Turn 16, Part 7
It was a long walk, the journey of hours. There was too little to talk about, especially since the prospect of ambush was always present. They could have talked of home, but this place was so far from it, and so strange. Desert, well, there were deserts in the Southland, especially to the south… but neither had been born of the desert.
Kueli briefly tried to start up a discussion of why they called them the Southlands, when this was clearly a Csiritan title thrust upon them. It implied an order to things, in which Csirit was the center, and the lands south of them… well. Were not. But Ayila just shook her head and kept on muttering the names of spirits.
He didn't know when he'd become like this. He tugged at his mustache in distraction and something like irritation. He could do distraction very well, and yet he spent his time thinking about just what this was. Here he was, probably committed long-term to Csirit, of all places. Csirit, who had driven out and changed the world in… long before he was born. But he had great-great… grandfarts who had been rebels against the Csiritan rule. Who had seen it cast down, leaving the cities and some of the infrastructure on which to build something capable of defending itself, something more than an appendage of the Kings of the South, and all their ambition and schemes. All their power, the fury of high plains and desert, of mountain and spirits ancient and cruel.
If you asked such people, the Seventeen Cities weren't even the Southlands, just an extension of Csiritan influence. And yet, when war had come, and touched the edges of their lands, who had it been that had settled it, that had enough power to…
No, the balance of the world really was north of where some thought it would be. He was the child of upstarts, of an upstart people who had lost and won in great measures, coins heaped up upon a table, each soaked in blood.
Kiralo was the poet, and yet he'd never write of such a thing. Not quite. Perhaps he should. Perhaps a poem would do what a sword could not. Once Kiralo had tried to translate a famous Southlander poem into Csiritan. Kueli had remembered the way he'd struggled with the lines, trying to march them into shape. 'A liminal people hedged in/A boundless people unshackled/By spirits blessed, by wind carried/ From now unto the earth's end.'
It lost something in translation, and yet he muttered this, and the names of the spirits, and wished again for his horse. It was an obvious enough thing. Be loud, be annoying, challenge one's enemies in such a way that they would pay attention to him.
It was a potentially fatal task, but he was a mercenary: potentially fatal tasks were his job, and would be for the rest of his life, until he was too crippled or old to fight. Whether it was for Csirit or the Southlands, it mattered not.
*******
The four of them were together, the old man holding the mirror in one hand and a rather sharp, curved blade in the other. And in front of them were four mirrors, curving slightly towards them. The sky above was getting a little bit lighter, though Kueli still couldn't see the streak that Ayila had been following.
"Coward!" Kueli said as he leapt forward, drawing his bow. Four mirrors, did that mean four targets. "Coward and fool!"
His arrow found one of the mirrors, the one that seemed farthest from the other, and the men turned around. Well, two of them did. Two of the others leapt for the mirrors. They disappeared in a flash, and the old man merely waved his hand and the mirrors broke.
Kueli grinned and had his next shot find the last of the assassins, the man dodging out of the way at the last moment, and thus almost exposing the last, and centermost, mirror. But Jianglong seemed to flow, his whole body going mirror-reflective as he did, to block the blow. "I am no coward," Jianglong said, quietly. "But you are a fool."
Kueli stepped forward, already drawing his bow and loosing another arrow, this one screaming with spirits as Jianglong batted it aside with a grunt.
"You are a fool, and you shall die." Jianglong stepped forward. Another arrow, and then another, failed, and then Kueli finally got what he wanted. An arrow, singing with spirits now, almost bleeding with the spirits trying to keep it on track, went straight into Jianglong's left hand.
"Ha!" Kueli yelled, striding forward.
The old man pulled out the arrow, and the wound healed instantly, with the sound of rippling and what looked like glass breaking in reverse. Then he waved his mirror back and forth and suddenly there were two of him there, each wielding a mirror and a sword, their motions exactly the opposite of each other as they brought their weapons and their mirrors forward.
The very air rippled and shattered as the spirits shot towards him. He tensed, putting aside his bow and slashing down at the spirits in mid-arc with his sword, meeting it as his muscles strained and the names of spirits shot from him in pained grunts, his eyes fixed on the cruel, easy arrogance of Jianglong. This was not quite a game, and yet there was something certain about this whole conflict.
He knew if he lost his grip now, the force of the spirits would shatter his sword, and his arm. He couldn't stop it by main force.
Perhaps he couldn't stop it at all.
********
The assassin was a fool, as Eyes declared again and again, as Ayila wrapped her spirits around him. At this rate, he'd die as soon as he left the environment of the mirror. In this place, in this strange half-world, someone like Jianglong was far more powerful than he should be. Powerful enough that even Ayila would have to be careful of him. And this power and protection did extend to those with him. She could strip it, as one does any such binding of spirits. It was how, after all, the ancient and vast protections of the Imperial Seat worked, the ones that meant that only the Emperor and his guards had spirits.
She was not quite so great--nor did she have quite so much time--but that is something she could have done. But it was more amusing, and far more useful, to grit her teeth and fill him with weaknesses. Weaknesses which meant he'd be a corpse falling out of the mirror, shattered by his own hubris before the spirits.
Then she turned to see how she could deal with Jianglong. Kueli had dodged to the left, seeing that he was overmatched, and used his spirits to kick up dust, enough that the next blast of spirits and force missed, just barely. Jianglong grunted, and two people became four.
Ayila knew how it was happening. It had to do with the properties of this mirror, and the potential to be in multiple places at once. Now that there were four of them, their power wasn't… divided, quite, but they were stretched thin, made other than what they were. Kueli would die if she didn't get involved, but she had a feeling he would die well, and that Jianglong would have some trouble pulling himself--
"I see you, daughter of an aged line. I see you, and I see your folly," Jianglong said. The assassin turned, the one she had been standing next to hidden by weavings of spirits greater than that of most… and yet entirely exposed. "I see you and I see your doom. He shows me the way, and he mirrors all of man's folly."
She stabbed at the assassin's shoulder, but the man grabbed her hand, faster than expected. Oh. Gritting her teeth she gathered her spirits, calling out their names in her mind as she moved towards the mirror, wondering if perhaps she could throw herself towards it. Down came his knife, right into her face. It almost hit her eye, but her spirits managed to push it at the last moment.
Which just meant that the highly poisoned knife went just below her eye and slashed across as she grabbed the man's hand.
And did something absurd.
The man gasped in horror as his arm became covered in blackened, hateful eyes. Hundreds of them, filling every inch of his skin, like sores. And then they shattered.
Ayila had never lost an eye: nor, for that matter, had she ever lost several hundred eyes. Nor, even, did she know that she was able to do that--probably she hadn't been, before she'd stolen a name.
She had to imagine, though, that the part where her knife came up and slit his throat as he weeped in agony was the least painful part of the process.
People will call you a great fool, looking upon the scar from that wound. They will celebrate your madness, and yet no doubt in five-hundred years, they will make you ten times the beauty and unscarred, Yahjing cackled.
Ayila blinked, and thought that this was quite presumptuous.
You are the one who is seizing much. You are the one who is becoming little. Never have I been so humiliated and weakened. If it is just a foolish slip of a girl who did it, then it is unbearable. But no, you must have a great Destiny. A great and absurd Destiny.
He'd read her thoughts. She didn't know what to say to that.
Say that you named me. Say that you acted as a Spirit did. You did, without even ordering. Because it is your power. Because it IS YOU.
She was a spirit, in part, now. She knew what this was. Heck, the Csiritans abhorred this, and… there were the Sea People, and--
She knew what she was doing, what she was accepting. And of course, those were mere plain and simple spirits and they made many think that one wasn't human. If she opened her mouth and did what she was going to do, there was no going back. Perhaps there was even no surviving it.
But now Eyes was feeding her his power, almost drawing herself into it as she reached out and made it in part her own. She could do this. She, in fact, would do this.
"I am Ayila," she said, quietly. But soon another voice joined her, a male one as she kept on speaking. "I am Ayila, of ancient and proud lineage, a lineage of Shamans and Seers, of Priests and Warriors, of Fools and Wise Men both. Great and terrible alike, it flows in my veins."
The crackling, deadly attack that came at her was easily swept aside with a wave of her hand. "I am the daughter of Baakua, who is as kind as she is canny, a woman who valued more than anything else her family, who was daughter of Chahra, beloved of the bastard son of Prince Namal, second of his name, who fought for his claim with all of her wiles, for she was reckoned--"
She laughed as the earth itself groaned and tried to fall out beneath her. "More beautiful than any alive, and more crafty. And who was daughter of Ayila my namesake, who cut the throat of Prince Namal, first of his name, and whispered to the spirits to keep it a great secret, such that none would ever know. I am from this line, and yet I am--"
By now there were hundreds of voices echoing with hers, male and female, old and young, hundreds of voices, hundreds of heads, thousands of eyes. It echoed, it really did.
"I am greater than all of them."
It was a boast, yes. But it was true.
"I'm the son of a merchant who liked coin and secrets, and a woman who grasped for everything but loves fiercely," Kueli said, simply. "I don't need a glorious line to kick your ass."
Jianglong had the good sense to look terrified.
On both sides of him--him, two facing each way--they charged.
Ayila's magic seemed to simply make his slide off, as if it were a dagger made of glass against true steel. She could feel the pain as she grasped harder and harder on the connection. This could kill her. Perhaps it would almost certainly kill her, but if it did, she'd be doing it in a good cause.
A shot of pain went into her arm, and she realized that she was going to pay for this either way. Down came two of the swords against Kueli. But instead of blocking, he half-dodged, tossing his sword into the other hand and pushing the blow away. With a crack, his left arm broke, badly.
His right arm, on the other hand, went straight through one of the two Jianglongs facing him, and then slashed out to almost behead the other.
Ayila, for her part. Spirits did not command, not in that way. A Greater Spirit just willed something to happen, and by its power, often enough, it did. There was something simple and yet profound about this, perhaps, but she'd never considered it until that moment. So, rather than give a thousand different orders to her spirits, she simply… killed Jianglong.
The word method implied that there was a pause, a process to it, rather than the simple decision and the simpler fact of his death, untouched and yet cold.
Then she felt her vision swim. She'd… pushed herself a little. By which one might say she'd done the impossible, and now her body was remembering it was still, quite frankly, human. Her knees buckled out from under her, and she passed out to the amused laughter of a Great Spirit.
*******
She woke to a sword, pressed against her throat, and the cold black eyes of a man in green armor, a Csiritan who babbled in his tongue at her. The… the mirror. Where was the mirror? She glanced around, and then saw that she was in a chair, and that in a chair next to her was Kueli, his arm in a sling.
And the mirror?
"I…" she groaned. "What happened?"
"You passed out," Kueli said. "So I tossed the man's body through the mirror-portal, where the Emperor was apparently finishing up his last check-up of his wardrobe before he went to early court. Then I tucked your little artifact under one arm, and you under the other, and sorta… went through. Almost died," Kueli said, with a desperately laugh. He looked worse for the wear. "They punched me, and if they hadn't recognized me…"
"And yet we did," the Csiritan holding the sword to her throat said. "Yet we did. Southlander, though--"
"Try to be scary. I faced a fucking monster who could mirror himself to save your Emperor, snake throne guy," Kueli said with a cough. "Lost good men doing it, and might lose more. I'm well past caring about anyone except--"
The door opened, slowly, and two guards slipped their way in. It was a side room, opulent--in that the tapestries on the wall could perhaps feed a village for months if served… each--and yet also oddly empty. It was something that could be filled with furniture, so that it could be what the Emperor desired. Then came the Emperor himself.
A young boy, his face solemn and uncertain, in a robe of Imperial Blue, with a pattern of green trees upon it, and long golden sleeves, as wella s a silver-gold set of hair pins that left his long and elaborate hair quite out of the way.
Ayila groaned, trying to focus. The mirror… she needed to. She…
Her head ached. She hadn't slept long enough lately, and then all of this had happened.
Behind him came Kiralo and Kuojah, each of them in fine robes, each of them looking rather more certain.
"Please, leave us, guards," the Emperor ordered, quietly. He was clearly following his own orders, as he glanced over at Kuojah, as if making certain of this. "We are safe."
A lot of hesitation, and then away goes the sword, and the two most powerful people in the Empire… and the young Emperor were speaking with them.
"Your Imperial Majesty, you've heard what has been done. Scaring you thus, and engaging in such lengths of scheming and action without your explicit permission, they're… unforgiveable," Kuojah said. "At least, many would say so. Do you want my advice?"
"Y-yes," the boy said, quietly.
"They should be… pardoned of most offenses, considering what they have done," the old man said. "But… they should be exiled from the court. Cs-Kuojah himself stays most of the time in the city, as does this Ayila. And Kiralo, you'll need to be exiled for at least a year, because you cannot--"
"No," the Emperor said.
Kuojah looked shocked.
"Of course, my Emperor," Kuojah said. He looked almost shaken.
Kiralo, on the other hand, had this glow in his eyes that Ayila didn't know if she trusted. As if he were proud of the Emperor, all of a sudden. She was exhausted, out of it, and watching some strange power play, some moment.
"They have saved my life, have they not? Saved it, when I might have died otherwise. They should be honored with almost anything they could possibly want. Rewards, at least, gold and honors, titles and names. I… I'm. I'm sure you can handle that, honored Cs-Kuojah, y-you have been a great help to me since I have become Emperor, and I value your advice and input. And that of your son, Cs-Kiralo. Who should be given a golden reward… for he sent orders, good orders, and saw that they were done." The Emperor coughed, his face flushed. But he didn't look at Kiralo to ask if she was good. "So he should be well-rewarded as well, and… and. These aren't all the rebels, so we need to raise up an army, and… and deal with it."
Now Kiralo's eyes were filled with shocked pride, as if a student had suddenly started reciting an ancient and difficult poem from memory.
"Of course, Your Imperial Majesty," Kiralo said, lowering himself to the ground.
"As I rely on you, I trust you to keep me… informed on these matters. To explain them, to justify them, to teach me that I may be a wise Emperor. One who does not allow… mere necessity to make me forget the laws."
Kuojah looked somewhere between impressed and bowled over.
"I-I." The Emperor stopped talking and nodding. "I've been thinking about it for a while. Cs-Kiralo has been telling me about… your job, and his job. But there's never been time with words."
"Ah," Kuojah said, faintly.
"Also, I'm getting a puppy. And I don't have to ask your permission, cause I'm Emperor, and you can't simply ask carefully if I think it wise, and things!" the Emperor said, firmly, with a look of fire in his eyes, as if this, ultimately, was the crux of matter. And perhaps it was, Ayila thought, with half-sleepy exhaustion.
A boy wanting a puppy, and willing to assert himself as a master of his destiny to get it. "Your Imperial…" Ayila groaned. "We beg your forgiveness, for you are, are…"
She forgot the words.
"Most wise, and most great," Kiralo said, throwing himself to the ground, "Emperor. These friends of mine, honored Cs-Ayila and Cs-Kueli, are exhausted. May I help take them to a place to rest. One fitting, of course, their status."
"Of course," the Emperor said, a little faintly, as if that display of might was too much for him, and he needed to sit down and rest, himself.
*******
Kueli wondered if he should tell Ayila about… nah.
"You know, how much of that did you have planned?" Kueli asked, as he walked along.
"I've been talking to the Emperor over the past month. Explaining the law and my decisions. Trying to make him understand what is going on, and… the fact that it is. That he should trust us, but." Kiralo was quiet. "And he asked permission for a puppy, and I told him that he should try demanding it. But I didn't hear he'd gotten a puppy, so I supposed the matter… dropped."
Kueli had to keep from laughing. There was no telling what ears were here to listen. Heck, the mirrors, the eyes… there were a lot of ways for one to see things, he knew now. Even if they were speaking in Southlander. "Impressive, really. Two of them got away."
"We'll see what they do," Kiralo said, quietly. "Ayila, I would offer you the right to stay here for another three months. You have to leave, but three or four months would give you time to master that which you have now… I can feel it, you know. I can feel it, even without--"
"What?" Ayila asked.
The poor girl looked sleepy, and if one was looking at the right angle she looked like nothing more than a tired sixteen year old, a girl with a somewhat boyish face, but with the innocence of youth.
"It will probably hurt me at court, if you say. But it's the least I owe you, and it might give you a chance, a real one, because that… that's pretty dangerous, I assume. It's something that will cause actions, as soon as you are in a place where it is not simply… horrific heresy of a sort that I too often court."
"What?" Ayila asked, this time snapping.
Kiralo held up… oh. He had the mirror. He really did. Ayila looked in it, and then blinked, not quite getting it at first.
In the center of her forehead, there was a closed eyelid, obvious to all the world. It was like nothing Kueli had ever heard of, in all the stories like this.
A… third eye?
So, what's her choice?
[] Stay for a few more months. A few, and no more, she can't, not after this. It'd help her get it under control, and she'd be able to give him magical advice… but on the other hand, it's almost certain to hurt Kiralo's political standing. He'll have to defend her, when, well. When she is as she is. Probably not politically fatal, but certainly… costly. Yet, she did save the Emperor, and risk much, as well.
[] No, once she has been rewarded, she can leave. With Kiralo's blessing and protection of course. And probably a dozen or two of the Rassit, just to make sure she gets back safe. It does mean that she'll be gone soon, but… so it goes.
******
A/N: Whew. This was… wow. A monster of a chapter to write. I hope you liked it, as much as I did.
Also, you'll learn exactly how she killed Jianglong next update. Which will be the last update, other than the Rumors one, before Turn 17.
