When Lui re-turned at the end of her day, she seemed pleased, as did Mian, al-though he had a dif-fer-ent rea-son. Lui's time with the al-chemist had turned out well, al-though the girl didn't yet un-der-stand the many nu-anced com-plex-i-ties. Ap-par-ent-ly, the woman had for a long time re-fused to take an ap-pren-tice from the lo-cals, ex-act-ly be-cause so many of them were not spir-i-tu-al-ly sen-si-tive enough. Lui would only say that the woman "com-plained a lot" about the var-i-ous youths who had passed through her shop, and that she was pleased that Lui could iden-ti-fy plants by their auras, when they looked very sim-i-lar to the eye. Ap-par-ent-ly, this was a crit-i-cal part of com-bin-ing plants into spir-i-tu-al med-i-cines, some-thing which Sobon could claim to knowl-edge of at all, and might have doubt-ed un-der dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stances.

  Mian, in-stead, had stepped out of the alche-my house and al-most im-me-di-ate-ly run afoul of the city guard chas-ing a thief. Mian, on a hunch, had gone the oth-er way, and caught a group of crim-i-nals in the mid-dle of a more sub-stan-tial rob-bery while the nor-mal guards were dis-tract-ed. It was too many for Mian to tack-le sin-gle-hand-ed-ly, but he had drawn their at-ten-tion by chal-leng-ing the strongest of the group. In the end, he held that one for the guards, and al-though many of the oth-ers got away, Mian had at least been able to iden-ti-fy most of them.

  That thought con-fused Sobon, un-til Mian and Lui both re-mind-ed him that she could fo-cus her qi sens-es on some-one to learn their name, with Mian adding spe-cif-ic de-tails about how the dif-fer-ent qi lev-els let some peo-ple shield them-selves from oth-ers, at least in part. Sobon had been aware of some of that--it had come up be-tween Jom and Xoi Xam--but for some rea-son, Sobon her-self nev-er man-aged the trick of it, and it had nev-er seemed all that im-por-tant.

  [ Re-al-ly? ] Alas-si had seemed a lit-tle sur-prised, when Sobon strug-gled and failed to get Alas-si's own sens-es to work for her. The spir-it tried, her-self, and was able to pass a data-gram back to Sobon, which had more in-for-ma-tion than the crude stream Jom had been able to un-der-stand. [ Even with Iron Qi, I was able to read spir-its. Per-haps it's be-cause you spend all of your time us-ing that pu-ri-fied ...aether qi, or what-ev-er it is. ]

  [ Just aether, ] Sobon replied, dis-tract-ed. In one way, that ex-pla-na-tion did make a bit of sense; Sobon's soul, to use an im-pre-cise term, was not ac-cus-tomed to the plan-et's qi, even if the bod-ies she had in-hab-it-ed had qi cores. Even now, Sobon in-ward-ly chafed at the idea of pass-ing com-plex, wo-ven streams of mut-li-spin aether through the deep-est reach-es of her 'self'. Even if she could gen-er-ate an ab-solute-ly pure ver-sion of the same--and Sobon wasn't sure that she could--each of the dif-fer-ent spins that were a part of qi had their own pur-pos-es and uses. Us-ing such a com-plex en-er-gy when she only need-ed a tiny part of it, to do some-thing in par-tic-u-lar, struck Sobon as egre-gious-ly waste-ful. The en-er-gy wasn't de-signed for peo-ple who un-der-stood aether, and Sobon knew it. So it felt... a lit-tle prim-i-tive, in spite of the fact that it was ac-tu-al-ly high-ly ad-vanced.

  "In truth," Mian was say-ing, "some of those scamps should have been iden-ti-fied by the peo-ple near-by. I think some of them might have sym-pa-tized with them, which makes me wor-ry about the town guard. I'll do some look-ing into it in the next few days, while Lui is work-ing with Miss Fau."

  Sobon nod-ded at that, then shift-ed to look at the cramped quar-ters that her now-fam-i-ly called their own, which more re-al-is-ti-cal-ly was Sobon's. She con-sid-ered for a long mo-ment be-fore speak-ing. "I don't mind help-ing, if the only rea-son they are steal-ing is need. But we can't take them in, or at least, not more than a cou-ple, and only if they're very trust-wor-thy. I in-tend that in time, this place will have many se-crets."

  Mian glanced over at the hut where he knew Sobon had cre-at-ed the fake base-ment. "You are putting a lot of work into a lousy house, Alas-si. Are you sure you don't want to try to get a bet-ter one?"

  Sobon just shook her head. "I don't have the time or in-cli-na-tion to be picky. With all the ...mys-ter-ies of qi, that I know, if I want this place to be a fortress or a palace, whether I have this much room or a hun-dred times as much, I could make it work." That wasn't quite cor-rect, but it might as well be. The Crestan Navy didn't like us-ing spa-tial ex-pan-sion for warp-ca-pa-ble ships, but that was the only re-stric-tion he had ever been taught. Prop-er-ly re-in-forced, ex-pand-ed space was just fine; even on Crest, some ter-res-tri-al pow-er plants and fac-to-ries kept their most volatile and dan-ger-ous process-es in spa-tial pock-ets for the sake of con-tain-ment. The Ri'lef use of pock-et di-men-sions as their de-fault mode of spa-tial ex-pan-sion sug-gest-ed that they were per-fect-ly fine with both space ma-nip-u-la-tion and tele-por-ta-tion be-ing used en masse on their plan-et, so Sobon didn't see any rea-son to hold back. Though... she did send off an-oth-er low-pri-or-i-ty note to the Ri'lef en-gi-neer, who she not-ed had not got-ten to her last query.

  "I'm hon-est-ly sur-prised the City Lord was will-ing to give you this much," said Lui, look-ing around the small space, still with the small smile that had not left her face all day. "Just for tak-ing down a bunch of crim-i-nals..."

  Sobon waved her off and shook her head at that. "Not be-cause of the boun-ty. Be-cause I taught him how to break through into Gold Qi." Lui just looked sur-prised at that, but Mian stiff-ened. Sobon caught the man's eyes, but he made a silent ges-ture that Sobon in-ter-pret-ed as, 'lat-er'. "He ap-par-ent-ly had been stuck for a while. I im-pressed on him the need for my... ex-per-tise to re-main se-cret, and he promised he would. I didn't specif-i-cal-ly ask for prop-er-ty, just that I had a way to keep peo-ple I care for safe. I sup-pose this was an easy way to ac-com-plish that."

  Mian leaned back slight-ly at that. "Keep-ing peo-ple safe... yeah, I sup-pose so. Es-pe-cial-ly since you still need to leave." He frowned. "But... if you taught him the se-cret to reach Gold, a small house like this might be con-sid-ered a cheap gift. De-pend-ing on how se-ri-ous he was, you might make sure that he doesn't plan to of-fer you a bet-ter house lat-er on."

  Sobon con-sid-ered that, her frown slip-ping too eas-i-ly into the clas-sic Alas-si frown. So far, she hadn't heard any-thing from the City Lord one way or an-oth-er--which, when she con-sid-ered the way he'd grov-eled at the inn, might well mean that he was go-ing to be ner-vous-ly await-ing some kind of word. "I will talk to him to-mor-row."

  "Prob-a-bly best," Mian agreed.

  Lui, con-tent to be left out of that con-ver-sa-tion, looked up at the evening sky. When Sobon no-ticed, she turned to look, watch-ing the be-gin-nings of red tint the sky, with the low-er, white clouds pro-vid-ing a nice con-trast against it. "Pret-ty sky," of-fered Sobon.

  "Do you know why the sky is red at dusk?" she asked, sud-den-ly.

  Mian snort-ed. "I heard some-one say it was a link to the an-ces-tral realm, or a dy-ing god's blood. Nev-er felt any sort of odd qi about it, though."

  So Sobon talkd light-ly and vague-ly for a while about light and dif-frac-tion, mak-ing a quick prism out of aether, but the in-di-rect sun pro-vid-ed no con-ve-nient proof of con-cept. It wasn't hard to gen-er-ate a light source, but when she had full con-trol over every as-pect of the demon-stra-tion, there was less rea-son to be-lieve she was talk-ing about the fun-da-men-tals of the uni-verse. Still, both of the two looked suit-ably fas-ci-nat-ed.

  "I've seen col-ors off of a glass be-fore," con-firmed Lui. "And the... lens-ing, through wa-ter. So I sup-pose it makes sense."

  Sobon just nod-ded at that, let-ting her demon-stra-tion piece lapse. "There is al-ways more to learn in the world, even for me. But now..." she stood up. "We should rest."

  The next day, Sobon de-part-ed some time af-ter Mian and Lui, af-ter lock-ing up the house. Al-though she wasn't pos-i-tive where the City Lord could be found, she re-mem-bered his aether sig-na-ture more than well enough to throw to-geth-er a track-ing script. It was no sur-prise that her feet brought her back down the Way of Sil-ver, down the main trade route, and then up a road on the oth-er side which was the Way of Di-a-mond, which led to a state-ly build-ing with a di-a-mond promi-nent-ly fea-tured above the main en-trance. In front of the city hall, as-sum-ing that's what it was, was a wide plaza with a promi-nent foun-tain, around which a few peo-ple milled.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  One of them in par-tic-u-lar, a qui-et man who was def-i-nite-ly not Djang in fea-tures or cloth-ing, sat with his eyes closed fac-ing down the Way of Di-a-mond in what looked like a med-i-ta-tion pose. It was only when Sobon passed close to him that she felt a strange twinge in the aether, and she glanced at him and frowned, at the same mo-ment that he opened his eyes, glanc-ing at her.

  Sobon's ini-tial im-pres-sion of the man was that he was serene, but with in-cred-i-ble qi. Al-though his core only dis-played five gold stars, Sobon sensed more aether depth in him than she had sensed in re-cent mem-o-ry. That might not mean pow-er, specif-i-cal-ly; Sobon knew that aether was tricky, and qi was com-pli-cat-ed. Still, she con-sid-ered him qui-et-ly, but did not pause her steps, and the man let her go.

  There was a line of peo-ple go-ing all the way out the door. Sobon didn't queue up, and the guards didn't ac-cost her when she sim-ply stepped past the line and into the build-ing. Once in-side, she found her-self in a mod-est-ly large re-cep-tion hall, where the sin-gle line met with a sin-gle grey-haired bu-reau-crat who, in the uni-ver-sal way of bu-reau-crats, went through all the mo-tions need-ed to ad-dress each per-son in line in a way that was not rushed, and yet still showed that he bore a great deal of stress and weight on his shoul-ders.

  It was an-oth-er func-tionary stand-ing by the edge of the room who im-me-di-ate-ly no-ticed her and hur-ried over. This one was a young woman, a po-lite and un-ques-tion-ably false smile paint-ed on her face, who bowed with-out im-me-di-ate-ly say-ing any-thing.

  So Sobon just said, "Please in-form Lord Shi-da that Lady Alas-si would like a word at his con-ve-nience. It is not ur-gent."

  Sobon sensed the qi pulse, but the woman straight-ened out of her bow. "I be-lieve that the City Lord is busy meet-ing with Lord Xoi at the pre-sent time, but I will make sure that he is no-ti-fied. If you would like to wait in-side...?"

  Sobon start-ed to sug-gest that she would wait out-side, and per-haps talk to the man by the foun-tain, but Alas-si warned her that it would be tak-en as a sign of of-fense. So Sobon sim-ply let her-self be led into a side room, where she was served a sort of qi-laced tea drink and then left alone. Alas-si could only guess how much drink-ing count-ed as 'po-lite', but Sobon found her-self gen-er-al-ly unim-pressed with the tea. It wasn't that the drink tast-ed bad; clear-ly the drink had been pre-pared very dili-gent-ly and with qual-i-ty in-gre-di-ents. How-ev-er... per-haps ex-act-ly be-cause of that, it had a coat-ing of very stale aether to it. Rigid and un-com-pro-mis-ing, it left a lin-ger-ing sen-sa-tion that Sobon could only para-phrase as 'tra-di-tion,' as though any de-vi-a-tion in fla-vor, tex-ture, or even aether com-po-si-tion might be seen as of-fen-sive.

  It wasn't over-pow-er-ing in its in-ten-si-ty, and it wasn't tru-ly aw-ful in its na-ture. But the very first sip tast-ed to Sobon like Alas-si in that dusty up-stairs room, with win-dows that had not been opened in years. From that mo-ment, Sobon only drank if she sensed some-one else ap-proach-ing the room, or thought some-one else was mon-i-tor-ing.

  Fi-nal-ly, the same func-tionary ap-peared at a dif-fer-ent door, bow-ing and say-ing, "The City Lord will see you."

  Sobon was led through a back hall-way and up stairs. Just as they ap-proached a mas-sive door that Sobon thought was close to the back end of the build-ing, the door opened and a lean man with what Sobon pri-vate-ly con-sid-ered a ridicu-lous mous-tache stepped out. It wasn't large so much as it clear-ly took ef-fort, and all for a re-sult Sobon would nev-er have cho-sen while male; it was thin, ex-tend-ing out to each side be-fore turn-ing sharply down, the ends curl-ing back to-wards his chin line. Qi kept it clean and firm, Sobon sus-pect-ed, but she couldn't imag-ine mak-ing such a styl-is-tic choice. And his clothes...

  Sobon let her eyes stay on the man's face for a mo-ment, feign-ing po-lite-ness, and then looked for-ward, try-ing not to look at the silk suit. It wasn't of-fen-sive, ex-act-ly. Some-what like Xoi Xam's ap-pear-ance when she met him at the hos-pi-tal in ...what was the Bilg home-land even called? Sobon had no idea, and wasn't sure she cared. But Xoi Xam's clothes and be-hav-ior had all been part of a sin-gle co-he-sive im-age, and this man's were as well. Only... Sobon had con-sid-ered at the time that Xoi Xam was sim-ply dis-guis-ing her-self as meek and hum-ble when she was ac-tu-al-ly quite dan-ger-ous, and this man's suit was also mak-ing him look dis-arm-ing, af-fa-ble.

  Sobon thought there was a sharp-ness be-hind his eyes as he con-sid-ered her in pass-ing, but she couldn't tell what thoughts were be-hind them, or if it had any-thing to do with her at all.

  The City Lord's of-fice, once she was in-side, was ex-pan-sive and with-out pur-pose. Lit-er-al-ly speak-ing, it was most-ly emp-ty space; it was need-less-ly tall, and al-though the walls were dec-o-rat-ed with book-shelves, most of the floor space was emp-ty. A small desk was placed in the cen-ter of a large set of floor to ceil-ing win-dows that looked out over rear gar-dens, with sev-er-al foun-tains each sur-round-ed by flower and herb col-lec-tions that Sobon had no in-ter-est in iden-ti-fy-ing. Sev-er-al qi lights hov-ered near the ceil-ing, though they were not sus-pend-ed by chains or any-thing sim-i-lar.

  Lord Shi-da him-self spent a few mo-ments fin-ish-ing writ-ing some-thing down, then hur-ried-ly stood and bowed. "My lady Alas-si. I am very sor-ry, I have been re-miss. I had re-quest-ed a dif-fer-ent house for you, but it seems my clerks--"

  "I am more than con-tent with the house I was giv-en," Sobon said, rais-ing one hand and con-tin-u-ing for-ward to the chair set near the desk.

  "But..." He less-ened his bow and made ob-vi-ous looks to the side, where sev-er-al chairs were set with-out a cen-tral table, for a more re-laxed at-mos-phere. "I, ah, was in-ves-ti-gat-ing why the pa-per-work was mixed up, and that is why I did not--"

  "Be at peace, Lord Shi-da," Sobon said, and took a seat across his desk. "And sit down. I hate all this for-mal non-sense."

  Lord Shi-da's face twitched slight-ly at that, but he sat down. "I had in-tend-ed... ah, there was a prop-er no-ble's man-sion that was aban-doned some months ago. It was to go to auc-tion soon, but I be-lieved it would suf-fice. It seems--"

  "Lord Shi-da," Sobon didn't shy away from mak-ing her tone en-tire-ly clear. "I pre-fer some-thing sub-tle. And I know ways to ex-pand the space with-in, which I have al-ready be-gun. I do not wish to change to a new place af-ter the work I have al-ready done."

  At the men-tion of ex-pand-ing space, Lord Shi-da's face took on a very tense look and a very pal-lid col-or. "Spa-tial ex-pan-sion, my Lady? Are you cer-tain?"

  "I am more than pro-fi-cient." Sobon con-sid-ered the look on his face. "Is this a prob-lem?"

  "No! No, my Lady Alas-si. It is... a rare skill. The last time I saw a Space Ring at auc-tion, it was the most high-ly de-sired item. I was made to un-der-stand... that even among in-scrip-tion-ists, con-trol over space was a rare bit of knowl-edge in-deed."

  "It is one of many things as-so-ci-at-ed with my... pa-tron." Sobon had to take a mo-ment to re-mem-ber how she had phrased it ear-li-er. It was only a mo-ment, but she was sure that Lord Shi-da no-ticed it. "I am most-ly here to-day to make sure you un-der-stand that I want to keep the house. Should it be de-ter-mined that I am killed, the own-er is my grand-daugh-ter, ...Kalai Lui." Sobon al-most stum-bled over the name. It wasn't Alas-si's own sur-name, but Tuli's. In truth, she hadn't giv-en it even a mo-ment's thought.

  "Of course, Lady Alas-si. Now that I know... the pa-per-work will only take a mo-ment." Sobon no-ticed the man fir-ing off sev-er-al qi puls-es, and re-ceiv-ing a few in re-turn. She also no-ticed that, un-like the at-ten-dant from ear-li-er, it showed on his face when he had to con-cen-trate on the task. Then, per-haps that was part of why the at-ten-dant had her face in a con-stant, po-lite mask. "Of course, I have been search-ing for guards to ap-point to your res-i-dence--"

  "Again, I wish it to be sub-tle," Sobon in-ter-rupt-ed, firm-ly. "I've al-ready im-proved the de-fens-es some-what. If any-thing, builders and ma-te-ri-als would be use-ful. Specif-i-cal-ly builders that can keep a se-cret."

  For some rea-son, Lord Shi-da's face in that mo-ment was know-ing, sat-is-fied, al-most preda-to-ry. Sobon was en-tire-ly un-sure of what ex-act-ly that was sup-posed to mean, ex-cept that some-one was go-ing to end up un-hap-py, and she didn't think it would be her. "Of course, my Lady Alas-si."

  "One last thing," Sobon said. "My Lui may be ap-pren-tic-ing with the al-chemist, Lady Fau Mide. What do you know of her?"

  Lord Shi-da's face in-stant-ly be-came in-ter-est-ed, and he glanced away for a mo-ment as he thought. "Fau Mide. Her fam-i-ly came from a war zone to the north, Emer-ald Hill I be-lieve. It is... more dis-tant than our names might im-ply. They see many Starbeast invasions from the mountains to the north, there. A re-bel-lion from the war-rior sects there was put down by the Di-a-mond Lord some years ago, and war-rior ser-vice has been manda-to-ry there ever since. Lady Fau served her time will-ing-ly, but then left the Emer-ald Hill re-gion and served as a wan-der-ing al-chemist. My pre-de-ces-sor gave her hous-ing here if she would stay, and she agreed." His eyes cleared up and he met Sobon's own. "She has been fair in all deaings I am aware of, though oth-ers have tried to cheat her. None would say she is less than com-pe-tent. I am un-sure of ex-act-ly how deep her knowl-edge and skills go, but she is re-spect-ed."

  Sobon smiled at that. "That is what I wished to know. Thank you." At that, she stood, and left the City Lord's of-fice, ig-nor-ing his hur-ried bows be-hind her.

  Beware of Chicken when I originally created the character, and the history of the Emerald Hill Zone is more like a twisted history of the Azure Hills than anything else. I don't have any current intention of that history having any bearing on the story, so it doesn't matter much.