Several hours ago
Anika sipped her tea and studied the Shanian man sitting across the round table from her.
He wore beautiful robes and a very pretty headdress with dangling tassels. His mustache was immaculately groomed, and his skin was clear and radiant with health. A pleasant smile sat upon his rosy lips, and his eyes were bright with patience and compassion.
The man—Bei Feng was his name—had been by her bedside when she’d awoken, and he’d been nothing but kind and gracious to her in the two or three hours that she’d known him.
But the White Wind didn’t like him, not at all. It hummed and grumbled in the back of her mind, more loudly and strongly than it ever had, urging her to flee the room, to put as much distance between herself and the silken Shanian.
Not like I can leave, anyway, she thought, her gaze drifting over and past Bei Feng’s shoulder to the gilded door at the far end of the room. The White Wind had taken a look at it and told her that it was reinforced synthsteel, secured by biometric locks and an array of venomous needle-guns built into its frame.
Anika let her gaze sweep around the room. It was very large, with dark walls covered in red Shanian writing. The floor was white and made up of the same material as the table. She wasn’t quite sure what exactly it was, but it looked expensive, as did the teacup in her hands, the painted ceramic pot on the table, and everything on Bei Feng’s person.
“Where is Hiran?” she asked him. “I saw him in my dreams, but I would very much like to talk to him.”
“I believe he would like to talk to you too, Miss Anika, but he is away at the moment,” Bei Feng said. “However, he is expected to return by the end of the day, if not earlier.”
“What…” Anika put down her cup and coughed softly into her fist. “Where am I? What day is it?”
“It is the thirteenth day of the eighth month in the ninety-fifth-thousand Standard year. And you are in my humble abode, where you may remain an honored guest for as long as you wish.”
“Does that mean I can walk out now if I want to?” Anika looked the Shanian squarely in the eye. “You won’t try to stop me?”
“I will not.” Bei Feng smiled warmly and spread his hands. “However, I will advise against doing so for a few reasons.”
“What reasons?” Anika asked, before sighing and shaking her head. “Sorry. I don’t mean to sound rude, but--”
“You have undergone a tremendous ordeal, Miss Anika,” Bei Feng said gently. “Nobody reasonable will begrudge your tone of voice. As for the reasons, here is the first. If you leave now, you won’t be able to speak with Hiran, won’t you?”
“I won’t,” she agreed, leaning back in her heavily cushioned chair. “But what are the other reasons?”
“You must know by now that you are… special. You can see what others can’t, know what you shouldn’t know, and do what the laws of nature themselves forbid.”
The Shanian’s gaze moved slightly to the left, before locking upon the space just above her shoulder, where the White Wind sat, with its warm tendrils draped around the nape of her neck. “You have a gift that is similar in some ways to mine.”
Anika blinked in surprise and took a closer look at Bei Feng, this time making sure to direct her focus through the White Wind. Sure enough, there was something special about the Shanian. He didn’t have a Wind like hers, but a dress, one made up of many different colors that shimmered and danced across his robed form.
“You are a Void-sensitive individual, Miss Anika, and a very powerful one at that,” Bei Feng continued. “To my senses, your soul burns like a beacon… no, a star in the infinite depths of the Void. But a radiance like that will attract the attention of beings that dwell in the Void. And now that you have awoken to your true potential, these beings… these Void Entities will fill your mind with whispers of their mad promises, so that they can claim your soul and your power.”
Anika shrank back at the Shanian’s horrifying words, but what she found more disturbing than anything he’d said was the fact that he’d maintained the mask of warm geniality flawlessly throughout the course of his brief speech.
“So… what does that have to do with me leaving or not leaving?” she ventured, mentally holding the White Wind back from reaching out and throttling the Shanian. The White Wind wouldn’t have succeeded, anyway. Bei Feng was much, much stronger than her. He could scatter the White Wind with a thought, and she didn’t want that to happen.
“If you wish to be safe from the attentions of Void Entities, you must learn how to control your power,” Bei Feng explained. “You need to be able to recognize their promises as the lies they are, fend off their blandishments from your heart, and ward your soul from their grasp. I can teach you how to do all that, and much more.”
“Hiran has a Wind, too.” Anika sniffed, before picking her cup again and taking another sip. “Did he learn from you as well?”
“I have only managed to tutor him briefly,” Bei Feng said, stroking his mustache. “In all truth, we haven’t covered much ground beyond the very basics.”
“Then is he also in danger from these Void Entities? My Wind has kept me safe all these years, but I can tell it won’t be enough, now. But his Wind is a lot weaker and sadder than mine is.”
“Hiran’s potential in mastering the Void is approximately about a hundredth of yours. In a sense, that is a blessing, because his light is like a wavering candle against the perpetual sunburst that is yours. Void Entities would readily overlook him if he were simply an average Void-sensitive individual with below-mediocre power.”
“But he isn’t,” Anika reasoned. “He’s not just anyone. I saw him in my dreams, remember? I know he’s a hero.”
“One of the greatest,” Bei Feng agreed, nodding. “The magnitude of his deeds resonate throughout the span of the Ghandarna system and across the infinite depths of the Void itself. He has the attention of every prominent Void Entity. Even the Benevolent Ones themselves grace him with their regard.”
“These Benevolent Ones… they’re Void creatures too, aren’t they?”
“I…” Bei Feng sighed. It was a sound of long-suffering exasperation. “We will have to save the discussion on Shanian theology for another day, Miss Anika. Let me assuage your fears about Hiran. Thanks to the ingenuity of my late friend Loremaster Maruti, Hiran is endowed with an immense resistance against the touch of the Void. That, coupled with his indomitable will, is more than sufficient to render him all but impervious to the treacheries of any Void Entities. He is safe, as safe as any Void-sensitive individual could ever be.”
Anika flinched upon hearing the name ‘Maruti’. Her teacup fell from her suddenly nerveless fingers, but before it could tumble to the floor and spill hot tea all over her lap, streams of light from Bei Feng’s colorful dress reached out. Some of them caught the cup and put it gently back on the table. Others diverted the splashing tea back into the beautiful pot.
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“Ah, I am sorry, Miss Anika.” Bei Feng bowed in his seat. A troubled look flickered over his dark eyes. “Hiran and I have surmised what my late friend must have done to you. For what it’s worth, he can no longer hurt you. Though it might not be my place to do so, I apologize on his behalf, nevertheless.”
“Your apology doesn’t mean anything,” Anika said, fighting and failing to keep the tremor from her voice. “You didn’t kidnap me and threaten to kill me. He did. So you saying sorry for him makes no sense at all, because he can’t be sorry. He never will be, since he’s dead, like you keep saying. But even if he weren’t, I know he wouldn’t be sorry, so I will never forgive him.”
“You make a valid point, Miss Anika,” Bei Feng agreed, sighing and stroking his mustache. “I will mention my friend no more, then.”
“You said Hiran was safe,” Anika muttered, forcibly dragging the conversation back to its original track. “But I am not. Is that the point you were trying to get at?”
“It is.” Bei Feng set down his teacup as well. “You will need to learn how to master the Void and channel Void Essence, and I can provide the tutelage necessary for you to succeed in doing so.”
“I can’t afford to pay you anything.” Anika spread her palms and showed off her empty hands to the Shanian. “As you can see, I have nothing to my name, not even this robe I’m wearing.”
“Seeing someone as gifted as you rise to your potential will be payment enough.” Bei Feng smiled. “As for the robe, consider it yours, along with a full wardrobe my servants will deliver here in short order.”
“You’re very kind, sir.” Anika bowed in her seat. She interlaced her fingers and stretched her palms as she straightened her posture, before taking a deep breath and nodding to Bei Feng. “Alright, let’s start.”
“Right now?” The Shanian blinked in surprise, before laughing softly. He returned her nod. “How can I deny such spirit? Yes, let us begin. Without any prior training, you have already mastered Void Sight, and your capacity for Precognition and Clairvoyance already exceeds mine by hundreds, if not thousands, of magnitudes. You are also accustomed to drawing upon small amounts of Void Essence to feed your Guardian.”
“My Guardian?” Anika glanced at the White Wind, which bristled beneath Bei Feng’s regard. “Are you talking about the White Wind?”
“Is that your name for it?” Bei Feng gave her an approving nod. “If so, it is a fitting one indeed. The White Wind, pure and gentle, yet also fiercely protective of its beloved, which so happens to be you, Miss Anika.”
“What is your Guardian’s name, sir?” Anika asked, gesturing to the shimmering prismatic dress enveloping the Shanian’s body. “Is it Rainbow? Or Starlight?”
“I’m afraid not.” Bei Feng chuckled softly. “Unlike you, I don’t have a Guardian. There are different kinds of sorcerers, you see? Classes, even. By my estimations, you are a Conduit, a sorceress gifted at conversing with Void Entities and capable of imbuing clusters of pure Void Essence with fully self-aware sentience. At a very young age, you created the White Wind and bound it to you, and it has been protecting you ever since, making it your Guardian.”
“I am a Herald,” the Shanian continued. “I devote my soul entirely to the grace of the Benevolent Ones, and I channel their holy strength to further their purposes. I have no Guardian, save the grace of the Benevolent Ones.”
So they are Void Entities, Anika thought, but instead of pressing the point, she decided to press on instead. “Looks like I can do quite a few things already, so why don’t we start with what I can’t do?”
“That is an excellent idea.” Bei Feng reached his left hand across the table and held out his open palm to her, revealing the multiple golden rings adorning each of his fingers. “Let us try Astral Walking. There are Wards and Runes built into this room to keep our souls firmly anchored to our bodies, so there is no chance of us ending up lost and adrift in the Void. And yes, the White Wind will accompany you, of course.”
Anika glanced at her Guardian. It radiated hostility and eagerness in equal measure. It wanted Anika to rise to her potential, but it also didn’t trust Bei Feng. She didn’t bother pressing the White Wind for an answer as to why it detested the Shanian so much, since it wouldn’t be able to give one, anyway.
A slight sensation of warmth pulsed upon her collar. She looked down and saw the pendant that had been around her neck since her awakening. It didn’t look particularly attractive, and it made both her and the White Wind feel uneasy, but for some strange reason, she just didn’t feel like taking it off.
“That is an Amulet of Blankness,” Bei Feng explained. “It will lessen the chances of a Void Entity noticing us, not that they aren’t already non-existent within the confines of my meditation chamber.”
“But we won’t be within these confines, won’t we, sir?” Anika asked. “I think I know what Astral Walking is. The White Wind showed me once in a dream and told me that one day I’d be able to do it myself.”
“That day is at hand, Miss Anika. Come. Let us begin.”
Anika nodded and placed her right hand over the Shanian’s palm. The White Wind sang softly in her ear and wrapped itself around her soul. The colors of Bei Feng’s dress became so bright that they filled her vision.
And then she was weightlessly free from her physical body and rising through a tunnel of iridescent light. She blinked once and found herself floating above a massive cityscape, its building-packed expanse interspersed with hundreds of structures that scraped at the very skies themselves.
“This is Pragha, perhaps the biggest city on Madhya,” Bei Feng’s voice rang out behind her. Anika turned and saw the Shanian floating in the gray-blue skies. His body seemed translucent, and his silhouette was wavy and indistinct.
I think I look the same way too, Anika thought, casting her gaze downward and confirming her suspicions. Rays of sunlight broke faintly through the palm she raised above her head. She could see swirls of clouds and smog through the hem of her robe.
The White Wind, however, was completely unchanged. It curled itself around her arms, at once comforting and protective.
“Does this mean I got brought all the way to Madhya?” Anika couldn’t help but wonder out loud. “That’s a long way from Anava. How am I ever going to get home?”
“Why don’t we worry about that later, Miss Anika?” Bei Feng’s patient smile never wavered. “I have just cast a spell called Astral Walk and taken you along with me. We are currently in our astral forms, projections of our souls imbued with our respective consciousness. The farther we are from our physical bodies, the more invested our souls will have to be in our astral forms to maintain their projection.”
“So if we go really far and something bad happens to our astral forms, our actual souls will suffer, too,” Anika reasoned. “But right now, we can’t be very far from our bodies, so we don’t have anything to worry about.”
“That is correct, and doubly so, thanks to the protective Wards and Runes around our physical bodies,” Bei Feng said, widening his smile. “You are a very astute individual indeed.”
“Thank you.” Anika looked around the cityscape and marveled at its motley nature. She had read about the Shan Confederacy and the Asharican Union as a young schoolgirl, so she was able to recognize many buildings of Shanian design and several structures whose architects had obviously drawn inspiration from the Asharicans. “So this is Pragha? It’s huge! I never really left the manufactory grounds or my habitation block, so this is the first time I’ve ever actually seen a city like this. Anyway, how are we going to train?”
“We begin your training by orienting you with the true nature of the Void, with all its perils and wonders,” Bei Feng said. “Focus your will alongside mine and peer beyond the veil of materiality. It should be much easier for you to do so in your astral form, which is why I have brought us both up here.”
Anika looked closely at the Shanian and saw streams of light flowing beneath the surface of his astral skin to congregate where his eyes were. She turned to the White Wind in puzzlement.
“How do I do that?” she asked her Guardian.
The White Wind simply sighed, equally at a loss.
Anika shrugged and pictured the same light coalescing into existence within her, and to her surprise, it did! Her astral abdomen flared with colorless radiance. She turned excitedly back to Bei Feng, who applauded her soundlessly with his astral hands.
“Well done! All your life, you’d been drawing Void Essence through your Guardian instead of into your own soul. You have succeeded in doing the latter now, and without any explicit instruction, too. As I’d thought, your natural talent is of astronomical proportions, Miss Anika!”
Anika returned the Shanian’s smile, before reaching up and brushing the White Wind with her astral fingers. To her surprise, the Guardian felt far more solid and tangible than it had ever done. “What do you think?”
The White Wind trembled with excitement. It was eager to see Anika master the Void.
“Alright, let’s take a look,” she said, before seizing the light within her and shaping it into coils around her astral eyes like she’d seen Bei Feng do.
The synthsteel and synthcrete surface of the city fell away then, revealing a realm built upon dreams and nightmares.