None of them were en­tire­ly sure what they should and should not say, but Ki'el spoke for a time about the world be­ing in great dan­ger from threats from be­yond, from mas­ters who may be an­gry due to the sins of this world. The more she spoke, though, the more she could feel that Sobon's own ex­pla­na­tions had been in­com­plete; it went be­yond the fact that she couldn't ful­ly ex­plain what Sobon had told her and Mian, and touched on some­thing deep­er.

When she con­sid­ered it, Sobon hadn't known about that con­flict when she first met him, but he had still been... dis­tressed. Un­able to live in the mo­ment, he had been dis­tant from the start. In a way... or to an ex­tent, he had been sim­i­lar in his spir­it to her, and the dis­tressed beasts of her vil­lage. Of course, he had died and come back, and was trapped in­side the body of a squir­rel, but... that did not com­plete­ly match what she felt from him. What­ev­er both­ered him didn't seem so... per­son­al.

She was sure, though, that Da Chi­an was mis­un­der­stand­ing her mes­sage, as the girl seemed pos­i­tive, even up­beat to hear that there was some glob­al prob­lem that need­ed solv­ing. She sat back, con­sid­er­ing things, but sim­ply nod­ded. "I don't think my clan would be in­volved in any­thing like that," she said, quite mat­ter-of-fact­ly. "We would proud­ly meet the mas­ters-from-be­yond, and work with them, if nec­es­sary."

Ki'el and Mian ex­changed looks, but nei­ther said any­thing. Sobon had seemed to be­lieve there was no hope of peace, but... was he cer­tain? Or sim­ply afraid?

"Still," Da Chi­an sat up straighter, look­ing at Ki'el. "It is an in­ter­est­ing sto­ry. And there is much dan­ger in the world. I don't know about any of it--if I were home, I would bring prob­a­bly bring it to my grand­fa­ther, but it would be a long way to go from here. Bai Be­nai might be able to send word, but I wouldn't ex­pect more than a spir­it mes­sen­ger, es­pe­cial­ly since your mas­ter isn't here or re­quest­ing any­thing." She con­sid­ered. "If in the fu­ture, your mas­ter builds a no­ble house... it might not be im­pos­si­ble to ne­go­ti­ate, but I don't think it would be easy. We live in the shad­ow of one of the Djang Great Clans--the Han fam­i­ly, one of the top ten in terms of pow­er. They don't rule us di­rect­ly, but they per­mit us in their ter­ri­to­ry, and I as­sume there are rules."

"I would imag­ine so," said Xoi Xam with a cer­tain bite to her words, that Ki'el thought was dis­ap­prov­ing of the un­der­state­ment.

If she no­ticed, Chi­an didn't mind. "The Han fam­i­ly don't hunt us, but they don't pro­tect us much, ei­ther. The moun­tain I grew up on--"

But Mian stood up. "I don't mean to in­ter­rupt," he said, "but I for one am not con­fi­dent in my abil­i­ty to clear the Gold­en Wall by the end of the month. You can talk freely, but... I need to fo­cus."

Chi­an, though she said noth­ing, had a look on her face that was al­most of­fend­ed. Ki'el put a hand on hers, to try to com­fort the girl, but the look she got back was still dis­pleased. "We all have much to work on," Ki'el said. "Some peo­ple, some­times, need to work when they can. Mian does not mean any­thing by it."

"No, he does not," agreed Chi­an, blow­ing out a frus­trat­ed breath. "And I sup­pose since we all just ex­pe­ri­enced some­thing, we should all med­i­tate on it. I just... en­joy talk­ing about home."

Xam got up and moved away. "You two can talk," she said, "but I will be with my hus­band."

That left Ki'el and Chi­an by the fire. This close, al­though Chi­an's ears and tail were con­cealed, when she looked at the girl in the dark­ness, she could al­most imag­ine where they ought to be. In a way, Ki'el thought, she seemed... in­com­plete with­out them.

"I ap­pre­ci­ate what Kuli said," Chi­an said into the still­ness, and Ki'el fo­cused on the oth­er girl. "That be­ing healthy--be­com­ing health­i­er does not need to mean be­com­ing sub­mis­sive. In many ways, it's un­like the teach­ings of our fam­i­ly. They only al­low one way for­ward, and all oth­er ways are harm­ful and wrong." Chi­an closed her eyes. "I... could imag­ine that the oth­er ways for­ward are dan­ger­ous. That oth­ers have tried them and failed. But if there was only one way, all fam­i­lies would fol­low it."

Ki'el nod­ded. "If there was only one way, the Di­a­mond Lord him­self would have fol­lowed it."

Chi­an flinched at that. "Let's not say things too far above our sta­tion," she chid­ed. "But, you're right. The way of our fam­i­ly nev­er led us to those kind of heights. The Clan Ma­tri­arch is only..." she paused. "I should not say. But if she could have crushed the head of the Han fam­i­ly, she would have. And he is well be­low the Di­a­mond Lord."

Ki'el just nod­ded. "I don't tru­ly un­der­stand the way of my mas­ter, but I know that much of what fol­lows is prepar­ing our­selves to hold greater pow­er with­out mak­ing mis­takes. Un­der­stand­ing pow­er, and what's com­ing..." she paused. "But I don't. And I don't be­lieve that I'm sup­posed to. Even he seemed to be wait­ing un­til he was stronger to han­dle un­lock­ing deep­er lev­els of his pow­er."

"It would be strange if some­one of­fered us all that we need­ed be­fore we were ready to han­dle it," Chi­an agreed. "But you be­lieve he had un­der­stand­ing far be­yond his pow­er?"

Ki'el paused, but sim­ply looked Chi­an in the eye. "I am cer­tain," she said, and her voice held no doubts at all.

Chi­an ac­cept­ed that, nod­ding sim­ply. "I be­lieve it," she said. "I wish that I had that in­sight, or pow­er, but I feel like it will be a long time be­fore I'm ready for any­thing be­yond the ba­sics." She looked down at her hand, and af­ter a mo­ment, one of her aether cy­cles ap­peared above it--Right­eous, Ki'el thought, though it was hard­ly mov­ing at all. "Even this. My spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy rec­og­nizes it, but there's no un­der­stand­ing there. Some­where in­side, I know how to wield it, but be­yond that..."

Ki'el con­sid­ered that. What makes her spir­i­tu­al en­er­gy dif­fer­ent from aether? Or qi? What is it that holds such pow­er but is be­yond us?

She felt some­thing strange from Kuli, as though she was dis­con­tent, but she an­swered Ki'el silent­ly. { It is sim­i­lar to a qi na­ture, but qi cre­at­ed by some­one else. The 'key' or 'way' to use pow­er is with­in the en­er­gy it­self, and can­not be eas­i­ly ex­tract­ed. If you had the qi of a fire mas­ter, but did not un­der­stand fire, it would seem sim­i­lar­ly tem­per­me­n­tal. }

Ki'el con­sid­ered, and af­ter a mo­ment, re­peat­ed what Kuli said aloud, and Chi­an looked over at her, nod­ding when she was done. "That is much like what I've heard," she said, "but more than that... the pow­er of my blood­line con­tains some bless­ings and will of its own. They told me many things they thought it meant, but... they also don't like to an­swer. It's hard to even know how much they know." She scowled and bunched up, de­fen­sive­ly. "They also don't like any­one con­fronting them about those stu­pid things. Even with­in the fam­i­ly. But..." she looked at the aether ring in her hand, again. "...I don't know what it's all sup­posed to mean. They taught me a lot of small things that they said would be need­ed to use my pow­er lat­er, but not the things that un­lock it. And yet, when I look at things like this... I feel like I'm clos­er to the an­ces­tor than to any­one in my fam­i­ly. Touch­ing raw things, and not sim­ply re­peat­ing what oth­ers taught me."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Ki'el con­sid­ered that, and con­sult­ed pri­vate­ly with Kuli. Is there a way to turn qi back into pure out­er aether? Or aether of any lev­el?

{ No, } Kuli said. { The pow­er that binds qi to­geth­er merges the lay­ers. You can repli­cate the ef­fects of the low­er lev­els, but you can­not ex­tract them, or re­move parts of qi that are un­want­ed. }

Ki'el con­sid­ered that. That is why pri­mor­dial qi is so im­por­tant, she pushed the thought at Kuli. There is no know­ing what pow­ers have touched the en­er­gy you use, on lev­els you can­not de­tect or un­der­stand, not un­less it is cre­at­ed from scratch.

Kuli didn't an­swer di­rect­ly, but Ki'el got the dis­tinct im­pres­sion that she was cor­rect.

Ki'el said, "I know about the lay­ers that come next, but... the only one I've been able to touch is the sec­ond lev­el, and I can't cre­ate aether of that lev­el yet. But... I did find a pair of stones touched by nat­ur­al aether that mim­ic­ed the ef­fects." She paused. "I wish I had kept them. But it went against what I was told to do at the time, and I didn't think about the fu­ture. I doubt I could find the place or those stones again. But..." she hes­i­tat­ed, then spoke. "It is a pair of en­er­gies, one flow­ing end­less­ly out, one flow­ing end­less­ly in. Gen­e­sis and Con­sump­tion Aether."

"End­less?" Da Chi­an leaned for­ward, her face in­ter­est­ed. "A source of end­less pow­er?"

"No," she said. "A flow that seems to come from nowhere and go every­where, but does not. And the op­po­site... is a flow that seems to come from every­where and re­turn to noth­ing, but does not." Ki'el looked around, then fo­cused back on Chi­an. "Sobon says they are the 'space' lay­er of aether, but I don't re­al­ly know what that means."

"Space..." Chi­an made a face. "I wouldn't re­al­ly know what it means ei­ther, but if it only seems to be flow­ing in and out, that means it con­nects over dis­tance, right? So that the cir­cle is com­plete even if you can't see it."

Ki'el nod­ded, hard­ly notic­ing in her ex­cite­ment of talk­ing how much she was say­ing. "It has to mean more than that, or it has to have hid­den uses... he uses it to cre­ate aether script and struc­ture in midair."

Chi­an looked at her, then sighed. "Ki'el... don't give away too many se­crets, even among friends. But." She closed her eyes and con­sid­ered. "Com­plet­ing a cir­cle across any dis­tance... it doesn't re­al­ly make sense. If only half of the cir­cle is vis­i­ble, what is the oth­er half?"

Ki'el flinched at the re­buke, and didn't an­swer Chi­an's ques­tion, though she did think about the ques­tion. Sobon had said that the aether flowed in high­er lev­els, and that the cy­cle had to pass through them. But what did that mean? What ex­ist­ed in the place that aether flowed through? If her own qi in­clud­ed aether in all of those lev­els... wasn't her mag­ic, and every­one else's, al­ready flow­ing through all of those lev­els? Didn't she al­ready ex­ist, in some sense, in those high­er lev­els of aether?

Was some part of her­self con­stant­ly cy­cling from the phys­i­cal world into the world be­yond, and back?

As Ki'el sat there and con­sid­ered it, she felt an urge to pull out her sword and med­i­tate... but, no. Lan Wu had just said that she had been snoop­ing and try­ing to catch her with the sword, and sug­gest­ed she wasn't alone in that. Ki'el... should have watched what she said, she re­al­ized, and as she glanced out at the dark­ness, she could only feel the dark­ness more dis­tinct­ly. Was some­one out there, and she had just missed it?

"Wor­ried about some­thing?" Chi­an's voice brought Ki'el back. "There's no one near. I wouldn't have let you talk more if I thought there were."

"You are cer­tain?"

Chi­an's good mood seemed to fade at that ques­tion. "We can nev­er re­al­ly be sure. If some­one from the rest of the Sect, es­pe­cial­ly some­one who tru­ly stud­ies stealth, want­ed to hide from me, they could. And I don't al­ways cir­cu­late my qi. But... when we start­ed to talk more se­ri­ous­ly, I did. There is no one close, and no sign of qi ex­cept from your friends."

Ki'el turned to look at Chi­an again, sur­prised. "I didn't sense any­thing."

"I hope not. That's part of the tech­nique." Chi­an sighed. "I al­most envy you, talk­ing so eas­i­ly about your se­crets. But even if I want­ed to talk about it, most of it is in­stinct, and con­trol tech­niques. The most I could re­al­ly de­scribe is how to con­trol the spir­it en­er­gy, what I can do with it. It's not like I could talk about cre­at­ing the qi that I use, not the way I'm learn­ing fire. But then, with aether..." she made a face. "It feels... I don't know."

"Sobon talked about aether as though it is the base of every­thing, a nat­ur­al part of the uni­verse that came be­fore life it­self." Ki'el looked at the oth­er girl, as Chi­an seemed to be lost in throught. "Even spir­its must cre­ate their strength from some nat­ur­al pow­er. I guess that must be aether."

"I guess," Chi­an agreed. "If that's the case... I won­der what it's like to use all of that pow­er." She reached one hand up to­wards the sky, al­though the trees around them blocked most of the stars, and the night above was hazy. "We're at the bot­tom, but what is at the top? Gods? Some­thing else? Or maybe noth­ing has ever reached that high be­fore?" She closed her fist, as though grasp­ing at noth­ing. "I won­der what it would be like to be the first. To tran­scend qi, tran­scend aether. To mas­ter the world it­self."

Ki'el shiv­ered at the thought, not lik­ing it. "It... is not for me," she said, though she felt like her ear­li­er con­fi­dence in liv­ing a sim­ple life, like a sword, was some­how weak­ened lis­ten­ing to Chi­an speak, or... weak­ened, some­how, from her spir­it. "To gath­er pow­er for the sake of pow­er..."

"Yeah, but that's it, isn't it?" Chi­an turned to look at her. "It's not hard to see the bad peo­ple who gained strength and did ter­ri­ble things with it. But did those peo­ple lose their way be­cause they searched for pow­er? Or were they screwed up by oth­ers be­cause they didn't have enough pow­er? The way your Kuli talked about be­ing in­jured and be­com­ing a worse per­son be­cause of it, and the way your mas­ter talks about prepar­ing to have pow­er... it sounds like it's not hav­ing pow­er that's some kind of prob­lem, is it? You just can't let any­one or any­thing take you off of the path. If you're healthy and pre­pared for it... then there's noth­ing good or bad about pow­er. It just is, right?"

Ki'el stared at Chi­an, feel­ing some­thing stir­ring in­side of her that she didn't know how to put into words. But she looked away af­ter a mo­ment, feel­ing like she shouldn't be hav­ing the feel­ing, and looked for some­thing to dis­tract her. "Well... I mean, that's all we would have want­ed in the first place, right? To stay on our path, be healthy, pre­pare for pow­er we don't have yet...?"

"I guess," Chi­an said. "And I guess many of the peo­ple who be­come lost in a place like this... they must have had some mis­step, or been forced off the path by some­one else. But it all feels like..." She fi­nal­ly let her arm drop. "...talk­ing with you makes me feel like it's ac­tu­al­ly pos­si­ble. And not just some­thing weird and dis­tant." She looked back at Ki'el, who re­fused to meet her gaze. "So... thank you for that, Ki'el. I... am glad you're my friend. And I'll do what I can to help you, I guess."

Ki'el felt her face flush, and pushed some right­eous aether into her spir­it to try to quash the feel­ing... but it only made a strange heat stir with­in her. She stopped, and grasped at some­thing to say in re­ply. "You guess?" she said, fi­nal­ly.

Chi­an just laughed. "Well, we've only known each oth­er a few days so far. But yes, I will help." She paused. "And as part of that... I'd like to ask about what else you re­ceived in your for­fei­ture. I know you re­ceived that space ring from it," she glanced at Ki'el, who did noth­ing to deny it. "...but what about herbs, trea­sures, any­thing?"

"The con­tents of the space ring were nev­er re­turned to me," Ki'el said, "be­cause they were un­der sus­pi­cion. But there were sev­er­al reser­va­tions..." Ki'el list­ed them, again, watch­ing Chi­an's eyes, but only two things seemed to reach her.

"As I'd hoped," she said. "With the sil­ver and time with an in­scrip­tion­ist, plus one oth­er in­gre­di­ent, it would not be dif­fi­cult to cre­ate a tear em­blem." Chi­an looked at her. "They are com­mon­ly used for sum­mon­ings, and with the qual­i­ty of our ma­te­ri­als, they could only do the low­est-lev­el ones. But it would suf­fice to call a spir­it from my fam­i­ly."

Ki'el heard all that, but wasn't sure she un­der­stood. "You want to sum­mon a spir­it from your fam­i­ly?"

"It would be a small an­i­mal spir­it," Chi­an said. "Bound to serve the sum­mon­er, they would pro­vide in­sights, and user their spir­i­tu­al pow­er to de­fend them if nec­es­sary." Chi­an rocked back and forth a lit­tle. "My fam­i­ly has a lot of them, but I couldn't bring one when I left. I have to be strong enough in spir­it to forge and main­tain the link my­self."

Ki'el con­sid­ered that. "But hav­ing this spir­it would help you?"

Chi­an went qui­et for a mo­ment, at that. "Ah," she said af­ter a minute. "You re­al­ly are a nice girl, Ki'el."

Ki'el's con­fu­sion must have showed, but Chi­an only seemed to bask in it for a minute.

"I said I was do­ing some­thing to help you, didn't I?" she said, fi­nal­ly. "I wouldn't ask you to sum­mon one for my sake. In a while, I'll be able to han­dle that my­self. I was say­ing I'd help you sum­mon one for your­self."