The next morn-ing, Lui came to Alas-si's room ear-ly, look-ing un-com-fort-able. "Grand-ma..." the girl looked at her earnest-ly. "I think Mian is com-ing back, and oth-ers are with him."

  Sobon took that for the warn-ing it was. Af-ter ris-ing and hav-ing a de-cent break-fast, Sobon linked with the de-fense sys-tem, along with an-oth-er pat-tern she had en-graved on an old bro-ken mop broom han-dle, which she con-cealed in the back of her blouse. It was only a pro-to-type--a hand-held bar-ri-er in the shape of a blade, pow-ered by left-hand aether, with an-oth-er sim-ple can-non script cov-er-ing the bot-tom end of it, like the one she had used on the pi-rate ship, ca-pa-ble of left or in-ner fir-ing. Sobon hoped there would be no need for it, but she hadn't the slight-est trust for any-one in this world. For sim-i-lar rea-sons, Sobon spun up her dy-namos, col-lect-ing as much thread as she could, and prepar-ing them for what-ev-er may be com-ing.

  By the time sev-er-al fig-ures came up the road, Sobon was con-vinced that her prepa-ra-tions were not mere-ly para-noid. Among the fig-ures, Alas-si rec-og-nized only two--Mian, who was bound and dragged along by one of the guards, and an old-er man in a def-er-en-tial po-si-tion that Alas-si rec-og-nized as the city leader of the town Mian had gone to. At the lead was a younger man with his aura blaz-ing--al-though Sobon not-ed that the aether geom-e-try of it seemed wrong for the num-ber and col-or of stars he was dis-play-ing. To his right was a man who held him-self se-vere-ly, and who was most-ly cov-ered in var-i-ous pieces of heavy cloth, in-clud-ing all of his face but his eyes, eyes that locked onto Sobon in-stant-ly.

  That body-guard, since that must be what he was, had a lev-el of qi Sobon had not seen yet--well above the man who he es-cort-ed. It was a firm qi, but it had a strange qual-i-ty to it, shed-ding mul-ti-ple col-ored hues with-out be-ing the gem-like, opales-cent sheen that Sobon re-called from the reaper's scythe. Sobon wasn't sure where to rank him, and nei-ther did Alas-si--al-though they both agreed, word-less-ly, that he was above their lev-el. Ac-cord-ing to Alas-si, he was in a 'realm' above her--hav-ing passed out of the less-er met-als and into the greater ones, al-though Sobon didn't pry into the de-tails.

  Be-hind the no-ble--or what-ev-er he was--was one group of sol-diers, and be-hind the town leader was an-oth-er. With-out a doubt, the young no-ble had the stronger and bet-ter equipped group of guards, but both groups had enough to cause trou-ble for a group of nor-mal peo-ple--or, if their in-ten-tions were pure, enogh to lead the refugees away safe-ly. Some-how, Sobon doubt-ed it was the last.

  The no-ble and his body-guard called their rid-ing beasts to a stop well into the clear-ing where the inn sat, and he sneered at Sobon, ini-tial-ly dis-re-gard-ing her. "Let the war-rior who slew the in-no-cent mer-chants I hired step foward! On my hon-or, I will see jus-tice done!"

  Sobon's spir-it re-mained even as she stepped for-ward. "They were no in-no-cent men," she said, ig-nor-ing the many and pan-icked in-stincts from Alas-si to bow down be-fore the man.

  The young no-ble raised his head to look down his nose at Sobon. "You? A pa-thet-ic woman was the one who killed my dear mer-chant friends?"

  "They were slavers," Sobon said, keep-ing her eyes more on the body-guard, who as yet had shown no de-sire to move.

  "You shall not call my friends such things, and you shall bow be-fore this young mas-ter!" With his last words, the no-ble en-forced an aether wave, one that pressed down on every-one be-fore him. Sobon, calm-ly, re-leased her right-hand aether dy-namos, re-sist-ing the wave with-out break-ing her pos-ture.

  "When you are de-serv-ing of re-spect, you shall get it," Sobon replied, grim-ly.

  As if notic-ing at last that Sobon was in-deed a war-rior, the no-ble leaped from his rid-ing beast--a horse, ac-cord-ing to Alas-si--and land-ed not five feet in front of her. Ar-ro-gant-ly, he laid hands on the sword at his waist, but only pushed it back slight-ly, rather than draw-ing it or rest-ing on the pom-mel. "I am of the no-ble house of Mofu," he said, "and I am worth more than your en-tire lin-eage com-bined. You will BOW!"

  Even with the clos-er range, and more di-rect at-ten-tion, Sobon suf-fered the at-tack calm-ly, still keep-ing her eyes on the body-guard, who still showed no signs of act-ing.

  "If I may, young mas-ter," the city lord stepped for-ward. Sobon hadn't even no-ticed him dis-mount-ing, and didn't par-tic-u-lar-ly think to care. "This woman is known as Alas-si, an old Witch of the west who served the Di-a-mond Lord for many years and was re-tired af-ter be-ing wound-ed."

  "Oh, I see," the no-ble, sneered, and Sobon felt like dirty aether was be-ing spat out at him with the words. "So her dis-re-spect is not out of ig-no-rance, then. All the more rea-son why--"

  "What ev-i-dence do you have," Sobon pro-ject-ed her voice with a touch of her body's qi, sim-ply be-cause she didn't know how to do it with raw aether. It made the no-ble flinch, just slight-ly, and kept all eyes on her. "that what I have said is false, and that these men were in-no-cent? Es-pe-cial-ly giv-en that the slaves they were car-ry-ing are still here and can ac-count for their own his-to-ry?"

  The no-ble, at that, un-sheathed his sword and lev-elled it at Sobon's face. Sobon, her body still suf-fused with fresh aether, ticked up her body in-sincts a lev-el, watch-ing the sword com-ing in slow mo-tion just long enough to know that the move was a threat and not an at-tack. So, she re-leased the boost and al-lowed the sword to come to a stop inch-es from her face, keep-ing a calm ex-pres-sion.

  "I swear on the house of Mofu that my words are true," he said with a snarl, "and I will fight to have sat-is-fac-tion from any-one who sug-gests oth-er-wise." With the last words, he re-leased some-thing in his spir-it--and as Sobon had guessed, his ap-par-ent qi lev-el rose from some mud-dled Sil-ver stars to three gold-en spikes. It was an im-pres-sive dis-play--es-pe-cial-ly since Sobon had nev-er reached gold-en qi yet, and had no cer-tain-ty about what that qi lev-el re-al-ly meant.

  Alas-si, though, was con-fi-dent that she had no chance to fight, even though Sobon had bro-ken her spir-it into the Sil-ver range al-ready the evening be-fore--with an ac-com-pa-ny-ing ex-plo-sion of black sludge from her body, sim-i-lar to what Ki'el had un-der-gone af-ter the bat-tle on the pi-rate ship. Even with the fresh aether Sobon was bring-ing in slow-ly in-creas-ing her qi ca-pac-i-ty, it seemed to the old crone a lost cause. That... didn't mean all that much to Sobon, re-al-ly, but she not-ed it re-gard-less. It was a poor sol-dier that didn't at least lis-ten when oth-ers ex-pressed con-cern.

  "You wish to duel me to prove my words false?" Sobon let her voice re-main calm, which was no small feat at this point in the con-flict. Not for the first or last time, she thought long-ing-ly about sim-pler times, when her body was a tech-no-log-i-cal pros-thet-ic loaded with aether weapon-ry, and not an eas-i-ly pro-voked sack of meat. Alas-si's body was re-act-ing to the high-er qi of her op-po-nent, even with Sobon flush-ing it out with pure aether. And al-though it pan-icked Alas-si to hear the words come out of her mouth, Sobon con-tin-ued, "Such a pa-thet-ic ex-cuse for jus-tice."

  Giv-en the re-ac-tions of sev-er-al peo-ple around, that was the worst thing Sobon could have said, no mat-ter how much she might be-lieve it.

  "Bold of you. Very well," said the young no-ble, with-dr-waing his sword. "If you can en-dure three strikes from this young mas-ter, I will for-give the deaths of my sworn broth-ers. And if you can-not..." Sobon could tan-gi-bly feel the no-ble's at-ten-tion as it wan-dered across her body, set-tling on the very few places that in-ter-est-ed the young man. "You will serve me, for the rest of your life."

  Sobon con-sid-ered, study-ing the qi of the no-ble to the best of her abil-i-ty. Af-ter a mo-ment, she nod-ded. "I will agree, as long as the... young mas-ter agrees to also take one strike from me."

  Pre-dictably, the no-ble threw his head back and laughed, dirty qi leak-ing into his voice, the black tar-like aether splat-ter-ing on those who heard it. "Take a blow from you? A re-tired, crip-pled sil-ver cul-ti-va-tor?" Some-how, de-spite hav-ing a sword in his hand and rel-a-tive-ly nar-row sleeves, the man shucked him-self out of his shirt, ex-pos-ing his bare chest, and threw his arms out wide. "I in-vite it! Take your best shot, you pa-thet-ic ex-cuse for an old hag!"

  Sobon stud-ied the man even as she reached for her hid-den im-ple-ment. She saw the body-guard sif-f-en as she found the broom han-dle, but when she re-vealed it as noth-ing more than a length of wood, he re-laxed, as did those in the no-ble's guard.

  The no-ble him-self found him-self un-able to look down on Sobon any hard-er than he al-ready was, and sim-ply stood there, gloat-ing and en-joy-ing his last mo-ments in the sun.

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  Sobon could ack-owledge, though, that the qi lay-ers around the young no-ble's body were thick, and an-oth-er aether field pro-ject-ed out-wards, form-ing a bar-ri-er that would dull any at-tack. The pi-rate cap-tain had some-thing sim-i-lar--be-tween the two, he had tanked a tru-ly dead-ly blow to the head, sur-pris-ing Sobon, and she had no rea-son to think the man be-fore her was less pro-tect-ed.

  How-ev-er, Sobon was con-cerned with the over-all struc-ture of the man's aether, and if he had guessed cor-rect-ly, it had a glar-ing weak-ness that he doubt-ed any of the lo-cals would grasp. It was the sort of thing that Sobon him-self was poor-ly trained in--a Fairy of the Mixed Marines would know bet-ter the ins and outs of per-son-al aether, but Sobon was most-ly sure that there was one spot in par-tic-u-lar where the man's aether cir-cu-lat-ed back in af-ter ex-press-ing the out-er shield.

  So Sobon ac-ti-vat-ed the sword-pro-jec-tion bar-ri-er over her stick, then care-ful-ly, and sub-tly, lay-ered a sin-gle thread of her own aether along the edge of the weapon. Then, with the no-ble still grand-stand-ing, she moved for-ward, only to duck and turn, spin-ning in an awk-ward way in or-der to force the blade into the out-er bar-ri-er from a cer-tain spot, with a cer-tain an-gle.

  Those watch-ing no-ticed his qi shiv-er with the blow, but saw noth-ing else. The blade not only didn't pen-e-trate his flesh--it wasn't even aimed at it.

  But Sobon let her thread of qi get car-ried away into the no-ble's own aether, forc-ing it through at least one fil-ter or in-ter-nal de-fense, un-til it reached some spot deep with-in where the man's aether was gath-ered. When she reached it, Sobon stepped away, spin-ning up an In-flow aether dy-namo and press-ing it into the can-non script, tar-get-ting the spot in the aether that her own aether thread had just reached.

  Un-like the bar-ri-er pro-jec-tion, the can-non script con-sumed enough en-er-gy to flash-char the broom han-dle, but Sobon sensed a pulse, and watched the no-ble's face flash with con-fu-sion... and fear.

  "Hah!" One of the no-ble's guards was point-ing at Sobon, mock-ing-ly. "The witch doesn't even know how to use a broom, let alone a sword." There were oth-er voic-es of agree-ment, but Sobon only had eyes for the no-ble--and for this body-guard.

  The lat-ter was just as con-cerned as the for-mer, but Sobon saw noth-ing in his face that in-di-cat-ed he was about to in-ter-fere.

  The no-ble, though, reached up to grasp a spot in his chest which Sobon sup-posed must have been where the aether pool might have been, and his sword dropped limply from his fin-gers. "This bitch..." he mum-bled to him-self, only once, al-though Alas-si echoed a thought that she seemed to hear through her Qi core. ...she cracked my dant-ian!

  Sobon, in prepa-ra-tion, brought up his makeshift bar-ri-er blade, and be-fore he was even ful-ly ready to block, the man had charged her, putting a wave of qi into a quick but dev-as-tat-ing punch that in-stant-ly knocked Sobon back ten feet or more. He was also charg-ing again, but Sobon ducked and moved into a dif-fer-ent po-si-tion, rais-ing the blade to block an-oth-er strike, which the man re-leased as a for-ward kick.

  The blow sent Sobon clean through the door to the inn, which shat-tered into pieces, rain-ing shrap-nel in-side.

  Sobon, though, was al-ready con-nect-ing to the sim-ple de-fense script she'd laid over the house, and she poured all of her own dy-namos into the reser-voir even as she ac-ti-vat-ed it. She hadn't yet done a full test--but the script was very sim-ple, at least in lay-out. She found her-self un-sur-prised when the bar-ri-er slipped into place at the out-side of the door-way.

  Still, with her body's own qi and her dy-namos all with-in range of Sobon's mind, she found her-self stretched a bit thin, so she con-nect-ed the con-trols, such as they were, to her left hand, hold-ing it out to one side to re-mind him-self no to use it in com-bat. There wasn't much she could do, ex-cept raise and low-er the bar-ri-er, and chan-nel more en-er-gy in--but sep-a-ra-tion of du-ties was a sim-ple and nec-es-sary task when han-dling so many fac-tors at once.

  The no-ble, with-out com-ment, charged the bar-ri-er, but clear-ly sensed it, and struck out at it with a gold-en fist, and then an-oth-er, and then two palm strikes. Each of them was a sig-nif-i-cant blow, but the sim-plic-i-ty of the bar-ri-er pat-tern be-lied a sim-ple truth: a pat-tern with a pure na-ture and pur-pose was more pow-er-ful and en-er-gy ef-fi-cient than a spoiled brat with a tem-per tantrum.

  At least, one of a sim-i-lar pow-er, and Sobon was just close enough to the man's high-er lev-el of qi to be able to soak the blows with what she thought might be a three-to-two en-er-gy ra-tio. That means she was stil los-ing en-er-gy faster than him... blow for blow, at least.

  There were many cries from out-side, of "Young mas-ter!" and the like, but Sobon stepped back to the door-way and looked out from just this side of the bar-ri-er, study-ing the no-ble's face. Un-like him, Sobon was still calm, al-though her pulse was rac-ing, and Sobon thought that Alas-si was at least a lit-tle ex-cit-ed to see the sweaty, mus-cled, half-naked man star-ing dag-gers at her. Not the kind of ex-cit-ed where she would will-ing-ly lose, or even re-spect the man--but in-ter-nal-ly, the woman liked what she saw.

  Sobon... did not. "I be-lieve that was three blows," she said, sim-ply, rais-ing the bar-ri-er sword in her oth-er hand as though in warn-ing.

  The city leader stepped for-ward, pro-ject-ing his voice. "Since you are from the west, Witch Alas-si, I will re-mind you that in these ar-eas, you are only al-lowed to use pat-terns that you laid dur-ing a duel or car-ry on your per-son. Even if you laid these en-grav-ings your-self, you still must take one more blow from Young Mas-ter Mofu to sat-is-fy the duel."

  For what-ev-er rea-son, though, Mofu was al-ready charg-ing up an-oth-er at-tack. It was clear he was un-will-ing to ac-cept that the bar-ri-er was too strong for him to pen-e-trate--and Sobon knew that he was los-ing Aether through his wound-ed... dant-ian? What-ev-er the aether stor-age place was that Sobon had dam-aged in her at-tack. And she was sure she had done dam-age--the blow was less pow-er-ful than the one that has splat-tered the pi-rate cap-tain's head like over-ripe fruit, but then, Sobon hadn't tar-get-ted any part of his phys-i-cal body with it.

  When us-ing in-flow to pow-er an at-tack like that, it passed like a ghost through many kinds of de-fens-es, reap-par-ing only at its tar-get, un-like the heavy beam that left aether fired out us-ing the same pat-tern. The Crestan Mil-i-tary had nev-er found a par-tic-u-lar-ly ef-fi-cient de-fense against those kinds of can-nons--and in-stead ded-i-cat-ed mul-ti-ple de-fense nodes to pro-duc-ing out-spin bar-ri-er fields, just in case. What-ev-er de-fens-es this young no-ble had against qi at-tacks, they did not re-spond to his sud-den and vi-o-lent at-tack, just as the pi-rate cap-tain didn't.

  Still, he was alive, a kind-ness that Sobon was liv-ing to re-gret. In-stead of wor-ry-ing, Sobon over-charged the bar-ri-er on her blade, study-ing the young mas-ter as he poured what qi re-mained into his right hand.

  "You will suf-fer for what you did to me, witch," the no-ble said, and his qi ra-di-at-ed the name of his at-tack, even as he lined up a knife-hand thrust. Sobon could feel the man's in-tent, as he pre-pared to pierce through the bar-ri-er around the house and straight into Sobon's skull.

  Sobon raised the broom han-dle come bar-ri-er blade, point-ing the tip right through the pro-jec-tion of the war-rior's in-tent, and nod-ded at him.

  [ Di-vine Blade Hand ]

  The qi that fell in be-hind the at-tack was prob-a-bly greater than his three gold stars of raw qi po-ten-tial, Sobon would lat-er judge. It pierced into the inn's bar-ri-er, blow-ing at first a small hole in the bar-ri-er, and then forc-ing wave af-ter wave of cut-ting in-tent through widen-ing the gap over the course of per-haps a sec-ond, but no more than that, un-til there was more than enough room his arm to break through. And that is when Sobon, af-ter care-ful-ly lin-ing her-self up, re-leased the inn's bar-ri-er, point-ing the very tip of the bar-ri-er blade right down the cen-ter of the no-ble's pierc-ing blade hand.

  By the time any-one else could see what had hap-pened, the no-ble's arm was split from fin-ger-tip to mid-bi-cep, the line of Sobon's blade hav-ing carved a per-fect-ly straight line through the blow. That was not on Sobon's skill, though, or not alone; Sobon had not swung the blade, or tak-en a step for-ward, only stood there with it ex-tend-ed in front of her.

  The no-ble screamed, and for some rea-son that Sobon couldn't fath-om, in spite of all bi-o-log-i-cal sense, the man's qi-heavy blood sim-ply ex-plod-ed from the wound, scat-ter-ing out in quan-ti-ties that made very lit-tle, if any, sense. The young mas-ter stepped back, one arm try-ing to cra-dle the oth-er--but his right arm be-gan to fall into two pieces, and he twitched, like his nerves could not han-dle it.

  Sobon only pieced to-geth-er the or-der of what fol-lowed, lat-er.

  It was only af-ter the city leader said, "That counts as three blows, and so, the Witch Alas-si has won the duel." Only then did the young lord's body-guard spring into ac-tion, and al-though Sobon was still in a men-tal step-up, he could only bare-ly see the young lord be-ing pulled away to safe-ty with blood-red rags that ra-di-at-ed in-tense qi. By the time Sobon had processed the lord be-ing tele-port-ed back and away, the body-guard had wrapped his en-tire arm with ban-dages, and Sobon sensed com-plex work-ings of qi around the arm that were too un-fa-mil-iar for her to parse.

  Sobon stepped for-ward, keep-ing her bar-ri-er blade at the ready, al-though the etch-ings on it had burned away at the wood af-ter tak-ing that blow, and she doubt-ed it would sur-vive more than an-oth-er strike. Still, the no-ble's guards tensed at the mere ex-is-tence of the blade, and that seemed enough.

  The city leader was look-ing to the body-guard, though, and had af-fect-ed a more rigid, up-stand-ing pos-ture than be-fore. "Then, ac-cord-ing to the young mas-ter's own word, the house of Mofu has no ob-jec-tion to us pay-ing out a boun-ty and re-leas-ing the ac-cused."

  The body-guard turned to him, ra-di-at-ing qi in-tent at a lev-el that Sobon her-self was un-sure she could have tak-en at that range, but packed it away af-ter only a mo-ment. And al-though he brought his qi re-lease back down to a rea-son-able lev-el, Sobon was still ter-ri-fied when the body-guard turned to-wards her, and tele-port-ed for-ward through a good fif-teen feet as though with a sin-gle step.

  And the guard clasped his hands to-geth-er in a salute and bowed, his qi even.

  "On be-half of the young mas-ter," he said, his voice deep and res-o-nant, "I thank the Mas-ter Alas-si for spar-ing his life, and af-firm that the terms giv-en by the young mas-ter will be up-held, on the hon-or of our fam-i-ly."

  Sobon bare-ly had time to con-sid-er re-ply-ing, be-fore the man had loaded his lord up on his horse and was al-ready or-der-ing the rest of the fam-i-ly's per-son-al guards to form up and lead away.

  Sobon was sur-prsied when the city leader made a noise, but the body-guard turned back.

  "There is the mat-ter of the boun-ty," he said, try-ing his best to sound stern. "You re-call that in my of-fice, the young mas-ter--"

  With-out an-oth-er word, the body-guard fetched a pouch of coins and threw it at the city lord's feet, and then they were gone.