Turn 6--Results, C
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Turn 6--C
[X] Bribe Ishuni. It's just money, right?
[X] "A few more...serving girls could be of some value," he lied, thinking fast.
[X] "I've always thought that Hari-Su tapestries are excellent, perhaps something for the wall would be nice…"
[X] Win-Yan
[X] Shuang
Kiralo wondered what he'd be able to do with courtesans, even ones who were southern beauties. He could use them, of course, as serving girls for the same purpose, if with rather more focus, that people tended to set their more beautiful servants on a guest, in order to ply them with drink and seduce them. It would be the kind of work expected of such women, and if harsh, it could be useful. She could always, as well, sell their services and take a cut. Whoremongers weren't respected in the imperial court city, but less because of any moral failing of theirs, and merely because anyone who worked outside of the imperial bureaucracy wasn't respected for a living.
You wrote poetry of books or worked for the Emperor, or lazed around, anything that was too much like being a merchant was looked down on.
They could be favors, of course. A sort of inducement to certain deals. It seemed a bit morally questionable, in the sense that he had read enough to feel slightly uncomfortable, but at the same time...that's what they were there for. He'd bought their contracts, so if he wanted he could sell them off as well. Their contracts, that is.
They weren't slaves, and they'd probably frown at him if he said otherwise.
They came into the room the next day in silken hanfu that were almost scandalously thin, and cut in such a way that they almost spilled out of them as they carried the tapestries.
They really were quite beautiful. The form and the weft of the images was startling, the way that traditional images such as a scholar meditating under a tree in a garden were combined with scenes of fast, powerful nature, spirits, and horses. A man meditated on horseback, riding through a scene of hundreds of spirits, coming up from the ground like birds scattering before a hunter. It was brilliantly colored, vivid and with a sense of life, and the other three were similarly wonderful.
One was more traditional in subject matter, but even that had the vitality and complexity that was a hallmark of Southlander styles of making rugs, carpets, and weaving in general. They had access to dyes that few others had, and they'd used them and their own stylistic urgings to create something special.
Just staring at them was like waking up, and it had been long enough since he'd set foot in the Southlands that now, bizarrely, he felt nostalgic. He was staring.
The women were attractive as well, he supposed. But those tapestries...
"Very good," he said, and then nodded, "Until I can find a place on my staff, ladies, you shall stay with my pay and protection in, say," he thought quickly, money being tight after paying the bribe to that greedy official, "Purple Blossom."
He named one of the pavilions where servants of all kinds were put, one of the ones of some prominence, but not too much. He didn't look at their faces long, although one of them seemed disappointed. But he was a figure of import, someone with a title and a lineage, and that meant they wouldn't dare to contradict him on this. Or perhaps other things. He'd have to talk to them at some point, when he worked out just what he wanted to do with them.
"And the tapestries?" one of the girls asked, after such a long pause that Kiralo was a little startled. He'd been moving onto the next step, going to the next stop in his busy week. The merchants glared at the girl, who shrank back. "Apologies for speaking out of t-turn."
"He could have you beat for your insolence," a thin merchant said, with a shake of his head, "We apologize for this."
"It is fine," Kiralo said, "The tapestries are to go to my rooms. They are quite impressive. Tell the artisans that they are much appreciated, if you see them."
If they weren't smuggled in from the Southlands, Kiralo thought. They might have been, though the Csiritan origins were also evident.
A matter to consider...but not for long.
*****
A few days later, a large caravan left Csrae for the north, and from there, to Hari-Bueli. At its head was an experienced military man, carefully selected for the task, and enough of a force to scare off any bandits, or even Bueli raiders, who thought it a tempting target. Though it was tempting. Weapons, weapons and money and armor, and stored rice enough to feed far more people than they could normally raise.
Then they were normally allowed to raise unless it was demanded of them, in fact. The Emperor could not tell them to exceed the limits, though of course they already had. But they'd surely know what to do with the rice and the weapons, with the money for purchasing mercenaries or better equipment, and if they didn't, they were fools.
Kiralo could do little more than that, right now, because if he moved the army to Hari-Bueli, that could tempt Prince Jinhai to strike. Everything was about the Prince, now.
He stalked through a court where the man's name was on every pair of lips.
A man Kiralo had never met, and yet everyone speculated about his every plan. His every scheme. He felt sometimes as if he were sitting across from the man. Prince Jinhai was popular, loved in his province, and before the death of the old Emperor, when the succession had seemed perhaps slightly precarious with only a single son, but manageable considering the man did have consorts and might yet have a second son…
In that context, Prince Jinhai had been the strong arm of the Imperial Line. A distant arm, but he'd fought back the Sea Raiders a half dozen times in as many years, and done so with skill that, when described, seemed like it would transfer well to a real, sustained war. None of his tactics were brilliant innovations, but that didn't matter at all.
In fact, Kiralo would be less worried if they were innovations, because fighting against the Sea Raiders was primarily a problem that had a solution. Many solutions, really. The only thing he could have offered that the Prince had lacked were fast horses capable of grabbing and tearing apart raiding parties a little better, but even in that context, he had decent cavalry by eastern, non-Hari-Su standards.
So he'd used good, solid tactics to pin down the enemy on a raid, and then hit them and roll them up. These weren't the tactics of the success which involved the Sea People, but Kiralo had not had time to examine that, and the time for compromising with Hari-Os was long passed. He'd let a strong opportunity to influence them and cut off or at least weaken Prince Jinhai's power base go by.
But it was not as if this was merely his failing. Kiralo had done what he could.
"What if he uses it as an excuse?" A balding man asked him, "The Rassit surging up through the Empire, like in the dark days of old, before we showed those savages where they could squat?" The official dabbed his sweating head, glancing over to the windows, where warm spring rain was making the day a misery.
Kiralo knew how to make his face a mask. It was a skill any sane person possessed who lived in court for a while. And so his voice was measured, "If he does, there are other moves I can do. I need your permission to use the court mandated waystations, but I consider these men as my own, as Arimi and Vedal are."
So to deny me, he didn't say, would be as saying you were making an enemy of me. Who was this person? Nobody important, just a bureaucrat who oversaw the inns, and yet if he had to, he'd make every enemy it took to get them back. He needed Kueli.
He'd always known that, of course, but as war approached, the need became greater. This court, it got under your bones. It got into your skin, and wore you, rather than letting you wear it. He'd go to sleep sometimes, and deals and lies and promises would slip through his mind so fast he couldn't even glimpse them, like a snake striking an unwary foot and then running.
He'd been given great power, but thus far it had been the power to make moral compromises. There were four women whose lives he now all but owned that he'd have to do something with, and he didn't even know what that was.
The man gulped. Let him gulp.
Kiralo was not in the mood for games that didn't involve just rolling over people. And that's what he was doing. There was no diplomatic subtlety in some of his moves, in the way he went to literally every man who had the power to stop him and laid it out. He was getting that approval, and he was getting it this month.
What he needed to figure out now was how he'd swing other matters, just as important. There was, for instance, the Imperial Academy to visit, and that would take a full day to explore, but before he did so, he needed to visit somewhere rather closer to home.
*****
The temple was less crowded now, now that the new year had come, and yet the feel of quietude, the way that death seemed to lurk closely, and yet gently...it only strengthened. In fact, the emotion seemed almost independent of his own mood, which was harried and a little foul. Kiralo had been working too hard, and the black and white robed priest who met him seemed to be able to feel it. His own spirits, a mass of arms and legs, of the color green floating in the sky and the smell of a rotting body, they all tensed, gathered around as if to watch the fire.
But there was no fire, there were no loosed arrows. Kiralo bowed and said, "May I speak with someone, a Priest of the Judges? There is a matter I need to address."
"What is it, Cs-Kiralo?" the man asked, his voice a little tired.
"That is for me to discuss with them," Kiralo said, shortly.
He knelt with an old man by the edge of a pool, just a dozen minutes later. The man looked as if an artist had carefully cut away everything extraneous, everything not needed. Even his voice seemed sparse, yet there was a strength to it. "Yes...what is it?"
"There's a spirit I met here, one...the name is one I did not try to learn," Kiralo began, fumblingly.
"What is its name?" the man asked, calmly, "Do not worry. If a spirit came to you, then it chose you, and if it chose you, Cs-Kiralo, then we cannot blame you." The white mask seemed almost to say otherwise, carefully placed to cover his features, making him seem even more sparse.
"Aiyistin."
"Ah," the old man said, "A powerful spirit, one of the most powerful that does not stay primarily deeper into the temple. A playful one. Watchful. It knows, or begins to know, the fate of men, their death and life, their pain and their joys. It knows them and it learns them and slowly pieces them together. It has lived almost four-hundred years, the...child of sorts of Aisinal."
Everyone had heard of Aisinal. Servant of the Judges, a Spirit so powerful it was rumored to be able to kill a man by wrapping its illusory bindings around their soul and tugging. A man said its true name, the secret names that only priests knew, only at times of great importance, for it was a spirit that served beings equal to Gods themselves.
Kiralo's skin felt cold. "The fate of men?"
"Nothing in this world is sure, but just as men have paths in their bodies, through which their energies flow--"
Everyone knew that, of course. Only an idiot would not be aware of this basic piece of medical fact. The pathways that through pressure and other methods could help deal with illnesses. And of course, if a man grew sick, a pathway might be used as part of treatment…
So he nodded.
"So too does the world have its proper flow. Lords command, and peasants obey, scholars study the world and soldiers defend it. All things move along the pathways they are set in, and yet there can be blockages, and though a life might go in general along one path, it can divert itself. It can feel these diversions, these...moments where change happens," the old man said, "And it can feel it. It gives its name, and the true power of it, only to those it deems worthy. So congratulations. There are are only two other people in the entire court who know that name and can call by it."
Kiralo blinked, "Is there anything I must do?"
"Introduce yourself," the man said, "And...then see what it wants."
Kiralo said the name aloud a second time, "Aiyistin."
It was the same hollow feeling as before, and just a little pain, and then he felt it, like something was running up his spine.
And then he heard it.
'Yes.'
Not a question, not anything but a statement. Kiralo blinked, looking around. "What are the signs of…"
"They vary, but they tend to be personal, rather than physical. Are you in pain?"
"A little," Kiralo said.
"That's him, bearing down on you, sitting on you, as one might say. It is a great honor."
"What...what can you do?"
'Help.'
"Why me?"
'You are quiet. You believe. I feel that the Judges...wish something of you.'
Kiralo gaped, and then threw himself down in front of the pool. They...wanted something of him. "What?" he asked, any mask gone. The Ten Judges, they were…
'Do not know. Will figure it out.'
"What did he say?" the old man asked.
'Do not tell.'
"Just...just that I was the one he'd chosen, and that's all," Kiralo said, taking a breath and pulling himself up, though his heart raced. He'd do whatever the Judges wished, but if Aiyistin did not know…?
Then what?
******
A man can get used to anything, including pain. Aiyistin was a headache, and then an ache in his chest, and then the feeling of feathers running against his back. He was the way the light seemed for a moment brighter and then so dim that he had to squint. Was this what it was like, to be in the presence of a great spirit? It was as if his limbs were weighted down with the power that was in theory in his hands.
Yet...he hesitated to even think of commanding such a being. It had lived longer than Lineage Ainin had existed. So he hadn't yet given it an order on the day that he met Bei'ren in a garden. It was not the imperial garden, and it showed. There was only a small pool, and small clusters of newly flowering plants, and a few well-cared for trees, there to provide shade to young and old.
Bei'ren wore a copper ring with the blue gem that his second place had earned him the right to wear, and a sky blue iritu. His careful features, were turned into a thin smile. His hair was in six braids this time, one of them falling just across his soft, dark eyes. "Greetings, Cs-Kiralo. Would you take a walk in the garden with me?"
"Of course," Kiralo said, for that is why he was here. And so they began to walk, carefully sticking to the path, for while today was nice, it had rained recently, and mud was no good for slippers, and Kiralo was not wearing his boots.
"I have to wonder: what is a play in Southlander?" Bei'ren asked, his voice light, "Not just the word, but the thing?"
"It is entertainment. There are festivals to their faiths, and perhaps it came from those, but the plays down there, they were born of the city first, and then met the court and changed. Instead of a straight stage, it is square, and open on all four sides, with a wall approximated. Csiritan plays have what is called the harmony of symbolism, while Southlander plays have the Harmony of Place. Each location is carefully sketched out, and there is more done to indicate what and where it is than in Csiritan works, while the gestures are less studied, and the meanings less…"
"Ah," Bei'ren said, surprised at the outpouring of words, "That is...interesting. And what of the poetry? Is it as free as the winds?"
"Freer," Kiralo said, "I thought I had met sticks in the mud until…" he paused, face flushing a little.
"It is fine. I will not report you, merely for having an opinion. I think that having more poetry from different lands can only hone that which we have here. Better foes and better comparisons strengthen a warrior, right?"
"They do," Kiralo said, "And so do better topics. I hope you have been keeping well, because now that I know about the topic of your play...it seems that you do have something to say."
"Or perhaps I'm merely a man who misses his father," Bei'ren stated, his smile widening. It made his face seem younger than his years, and Kiralo nodded.
"Maybe, but there's still poetry even in that."
"Even in that? Someone's a cynic."
"My father is not someone I can speak of," Kiralo admitted.
Bei'ren's smile slipped into a grin, and he turned, his eyes brimming with emotion,"That bad, huh? But you came, didn't you?"
"There are many reasons that can draw someone," Kiralo admitted.
"If you came to tell him off, you still came."
Kiralo frowned, annoyed by the truth of the statement. if Kuojah really meant nothing at all, would he have had all of those fantasies of telling him off as the person he was? "The empire needed me."
"You know, that pride is very impressive," Bei'ren said, "I like it. You managed to make a play all about how impressive you were, and people loved it."
Kiralo opened his mouth, but it really was true as they walked around a large, flowering tree, which had spirits like insects moving up and down it. "I hope my next work won't be about me at all. I want to show something new to Csirit...though I am not yet sure what."
"Whatever it is, if it is as amazing as The Duel…"
He stopped, and suddenly Kiralo was aware of how close they were walking. As they had walked, they'd inched closer together, and now Bei'ren's thin scholar's body was close enough that he could almost feel the warmth coming off from it, though that was just imagination.
"Thank you," Kiralo said, "Now, I want to ask a little about what you know. I've been in the court for some time, and yet I never quite understood the ways that the…"
Bei'ren seemed to know everyone. Until last month, until the play had made it seem as if he had chosen a side, he had been friends with some of the major players. A small time poet who had a decent stipend from his more famous father's will, who was working on making a name for himself. He had been too busy, or perhaps too dissolute, to do much in his twenties, but at thirty-four, he was finally hitting his stride.
They read poetry back and forth, recited from memories that had each been trained to the task, and Kiralo thought Bei'ren's poetry conventional...and yet exacting in its focus on the details of life and its use of sensory images.
"You should try a Tyspel."
"A what?"
Kiralo smiled at the look on his face, trying to keep a blush from his face, "It is a Bueli style of poem. The form might take some describing, but the content? It is using a moment from house life, from watching someone cook or from doing the laundry--for it is a peasant's form--or from anything else of that nature, to build a poem. The details that you love would be very well fitted there. It would be beautiful."
Bei'ren paused, and Kiralo realized that he had perhaps said too much. Or perhaps he had felt too much, staring at this man, whose affable manner and openness to the world differed from that of the other poets. A man who had given up a chance at the first prize, without having any reason to expect anything for it.
And he felt Bei'ren feeling it, and the distance between them seemed to shrink any more, despite the fact that neither of them were moving. "Would you perhaps like to take tea with me, if we're going to talk about these Tie-spells," his pronunciation could use work, "Then we should sit somewhere with examples in front of us, shouldn't we?"
"Ah," Kiralo said.
What does he do?
[] Agree. Meet for tea and discussion of poetry, ties grow closer, though perhaps people will notice and talk. Possibly.
[] Put it off for the moment (becomes a court action).
[] Rebuff him.
Another issue coming up is visiting the Academy, where should Kiralo go? (Choose 2)
[] Go to see the trainees, primarily.
[] Walk in the gardens and pens where unbound spirits are kept.
[] Visit the offices of some of the scholars to learn more about their latest magical work.
[] Talk to the head of the Academy.
[] Attend a class or two in the back, as an 'observer.'
[] Ask to be shown around by someone.
******
A/N: And there we go! I do need to do an infodump on Sumptory laws sometime...
[X] Bribe Ishuni. It's just money, right?
[X] "A few more...serving girls could be of some value," he lied, thinking fast.
[X] "I've always thought that Hari-Su tapestries are excellent, perhaps something for the wall would be nice…"
[X] Win-Yan
[X] Shuang
Kiralo wondered what he'd be able to do with courtesans, even ones who were southern beauties. He could use them, of course, as serving girls for the same purpose, if with rather more focus, that people tended to set their more beautiful servants on a guest, in order to ply them with drink and seduce them. It would be the kind of work expected of such women, and if harsh, it could be useful. She could always, as well, sell their services and take a cut. Whoremongers weren't respected in the imperial court city, but less because of any moral failing of theirs, and merely because anyone who worked outside of the imperial bureaucracy wasn't respected for a living.
You wrote poetry of books or worked for the Emperor, or lazed around, anything that was too much like being a merchant was looked down on.
They could be favors, of course. A sort of inducement to certain deals. It seemed a bit morally questionable, in the sense that he had read enough to feel slightly uncomfortable, but at the same time...that's what they were there for. He'd bought their contracts, so if he wanted he could sell them off as well. Their contracts, that is.
They weren't slaves, and they'd probably frown at him if he said otherwise.
They came into the room the next day in silken hanfu that were almost scandalously thin, and cut in such a way that they almost spilled out of them as they carried the tapestries.
They really were quite beautiful. The form and the weft of the images was startling, the way that traditional images such as a scholar meditating under a tree in a garden were combined with scenes of fast, powerful nature, spirits, and horses. A man meditated on horseback, riding through a scene of hundreds of spirits, coming up from the ground like birds scattering before a hunter. It was brilliantly colored, vivid and with a sense of life, and the other three were similarly wonderful.
One was more traditional in subject matter, but even that had the vitality and complexity that was a hallmark of Southlander styles of making rugs, carpets, and weaving in general. They had access to dyes that few others had, and they'd used them and their own stylistic urgings to create something special.
Just staring at them was like waking up, and it had been long enough since he'd set foot in the Southlands that now, bizarrely, he felt nostalgic. He was staring.
The women were attractive as well, he supposed. But those tapestries...
"Very good," he said, and then nodded, "Until I can find a place on my staff, ladies, you shall stay with my pay and protection in, say," he thought quickly, money being tight after paying the bribe to that greedy official, "Purple Blossom."
He named one of the pavilions where servants of all kinds were put, one of the ones of some prominence, but not too much. He didn't look at their faces long, although one of them seemed disappointed. But he was a figure of import, someone with a title and a lineage, and that meant they wouldn't dare to contradict him on this. Or perhaps other things. He'd have to talk to them at some point, when he worked out just what he wanted to do with them.
"And the tapestries?" one of the girls asked, after such a long pause that Kiralo was a little startled. He'd been moving onto the next step, going to the next stop in his busy week. The merchants glared at the girl, who shrank back. "Apologies for speaking out of t-turn."
"He could have you beat for your insolence," a thin merchant said, with a shake of his head, "We apologize for this."
"It is fine," Kiralo said, "The tapestries are to go to my rooms. They are quite impressive. Tell the artisans that they are much appreciated, if you see them."
If they weren't smuggled in from the Southlands, Kiralo thought. They might have been, though the Csiritan origins were also evident.
A matter to consider...but not for long.
*****
A few days later, a large caravan left Csrae for the north, and from there, to Hari-Bueli. At its head was an experienced military man, carefully selected for the task, and enough of a force to scare off any bandits, or even Bueli raiders, who thought it a tempting target. Though it was tempting. Weapons, weapons and money and armor, and stored rice enough to feed far more people than they could normally raise.
Then they were normally allowed to raise unless it was demanded of them, in fact. The Emperor could not tell them to exceed the limits, though of course they already had. But they'd surely know what to do with the rice and the weapons, with the money for purchasing mercenaries or better equipment, and if they didn't, they were fools.
Kiralo could do little more than that, right now, because if he moved the army to Hari-Bueli, that could tempt Prince Jinhai to strike. Everything was about the Prince, now.
He stalked through a court where the man's name was on every pair of lips.
A man Kiralo had never met, and yet everyone speculated about his every plan. His every scheme. He felt sometimes as if he were sitting across from the man. Prince Jinhai was popular, loved in his province, and before the death of the old Emperor, when the succession had seemed perhaps slightly precarious with only a single son, but manageable considering the man did have consorts and might yet have a second son…
In that context, Prince Jinhai had been the strong arm of the Imperial Line. A distant arm, but he'd fought back the Sea Raiders a half dozen times in as many years, and done so with skill that, when described, seemed like it would transfer well to a real, sustained war. None of his tactics were brilliant innovations, but that didn't matter at all.
In fact, Kiralo would be less worried if they were innovations, because fighting against the Sea Raiders was primarily a problem that had a solution. Many solutions, really. The only thing he could have offered that the Prince had lacked were fast horses capable of grabbing and tearing apart raiding parties a little better, but even in that context, he had decent cavalry by eastern, non-Hari-Su standards.
So he'd used good, solid tactics to pin down the enemy on a raid, and then hit them and roll them up. These weren't the tactics of the success which involved the Sea People, but Kiralo had not had time to examine that, and the time for compromising with Hari-Os was long passed. He'd let a strong opportunity to influence them and cut off or at least weaken Prince Jinhai's power base go by.
But it was not as if this was merely his failing. Kiralo had done what he could.
"What if he uses it as an excuse?" A balding man asked him, "The Rassit surging up through the Empire, like in the dark days of old, before we showed those savages where they could squat?" The official dabbed his sweating head, glancing over to the windows, where warm spring rain was making the day a misery.
Kiralo knew how to make his face a mask. It was a skill any sane person possessed who lived in court for a while. And so his voice was measured, "If he does, there are other moves I can do. I need your permission to use the court mandated waystations, but I consider these men as my own, as Arimi and Vedal are."
So to deny me, he didn't say, would be as saying you were making an enemy of me. Who was this person? Nobody important, just a bureaucrat who oversaw the inns, and yet if he had to, he'd make every enemy it took to get them back. He needed Kueli.
He'd always known that, of course, but as war approached, the need became greater. This court, it got under your bones. It got into your skin, and wore you, rather than letting you wear it. He'd go to sleep sometimes, and deals and lies and promises would slip through his mind so fast he couldn't even glimpse them, like a snake striking an unwary foot and then running.
He'd been given great power, but thus far it had been the power to make moral compromises. There were four women whose lives he now all but owned that he'd have to do something with, and he didn't even know what that was.
The man gulped. Let him gulp.
Kiralo was not in the mood for games that didn't involve just rolling over people. And that's what he was doing. There was no diplomatic subtlety in some of his moves, in the way he went to literally every man who had the power to stop him and laid it out. He was getting that approval, and he was getting it this month.
What he needed to figure out now was how he'd swing other matters, just as important. There was, for instance, the Imperial Academy to visit, and that would take a full day to explore, but before he did so, he needed to visit somewhere rather closer to home.
*****
The temple was less crowded now, now that the new year had come, and yet the feel of quietude, the way that death seemed to lurk closely, and yet gently...it only strengthened. In fact, the emotion seemed almost independent of his own mood, which was harried and a little foul. Kiralo had been working too hard, and the black and white robed priest who met him seemed to be able to feel it. His own spirits, a mass of arms and legs, of the color green floating in the sky and the smell of a rotting body, they all tensed, gathered around as if to watch the fire.
But there was no fire, there were no loosed arrows. Kiralo bowed and said, "May I speak with someone, a Priest of the Judges? There is a matter I need to address."
"What is it, Cs-Kiralo?" the man asked, his voice a little tired.
"That is for me to discuss with them," Kiralo said, shortly.
He knelt with an old man by the edge of a pool, just a dozen minutes later. The man looked as if an artist had carefully cut away everything extraneous, everything not needed. Even his voice seemed sparse, yet there was a strength to it. "Yes...what is it?"
"There's a spirit I met here, one...the name is one I did not try to learn," Kiralo began, fumblingly.
"What is its name?" the man asked, calmly, "Do not worry. If a spirit came to you, then it chose you, and if it chose you, Cs-Kiralo, then we cannot blame you." The white mask seemed almost to say otherwise, carefully placed to cover his features, making him seem even more sparse.
"Aiyistin."
"Ah," the old man said, "A powerful spirit, one of the most powerful that does not stay primarily deeper into the temple. A playful one. Watchful. It knows, or begins to know, the fate of men, their death and life, their pain and their joys. It knows them and it learns them and slowly pieces them together. It has lived almost four-hundred years, the...child of sorts of Aisinal."
Everyone had heard of Aisinal. Servant of the Judges, a Spirit so powerful it was rumored to be able to kill a man by wrapping its illusory bindings around their soul and tugging. A man said its true name, the secret names that only priests knew, only at times of great importance, for it was a spirit that served beings equal to Gods themselves.
Kiralo's skin felt cold. "The fate of men?"
"Nothing in this world is sure, but just as men have paths in their bodies, through which their energies flow--"
Everyone knew that, of course. Only an idiot would not be aware of this basic piece of medical fact. The pathways that through pressure and other methods could help deal with illnesses. And of course, if a man grew sick, a pathway might be used as part of treatment…
So he nodded.
"So too does the world have its proper flow. Lords command, and peasants obey, scholars study the world and soldiers defend it. All things move along the pathways they are set in, and yet there can be blockages, and though a life might go in general along one path, it can divert itself. It can feel these diversions, these...moments where change happens," the old man said, "And it can feel it. It gives its name, and the true power of it, only to those it deems worthy. So congratulations. There are are only two other people in the entire court who know that name and can call by it."
Kiralo blinked, "Is there anything I must do?"
"Introduce yourself," the man said, "And...then see what it wants."
Kiralo said the name aloud a second time, "Aiyistin."
It was the same hollow feeling as before, and just a little pain, and then he felt it, like something was running up his spine.
And then he heard it.
'Yes.'
Not a question, not anything but a statement. Kiralo blinked, looking around. "What are the signs of…"
"They vary, but they tend to be personal, rather than physical. Are you in pain?"
"A little," Kiralo said.
"That's him, bearing down on you, sitting on you, as one might say. It is a great honor."
"What...what can you do?"
'Help.'
"Why me?"
'You are quiet. You believe. I feel that the Judges...wish something of you.'
Kiralo gaped, and then threw himself down in front of the pool. They...wanted something of him. "What?" he asked, any mask gone. The Ten Judges, they were…
'Do not know. Will figure it out.'
"What did he say?" the old man asked.
'Do not tell.'
"Just...just that I was the one he'd chosen, and that's all," Kiralo said, taking a breath and pulling himself up, though his heart raced. He'd do whatever the Judges wished, but if Aiyistin did not know…?
Then what?
******
A man can get used to anything, including pain. Aiyistin was a headache, and then an ache in his chest, and then the feeling of feathers running against his back. He was the way the light seemed for a moment brighter and then so dim that he had to squint. Was this what it was like, to be in the presence of a great spirit? It was as if his limbs were weighted down with the power that was in theory in his hands.
Yet...he hesitated to even think of commanding such a being. It had lived longer than Lineage Ainin had existed. So he hadn't yet given it an order on the day that he met Bei'ren in a garden. It was not the imperial garden, and it showed. There was only a small pool, and small clusters of newly flowering plants, and a few well-cared for trees, there to provide shade to young and old.
Bei'ren wore a copper ring with the blue gem that his second place had earned him the right to wear, and a sky blue iritu. His careful features, were turned into a thin smile. His hair was in six braids this time, one of them falling just across his soft, dark eyes. "Greetings, Cs-Kiralo. Would you take a walk in the garden with me?"
"Of course," Kiralo said, for that is why he was here. And so they began to walk, carefully sticking to the path, for while today was nice, it had rained recently, and mud was no good for slippers, and Kiralo was not wearing his boots.
"I have to wonder: what is a play in Southlander?" Bei'ren asked, his voice light, "Not just the word, but the thing?"
"It is entertainment. There are festivals to their faiths, and perhaps it came from those, but the plays down there, they were born of the city first, and then met the court and changed. Instead of a straight stage, it is square, and open on all four sides, with a wall approximated. Csiritan plays have what is called the harmony of symbolism, while Southlander plays have the Harmony of Place. Each location is carefully sketched out, and there is more done to indicate what and where it is than in Csiritan works, while the gestures are less studied, and the meanings less…"
"Ah," Bei'ren said, surprised at the outpouring of words, "That is...interesting. And what of the poetry? Is it as free as the winds?"
"Freer," Kiralo said, "I thought I had met sticks in the mud until…" he paused, face flushing a little.
"It is fine. I will not report you, merely for having an opinion. I think that having more poetry from different lands can only hone that which we have here. Better foes and better comparisons strengthen a warrior, right?"
"They do," Kiralo said, "And so do better topics. I hope you have been keeping well, because now that I know about the topic of your play...it seems that you do have something to say."
"Or perhaps I'm merely a man who misses his father," Bei'ren stated, his smile widening. It made his face seem younger than his years, and Kiralo nodded.
"Maybe, but there's still poetry even in that."
"Even in that? Someone's a cynic."
"My father is not someone I can speak of," Kiralo admitted.
Bei'ren's smile slipped into a grin, and he turned, his eyes brimming with emotion,"That bad, huh? But you came, didn't you?"
"There are many reasons that can draw someone," Kiralo admitted.
"If you came to tell him off, you still came."
Kiralo frowned, annoyed by the truth of the statement. if Kuojah really meant nothing at all, would he have had all of those fantasies of telling him off as the person he was? "The empire needed me."
"You know, that pride is very impressive," Bei'ren said, "I like it. You managed to make a play all about how impressive you were, and people loved it."
Kiralo opened his mouth, but it really was true as they walked around a large, flowering tree, which had spirits like insects moving up and down it. "I hope my next work won't be about me at all. I want to show something new to Csirit...though I am not yet sure what."
"Whatever it is, if it is as amazing as The Duel…"
He stopped, and suddenly Kiralo was aware of how close they were walking. As they had walked, they'd inched closer together, and now Bei'ren's thin scholar's body was close enough that he could almost feel the warmth coming off from it, though that was just imagination.
"Thank you," Kiralo said, "Now, I want to ask a little about what you know. I've been in the court for some time, and yet I never quite understood the ways that the…"
Bei'ren seemed to know everyone. Until last month, until the play had made it seem as if he had chosen a side, he had been friends with some of the major players. A small time poet who had a decent stipend from his more famous father's will, who was working on making a name for himself. He had been too busy, or perhaps too dissolute, to do much in his twenties, but at thirty-four, he was finally hitting his stride.
They read poetry back and forth, recited from memories that had each been trained to the task, and Kiralo thought Bei'ren's poetry conventional...and yet exacting in its focus on the details of life and its use of sensory images.
"You should try a Tyspel."
"A what?"
Kiralo smiled at the look on his face, trying to keep a blush from his face, "It is a Bueli style of poem. The form might take some describing, but the content? It is using a moment from house life, from watching someone cook or from doing the laundry--for it is a peasant's form--or from anything else of that nature, to build a poem. The details that you love would be very well fitted there. It would be beautiful."
Bei'ren paused, and Kiralo realized that he had perhaps said too much. Or perhaps he had felt too much, staring at this man, whose affable manner and openness to the world differed from that of the other poets. A man who had given up a chance at the first prize, without having any reason to expect anything for it.
And he felt Bei'ren feeling it, and the distance between them seemed to shrink any more, despite the fact that neither of them were moving. "Would you perhaps like to take tea with me, if we're going to talk about these Tie-spells," his pronunciation could use work, "Then we should sit somewhere with examples in front of us, shouldn't we?"
"Ah," Kiralo said.
What does he do?
[] Agree. Meet for tea and discussion of poetry, ties grow closer, though perhaps people will notice and talk. Possibly.
[] Put it off for the moment (becomes a court action).
[] Rebuff him.
Another issue coming up is visiting the Academy, where should Kiralo go? (Choose 2)
[] Go to see the trainees, primarily.
[] Walk in the gardens and pens where unbound spirits are kept.
[] Visit the offices of some of the scholars to learn more about their latest magical work.
[] Talk to the head of the Academy.
[] Attend a class or two in the back, as an 'observer.'
[] Ask to be shown around by someone.
******
An Offering of Resources
Need:40 Rolled: 1d100+13=73, very good success
A Spiritual Question:
Need: 40, Rolled: 1d100+6+4+2=48, 30
A Play On Words
Need: 35, Rolled: 1d100+12+4 (Poet)+1 (Attractive)=104
Need:40 Rolled: 1d100+13=73, very good success
A Spiritual Question:
Need: 40, Rolled: 1d100+6+4+2=48, 30
A Play On Words
Need: 35, Rolled: 1d100+12+4 (Poet)+1 (Attractive)=104
A/N: And there we go! I do need to do an infodump on Sumptory laws sometime...
