The Brightest Shadow, page 24
Kolanin landed lightly and advanced, catching the attention of his men with a wave. "It's just a messenger. Calm down the humans and try to restore order."
"Aye." The guard captain gave him a worried look. "But... maybe the messenger ain't a problem, but what's he here to say?"
Though Kolanin felt a surge of irritation, he swallowed it. He wanted to encourage his men to think for themselves, after all. "It does suggest urgency, but there could be many reasons for that. Whatever the situation, we'll be better prepared for it if Bundlin is in good order."
The captain nodded and the soldiers moved out. Though Kolanin saw many glances of hatred toward the soldiers from the humans, some of that was to be expected for an occupying force. There wasn't the terror that he feared, at least not yet. Most seemed more curious about the messenger standing in the middle of the square.
The Voidwalker observed the area around him with open revulsion, though he must have been here before. Still, Kolanin could understand his perspective to some degree. Moments ago, the man had probably been in the pristine white streets of Ith Silvaros, but now he stood amid filth and squalor. Kolanin remembered clearly enough how Bundlin had looked to him when he first arrived. The years since then might have taught him a great deal, but he knew he viewed his city through a sentimental lens.
"Greetings, Seinan. You come bearing a message?"
"I do, Kaen." The messenger reached into his robes and drew out out a scroll, bound with the white seal of the Senate. He extended it with two fingers, as if he didn't want to touch anything else.
Kolanin took it and broke the seal quickly while glancing at the messenger. "What are your instructions? Do you need a response?"
"No. I only need to confirm that you received the message. I presume that you are Kaen Kolanin."
"Yes, I am." He wasn't really paying attention to the messenger anymore, brushing past the flowery language to get to the heart of the message. When he found it, he had to reread, because he was sure that couldn't really be it. "This... I know they must have their reasons, but-"
"I am not here to collect your opinion, Kaen. All the Senate needs from you is compliance."
Kolanin stared at him in disappointment, though disappointment with the man's masters instead of the man himself. The order was clumsy and ignorant, but it disappointed him more that they had sent a member of the Voidwalkers for something like this. It was time sensitive, yes, but sending a messenger across the world was unnecessary showmanship and a waste of resources. They would only have done it to remind him that he worked in a backwater and needed to follow their orders.
"I understand and obey."
"Good." With that, the messenger clapped his hands together. Instead of fading, the clapping sound lingered and deepened. The messenger's body twisted and vanished into a single point of darkness, followed by a rush of wind from all directions toward the point he had occupied. A few pieces of refuse jumbled together on the street where his feet had stood, but no other trace remained.
That drew more gasps and comments from the people in the square, but Kolanin just stared at the empty space where the man had been. So, he had his orders. The Senate seemed to view the entire business as repulsive, but if they were directly giving orders, they were taking these Hero rumors seriously...
"Arrogant Seinan bastard."
Glancing over his shoulder, Kolanin found Loravasik standing there, glaring at the empty space. He wondered about the casual curse and whether or not Loravasik included him in that hatred. Not that it really mattered right now, compared to what they'd need to do. While he tried to think of what to say, Rhuvab arrived in the square as well, reluctantly putting his maul away.
"What was so important they had to send a Voidwalker?"
"Nothing. Someone wants to throw their weight around." Kolanin gestured for the two Catai to follow him and they moved toward one of the bridges back to their side of the river.
"Come on, commander... nobody here understands Futhik, just tell us what's going on."
It was a fair enough point. Kolanin stopped before they reached the bridge and turned to them. "We have been assigned the task of killing the hero the humans speak of."
Both of them stared in surprise, and Loravasik scratched the side of his head. "Isn't that like killing a myth? Or are they saying that there actually is one? Because that sounds like it will lead to us wandering through the wilderness, not finding anyone."
"They claim that there's a specific man they want targeted, one they say is the hero. Apparently there's a plan to plant a spy in his group who will give away his location and plans. It's unclear - the letter might be claiming more than they actually have. Whatever the case, we need to translate the vague plan into action."
"Sounds good to me." Rhuvab reached over his shoulder to rub the hilt of his maul. "I was getting tired of the humans babbling about that hero all the time."
Kolanin said nothing. He took out the scroll and read through it again, trying to decide which way to go next. There was a kernel of useful information alongside the bluster and the commands.
Useful for what, he wasn't sure.
~ ~ ~
Their party gloriously limped across the grasslands. The Hero strode at the head, undaunted. Those behind struggled to follow, nursing wounds and supporting comrades. Occasionally one of them dropped, and they weren't always picked up again.
Tani had come out of the fight without real injuries, so she helped Slaten walk despite his injured leg. Usually she didn't think about the height difference between them, but it was easy for him to put his arm across her shoulders to lean on her. Carrying him would have been exhausting, but just taking pressure off the injury was easy if she kept her sein circulating.
They had been walking in silence when Celivia approached them. Tani still wasn't entirely sure what to make of her, though she wished they hadn't met under such circumstances. The woman seemed hard and driven, though she was friendly enough in conversation. At the moment she looked slightly dazed.
"I just spoke to the Hero." Celivia fell into step on Tani's other side, not making eye contact. "Or... I tried. Everything he said seemed to make sense at the time, but now... are we just going to keep marching? Has he told anyone a real objective?"
"Kill more Deathspawn, I guess." Tani would have shrugged, but couldn't while supporting Slaten. He closed his eyes as if his leg was hurting him again and spoke heavily.
"Mansthein."
"Right, mansthein." It was so easy to slip up and speak like the Hero did. Tani wasn't sure if the word they used mattered, but it seemed to matter to Slaten.
Celivia regarded them both coolly. "Aren't those two words for the same thing?"
Slaten shook his head slowly. "I'm not sure."
That left an uncomfortable silence, Tani trying to struggle through the haze in her mind to focus on the issue. It would be so much easier to embrace the light and the path set before them... failing to put anything into words, Tani focused on another topic. "Celivia... what were you going to do, before you were imprisoned?"
"The Deathspawn captured me while I was trying to get back to Estronn. So... I'm going in the wrong direction." Celivia ran a hand through her hair, trying to brush back one of the locks that had come out of the tail. "But trying to go east alone would probably be suicide, even without a lot more soldiers coming to this region looking for us."
"Oh, Estronn?" Tani smiled at her. "I don't really know any Estronese people."
"I was going back to Estronn, but I'm only half Estronese. As anyone will tell you, that's not the same thing at all. And before you ask, I don't know who my father was."
Though Celivia kept her tone neutral, the tension in her voice was obvious. Tani regretted bringing it up, though she was glad to learn a little more about the other woman. That left another awkward pause, since Slaten wasn't likely to smooth over a conversation. Before Tani could think of something, Celivia spoke up again.
"What were the two of you doing... before this?"
"Oh, I was on my Farwalk! The Nelee live on the west of the Chorhan Expanse, so I'm actually getting closer to home. This... isn't how I wanted to go back, though. I was... working in Bundlin. I wanted to make a difference, learn something about the world that I could take back with me. But..." Talking about her Farwalk had briefly made her happy, but her words tumbled to a halt. For so long, she felt like she hadn't had a choice, but what could she do except follow the Hero?
"We were working with the mansthein commander in Bundlin," Slaten said. His voice was low and harsh, as if spoken through pain. Tani realized that he was leaning less on her, intentionally putting his weight onto his injured leg. "He wanted to establish peace."
That was right, peace between humans and Deathspawn. It seemed like a distant thought, yet a familiar one. Tani drew it into herself, sheltered the thought so it couldn't evaporate away. Celivia opened her mouth as if she was going to say something, then closed her mouth again. In Tani's mind it was obvious that they weren't thinking clearly, but she couldn't even find the words to say that.
Just when the silence became truly uncomfortable, Slaten spoke up again. "What are you doing with your sein?"
"Hmm?" Celivia seemed surprised by the question at first, then nodded. "Oh, this is an old exercise, I wasn't even thinking about it. Normal circulation is good for your development, but it tends to exhaust your body's resources. Not a wise idea while traveling, since you could be attacked at any time. In this exercise you extend your sein, but sort of hold it... the process is simple in concept but hard to explain, can you see the movements of mine?"
"Sorry, but we haven't attained that level of perception."
"Ah, I didn't mean literally see. I can't perceive sein visually either. I meant if you could follow it with your other senses."
Since Celivia had introduced the concept, Tani had been experimenting with it. On one level it seemed so logical, yet actually circulating her sein without allowing any of it to be absorbed into the body... it wasn't a trick she was going to master on the first try. Seeing an example would have been helpful, but she only had the scent of mint from Celivia. The issue made her curious, so she decided to ask a question.
"How deeply can you feel sein? Can you see what I'm doing wrong?"
Celivia shook her head. "I'm no instructor, and in any case, I'm not much more advanced than the two of you." She walked in silence for a while, and Tani almost thought she was going to ignore the question. "Considering the senses as Corans count them, I have three. I can feel sein, taste it, and hear it. The Estronese don't agree with that system, but I've never had the talent to fight like some do."
"You're ahead of us, then! I can only smell and taste sein."
"I don't think it's wise to focus overly much on that. Understanding your own sein may be important, but it is only one aspect of training."
Slaten nodded in agreement. "The Oken describe power as a triangle with three points. The body, the sein, and the mind. I don't know if I feel that covers it well, but I think there's some truth in it."
"What do you mean?" Tani asked. "That seems logical enough to me."
"I thought so too, at first. But the Corans don't distinguish between strength of sein and strength of the body, and I can't say they're wrong. When I spoke to Kolanin about it, he disagreed with the concept of the triangle. I can't say he's wrong either. I don't know."
"That doesn't seem so troublesome to me. Surely everyone is describing different paths up the same mountain? Perhaps for Oken, it is better to think of a triangle, while Corans have a view better suited to them. But the same sein flows through everyone, and it can lead all of us to the same endpoints, like speed and strength."
"It's not all the same," Celivia said. "Have you ever seen an Estronese mage warrior? They can throw sein outside of themselves in a way I've never seen a Coran accomplish. And in my travels, I've seen even stranger arts. We may be using the same materials, but we build very different warriors."
The disagreement was interesting, but Tani was more interested in the thought it prompted in her. "In your travels, have you ever seen someone who seems to strike softly, but disables with a touch? Just two fingers hit my shoulder, but my entire arm became numb."
"Was it something like this?" Celivia extended two fingers and jabbed at her shoulder without quite touching it. Tani flinched, though it was only the form without any sein.
"Yes, just like that."
"I can't use it, but I've seen such techniques before. It is a discipline from Nol, soft sein instead of hard. There are techniques to try to resist it, but I've only studied them for a short time and they won't be too effective against a master."
"Can you teach me? Please?" Tani hesitated when Celivia gave her a sharp look, then decided to just be honest. "Have you met Efeinas? He is... an unpleasant man. And he uses that technique. I don't want to be vulnerable to it again."
"I understand. I can't promise you immunity, but I'll teach you what I know. Later, I suppose."
She glanced toward Slaten when she said that, but he shook his head and replied. "I'd like to learn it too."
"That's fine with me. But it would be difficult while walking, so we really should wait until we stop for the night." Celivia paused and then smiled at them. "And I can teach the static circulation trick as well, if you're interested. You two seem like you'd make good use of it."
Perhaps it was Celivia's sharp smile, or perhaps the fact that she was voluntarily offering to teach them secrets that were normally hoarded, but Tani felt a deep connection to her. She wasn't sure what to do with it. Before she could think, she ended up blurting out something she almost immediately regretted. "What is sein like, for you?"
Both of them looked at her. Talking directly about that sort of thing was oddly intimate, and generally agreed to be useless. One of the first things that her master had taught her was that sein was different for everyone, so there was no point describing the exact experience. Yet she had always wondered. Before the situation could grow too awkward, she kept talking.
"For me, it's always the smell of mint. I actually began smelling sein in a place with real mint, so I was confused about it for some time. That seemed odd to me, but my master said it didn't mean anything. And when I learned to taste sein, it was always... a mix of spices, exactly the same as a soup from home. It's more than a taste, it's mixed up with family and other thoughts."
Tani closed her mouth. She could feel that she was blushing and hoped that it didn't show. Slaten gave her a slight nod that made her feel just a little better, while Celivia seemed to be avoiding eye contact. But after a pause, it was Celivia who spoke next.
"I heard sein first, and it sounded like the wind. Like... wind flowing through a narrow canyon." Her eyes were locked on the horizon, then she shook her head slightly. "After that, I tasted sein - for me it tasted like pure water. Only recently did I start to feel sein, and that's difficult to describe. It's as if my body is separating into strands, but it's not a painful feeling. It feels right."
Embarrassing as it had been, Tani was glad that she had asked. Though she didn't understand exactly what Celivia meant, it made sense to her on some level. The taste of home had always felt right to her in a deep way she couldn't put into words. What Celivia described seemed to be important to her in a similar way, and Tani wondered if her understanding of sein would take stranger forms in the future as well.
Of course, those thoughts were undercut by the very obvious fact that Slaten wasn't saying anything. He just stared forward, avoiding their gaze. Celivia arched an eyebrow at him. "Slaten, are you seriously going to let the two of us talk about our sein and keep yours secret?"
"It's embarrassing." He still wouldn't make eye contact, so Tani smiled at him and nudged his arm encouragingly.
"Come on, both of us shared."
"Not like that. I mean the sensations." After a pause, Slaten finally met her gaze briefly. "Sein tastes like blood to me. And when I grew able to feel it, it felt like a sword cutting through me, except... not painful. I know, it's rather boring. Expected."
Celivia looked like she had to swallow a laugh, instead just grinning. "I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I imagine it keeps you focused during combat. When I was starting, my mind would wander into the sensations sometimes."
Tani nodded agreement. "With someone else, I might think they were trying to sound tough. But with you, I'd be truly surprised if sein tasted like... lilacs or something." That got a brief laugh from Celivia, while Slaten looked slightly less uncomfortable.
"If it doesn't mean anything, then it could have been lilacs, though. At least, I thi-"
At that point, someone let out a loud belch.
Tani jumped, jolting Slaten's arm and drawing a wince from him. She turned toward the sound and to her shock found Veron walking not far away. Other than her belch and hitting herself in the chest a couple times, she was utterly silent. Had she really heard everything they'd said?
"Yer all lucky." Veron took a swig from a flask in her coat. "I knew a man who started training in sein and said that it tasted like shit. Actual shit. Don't ask me how he knew what shit tasted like, he didn't say. Anyway, he quit in less than twenty days. Never was sure if it was true, or he was just lying because he couldn't stick with it."
What a truly repellent thought. Still, it was better than Tani had expected when she found Veron listening in on them. Tani smiled at the older woman. "What about you? Would you care to tell us how you perceive sein?"
"Nope. I'll leave that to you blushing kids." Veron wandered to the side to walk near a group of Coran fighters, intentionally not looking at them again. Tani frowned after her, not that it did any good. Things had been going so well, then Veron had to jump in and ruin their conversation.
The silence wasn't as uncomfortable as before, however. Tani was about to make plans for them to work together that night when she heard shouts from ahead.
At first they sounded alarmed and Tani jolted, looking for the source of the problem. Slaten took his arm off her shoulder and she advanced toward the warriors who had shouted. But by the time she arrived, they already sounded less alarmed. Looking forward, Tani spotted what they saw.
