Ki'el learned quick-ly just how naive it was of her to as-sume that she could learn in-scrip-tions, even with Kuli's help, in a day.

  Ul-ti-mate-ly, the goal as she knew it was to cre-ate four to-kens that would sit in the four cor-ners of the room and pro-duce a sim-ple floor from what-ev-er mys-ti-cal force Sobon used. But be-fore she could get to the log-ic of the in-scrip-tion, she had to first get the hang of cre-at-ing any kind of script. And Ki'el was... not ex-act-ly prac-ticed with writ-ing, in gen-er-al.

  It's not as though she had nev-er. It had sim-ply... not seemed like a thing to prac-tice once every-one died, like most things.

  { If there is any hope, it will be by learn-ing from the start, } Kuli sug-gest-ed. { Find dirt where any suc-cess, or fail-ure, will not both-er oth-ers, and I will show you which is the first con-cept. }

  So Ki'el wan-dered into the woods, dis-re-gard-ing places where the nat-ur-al qi gath-ered or flowed strange-ly, and found a patch of loose dirt. With only her fin-ger and her in-tent, she in-scribed a very ba-sic mark, not much more than a cir-cle with a dot in its cen-ter. And... nat-u-ral-ly, the mere act of hav-ing vague 'in-tent to in-scribe' in her fin-ger was not enough. She con-sid-ered it for a long mo-ment, then moved on to what Sobon had taught her: form-ing a thread of aether, as she had done when she cre-at-ed her aether cy-cles.

  This seemed clos-er, but there was noth-ing to an-chor the thread to the dirt, and in-deed, Ki'el could not think of a rea-son why the hole in the dirt would ever con-tain a much small-er thread of aether. And yet Kuli re-mained pa-tient-ly and silent-ly there, as though cer-tain that an an-swer would come to her.

  And it had worked, Ki'el knew. Sobon, and Lai Shi Po, and many oth-ers, carved into ma-te-ri-als and left be-hind in-scrip-tions. But why--how? How could script re-main in emp-ty space, car-ried along by a thing that did not touch it? Or was the carv-ing, the emp-ty gap, some kind of lie? But no--Sobon of all peo-ple would not have carved into ma-te-ri-als if the carv-ing was not mean-ing-ful.

  She con-sid-ered, and con-sid-ered, and de-cid-ed at last that Sobon spoke al-ways of aether be-ing a force that con-nects things. And if the act of cut-ting into some-thing is nec-es-sary for in-scrip-tion, there must be a way to con-nect the cut to the script. And she al-ready knew that Out-er and In-ner spins of aether both af-fect-ed the area around them, even if she didn't un-der-stand.

  Even-tu-al-ly, rather than try-ing to fig-ure out the nu-ances of how to do it with pure aether, Ki'el de-cid-ed to ap-ply the in-tent with qi, with only the in-tent to re-main with-in the gap. That pro-duced what she de-sired--but ex-act-ly that. It was only a thread of qi, with-out use-ful in-tent, that re-mained in the de-sign that she etched in the dirt.

  Still, it was progress, and in spite of Kuli's ini-tial as-sess-ment, Ki'el was very hap-py to have got-ten that much done with-in the first... how long had it been? Ki'el looked up and de-cid-ed that it had been, per-haps, an hour or more, but not much more than that. That was good--but she also didn't need prod-ding from Kuli to know that it did not suf-fice, a fact that Kuli her-self clear-ly un-der-stood, for she re-mained qui-et.

  Next will be an in-scrip-tion with in-tent, Ki'el rea-soned, look-ing at the dirt. What is the in-tent of this cir-cle, Kuli?

  { It is ex-act-ly and only a mark-er, } Kuli replied. { Al-though this is a bit messy, you can imag-ine the in-tent is only to give the place, the ex-act cen-ter, a name. Only... it is not a name, or it does not need to be. To cre-ate a floor, you will need at least three 'named' places, but four will give you a square floor. }

  Ki'el con-sid-ered. Al-though she did not un-der-stand Sobon's math, she could imag-ine that there was a lan-guage to it, a lan-guage that only had to be spo-ken once places and con-cepts had names. This place; every-thing with-in a dis-tance of this place; every-thing be-tween these places. Her sword, she knew, had a place in the hilt, and cre-at-ed a place in midair, and cre-at-ed a pure blade be-tween them. When Sobon had sim-ply done that, it seemed al-most god-ly. But when she con-sid-ered the pos-si-bil-i-ty that she could do things like that with mag-ic... it made sense that there must be words, must be a lan-guage. Must be a way of be-ing clear about what you in-tend-ed.

  Can you not do it all with a sin-gle point? Ki'el asked, while think-ing these things, know-ing that Kuli was lis-ten-ing silent-ly.

  { The word for 'down' that you would need is com-pli-cat-ed. This is much sim-pler. }

  Ki'el frowned, will-ing to ac-cept that it must be true, but com-plete-ly un-cer-tain as to why. What is com-pli-cat-ed?

  { It is tricky to ex-plain in only a few words, } Kuli re-spond-ed, very pa-tient-ly. { You have nev-er been with-out weight. The way to be cer-tain where 'down' is re-quires know-ing how to find the ground with-out feel-ing weight, or falling, or see-ing or touch-ing. It can be done, but it is... tricky. }

  Ki'el ac-cept-ed this af-ter only an-oth-er mo-ment of thought. But this could still be done with few-er marks.

  { Yes. If you make the main in-scrip-tion more com-plex. It will not hap-pen to-day. }

  No, Ki'el knew, it would not. In-stead of wor-ry-ing any fur-ther, she looked back at the first in-scrip-tion she had made, con-sid-er-ing the shape once more. A sym-bol only to pro-vide a name.

  { A name for the ex-act spot in the cen-ter. }

  Ki'el imag-ined that she un-der-stood, be-cause she was feel-ing clever, that the form of the in-scrip-tion didn't re-quire us-ing the cen-ter point, but she had no rea-son to ques-tion or fight against it. In-stead, she went back to draw-ing shapes in the dirt, and with-in a... per-haps third of an hour, had man-aged to per-form a mark well enough that Kuli told her it was cor-rect. And she sat there in the dirt next to it, with an in-scrip-tion that did noth-ing, and asked Kuli how she could be sure, her-self.

  { Form a thread of right-eous aether, } Kuli sug-gest-ed. { In-tend for it to move to-wards that point. Do not re-lease it. }

  Ki'el did, and she bare-ly had start-ed to form such a thread when it seemed to pull away from her, and to-wards the point. She blinked, im-me-di-ate-ly aware of how use-ful it would be to be able to point to-wards some-thing of hers, but when her con-cen-tra-tion lapsed, so did the thread and its pull. She frowned, think-ing. Could I in-tend my aether to pull to-wards any-thing I choose?

  { That is com-pli-cat-ed. It is sim-i-lar to some things Sobon spoke of. Much lat-er, if you know the in-tent 'name' of a thing, you may be able to. But even some things that have been named are not able to be reached, even if they are close. The rules are not worth speak-ing of to-day. }

  Ki'el ap-pre-ci-at-ed that Kuli un-der-stood her ques-tions as broad, and not need-ing full an-swers, and she was sure that Kuli also ap-pre-ci-at-ed that she did not push too hard. But now, Ki'el looked back to the dirt, think-ing of a dif-fer-ent, and prob-a-bly much hard-er, ques-tion. How can I make a mark like this that I can take to our room?

  { With some-thing sharp. Or with aether, or qi. } Kuli didn't see much rea-son to elab-o-rate.

  Ki'el con-sid-ered, then stood and walked back to the kitchen. The grumpy man who Mian had been as-sist-ing was there, clean-ing things, and looked up at the door when she paused there, squint-ing in what was not quite a glare.

  "I would like to bor-row a knife," she said.

  "My knives are not for crafts," he said, sound-ing very cross. "Ask Sis-ter Futi."

  Ki'el flinched, but nod-ded, and moved away. Sis-ter Futi, at the mo-ment she ar-rived, was speak-ing qui-et-ly to a rather short, mid-aged man, one whose age and lack of cul-ti-va-tion had cost him much of his hair and giv-en him rough and un-pleas-ant skin, though when he heard the last of Futi's wis-dom and turned to the door with a nod, his eyes at least seemed po-lite. Still, as with many that Ki'el had met, the man moved past her with-out a word.

  "Young sis-ter Ki'el." Sis-ter Futi's voice was, to her sur-prise, a lit-tle sharp, if qui-et. "I did tell you I know what hap-pens around this house, did I not?"

  Ki'el felt a small wave of em-bar-rass-ment come over her, and she gri-maced. "It is noth-ing--"

  "In-scrip-tion is dif-fi-cult, and get-ting it wrong will of-ten lead one to dam-age one's own spir-it," Sis-ter Futi said, her glow-ing eyes nar-row-ing as they locked on to the girl. "But more than that, it is clear to me that you were speak-ing to some-one. Were you not?"

  Ki'el could feel Kuli's alarm, as well as her own, but she closed her eyes, took a breath, and stepped ful-ly into Sis-ter Futi's of-fice. "Yes. A gift from my mas-ter, which con-tains part of his wis-dom."

  "I trust you un-der-stand how that looks, on the same day you ac-cuse a man of de-mon-ic pos-ses-sion."

  Ki'el... had not, but chose not to ran-kle at the ac-cu-sa-tion. "It is not de-mon-ic," she said. "and I could ex-plain what I was do-ing, and what I in-tend." She paused, feel-ing the old-er Sis-ter con-tin-u-ing to glare at her, and de-cid-ed to say just a bit more. "I know it is rush-ing," she said. "But trust that I would not be do-ing it if we had been giv-en a room with a func-tion-ing floor."

  "You want to use en-grav-ings to re-place the floor?" Futi's voice went from a lit-tle cold to ac-tive-ly scorn-ful.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "No. A tem-po-rary one. Noth-ing more." Ki'el could feel her good mood ac-tive-ly slip-ping away. In truth... she had been lost enough in the de-tails of what Kuli had been teach-ing her that she had giv-en no thought to how oth-ers felt. Or rather...

  Or rather... when was the last time Ki'el had re-al-ly need-ed to think about how oth-ers felt?

  She swal-lowed as she stood there, sud-den-ly feel-ing an age old-er than her body ac-tu-al-ly was. Mian, Sobon, and Lui had been kind, but each of them had kept a dis-tance and asked lit-tle of her. She had not been around peo-ple as a nor-mal mat-ter... not since be-fore.

  "You seem dis-tressed," Futi said, her voice not show-ing any sym-pa-thy.

  "I... apol-o-gize, Sis-ter Futi." Ki'el blinked away tears. "I... was think-ing that I have got-ten slop-py. And I re-al-ized that I have not had to wor-ry about peo-ple mis-un-der-stand-ing my in-ten-tions since my vil-lage was de-stroyed. And that was... a while ago."

  "De-stroyed by what?"

  "Pi-rates. Djang slavers." Ki'el looked away. "My mas-ter Sobon and I even-tu-al-ly found and killed them."

  "Are you sure?" Ki'el blinked, sur-prised, as Sis-ter Futi moved around the desk. "For de-mon-ic cul-ti-va-tors, pro-longed de-cep-tion is noth-ing un-usu-al. If your so-called mas-ter was se-cret-ly be-hind the whole thing--"

  Ki'el could not help laugh-ing at the thought, which stopped Futi mid-sen-tence.

  "You find that fun-ny." Sis-ter Futi leaned back against her desk, her glow-ing eyes fi-nal-ly fad-ing, to take in Ki'el with their nat-ur-al forms. "Clear-ly you think you know your mas-ter very well."

  "No, Sis-ter Futi," Ki'el ad-mit-ted, "I can as-sure you that I do not know my mas-ter well at all. How-ev-er." She stood up proud-ly. "My mas-ter's pri-ma-ry fo-cus is in-scrip-tions. I have seen things you could not be-gin to imag-ine, Sis-ter. What-ev-er you imag-ine fool-ing me would do, it would be un-nec-es-sary for him. I do not know his past, but I can as-sure you that if he were a de-mon, the world would be in grave per-il in-deed."

  "I see." Sis-ter Futi crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back a lit-tle more ag-gres-sive-ly into her desk. "And this gift from your mas-ter con-tain-ing his wis-dom, it is also a form of in-scrip-tion?"

  "It is... a com-pli-cat-ed thing. I could not de-scribe it."

  "Did it in-volve your blood? Was any-thing done to you by force, even for a mo-ment?"

  Ki'el just smiled and shook her head. "No."

  Sis-ter Futi still ag-gres-sive-ly took a breath. "Still, I do not like the idea of you do-ing in-scrip-tion work with-out train-ing."

  Ki'el raised her eye-brows, and for once, let a shred of gen-uine ir-ri-ta-tion into her voice. The cold-ness to it sur-prised her. "You seem al-right with me sleep-ing with-out a floor. Per-haps what you like should not be ter-ri-bly im-por-tant to me."

  Futi in-stant-ly tensed, but forced her-self not to re-act. "What-ev-er your re-la-tion-ship with your mas-ter or the out-side world, Ki'el, to me, you are only an-oth-er child who thinks them-selves in-fal-li-ble when they are not."

  "I am not in-fal-li-ble," agreed Ki'el. "I am cau-tious, and I am fol-low-ing close-ly the ad-vise of my mas-ter."

  "I know noth-ing what-so-ev-er of your mas-ter. He could be a ge-nius or he could be a drunk-ard in a ditch."

  Ki'el opened and then im-me-di-ate-ly shut her mouth. In-stead of an-swer-ing di-rect-ly, she looked away, won-der-ing how ex-act-ly to phrase things that would not draw too much at-ten-tion or be too thor-ough-ly ques-tioned. And yet... in the end, a pride-ful part of her-self still spoke up into the si-lence, per-haps un-wise-ly. "My tu-ition here was paid for by an ar-ti-fact my mas-ter pro-duced and sold at auc-tion. One ar-ti-fact." She looked back at Futi, who still leaned against the desk, look-ing un-con-vinced. "And... ah, per-haps it would have been eas-i-er to say. As El-der Gol and Se-nior Broth-er Du can at-test, we ar-rived at this is-land in the com-pa-ny of Lai Shi Po."

  That got Sis-ter Futi's at-ten-tion. "Your mas-ter is a friend of Lai Shi Po?"

  Ki'el start-ed to say more, but a push from Kuli cooled her head just a touch, and she re-con-sid-ered. "My mas-ter stud-ies spa-tial qi, which is a top-ic that Lai Shi Po..." she con-sid-ered her words, so as not to sound like she be-lieved the woman was in any way less-er. "...con-tin-ues to re-search. Since they share in-ter-ests, they have co-op-er-at-ed some-what."

  "I see." Futi frowned at her. "And yet you were not pro-vid-ed with tools, which means your own in-struc-tion had not reached that lev-el. I am will-ing to be-lieve your mas-ter is an in-scrip-tion-ist, as-sum-ing Broth-er Du backs up your claim. But you have no tools and only gold qi. Even if your mas-ter left you a talk-ing scroll or any such non-sense, do-ing in-scrip-tion work with-out some-one to as-sess the qual-i-ty of your work is reck-less, and invit-ing any such ex-per-i-men-tal script-ed ob-jects into the Less-er House is for-bid-den. If you wish to prac-tice in the for-est--"

  "I don't sup-pose Lai Shi Po re-mains at the Sect?" Ki'el in-ter-rupt-ed, though in truth, she doubt-ed it was so. While she had no doubt the woman could get com-plete-ly side-tracked by a top-ic, she had also been in-tend-ing to de-liv-er oth-ers of the Xoi fam-i-ly to an-oth-er city af-ter leav-ing this place. At least when Ki'el and the oth-ers had left the fly-ing box be-hind, there had been no talk of giv-ing them a tem-po-rary place to stay, or even ask-ing them to walk around.

  But then, Lai Shi Po had gone off to look into a "pro-ject" on very lit-tle prod-ding, and Ki'el could imag-ine the woman sim-ply for-get-ting the pas-sage of time.

  "If you think I'm go-ing to ask her any-thing on your say-so, you're out of your mind," snapped Futi. "I may be tied into many mat-ters re-lat-ed to this is-land, but I hold no sway what-so-ev-er, and cer-tain-ly not over vis-i-tors."

  "If she re-mains, I would only ask that she be told I wish to speak with her," Ki'el said, in-no-cent-ly. "If she does not, you do not need tell me. I am aware enough of the woman's tem-per to know that even if she re-mains, she may not be in-clined."

  Futi paused, swal-low-ing, and her eyes lit up sil-ver for a mo-ment be-fore the light fad-ed. "A mes-sage will be passed to her."

  "Thank you. I will... sim-ply be med-i-tat-ing out-side." Ki'el went out, al-ready feel-ing the con-fi-dence that she had been dis-play-ing un-rav-el.

  She had not told Po about the gift of knowl-edge Sobon had left her. And in-deed, Po knew al-most noth-ing about Ki'el. It was fool-ish for her to try to pre-tend that she, her-self, was any-thing like ready to take even a mo-ment's in-struc-tion from Lai Shi Po, even with Kuli to help.

  All I want-ed was a knife, and a floor to sleep on, Ki'el grumped silent-ly to her-self. It has... bare-ly been a day since we ar-rived, I sup-pose. And yet in that time I've worked, learned, fought, healed, ar-gued over and over...

  As she stepped out-side, Ki'el was pleased to see a friend-ly face, at least. "Xam!"

  "Ki'el." Xam had an un-ex-pect-ed-ly hag-gard look on her face. The slim Djang woman, who so far to Ki'el had seemed most-ly el-e-gant and per-haps a lit-tle ar-ro-gant, now was start-ing to look like she had been though a lot worse than Ki'el. "I heard you sur-vived your tri-al very well. I'm glad."

  "Thank you." She paused only for a mo-ment, be-fore blurt-ing out, "Can I have my sword back?"

  Xam paused, but held out her hand to Ki'el's, de-posit-ing the sword hilt in it a mo-ment lat-er. "Go-ing to prac-tice?"

  "Med-i-tate." Ki'el ex-tend-ed the blade in its dullest, staff form, re-vers-ing it and plac-ing it in her lap as she sat to the side. "It calms me."

  "Be-cause of your mas-ter?" Xam hes-i-tat-ed a mo-ment, but sat down be-side her. "She seemed very wise."

  Ki'el start-ed to say some-thing, then stopped, un-sure. Xam knew some-thing was strange about Sobon--they had met with Sobon in a dif-fer-ent body, and Xam had seen that boy killed. But any dis-cus-sion of Sobon's gen-der sound-ed strange in her head. Even so, af-ter a mo-ment, she said, sim-ply, "He."

  "He?" Xam looked at her, and it clicked af-ter a mo-ment. "Ah. Of course." They sat there, Ki'el not so much med-i-tat-ing as try-ing to calm down and clear her mind. It was start-ing to work, when Xam spoke again. "Ki'el... back then, Mian said some-thing about be-ing cen-tered in his heart. And I've asked him about it since, but he re-al-ly doesn't sound like he un-der-stands the con-cept, not in words. Can you... say more?"

  Ki'el blew out a breath and looked up at the sky. She didn't re-sent the ques-tion at all, and thought Xam de-served an an-swer. "Mas-ter said that peo-ple... that their spir-its are made of parts, like the or-gans in the body. And a giv-en per-son's spir-it may be as-so-ci-at-ed with an or-gan, or some-thing sim-i-lar, and it... is use-ful." She frowned, feel-ing that it was not a great an-swer, and gen-tly prod-ded Kuli for help. Though the aug-ment re-mained silent, Ki'el felt her mem-o-ries and un-der-stand-ing clar-i-fy a lit-tle in re-sponse. While she con-sid-ered that, she spoke a lit-tle about her own Skin cen-ter and Mian's Heart na-ture, and what Sobon had said about each.

  "I do not re-al-ly know how it af-fects most peo-ple," Ki'el said, "and I'm not sure how I would rec-og-nize your na-ture or what to do about it. But Sobon made it sound very sim-ple, in prin-ci-ple. Un-der-stand your-self as... per-haps as, hav-ing to deal with that part of your spir-it most di-rect-ly. When I had to go up the stairs the first time," Ki'el turned and glared at the en-trance to the Less-er House, "it felt like an at-tack. Be-cause I have to deal with my skin na-ture, my re-sponse to at-tacks is..."

  It dawned on Ki'el that her re-sponse to Futi had been much like re-spond-ing to an at-tack as well. She had not been vi-o-lent, but she had done a great deal to en-sure that she could con-tin-ue to be as she was, even ask-ing that Lai Shi Po be con-tact-ed. She felt sud-den-ly em-bar-rassed, and cleared her throat to avoid think-ing about it.

  "...my re-sponse to at-tacks is to close off and... try to re-main as I was. Mian... it is bet-ter for him to ex-plain, even if you say he does it poor-ly. But he seems to be-lieve it helps."

  "I see." Xam ex-tend-ed her legs out in front of her, look-ing at her cloth shoes. "My re-sponse to threats in my life was of-ten to leave, or to fight. It is why I left my fam-i-ly, and why I took... a break from the mil-i-tary ser-vice. I of-ten thought of it as weak-ness, cow-ardice, which is also why I went to the mil-i-tary. Be-cause I am not a cow-ard, or weak." She sud-den-ly hopped to her feet. "What does that make me? Foot-fo-cused?"

  "I would not know," Ki'el said. "If I have a chance to speak to Sobon, I will ask."

  Xam nod-ded. "You be-lieve she--he is alive?"

  Ki'el hes-i-tat-ed. "He is... not gone."

  Xam stud-ied her, then af-ter a mo-ment, shook her head. "If you ever hear back about it, I'll lis-ten," she said. "I'll think about the idea on my own, but it's very vague with-out more de-tails."

  "I know." Ki'el took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. "I will let you know."

  Xam gave her a strange look, as Ki'el con-tin-ued to sim-ply sit. "You aren't slack-ing, are you? Do you have a task?"

  "Sis-ter Futi told me I was ex-cused for a short while. I am mak-ing use of it." She paused, a de-sire to talk about her floor pro-ject war-ring with em-bar-rass-ment about how she'd be-haved, and about her prob-a-ble lack of suc-cess. "Per-haps... not the best use. But I am... ad-vanc-ing."

  "Keep your mind on pass-ing the Gold-en Wall." Xam stood back up, half turn-ing to look at her. "Noth-ing be-gins un-til you can con-vince the Sect that you are wor-thy of fur-ther in-struc-tion. In some ways, spend-ing time in the Less-er House in-stead of free in the world be-low is a waste of time." She reached out and touched Ki'el's shoul-der, seem-ing firm but sup-port-ive. "I be-lieve you can do it. Mian as well. But do-ing it soon will re-quire fo-cus."

  "I know." Ki'el smiled, and soon enough, Xam went in. Not long af-ter, she left again, with hur-ried steps.

  Ki'el med-i-tat-ed with her sword again for only a short while be-fore some-thing in her stirred, and she looked up, see-ing a fa-mil-iar pair com-ing to-wards her. Broth-er Du was es-cort-ing Lai Shi Po, who looked... peace-ful, for a mo-ment, as she looked around at the woods, but the look hard-ened when she looked ahead and saw Ki'el.

  Or, Ki'el hoped, when she saw the Less-er House. She could only imag-ine the woman had as much dis-dain for the place as she did. Ei-ther way, she took a deep breath and rose, de-ac-ti-vat-ing her sword as she did. "Po."

  "Ki'el." Po locked her eyes on Ki'el and ges-tured with her head. "Let's stay away from the House. If I stay here too long I'll be tempt-ed to re-build the en-tire build-ing on prin-ci-ple."

  "I wish you would," she said qui-et-ly, but no one en-gaged that thought as they stepped away into the woods.