When Sesako arrived in the vast high-ceilinged room in the house of the clans where Fitzuki had established his headquarters, Fitzuki and Kisiko sat there chatting slowly.
“Not dead?” Fitzuki laughed with relief when Sesako approached him and Kisiko. “I’d thought we’d already lost one of us to a crazy nonsense leap. What were you about?”
“Hinete had the impression that you thought I’d decided to abandon us.”
“You? I know you too well for that. But that new apprentice of yours is a pretty creature. Nervous though — oh, I did ask her a great deal about what materials you took with you. Confirming my hypothesis. Did it work?”
Before Sesako answered, Takue entered the room. She had been his master during his apprenticeship when he'd only had a golden core. Later he collaborated closely with her and Akine once he’d fully developed the purple tinged purified core after he opened his second dantian. His goal had always been to be one of the rare ones that opened their third dantian and became a profound soul.
Takue looked at him, and Sesako saw the pure relief on her face. “You’re still alive…”
Then immediately she transformed herself once more into the firm and distinguished master of the magical arts. “Profound Sesako, you have been missing during a critical period of days.”
“I attempted a dangerous ritual to gain a power that might have saved us. However, the effort has not given me anything which might aid us tomorrow.”
It seemed like a deeply shameful thing to admit that he’d been possessed for several hours by a different spirit.
That buzz existed in the back of his head, growing slowly stronger, and it scared Sesako. He would triumph. His will had overcome that parasite once before, and he would overcome the will of the cowardly and worthless other every single time.
“Wanted to open the fourth dantian, eh?” Fitzuki rubbed the side of his head. “Ought to have brought someone along to see if they could stabilize the ritual as it failed.”
“The pattern I tried to use did not permit that.”
“Hmmmm.” Fitzuki clapped his hands together twice. “Deuced obnoxious — thought you’d die and didn’t want annoying speeches of goodbye, arguments about whether the military necessity suggested the risk or staying in the circle of the towers.” Fitzuki’s voice rose, with a flash of anger. “Next time, tell me. No matter how great you wish to be. I have been given command to organize this defense as best we might manage, and I need to know who amongst us plans to play games.”
Sesako flushed.
He’d spent around twenty years serving under Fitzuki after he’d fully developed his profound soul, in a military apprenticeship now that his power had become great enough to make him an important military weapon. Fitzuki liked war and warfare, and he’d been the perfect teacher in that way. He’d fought endless wars helping those who fought against the emperor for free, and when there wasn’t a war with the empire dripping blood and draining chi, he hired out his talents to whichever king, council of grand cultivators, or master of all that he could survey in Seidne or Eporea was willing to offer the most to gain the services of the man acknowledged by everyone, including the emperor himself, to be the greatest war leader alive.
Despite his own exalted position, Sesako always felt a deep respect for Fitzuki. And any worthy man would respect a great cultivator who was more than two hundred years older than he was. “I shall.”
It took a bit of effort for Sesako to keep his voice firm and confident.
Fitzuki clapped his hand on Sesako’s shoulder, in a familiar yet commanding gesture. “Effort always has its value.”
Now Kisiko smiled at Sesako, “I too consider myself blessed to see that thou hath not perished. But satisfy my curiosity: With what ritual did you make the attempt?”
“A ninth level braided circle structure,” Sesako said. He particularly did not want to describe the details to Kisiko.
“Hmmmm.” Kisiko said. “I confess then to a sensation of the unexpected at seeing and hearing this good news of your undoubted survival. His great majesty, the emperor once discoursed to me upon the methods by which he was confident that others could not —”
“I don’t want to hear about what that murderous bastard told you.”
Kisiko shrugged and smiled. “I shall respect thy wish.”
While born almost six hundred years ago in a valley in the mountains of Yatamo, Kisiko had lived most of his life in the court of the emperor, and he had married one of the emperor’s daughters. Even after the emperor killed one of the Great Ones during his visit that started the rebellion, Kisiko had stayed in his court, until his wife who'd aged far faster than he had died. Only after that did he return to Yatamo to offer his services as a profound soul to the nation.
Sesako despised him for that continued service to the emperor. And he hated that he had to admit his own failure to Fitzuki in front of Kisiko.
Stolen story; please report.
“I have another report to make that I must tell you.” Voice didn’t waver. Good.
Fitzuki’s face became serious. “Important?”
“I am not dependable at present. When I woke from the failed ritual another spirit had control of my body. He flew back to my tower and intended to collect as much of the wealth stored in it as possible before fleeing the country.”
“Ah! A second spirit.” Kisiko nodded with interest. “That makes your tale one whose logic matches my own sense of reason and rationality. Thou ought not have made such an attempt without consulting widely upon the matter.”
Simply because there was a chance that Kisiko had some sort of remaining loyalty to the emperor, Sesako never would have asked him.
Fitzuki clapped his hands hard. “Possessed? Details.”
“Well, I —”
“How did you regain control?”
“When he went to leap away from the tower, planning to abandon us, betray us, and betray the Great Ones, I was full of rage. In that rage I reached at the power flowing through us, and…” Sesako shrugged. “It was a pulling, a shoving. And then I had control once more.”
“Hmmm. Hmmmm.” Fitzuki gravely stroked his long beard. “You are not certain that you can keep control?”
“No, if you think I cannot serve in the line of battle, and —”
“Nonsense. You are a vital asset. We’ll find a place. And in your tower — but damn. It is the linchpin of the south. And no one else can run the enchantments you’ve placed into it as efficiently. Damn. Hmmmm.”
“Perhaps another of the seven?” Takue suggested. “And we shall have Akine observe you and try to purge the other spirit. This is odd, I have never heard of anyone with any significant power being possessed.”
Sesako flushed.
“It is because Profound Sesako strove beyond what was normal.” Kisiko said. “That brave and ambitious man whose desire is to reach beyond the ordinary will find himself in such a place and in such a situation where that which is not ordinary occurs.”
“No,” Fitzuki said. “We’ll staff the other towers next to you with twice the group — Sesako, my dear Sesako.” He pressed his hand against his forehead. “You had some sense that this might work?”
“Yes, though I expected to die.”
“Yeah. The odds are bad against us. Maybe that risk was worth taking.” He pulled his hand through his hair. “Still, maybe.”
“It is odd. The vibrations in your soul ought to have driven this possessing spirit off,” Takue crossed her legs under her and started levitating at eye level to the taller cultivators around her.
“So, this ‘other’, this second mind, planned to take everything you own, and live as high upon your accumulated wealth as a great cultivator can —somewhere in Parleia?” Kisiko asked.
“Is that what you would do?” Came Sesako’s snapped reply.
“I certainly would not maintain myself in a line to die in a war which had nothing to do with me. Thou are a fool to expect that he would. Life is filled with far too much entertainment for it to be thrown away lightly — but as each of you can see, I am present. I will fight for the Great Ones also.”
Sesako stared at him. He still had a small suspicion that one day Kisiko would betray them. “No,” Sesako said at last. “His actual plan was to try to figure out the best way to help the peasants in Diet Vinh.”
“The spirit originated in Diet Vinh?”
“No, he chose that simply because they are the poorest peasants.”
Fitzuki laughed. “I suppose if you want to help peasants it makes sense to pick the poorest ones.”
Sesako grunted. “It's all pointless anyway. Trying to help them — the world is organized in such a way that there will always be poor people. If you can’t figure out a way to change the very nature of reality, giving money to the poor is simply pouring a flood of water into an endless desert.”
“This fellow got to you a bit?” Fitzuki grinned at him.
“My duty is to myself, those who I love, and my nation — I fulfill my duty, he is a worthless thief who has no right to judge me for not doing something stupid and pointless.”
“So, you think he should focus on trying to change how the world is organized? Change the system? To make him too busy to give starving peasants food?” Fitzuki’s voice was sardonic and laughing.
“That is not what I said —”
Kisiko said, “It certainly is not impossible to make things better or worse — Behold: Yatamo is a blessed land where the life of the peasant simply is better than in Diet Vinh, or Paralei. If a man could change those sadly managed nations, or if they could make those whose leadership are honorable and capable be ruled yet better, that would be worthwhile and permanent.”
“I agree,” Fitzuki said, “I never simply fought for the group who paid me the most money. I always wanted to have a sense that I was on a side which I would honestly prefer to win.”
“Why are you defending a thief,” Takue said. “Besides, there are already too many people in the world, and especially too many peasants. Over the three hundred years I’ve lived, I’ve seen the expansion of farmlands, terracing and the use of deeper plows. Marshes drained, forests cut down, and places full of animals destroyed. I do not wish to help feed them, not unless we can control their numbers. Otherwise, the world itself will slowly become a worse place.”
With a groan Kisiko pretended to flop backwards in a chair that was not there, and he levitated himself and looked down on Takue. “Peasants are as worthy of concern as any with an awakened spark. The life of one who tills the ground, his joys, his loves, his children — that humble life is worth the same as your life. I say unto thee: To live, to be a human, that is a grand and a wonderful thing.”
“I know that village where you were born. It was the boundary of cultivation then, and now all the way up the mountain side the trees are destroyed or turned into ordered and sparse forests for fuel and building material — that is what too many people bring. If I could have my way, we’d keep the population of peasants at a reasonable number.”
“And this is why I am glad thy way is unlikely to ever rule the fates of men.” Kisiko replied.
“Enough of this,” Fitzuki said sharply. “Sesako, can you hold the tower tomorrow despite your new friend?”
“I despise him. But I can hold the tower. His will is weaker than mine, and I shall remain in control.”
“Tetchy, eh?” Fitzuki laughed. “I’ll tell you why you dislike this fellow. You are scared that he is right, and you ought to be doing something that you just don’t want to, and you don’t like the idea of feeling as though you aren’t perfect.” Fitzuki shrugged his shoulders. “Hold the tower but tell that pretty apprentice to immediately send a message if you disappear, I’ll make sure a team is ready which can quickly replace you and manage what can be managed.”
“The tower is prepared for battle. I always keep it prepared for battle. As a great warrior told me once, a good warrior prepares before the battle, a great warrior rests, because he has already prepared.”
Fitzuki laughed. “Quoting me back to me. No, we have not informed the Great One of the situation, as she slumbers still. It was decided it ought to be you who wakes her and speaks to Her.”
“Oh.” There was that pang in Sesako’s breast. That pain in his stomach. There was no path to victory.
Everything else was swallowed by this simple fact.
Even by sacrificing his own life, and all that he might ever be, Sesako saw no path to victory.