41. Politics

Many things were said and done in my name which I had no involvement in during the weeks following the attack on the city of Mer’cah. I became a figurehead, the hero that the people cheered for as the smoke of the fires cleared and the rubble was carried away and the dead were counted and burned. I was a symbol of hope, and who was I to take that hope away from them?

I dared not appear in my true body, but I walked through the city in avatar form, often doing nothing more than allowing myself to be seen, but changing lives as I did so. I could see the effect that I was having on these people as they gathered to speak with me, cheer at me, or simply watch me pass by.

I felt the bonds reaching out between myself and the city, and reluctantly I was forced to accept them.

All the while I walked the silent halls of the library inside the ring on Hien Ro’s finger, reading and learning the history of the Six Mountain Sect.

Three weeks passed, and I felt the strings of fate begin to strengthen as the important decisions were made by others in power. More and more began pulling at me, forking in opposite direction. Appearing and vanishing every moment as action and inaction took their consequences.

I am not prescient. Not truly. Nor am I omniscient. I see more than a mortal, but less than a god, and in that gap lies an ocean.

Finally, the course of the future split in two directions when Hien Ro received an invitation from the Council of Mer’cah, which was initially formed to oversee the tournament but had grown beyond that purpose in the wake of Ko Ren’s attack.

As he sat, reading the invitation, I left the ring to appear to him.

“Dammit, give me some warning before you pop in out of nowhere!” he exclaimed, rubbing his head, for I’d surprised him and caused him to launch himself into the ceiling.

“What does the invitation say?” I inquired.

He passed it over for me to read. It was an invitation to speak with the council about Hien Ro’s future. It was strongly suggested that he had been scouted by a number of their constituent sects and that this was an opportunity to press him to join one of them. I nodded, because Hien Ro’s talent had blossomed since we’d come south, and he’d done quite well in the tournament from what I remember watching through my Dao Avatar’s eyes.

“What do I do?” he asked me.

“That’s up to you,” I said.

“Okay, so what are you going to do,” he asked. “Because I intend to follow you no matter where you go.”

“That won’t be possible forever, Brother Ro,” I informed him sadly. “But very well. For as long as I remain on Atla, I shall try to make certain you will walk by my side.”

“Okay. Good. So no more hiding in the ring?”

“I’m finished with the ring,” I admitted. “I have everything I need from it. It’s time to give it back to its proper owners.”

“I don’t get to keep it?” he asked mournfully.

“Enough time has passed that I do not believe agents of Ko Ren will attempt to assassinate any of my Dao Avatars any longer. And since I believe only you know me well enough to tell the difference between my true self and an avatar, I shall go with you to this meeting,” I informed him. “And we shall give the ring back to Pi Phon together.”

Hien Ro sighed, looking at the opalescent ring on his finger. “Too bad. I would have liked to have owned a country.”

~~~~~~

Tonilla stretched, feeling her vertebrae pop pleasantly after having sat in the same pose for hours. Now that the ‘important’ matters were dealt with, she could deal with the important matters. She had escorted the avatar back to the private chambers, where a light meal was set out for them to share during the break of the council meeting.

“Tell me, Po Guah. How do you truly feel about Sila?” she inquired.

The young awakened soul shrugged, relieving himself in a chamberpot in the corner of the room. “He’s a vapid mouthbreather whose opinions are as predictable as a spring rain. But he’s one of the less offensive members of your make-shift court.”

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She grinned. It was always fascinating to see behind the mask of this boy, and he was so different when she was alone with him. If he were a few years older she would press her luck a bit further, but she was content to share her bed with Pi Phon for the moment.

“And Loren?” she asked.

“She’s got nice tits.”

“It’s curious that you’d notice such things,” Tonilla commented.

“I’m a boy. I might have an awakened soul, but I’ve also got a healthy body,” Pi Guah said. “It’s rather frustrating that it’s impossible not to notice those things to be honest.”

They continued to discuss the ‘court’ as Po Guah called it, and she carefully took notes on the boy’s preference of each member of the council. With Po Guah as her figurehead, she was establishing a very nice little fiefdom, and she was rather--

“Oh, he’s here,” the boy said suddenly. He turned to her and smiled. “It’s been fun playing politics with you, ma’am.”

Then he puffed into mist.

Just like the avatars always do when they’d served their purpose, she realized. And it was in that moment that she realized she’d been cultivating a relationship with an avatar for three weeks, unaware that it was merely a reflection of the boy she wanted to get to know and influence.

She let out a scream of frustration, punching a hole in the wall.

A nervous servant appeared moments later to inform her that “Master Hien Ro and an Avatar of the Awakened Soul have appeared and are requesting an audience with the council.”

She got her emotions back under control and forced a smile onto her face. It wasn’t one that touched her eyes, but she instructed the servant to show them to the waiting area and inform the other council members of the adjustments to the schedule.

Hien Ro hadn’t been very important when they’d known where the real body of Po Guah had been. But now that illusion was dispelled, the pawn had reached the end of the board and become the queen once more.

As she had time to cool down, she was forced to respect the deftness with which she and the rest of the council had been played. She wasn’t far enough along her path to make an avatar herself, but she knew a bit about them. One could see through their eyes, they could speak through their lips. Avatars could act as an extension of oneself in every way possible.

Or they could be false mirrors and disposable edifices.

It was impossible to say which type of avatar had been playing court with her over the last three weeks. Most likely the avatar was aligned with the real Po Guah on the important matters, while little things were intentionally skewed or altered to give a false impression. She didn’t know how much effort was being put in to misguide their attempts at ‘handling’ him, and so she didn’t know how much effort had been lost.

For that matter, she didn’t know when the switch had been made and when the ‘real’ body had vanished on them. Or where it had gone to over the last few weeks.

Then she smiled as she realized that she could turn this to her advantage. She rang a bell, a servant appeared, and moments later two teenage boys were sitting in the room where the avatar had vanished on her moments later.

“It was very clever, playing us like that,” she commented to Po Guah. “Thank you for pulling the veil aside for me. Would you do me a favor, perhaps, and refrain from doing the same to my colleagues?”

Po Guah shrugged. “I make no promises. But I am hungry.”

And so they ate, and she noticed that this version of the boy touched none of the noted favorites of the avatar she had been dealing with, sticking to simple white rice and fried vegetables.

But he ate quite a bit of them.

“What is this about, anyway?” Hien Ro inquired. “Why was I summoned?”

“Oh, it’s as the letter said. Some of the members of our makeshift alliance have noticed your potential and wish to inquire as to your plans for the future. As you know your old Sect, the Six Mountains Sect, has suffered an irreparable schism, with the two sides set to go to war. You needn’t be consumed in those fires.”

“I see,” Hien Ro said. “Well I—”

“Listen to their offer. The entire offer, Brother Ro,” Po Guah said, and Hien Ro’s mouth snapped shut.

“The Raging River Sect is one of those who is offering an invitation to join, but the others will cry foul if I do not let them present their terms at the same time, so I will simply say that we want you as an inner sect disciple and will offer great resources to assist you in reaching the bronze path,” she said.

“I thank you for your consideration and will listen to those terms in more detail when the others present their offers as well,” Hien Ro said, almost mechanically.

“Now then, tell me, Po Guah, what do you really think of Sila?”

“Who?”

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