

Aymon laughed. "You're too good at your job."

Halen smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

----------------------------------------

"Join me for dinner, Sid?" Aymon asked as they walked out of the Council chambers together.

Sid, eyes roving around the somewhat crowded hallway, nodded. "Fine."

"I'm not taking you away from any plans?" Aymon asked.

"No." His tone was short, and the huffed breath at the end of the short word indicated to Aymon that Sid wished he had plans.

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

"I'm sorry that Lieutenant Cesper is no longer in Yora," Aymon said.

Sid shuffled his feet slightly as they walked, heading out of the Council's building and down the shaded avenue towards Stonecourt proper. Halen had been with them both for the Council session, but Aymon had given him the signal to keep his distance later, so that he could talk to Sid alone.

"It's fine," Sid said.

"Hm," Aymon intoned. "Is there some other problem then? You're walking like a dead man."

Sid shrugged, his arms swinging loose by his sides. He stared straight ahead as they passed underneath the tall trees, and Aymon was grateful to him for keeping up the image of professionalism at least that much, rather than looking morosely at the ground like some sort of sullen child. They were speaking quietly enough that only they could hear each other.

Sensing that Sid didn't want to have that much of a conversation in public, even the quasi public that was their solitary walk to Stonecourt, Aymon didn't press the issue, and simply let the evening breeze tickle his face.

In Aymon's quarters, there was a dinner waiting for him already. Before he ate, he stripped off his cassock and button down, leaving himself in just an undershirt and slacks. Sid looked at him for a moment and apparently decided to leave his own cassock on. They sat across from each other at the rather informal kitchen table, and Aymon poured wine for them both.

"Where's Halen?" Sid asked.

"Working, I presume," Aymon replied. "He won't be joining us."

"Why do I get the feeling that he abandoned me here just so that you could interrogate me on something?" Sid asked.

"He didn't abandon you," Aymon said. "Is it illegal for me to want to have an evening with my Second."

Sid visibly tensed at the word, then relaxed. Seeing Aymon's questioning look, he preempted the question. "It's going to take a while for me to really get used to that," he said.

"It hasn't sunk in yet?"

"Everyone still calls me apprentice," Sid said. "It probably won't feel real until, well, until it is."

"How much longer should we wait to tell the world that Kino is dead?" Aymon asked. He wasn't prepared to change his own plans, but he wondered what Sid would say.

Sid picked up his fork and, rather more forcefully than necessary, speared a piece of salmon. "Probably when the First Star is found," he said. "Just so that, you know, she doesn't cause any more incidents with Olms. By being alive."

"That would make sense." He paused, took a few bites of his own food, the clinking of silverware the only sound for a moment. "I talked to Nomar Thule this morning."

Sid looked up at him sharply. "And?"

"They had a sighting of the First Star. At Malstaire."

"What in God's name were they doing there?" Sid asked. Aymon was gratified that he remembered the history of that place, at least enough to respond with the appropriate amount of shock.

"I'm told they were trying to plant an ansible."

Sid's already pale face paled further, then darkened slightly in anger. He looked down at his food, his glasses slid slightly down his nose, he pushed them up. It was a long moment before he said anything, and when he did, his voice was thick and choked. "So they're against us? Really, with other people, against us?"

"Did you not think that until now?" Aymon asked. "Not even with Olms?"

"I didn't want to think it," Sid said. "I thought... When I thought about what Olms was doing, I had this crazy theory, it was so stupid. I was playing it over in my head to make me feel, ah. Fuck."

Aymon waited for him to continue, and when he didn't, he asked, "What was your theory?"

Sid laughed a bitter laugh. "More like a daydream, really."

"Tell me about it."

"I know that Yan isn't actually like this, but I had this crazy thought, like, maybe she was getting involved with Guild politics in order to try to put herself in charge of the Guild, or to manipulate her family into taking control. I--" He laughed again. "I had this whole elaborate fantasy."

"In it, I assume you were First, and she was Guildmaster?"

"The specifics weren't really important," Sid muttered. "I just liked to dream that there was some sort of way that she could come back into the real world."

"I thought you were angry," Aymon said.

"I am! I still am pissed beyond belief. I'm still so..." Sid's arms waved, and Aymon was certain he was signing something, unable to express what he wanted to in spoken word. Unfortunately, Aymon's sign was so bad that he would not be able to understand any of it, least of all when Sid was agitated. Aymon stared at him, and after a second, Sid dropped his arms to the table heavily. "You've never had a comforting fantasy?" he asked.

"I certainly have," Aymon said. "I don't blame you."

Sid's head jerked in a kind of half nod. "I'm just always surprised when they come crashing down."

"Don't live in fantasy too much," Aymon cautioned.

"I won't," Sid said. His face was slightly red, and he looked down at his plate, as if now that the initial rush of emotion had flown out of him, all that was left was embarrassment.

Aymon tapped his own chin for a moment, staring across at his Second. "Are you doing alright, Sid? Be honest with me."

Sid shrugged, the misery somewhat clear in his body language. He took another bite of food to avoid answering for a moment. "Just lonely, I guess."

"I suppose with your lieutenant off visiting his family, you don't precisely have any social connections your own age," Aymon said lightly. "You should go out into the city. Hide your face and go to one of the clubs the Academy students frequent."

The annoyance was writ large across Sid's face. "There are so many problems with that, I don't even know where to start."

Aymon took a sip of wine. "Such as?"

"Number one, there's a reason why I never went to those parties when I was AT the Academy," Sid said. He yanked on his own earlobe, a little more forcefully than necessary, and it turned red under his tugging. "Music is not one of my passions."

Aymon leaned back in his chair. "It's not all about the music, you know. Even just being among that press of other people, the flow of the crowd, it's really something."

"Are you saying that you used to go to these illegal parties?" Sid asked. "I can't believe it."

"I rather enjoyed them. Besides, they're not really illegal."

Sid raised an eyebrow. "We were certainly discouraged."

Aymon laughed. "It's all part of the Academy culture," he said. "It's discouraged enough to let people know it exists, but certainly not discouraged enough to stop any but the most rule abiding students. You think that it isn't a boon for us all, if Academy students share this secret bond, those nights in each other's heads? The entire purpose of the Academy is to breed a sense of loyalty to peers and the system into people."

"Devious," Sid said. He pushed some mashed potatoes around his plate with his fork. "It feels a little immoral for you to admit it."

"It's obvious to anyone who looks at it with a critical eye. We take children away from their families, away from their home planet, and we give them a space where they are among their peers. They're told, in no uncertain terms, that these will be their brothers, their equals, for the rest of their life. We give them an easy way to slide into the professional world, and we make them loyal to the people who came before them through apprenticeships. We give them a powerful faith, a shared language, a common upbringing. Companionship. It works. It's powerful and it works. The games that Academy students play with each other, that sense of subversion of the system that they get, it still all feeds into the culture." Aymon watched Sid for his reaction.

"I never felt that way," Sid said. "I've always been an outsider to all that."

Aymon didn't want to open a raw wound, but he thought, about how the same was true of both Yan and Kino. It tied the three of them together, in the oddest of ways.

"I'm sorry," Aymon said.

"Don't be."

"I wish that I could be more for you," Aymon said. "Rather than just master and apprentice. I remember what it was like to be lonely. You're in an odd position."

"I'm going to have to get used to it," he said, and met Aymon's eyes. "It doesn't get any better from here."

"When you have your own apprentices..." Aymon began, but trailed off when Sid laughed.

"The future is a bleak house, isn't it?"

Aymon couldn't particularly disagree. He could feel the seconds slipping away from him, each one calling out as it passed, 'This is the best things will ever be again.'

"It's the joy of growing older," Aymon said. "Seriously, though. If you're lonely, go out, enjoy yourself a little."

"And that doesn't have any dangers associated with it," Sid said. Although his tone was his same unmeasured one, the sarcasm in the words was palpable.

"I'll have Halen follow you."

Sid laughed again. "You're killing me. Halen has much better things to do, and so do I, if I'm being honest."

"Speaking of..."

"Oh, God, don't tell me you want a status report on how my training's going."

"On the contrary, I've been told that it's going rather well. I'm glad to hear that you're more prepared every day."

Sid relaxed slightly, but not enough to indicate that he thought he was out of the water.

"But?" Sid asked.

"But..."

"Spit it out," Sid said, then took a sip of his own wine. "I'm sure I'm not going to like whatever you're about to say, so you might as well just say it."

"You know that there's more that Halen has to teach you," Aymon said. "You understand that, right?"

Sid made a noncommittal sort of noise.

"He's worried about what your limits are," Aymon said. "He doesn't want to push you too hard."

Sid scrunched up his nose.

"What are you making that face for?"

"He wasn't so worried about my limits a while ago," Sid said. "You know about what he did, right?"

"Oh, yes, I do," Aymon said. "You know he wouldn't have hurt you then, right? Even if you hadn't passed his test?"

Sid coughed a little into his wine glass. "What?"

"He's not a cruel man," Aymon continued.

"No, that's not what I was startled about. I passed his test?"

"Of course you did. He said you were able to yell."

Aymon was surprised that Sid hadn't known that, and Sid seemed just as surprised to learn. "Oh."

"Anyway," Aymon continued, hoping to push past Sid's reaction. "He wouldn't have hurt you, not then."

"Not then?"

"But the next thing you need to learn how to do, that does involve, shall we say, an element of, well, potential pain."

"I love the sound of that. Love to get shot during training," he said. His voice was bitter.

"Are you still angry about that on Kino's behalf?"

"No," Sid said. "Not really. But I think it's disingenuous to say that there hasn't already been plenty of opportunity for me to get hurt." He thought for a second. "I guess, well, comparatively, I've gotten off easily."

"I wouldn't waste time on comparisons."

"Sure." Sid drummed his fingers on the table. "So, what is it that Halen doesn't think I can handle?"

Aymon made a snap decision. "Finish eating. I'll show you then."

"Great," Sid said, frowning slightly.

They ate in relative silence. Aymon was shocked at how smoothly the conversation was flowing. Sid hadn't even demanded to know more information about the sighting of the First Star at Malstaire, though Aymon would have happily given it. He certainly hadn't demanded to go along on the chase, which Aymon had anticipated he would do. It was a relief, but there was also a catch in his heart when he thought about Sid mellowing out. There was something about the young man, his fire, that had cooled since Aymon had first met him. Aymon was proud, in a way, but part of him missed Sid's quickness to anger. It had been torn out of him.

After dinner, they moved to the living room area. Aymon gestured for Sid to take a seat, and then walked out, into his office, and searched through his drawers to find the object that he wanted to demonstrate to Sid with. He pulled out the box that held it, rather triumphantly, from the bottom drawer of his desk, and then brought it back into the living room.

"What's in the box?" Sid asked as Aymon took a seat on the couch. Sid was perched on the armchair, leaning forward over the coffee table and paging through the illustrated Book of Songs that Aymon kept laid out there.

"It was a gift from my own master," he said. "Take a look." He passed it to Sid, who lifted the heavy wooden lid of the box and removed the knife. It was a pretty thing: about six inches of blade, metal swirled and dappled like the skin of an animal. The hilt fit snugly in the hand, Aymon knew.

"I don't know enough about history to say if it's weird that First Herrault was giving out knives," Sid said.

"You might want to acquaint yourself with your ancestors," Aymon said.

"Not my ancestors," Sid said, turning the knife over in his hands and testing the blade against his thumbnail.

"Your future, then," Aymon said, and though he knew that Sid wouldn't catch the bitterness in his voice, he tried to keep it off his face.

"Predecessors, maybe," Sid said, as though Aymon hadn't said anything. "Are you planning to give me ominous gifts?"

Aymon nodded to the knife. "It's yours."

Sid placed it gingerly down on the coffee table and Aymon picked it up. "Ominous indeed," Sid said. "It's not like we're living in the times of the Red King. Knives aren't a very practical weapon."

"Tell that to spacers," Aymon said. "They all cary knives."

"Not the ones I've encountered," Sid muttered. "Spacer almost shot me."

"Extenuating circumstances. Still, it's not really meant for fighting."

"I'll bite. What's it for?"

"In an ideal world, you wouldn't get hurt," Aymon said. "In the real world, there will probably come a day when you do. And when you do get hurt, the chances of you surviving to see the next day are dramatically reduced if you can't deal with getting hurt."

"Halen mentioned something about that, way back. Learning to heal yourself."

Aymon continued, nodding a little to acknowledge Sid's statement. "Let's say you get shot," Aymon said. "Nothing immediately fatal, but it's the worst pain you've ever felt in your life."

"God forbid, I guess," Sid said.

"Of course. But let's not pretend that it couldn't happen."

"I don't know why you think I'd pretend that," Sid said. "I was about half a second away from having my brains blown out when I was at the L.T."

"I'm well aware," Aymon said dryly. "That particular would would have been of the immediately fatal variety."

Sid ran his hands nervously over the fabric of his cassock on his lap. "Ervantes was there, though."

Aymon smiled, though he didn't want to be too indulgent. "In any event, if you are wounded, you need to still be able to think, in order to get yourself out of the situation. And sometimes, once you're out, you'll need to be able to patch yourself up so that you can get to help. It's all about survival." He twisted the blade in his hand, and it caught the light, throwing up a reflection onto Sid's face. "You see why Halen wonders about your limits."

"By that, you mean that this is something that I need to practice."

Aymon stood up, then moved to a clear spot on the wooden floor, then sat down. "Come here, Sid," he said. He crossed his legs, and gently laid the knife down on the ground before him.

Moving with what seemed like deliberate slowness, a visible reluctance, Sid joined him on the floor. Aymon held out his hands, and, without discussing it, started up the simple clapping rhythm that would allow them to sink down into meditation together. Before Sid closed his eyes, Aymon said, "My master, Caron, taught me this. Now it's my responsibility to teach it to you."

Sid nodded, and they both closed their eyes, focusing on the shared fractions of touch between their hands. They did this, falling into the gentle, easy rhythm, until, without even really noticing, their minds became one and the same.

In that space together, they shared control over both their bodies, and their thoughts floated about each other like formless beasts. Aymon could easily put his thoughts into words, but Sid was chaotic and half formed, with everything he thought underlaying the very perception of the space.

"Open my eyes, Sid," Aymon thought.

How odd it was, to let his apprentice have control of his body. How odd it was to take control. Aymon's eyes opened, and they stared across at Sid, still sitting hunched forward on the ground. If Aymon wanted, he could open the eyes of that other body, and they could meet eachothers' stares, but they wouldn't be using Sid's body. He felt his eyes twitch around, as Sid contemplated what he looked like from the outside. Then Aymon's desire not to touch Sid's body registered with him.

Why not?

"This is the one thing it is perhaps easiest to learn to do on someone else. It takes the fear out of it," Aymon said.

Fear. That was something. Should he be afraid?

"Do not be afraid; I am with you," Aymon said, and there was an answering mental laugh from Sid. Was now really the time to quote the theology?

"It's always time to quote the theology. You could stand to do more of it. Makes you look impressive."

There was a confusing rush of thought that accompanied that statement, and flashes of memory of having a tattoo machine at his head, while Yan held his hand. Sid shoved them away with a mental grimace.

"Shall we begin?" Aymon asked, wanting to distract Sid from his bad memories. Sid took Aymon's hand, and reached down for the knife on the ground.

"Not yet," Aymon said. He held out his arm in front of himself, palm up. "You feel it."

They were aware of its weight, its heft, the smooth skin, the little hairs on the back of the arm standing up in the cool room. Aymon took his left hand, and with the lightest touch possible, ran his fingers from fingertip to elbow along the skin of his right arm. Sid's body visibly shivered involuntarily with the ghost of a touch; Aymon's own body twitched with an echoed shiver in response.

"You trace the line of the nerve as it goes up your arm," Aymon said. "Look at it."

And he brought to the forefront of their vision, a remembered image, the lines of nerves crossing the body, where they were thickest, where they connected to the spine, where the tendrils of it branched out into feathery wisps that were too fine to follow or understand, all underneath the surface of the skin.

Sid wondered at it, and wondered how he was supposed to remember or use this information.

"It's instinct, mostly," Aymon said. He brushed the fingers up his arm again. "You'll remember what this feels like."

Sid braced himself because he noticed that Aymon was reaching for the power. Aymon dragged it up from inside himself, and he set it to work on his own body, starting at the tip of his right index finger, rattling and jangling the nerves of his arm with its invisible touch, until the whole thing felt like it was burning, on fire. He held it out, though Sid wanted to retreat back into his own body, and held on to Sid.

"Stay," Aymon commanded. "You need to learn. Remember where the pain is hottest."

And so Sid, despite how much it made his eyes want to roll back, despite how much it made the arm shake, focused on it, and remembered. Aymon dropped the power, and it was immediate relief, like dunking his arm into cold water.

They breathed shakily for a moment.

Aymon had known exactly what to expect, but Sid was still overwhelmed, and he was half of this union. Aymon let him take his time, until he was recovered, and they were shaking less, and breathing quietly. Two sets of lungs, heard in only one set of ears.

"Do you enjoy hearing out of my ears?" Aymon asked.

Sid gave a mental shrug. It wasn't anything he hadn't felt before. It didn't matter to him, and he wasn't going to miss it when he stepped out of Aymon's body and head.

Aymon couldn't really grasp that, but he had to accept it, as he had nothing else but Sid's word to go on.

There was a brief flash of memory that Sid offered up to him, from early days at the Academy, where he had been trapped in a room with one of the masters, an overbearing woman, who clapped hands with him and taught him how to speak. Listen with her ears, her tongue speaking with his voice. He hadn't liked watching himself then. He hadn't enjoyed the enforced self watching, constant critique, constant feeling like he wasn't enough.

"Is this more acceptable?" Aymon asked.

Of course it was. Sid had chosen to be here. And Aymon wasn't trying to make him something he was not.

"I'm not doing that?" Aymon asked, and brought to mind the thought that he had earlier, about Sid having changed. Sid's thoughts skittered away from it, intentionally avoiding the idea that he hadn't requested to go chase after the First Star.

"I'll make a note of that, then," Aymon said with a gentle mental nudge.

Sid's anger stirred slightly, then drifted back down into nothingness. He had changed, of course he had changed. But that wasn't the same thing. Wasn't Aymon different from who he was as an apprentice?

Aymon laughed, and they could feel the rumbling in his chest. "Of course. I have Halen to thank for that."

And Sid had everyone around him. All the many circumstances that had built up and brought them to this day, this place, sitting before Aymon as his Second.

The warmth Aymon felt for Sid was real, but he had to get them back on track. "Are you ready?" he asked.

No. But that didn't mean that they shouldn't go on.

"You felt the line of fire," Aymon said. "Pick a place on the main trunk of that line. Your duty is to block feeling from it. It's quite simple. Here is the power structure. The difficulty is in holding attention to it when you're in pain. Once you get it up, you'll be fine."

Sid shifted, and started to weave the power structure into place.

"Did you want to practice first?"

Yes.

"Then stop this feeling," Aymon said. He dragged his fingers across his arm again, up and down, as Sid grappled with the power. Usually, it was quite hard to change another person's body, let alone something as fine as the nerves, but it was easier when Aymon was meditating along with him, loaning him his mind and body and power, and it was easier still now that Sid had practiced so much with Halen. He got a grip on the power structure, and pressed it in, stopping all sensation from the nerves in Aymon's arm. His arm was a thick, numb thing.

"Good," Aymon said. "Release it."

Sid let go of the power structure, and the feeling returned to Aymon's arm, far more swiftly than it would if the limb had fallen asleep. It was an uncomfortable sensation.

But not as uncomfortable as...

"Indeed." Aymon picked up the knife now, holding it in his left hand. "You do it," he said, and he let Sid have complete control over his body. It was a dangerous thing, a trusting thing. How strange it was.

Sid held the knife loosely, and Aymon gave him a mental nudge to hold it better. Dropping it and nicking his nice wooden floor would be an annoyance. Sid rolled Aymon's eyes, but held the thing tighter. His knuckles were white, and he positioned the knife at various places up and down Aymon's arm.

"Pick anywhere," Aymon said. "It's not particularly important."

Sid thought about it, remembered getting blood drawn, and pressed the point of the knife into the crook of Aymon's elbow. The pain was immediate. Though it was far less than the fire that Aymon had brought earlier, this was real pain. There was real injury, real blood. The sight of it made Sid freeze for a second. Aymon was still calm, even though the blood was running in a trickle down his arm. "Stop the pain, Sid," he said. "Focus."

Sid's panic was real, and Aymon had to hold out the power structure to him again, pressing it into the forefront of his mind. Though the time felt like years, it was really only a fraction of a second before Sid's power rushed up, tangled with the offering, and pressed it into place at Aymon's shoulder. His arm went numb, and then limp, and he dropped it to his side, the blood still trickling. It was a messy wound, but not really a deep one.

Sid laid the knife back down on the ground in front of them.

"See? Not so terrible," Aymon said. "Good job."

His neck twitched as Sid tried too shake his head. There had been too much hesitation there, too much fear.

"But you didn't hit your limit," Aymon said.

Sid didn't know what his limit was.

"Let's hope we don't find that out for a good long time." He shook himself all over and gave Sid a nudge. "You can leave now. I'm not going to press this any more right now."

A fractional hesitation, then Aymon shivered as Sid withdrew his power and left his head. They looked across at each other. Aymon smiled; Sid frowned.

"I meant it when I said you did well," Aymon said. He hoisted his arm into his lap, and with his own power, well under his control through years of practice, carefully and calmly knit the skin of his arm back together. It had been a shallow cut, but it was enough to teach Sid a little lesson.

"Your master did this with you?"

"And hers before that," Aymon said. "You can ask the Emperor, if you're curious."

"No, thanks," Sid said. He rubbed his own arm in remembered pain. Aymon picked up the knife and wiped it on his pants. He handed it hit first to Sid. "I don't want it," Sid said.

"It's yours anyway," Aymon said.

"Same could be said about a lot of shit," Sid said, but he took the knife. "Why does every piece of training that I do have to put me through the wringer?"

"Trust me when I say that real life is far harder than training," Aymon said.