Kuli con­vinced Ki'el, with some ef­fort, to put to­geth­er a longer mes­sage to Sobon, us­ing the ex­tra men­tal space that her aug­ment pro­vid­ed to not only store the mes­sage be­fore she sent it, but re­view and edit it. It was... a form of think­ing that was for­eign to her, if she were hon­est, even though she had been do­ing some­thing very sim­i­lar when it came to record­ing and or­ga­niz­ing her think­ing about in­tent and qi.

With those things, she was still learn­ing. It felt... em­bar­rass­ing, to con­sid­er her­self still learn­ing the art of speak­ing, or even think­ing. But by the time she had com­posed an en­tire mes­sage, and looked back at what she had be­gun be­fore, she re­al­ized that the ex­tra space and time for re­vi­sion was only help­ful. When she thought she would be forced to put every­thing into a few words, she had phrased it all dif­fer­ent­ly, and... and was in a dif­fer­ent men­tal state, wor­ried that she would be mis­un­der­stood.

But also... hav­ing more room to speak left her con­cerned that not say­ing many of the things she wished to say would be un­der­stood dif­fer­ent­ly. If they could only say so much, it was un­der­stood that many things need­ed to re­main un­said. But...

In all, she passed the evening with­out fi­nal­iz­ing her mes­sage, and spent more of the fol­low­ing day than she would care to ad­mit wor­ry­ing about it. It got to the point where when she no­ticed, once more, Lan Wu con­spic­u­ous­ly pay­ing at­ten­tion to her, she felt far more ir­ri­ta­ble than usu­al, as the woman's spy­ing was now was in­trud­ing into some­thing she con­sid­ered pri­vate.

Ki'el was not im­pul­sive, and while she had the thought to take that mo­ment to go and ar­gue with the woman--or at least talk to her, which she knew she should do--it was only a pass­ing thing. But when­ev­er she stopped her work, or had noth­ing else to do with her mind, now at least those thoughts were split again, be­tween what she should say to her mas­ter, and what she should do about a woman who might still be a threat--or maybe not.

When at last, she de­cid­ed that the mes­sage she had served her pur­pos­es, she al­lowed Kuli to send it on her be­half.

[ Sobon, I wish to speak with you if you are able. I wish to praise you great­ly for your help - Kuli, which is the as­si­tant I was giv­en by your friend, has been in­valu­able, and the three of us are pro­gress­ing well at the Moon­stone Is­land Sect. But while Kuli and your in­sights are very help­ful for me, I am un­sure how I can use my and her knowl­edge, and the tools that you have giv­en me, to help Xam and Mian, and oth­ers that I have met here. If you will be able to re­spond, it will be of great help. ]

Ki'el took a deep breath, feel­ing the stress of com­pos­ing the mes­sage leav­ing her, and was as­ton­ished when even be­fore she ful­ly re­leased her breath, she sensed--and Kuli ac­knowl­edged--a re­turn mes­sage.

[ Ki'el! ] The emo­tion that the sin­gle word con­tained shocked her. There was gen­uine plea­sure--but also a back­ground of pain, pain that seemed to have noth­ing to do with her. [ I would not have ex­pect­ed you to form such a well thought out mes­sage so soon. Your progress as­ton­ished me even when we first met, and I'm glad it con­tin­ues. ]

Ki'el, though she had stopped by the side of the road to let Kuli send the mes­sage, found her­self sud­den­ly strug­gling with em­bar­rass­ment, not hav­ing ex­pect­ed to have such a strong re­ac­tion now, in the mid­dle of the day and the mid­dle of the sect. Sure­ly...? She ex­pect­ed to take quite some time to hear out the mes­sage, un­der­stand it, and form a re­ply, but Sobon's re­ply was not short­er than hers, and he had formed it as quick­ly as if they were sim­ply speak­ing to one an­oth­er--per­haps even faster.

[ Your Kuli also sent along a note in­tro­duc­ing her­self, and asked if I would wish her to be... a trans­later, I sup­pose, or a mes­sen­ger in a larg­er sense, but I am hap­py to 'speak' to you, in this sense at least, more di­rect­ly. I... will not al­ways be able to. I am in­volved with mat­ters here, now, and do­ing work that will not al­ways be in­ter­rupt­ed so eas­i­ly, es­pe­cial­ly for heavy mat­ters, but this is no trou­ble. ]

[ Re­gret­ful­ly, as I said be­fore, Ki'el, train­ing oth­ers was nev­er my spe­cial­ty, but please ask your ques­tions, and I will tell you what I know. If I can­not an­swer im­me­di­ate­ly, trust that I will find time to an­swer when I can. ]

Ki'el con­sid­ered the mes­sage, and then forced her­self back to her feet and to con­tin­ue her walk. She... had hoped that once she sent the mes­sage, she would be able to fo­cus on oth­er things for a time. But know­ing that she could con­tact Sobon again, with his per­mis­sion, sent her heart rac­ing and made her mood very messy.

Even­tu­al­ly, when she had done her task and re­turned to Sis­ter Futi, she begged off an­oth­er task and went to med­i­tate by the edge of the is­land. When she was cer­tain that she felt calm--the med­i­ta­tion, and gen­tle use of aether, fi­nal­ly smooth­ing her tan­gled emo­tions, she summed up the sit­u­a­tion, and--feel­ing less of a need to make it per­fect--had Kuli send it af­ter only a brief re­view. It was... messier, she thought as she re­viewed it, re­mov­ing and edit­ing small bits, adding words to make it sound more like her voice, but leav­ing the whole of it in­tact. But she thought it said all that she need­ed it to say.

[ I have been work­ing on a ver­sion of the Pow­er Cy­cle, that is, your aether dyan­mo, that at­tempts to peel in­tent off of qi to pu­ri­fy it. It is not, I am sure, like the crown, though I have not used it. It can only re­move in­tent that I un­der­stand, which is up to In­ner and Out­er aether. I have at­tempt­ed to teach it to Mian and Xam, and Mian makes some use of the gen­er­al tech­nique, but Xam does not wish to. I wish for Xam to be able to use pu­ri­fied qi to ac­cli­ma­tize her body be­fore at­tempt­ing the Gold­en Wall, but with­out that tech­nique, we have no nor­mal method. Mian sug­gest­ed I teach him to use sev­er­al aether dy­namos, and he could pro­duce enough for Xam to use only that. Xam is un­sure, since Mian and I and Kuli are not mas­ters and do not un­der­stand. What are your thoughts? ]

There was a mod­er­ate pause, enough that Ki'el thought she could prob­a­bly go and do some­thing else, but Sobon replied again.

[ I see. I am pleased to hear you have be­gun hav­ing in­sights into [space] lev­el aether. That is the sec­ond tier, In­ner and Out­er. The low­est is [res­o­nance], and the next high­er is [time]. But to an­swer your ques­tion: I sup­pose Mian would will­ing­ly take such a role, but I wouldn't ask or ad­vise him to. Pow­er is pow­er, and hav­ing too much of it--even too much Right­eous Aether--is a prob­lem. It is pos­si­ble, if he nev­er touched the dy­namos ex­cept to use them very care­ful­ly, that there would be no con­se­quence. But it is more like­ly that it would cause prob­lems, and as you have al­ready seen, dy­namos are sta­ble--they will con­tin­ue to op­er­ate even if some­thing is go­ing wrong. If he is ever in a state where one be­gins to cause a prob­lem, it may be dead­ly. ]

Ki'el swal­lowed, un­der­stand­ing that Sobon had trust­ed--and still trust­ed--Ki'el to han­dle such tools, even be­fore she had Kuli.

[ If I were there, I would glad­ly pro­vide space or tools to help you, but I am lim­it­ed to ad­vice for now. My ex­pe­ri­ence with the Gold­en Wall was that the most im­por­tant task was be­ing able to both per­ceive and act while ex­posed to pow­er­ful qi, or pow­er­ful aether. If you can­not pro­vide Xam a method to pu­ri­fy her qi, you can also train her to re­sist harm­ful aether. You do still have a left-hand aether dy­namo, don't you? It may do you good to prac­tice with it, and ex­po­sure in a safe en­vi­ron­ment will help the oth­ers. I know you, of all peo­ple, will not overuse it. ]

When she fin­ished re­view­ing the mes­sage, Ki'el closed her eyes and re­flect­ed on it. In truth, she had not made any real use of her left-hand dy­namo, and she was un­sure of its ef­fects. In a way, she had ex­pect­ed it to be some­thing like her fire tech­nique, which she had done lit­tle with since she'd ex­plod­ed a sin­gle hot coal from the fire pit. She thought of left hand aether as a weapon. But... did not peo­ple train with weapons here?

[ How do I use it safe­ly? ] Ki'el con­sid­ered the mes­sage for a long time be­fore ask­ing Kuli to send that, and only that, to Sobon.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

[ It is the coun­ter­part to right-hand aether, ] the re­ply came, quick­ly. [ Right-hand aether did not heal you when you were bad­ly hurt, it only helped keep you go­ing. Left-hand aether will not kill those that are healthy, but it will make it hard­er for them to re­main healthy while it is be­ing used. Since you do not have an un­lim­it­ed sup­ply, if you do not hurt them or use it while they are in dan­ger, there should be al­most no last­ing ef­fects, and any ef­fects can be less­ened with right-hand aether. ]

Ki'el con­sid­ered that, for a long time, be­fore send­ing an­oth­er mes­sage. [ Is it not what you used for your weapons? ]

The re­ply seemed en­tire­ly too fast, to Ki'el, giv­en how wor­ried she was, but Sobon's thoughts were clear and em­pa­thet­ic. [ Those were com­pli­cat­ed scripts only pow­ered with aether, Ki'el, and as dif­fer­ent from the raw aether it­self as heal­ing scripts are from right-hand aether. I un­der­stand your fear, and it is good to be cau­tious. Nev­er use it on some­one who is not an en­e­my un­less they un­der­stand what you are do­ing and are pre­pared--but do not fear that it is some pow­er­ful evil en­er­gy that will crip­ple them. Even high­er-lev­el aethers must be chan­neled in par­tic­u­lar ways to be turned into good weapons. ]

Ki'el nod­ded, al­though Sobon wasn't there to see it, and sent along a fi­nal [ Thank you ] be­fore al­low­ing her­self to stop think­ing about con­vers­ing more with Sobon. She took her time to steady her mind and heart again, half ex­pect­ing one last re­ply, but ei­ther Sobon un­der­stood her words or her in­tent, and in ei­ther case did not con­tin­ue. At last, when she had clalmed her­self, she stood and moved back to­wards the Less­er House.

She was sur­prised, and im­me­di­ate­ly sus­pi­cious, when she saw Lan Wu not far down the path, lean­ing against a tree and watch­ing her. The idea that the woman was watch­ing... Ki'el grit her teeth, but moved up to the woman, and Lan Wu did not flee from her, al­though she thought the woman seemed con­cerned.

"You," Ki'el said, let­ting her voice be filled with an ac­cu­sa­tion. "Why do you keep fol­low­ing me?"

"I could deny it," Lan Wu said, tap­ping one of her hands with a pa­per fan held in the oth­er. "But it would serve no pur­pose. I hear you've been pry­ing into my his­to­ry as well. Not un­wise." Wu flicked the fan open, and cov­ered just her mouth with it. The fan had a de­sign, but Ki'el was un­fa­mil­iar with it. A bird, of some kind, clear­ly a spir­it beast. "I'd be sur­prised if you hadn't guessed, Sis­ter Ki'el, but there are fac­tions in­ter­est­ed in you af­ter what you did. Both fac­tions in­ter­est­ed in help­ing you... and fac­tions that are not."

"And which do you rep­re­sent?" Ki'el watched her, un­sure of whether the woman's poise meant some­thing. "Or who are you be­ing hired by?"

"So cyn­i­cal," Lan Wu said, then sud­den­ly snapped the fan shut. "But you aren't wrong. Rather than some­one sid­ing with you, peo­ple are cu­ri­ous to know more about a sword. A sword with strange prop­er­ties, they say. What they so ea­ger­ly de­sire is any use­ful in­for­ma­tion, most like­ly be­cause some­one thought it was valu­able, and oth­ers want to know for sure be­fore they com­mit to try­ing to take it from you."

"I will tell them noth­ing," Ki'el said, though as she said it, she re­al­ized what she was say­ing meant noth­ing, and was sim­ply her be­ing bel­liger­ent to Lan Wu, de­spite the fact that the oth­er woman was... per­haps be­ing hon­est, if still her op­po­nent.

"Hum," Lan Wu said, "a bor­ing re­sponse, but then, giv­en that you were... what, per­form­ing some long dis­tance in­tent-speech? No doubt your mas­ter gave you some ar­ti­fact, as well as that sword. And you have a space ring, as well, if only one of the less­er ones." Wu glanced down at Ki'el's hands, and Ki'el ner­vous­ly shift­ed one hand to cov­er her ring. "You should have learned from Xan Bu, girl, that the wise choice when some­one is af­ter some­thing of yours is sim­ply not to be in pos­ses­sion of it, not as far as the Sect can prove. Xan Bu ac­tu­al­ly had far more than you re­ceived--he was a part of a net­work of peo­ple, and stole from them just as they stole from oth­ers. I, among oth­er peo­ple, was one he oc­ca­sion­al­ly al­lowed to hold some of 'his' things, in ex­change for cer­tain fa­vors."

Ki'el felt her skin crawl at the idea that this Lan Wu had worked with Xan Bu, but when she sud­den­ly straight­ened, mov­ing away form the tree, there was still noth­ing threat­en­ing to her de­meanor. "Make no mis­take," Lan Wu said, "It is bet­ter that he is gone. I won't, of course, say any­thing about what I may or may not have had in my pos­ses­sion at the end. Ex­cept to say that I ob­vi­ous­ly had noth­ing of his." The in­sin­cer­i­ty in her voice was read­i­ly ap­par­ent. "But what I will say is that what passed through his hands ob­vi­ous­ly in­clud­ed things that do not be­long in the Less­er House. Tal­is­mans and ar­ti­facts wor­thy of the Out­er Sect, at least. Why and how those peo­ple med­dle, I don't like to think. But when they look for peo­ple to in­flu­ence, it is not hard to find some­one will­ing to do their bid­ding."

"In the world be­yond the sect, the rich dan­gle gems be­fore the poor, but the poor can nev­er rise in their sta­tion. Here, dan­gling scraps be­fore a wild dog may ac­tu­al­ly pull them for­ward out of this hell hole and into the Sect prop­er. Re­sist­ing them is quite dan­ger­ous, Sis­ter."

Ki'el lis­tened to all of it, but still re­gard­ed Lan Wu war­i­ly. "Why are you say­ing this?" she fi­nal­ly asked. "Are you not in­tend­ing to work for them any longer?"

"One con­tract end­ed, an­oth­er be­gins," Wu said. "As I said, there are those in the Out­er Sect who hope that no one will both­er you. I'm not in­tend­ing to pro­tect you, Sis­ter, but de­liv­er­ing a mes­sage has so far turned out much eas­i­er than try­ing to catch you ran­dom­ly pulling out an ar­ti­fact." She half turned, and raised her fan as if in farewell. "But trust that if I am ever prop­er­ly paid, I will have my ways of get­ting to you."

"With your voice tech­nique?" Ki'el asked, and was hon­est­ly fair­ly sur­prised when the woman paused in mid step. "You can't have imag­ined that peo­ple did not no­tice."

Lan Wu stood stock still for a mo­ment, but flicked open her fan and turned back to her, cov­er­ing her mouth with it, seem­ing to re­gain her poise in­stant­ly thanks most­ly to the prop. "Peo­ple no­tice, Sis­ter. But I am sur­prised by the scorn in your voice. You don't think me ca­pa­ble of in­flu­enc­ing peo­ple with it? Or did you think, since you were nev­er the tar­get of it, that it is tru­ly a weak thing?" Lan Wu raised the fan un­til it just bare­ly didn't cov­er her eyes. "Would you care to face it? Do you dare?"

Ki'el con­sid­ered, but be­gan cy­cling her Righeous Aether, and also the pu­ri­fied qi in her qi cy­cle, most­ly still un­col­lect­ed from the pre­vi­ous day. "I do not mind."

"You may re­gret that." And Lan Wu's eyes flashed, and Ki'el felt a buzz in her head--but it was only slight­ly more than that. She could feel a tiny prick of pain, as though a nee­dle was be­ing pressed against her, but not hard.

She frowned, aware that her mind was sharp­er be­cause of her pu­ri­fied aether, and won­dered whether it would have been worse with­out it. "Is that all?"

Lan Wu blinked, her con­cen­tra­tion dis­rupt­ed. "What?"

"I could feel it, a bit of pain," Ki'el said. "Is that it? Noth­ing more?"

"Tsk," Lan Wu said, look­ing away and cov­er­ing the pro­file of her face with the fan. "Not some coun­try bump­kin to be im­pressed by tricks, I see. I sup­pose I should have ex­pect­ed that. I have more dan­ger­ous tech­niques, but I am loathe to use it--them when not in an of­fi­cial and sanc­tioned duel." She looked back, mak­ing sure to keep her face cov­ered. "But more than that, Sis­ter, you should be cau­tious. If some­one sent me af­ter you, they'd more than like­ly pro­vide me with an Out­er Sect ar­ti­fact to im­prove my abil­i­ty be­yond a lev­el you could han­dle."

Ki'el just stood there, un­sure whether the woman was se­ri­ous, and had only that much to show for her­self. But then... should she be ex­pect­ing more than that? Per­haps peo­ple like Be­nai and Chi­an had giv­en her a strange im­pres­sion of what some­one at Gold Qi could do. Or peo­ple like her­self, and Sobon. She just sighed, and fi­nal­ly looked away from the woman.

"Just go," Ki'el said. "You have no idea what I have been through. You have no way to fright­en me, Lan Wu."

"No?" Ki'el turned back to the woman at the ques­tion, to find that the woman had pro­duced a sword--but no, it was only a mo­men­tary il­lu­sion, and Ki'el could al­most feel the woman's qi strain to main­tain it. Be­cause she kept her poise and kept her face hid­den, though, it was dif­fi­cult to tell by look­ing. "There are many fright­en­ing things in life, Sis­ter Ki'el."

"Yes," Ki'el said blunt­ly. "Like rapists and mur­der­ers. Like pi­rates and slavers. Like mur­der­ous war­riors with swords and Ti­ta­ni­um Qi." Ki'el stalked for­ward, though any thought of ac­tu­al­ly do­ing some­thing to threat­en the woman was kept in check by her lim­it­ed un­der­stand­ing of the for­fei­ture rules. "I have faced things that are gen­uine­ly fright­en­ing, Lan Wu. You have no way to threat­en me." She passed the woman by, find­ing her steps heavy and stompy as she went.

"There are greater dan­gers than you in the Less­er House," Lan Wu said, well be­fore Ki'el was out of hear­ing range, and she paused. "Per­haps--just per­haps--I am not one of them. But each of the sleep­ing drag­ons has a duty, and a price." The woman paused, but when she spoke again, it didn't sound like she had turned or moved from where Ki'el had left her. "I'm sure you've met at least one. Are you pre­pared for the idea that they might some­day be­come an en­e­my? It might be bet­ter to sim­ply yield."

Ki'el con­sid­ered that for only half a mo­ment, and found that when she spoke, she hadn't thought about what she said at all.

"If an en­e­my comes for my aether sword, I will en­sure that the at­tempt costs them more than sect points." And then, un­sure that what she said was wise, she moved away again.

Be­hind her, Lan Wu stood there, let­ting the young fool of a girl walk away, be­fore snap­ping her fan shut. "[Aether sword], hm? That might be worth some­thing." And she turned around, and very slow­ly fol­lowed Ki'el down the path to­wards the Less­er House.