Volithur held hands with Hazen and stepped forward and back in time, their hands rising out to each side like they were flapping wings. Khana laughed at the spectacle while the Head Scribe marked time with a steady clap. This was the third practice session of the day and Volithur now knew two dances well enough to only slightly embarrass himself.
He had passed the qualifying examination for calculations with a perfect score, earning him a congratulatory handshake from Master Rowan and a respectful nod from the Head Scribe. The other three had done well in their examinations and their team had been seeded favorably for the contest. The first team they had been matched up against would be an easy win. The second match the next day could go either way, but everyone seemed optimistic. On the basis of the qualifying exams, they had established themselves in the top half of the participants. Winning just one more match would be a respectable enough showing that no one would be disappointed. If they won the one after that, they would be in the top four, which was beyond expectation.
Of course, Volithur wanted to reach the top three to get into the cosmic chamber. He wasn’t quite sure what a cosmic chamber was, but the way it had been dangled as a prize made it obvious that he should want it. The Castellan had promised him fifteen minutes in the cosmic chamber of the fifth household, but Volithur wasn’t sure how he could collect on that when he was so obviously failing at cultivation.
“That should be sufficient,” the Head Scribe announced.
“Aw,” Khana whined, “I was enjoying the show.”
Hazen lifted Volithur’s hand towards her. “I’m sure my lovely partner would not mind if a beautiful lady chose to cut in.”
Khana snatched up Volithur’s hand. “Give us a beat, Hazen.”
Under the eye of a subtly disapproving Head Scribe, while Hazen sat on a sofa and dutifully clapped, Volithur repeated the movements he had been drilling off and on throughout the day. Partnering with a pretty girl instead of a surly boy proved to make all the difference in the world. Volithur barely managed to avoid stumbling, obsessed over his clammy hands, and couldn’t figure out where he was supposed to look. He most definitely shouldn’t be trying to peek down Khana’s shirt. Definitely not. Eye contact seemed almost as perilous.
After a few minutes, Khana released one of his hands and lifted the other one to spin under it and lean away before pulling herself back in with a warm laugh, switching seamlessly to the only other dance he knew, which involved a lot of circling with hands on each other’s shoulders. It was the more complex of the two, with a lot of convoluted maneuvers thrown in to needless complicate the operation.
Khana broke off from dancing soon enough. She patted him on the chest with her fingers in a manner which Volithur could see as being either flirtatious or condescending. In the world he found himself in, those might not be mutually exclusive things. “Ward Harridan, your skill at calculations far exceeds your skill at dancing.” The sparkle in her eye made Volithur suspect there might be a tad more flirt in her manner than would be appropriate.
To cover over the heat in his cheeks, Volithur gave a deep bow. “I thank you for the tolerance you’ve shown me, Master Khana.”
She skipped over to the sofa. “Your turn, Hazen.”
“But I was saving myself for another round with Ward Harridan,” the boy joked.
Volithur thought he saw more stiffness in Hazen’s posture than should be warranted. A glance to the Head Scribe revealed that the discomfort was shared. The Head Scribe cleared his throat. “I need to go over some etiquette around eating before the dance begins, Master Khana.”
She deflated a bit. “Well, it was fun for a moment, at least. I’ll be in my room.”
The Head Scribe squinted at Volithur. “Well. We probably should cover the topic. You chew with your mouth open, Ward Harridan. You use the wrong hand for the fork. You sit hunched over.”
Thus began a marathon of instructions on how to properly comport himself around food. It only ended when Master Rowan emerged from his nap and announced they would head over early. The Head Scribe rushed to compliment the idea and they set off.
Their destination was not the dining hall with private booths that they had taken their meals earlier in the day, but rather what appeared to be a massive cathedral. Its interior was an immense space with smaller auxiliary rooms along two walls opposite each other. Copper sheeting along the lower sections of the vaulted ceiling shimmered with reflected limelight.
Snack tables and drink stations were located far from the entrance, tables were scattered along the sides, a trio of musicians strummed their instruments from a corner stage, and the central region was wide open. A girl with a cleft palate swooped down on their group like a predator, eyed Volithur and Hazen, then imperiously held out her hand to the other boy. Hazen bowed and graciously accepted the hand. If Volithur had not been in conversations with Hazen earlier in the day, he would have believed the acceptance entirely voluntary.
Khana giggled and nudged Volithur in the ribs. “Like blood in the water, Ward Harridan. There will be a frenzy of foul beasts seeking to devour ‘those who cannot decline’.”
“We’re not the only commoners,” Volithur whined.
“You’re the only two who showed up early.”
A quick glance about the room proved the truth of that assertion. Based on demeanor and positioning, it was easy to determine commoners. Volithur considered adjusting his stance to disguise his status for half a second. Deceptive posturing would bring far more trouble than it was worth.
A plain-looking girl with a lame leg shuffled towards him, not quite making eye contact. “You are Harridan representing Shaocheth, I believe?”
“You are correct, Master…”
“Just Jemmi.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Master Just Jemmi.”
Jemmi met his eyes. “Are you a jester, then?”
“Apparently I’m no better at jokes than I am with dancing. Thank God for calculations.”
Jemmi blinked. “Did you say ‘thank God’? Are you from a religious world?”
“I’m from a world that was transitioning from religious to secular. I don’t have any religious beliefs myself.”
“Good. I will have someone interesting to speak with during this event.” She hesitated. “If you care to, that is. I cannot dance because of my leg, so if you prefer to scuff up the floor with young ladies, I would not fault you.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Volithur glanced about to make sure none of his party was close enough to overhear him. “Are you suggesting that if I go with you I won’t have to dance tonight?”
Jemmi smiled. “I won’t promise to shield you all night, Harridan. But if you would join me at a table it would make me look marginally less pathetic to my peers.”
He took her arm and they slowly moved towards one of the smaller tables. Jemmi rubbed her lame leg as she reclined in her seat. “So how did you arrive as a Ward of the Lord General?”
The question short-circuited his brain. Weeks spent learning in the Head Scribe’s class had drilled proper behavior into his head, which had been constantly reinforced simply by existing in a society where the only safety to be had was studiously following conventions. He didn’t want to minimize the atrocities that had been done to his parents and his communities, but he also could not tell the truth. Not to a noble.
“I would rather not speak on those matters,” Volithur finally said.
Jemmi nodded, a shrewd gleam in her eyes. “They named Thrakkar Shaocheth the Lord General for a reason.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a very good grasp on the… sobriquets given to Lords.”
“It’s a process every bit as convoluted as it is informal,” Jemmi said. “The simplified version is that the peers of a Lord grant them a moniker that captures the essence of the value they provide to the Amaratti Xian.”
“Excuse me, but Amaratti Xian?”
“Amarat is one of the major nations on the world of Tian. There are about a hundred and thirty Lords, one of which is your ‘benefactor’ and master of the Shaocheth family. By treaty, no nation on Tian may claim exclusive right over foreign worlds, but individual lords skirt around the issue by placing extended households that manage vast stretches of territory. And, to directly answer your question, an Amaratti Xian is a term strictly applied to a member of the Amarat nation.
“You and I do not qualify as Amaratti Xian. I was born on this world, which the natives once called Homeland and the Xian renamed New Mart. You, technically, aren’t even a Xian yet. You appear close to attuning to cosmic energy. Perhaps if you get some time in the Institute’s cosmic chamber.”
Volithur nodded along to her explanation, thrilled to finally have found someone both willing and able to clearly explain things in a way that took his ignorance into account. “Going back to the original issue, what is the meaning behind ‘Lord General’?”
Jemmi tilted her head. “General is a job leading an army. Thrakkar Shaocheth uses his spectacularly large cosmic spheres to rapidly field more troops than any other Xian from Amarat. He brings an army everywhere he goes, thus he is the Lord General. Other lords hold the rank of general, but they have not been granted that sobriquet.”
The simmering resentment in his heart began to grow, stirred to life by recollections of an army slaughtering its way through his city. He had always blamed the Lord General for what happened since the man obviously had such obvious power and status. Now, though, his rage felt truly justified. The Lord General was not following the tradition of his people when he unleashed hordes of murderers, rapists, and abductors upon worlds. The mass atrocities were his personal signature, his mark of distinction.
Best to think of something else before he said something that could haunt him.
“What are some of the other sobriquets?”
“Let’s see. The Lord Annihilator, of course. His cosmic bolt can destroy an entire city on an unempowered world. He’s done it a few times to prove he could, but mostly he fights the Arahant. Or he did. They’ve withdrawn from the fights over unempowered worlds since the fall of Aes. I suppose the Lord Annihilator will need to target Jinn now.
“There’s the Lord Striker. He specializes in smaller, more targeted cosmic bolts. Tactical strikes, if you will. The Lord Windblade manifests a massive sword that he wields through his kinetic domain. They say it looks like a tornado spinning about him, shredding stones as easily as people. The Lord Platinum… she produces the most potent elixirs in existence. The specifics of the process are not discussed in polite company. Mostly lords earn a sobriquet through blood and war.” Jemmi waved her hand. “But now I feel it is my turn to ask questions of you.”
“Of course,” Volithur said.
“How are you so good at calculations? Is it a natural talent or did the schools of your world emphasize study of the subject?”
Volithur smiled. “The academics of my world were quite good in comparison. In truth, I was a mediocre student.”
“How fascinating. The Evergreen Institute thinks a lot of itself, but the average output of another world’s school system matches up well against their best. Is it the same in other academic disciplines? How would you fare in spelling or debate or recital?”
“Poorly in all of those. There are slight differences in how words were spelled on my world, so my teacher assumes I am a poor speller. Honestly, it is a miracle we speak the same language.”
Jemmi waved away his amazement. “It’s just resonance.”
“Resonance?”
“I thought it was my turn to ask the questions. I’ll answer, but then you owe me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“The five true worlds resonate together. And all the unempowered worlds resonate with the true worlds. Humans have the same shape, the same structure of society, and even the same way of speaking. To some extent, at least. I assume your world resonated more strongly with the Jinn home world than the Xian home world.”
“Would that mean the world I am from was just an echo of those true worlds?”
“People use a lot of analogies in resonance theory. Echoes is one. Reflections is another. Shadows. But those all fail to capture the phenomenon because echoes and reflections and shadows are temporary things entirely dependent on their cause. The unempowered worlds are real places. They arise from primordial chaos and are influenced by the true worlds. The influence is significant, but it isn’t all encompassing. You are a real person from a real place.”
Volilthur nodded. “I don’t think anyone has been this nice to me since I came to this world.”
“That is terrible. While I know my kind of cavalier approach to interacting with commoners isn’t very proper, a man of your qualities deserves to be treated with dignity. Assuming you are a man of your word and will allow me my questions.”
“Of course. Ask anything.”
“Did the school system of your world prepare you for debates?”
“Not generally. There were clubs where people could practice debating, and coaches who would prepare politicians for public debates. But it wasn’t a major part of getting an education on my world.”
“What about recital?”
“Oh no. I don’t even understand how that is a thing here, to be honest. Reading poems isn’t very academic. At least not to me.”
“So it’s only in mathematics that someone of your background would excel in these contests.”
“For the most part. I mean, there were kids who entered spelling contests on my world. A lot of them had trained their minds to the point that they could almost instantly memorize the spelling of new words. Someone like that would probably beat everyone here if they had a few months to practice.”
Jemmi tapped her chin as if in thought. “Calculations, spelling, and debate. A team from your world with the right experts would gain first place if they fielded someone with a talent for recital. Someone like myself.”
Volithur smacked his forehead. “And now I feel like an idiot for insulting recital.”
“Good! I don’t want you to lose your intellectual humility when you wow everyone tomorrow with your academic skills.”
“What other questions do you have?”
Jemmi pursed her lips. “Would you bring me a glass of mulled wine?”
“That’s not the kind of question I was expecting, but I would be honored.”