§
I won’t repeat our briefing with the staff officers word-for-word. I would mostly just be repeating what I’ve already written.
My news that the wolf was no illusion did change the attitudes of several. They decided to have Thuriben send in a magic unit specialized in large creature suppression to deal with it, in addition to the forces currently converging here. The enemy forces were staying in their camp and the wolf was nowhere to be seen. Without better details on what exactly the creature was, I had nothing I could use to convince them to consider withdrawal.
With that decided, they broke for lunch, leaving me still filled with anxiety. There’s nothing like an unknown variable to completely shake your confidence.
Ged had them set up a folding table and chairs in his sleeping quarters-slash-office to have lunch with Aenëe and me. He used the meal to recount the recent battles with Trisiagga and the Hamagaarans, notably still avoiding any specific details about their future plans. Although it was impossible not to see on the map what those plans would be. The Hamagaarans had a long, narrow neck of territory they still occupied, a salient along the southern border of their kingdom, which included Cara Ita.
Mountainous territory occupied by monsters and tribes allied to neither side, with the only places resembling urban centers being subterranean dwarven abodes unfriendly to everyone, protected their backs, but could become their trap if the Orestanians could just complete this drive southward and cut Cara Ita and the forces holding it off from the rest of Hamagaar. Nobody would ever believe that Ged’s forces had any other plan in mind.
It made me want to think of one, but I couldn’t. I could only agree that it looked bad that we hadn’t already finished the job. No wonder Ged didn’t want to withdraw.
We finally ended the meal with Aenëe and I deciding to patrol in stealth, looking for the wolf. At least, that’s what I agreed with Aenëe that we would be doing, and what I probably would do after I attended to a couple other matters. The first matter, I handled immediately after we both headed out.
It was tricky. Aenëe, with her four wasp wings, flies with her feet down at 45 degrees and her wing backstrokes coming up nearly vertical. In order to approach her from behind, I had to take great care that she didn’t hit me. Thus, in order to put my [Blood Sigil] on her, I had to work from farther away than I did with Trisiagga.
Well, I was less worried about her detecting the blood magic at work, so I didn’t have to come right up and nearly touch her. I could stay above her wing arc and cast it down onto her from there.
The stamp went forth from my fingertips and settled on her back unnoticed, and I quickly pulled back.
My purpose wasn’t to spy on her. Although I did not have one hundred percent trust in her, I did not think she would do anything nasty while her little lord was in our hands. It hadn’t been my intention for Nandi to hold him as a hostage, but while she was caring for him, he was one in effect.
Actually, I put the [Blood Sigil] on her for her protection. I was worried that her stealth would not hold up against Trisiagga. If she got caught, I wanted to be able to find her as quickly as possible. But I didn’t think I would be able to convince Aenëe of my motive very easily, so I did it in secret.
With my first task finished, I set out to handle my second task. Which was, in effect, to have a conversation with myself. I slipped back down to the ground in a sheltered spot in no-man’s-land, to guard against the possibility that what I was about to do might disturb either my flying or my stealth, then began.
In normal spiritual density, what I was doing wouldn’t be possible, if it were not for my spiritual vessel. After dismissing my wings and laying on my back, I activated the energy within it to enhance my mental powers. I then began bringing in my other personalities, one by one.
The one best suited for the task was Fan Li, except that I couldn’t be her and someone else at the same time. I put her on anyway, so she could confirm…
… this small one considered the task that her current self had proposed, and understood it well. The Blood Magic bears strong resemblance to spiritual arts, and would not be difficult to handle. But as the young one already suspected, it would not be possible, with so little spiritual resources, to manage both it and the rest alone…
She transferred personalities back to me, having given her answer. I summoned the others one at a time to look for who could handle the magic for me while I handled everything else. With those, using the enhanced spiritual energy, I could manifest both personalities. In the end, the one who agreed to take on the task was Kwelabi.
His thoughts came back to me, firm and a little amused.
– Being in this alien body is too unfamiliar, Your Highness. To not only be female, but a Winged One at that. The wings are unfamiliar and the body is at most a fifth of my natural size. Please avoid asking me to control it.
Shocked, I shot back,
– I won’t! You only need to handle the magic!
– Naturally, I am already aware of this. The methods are strange, but they have a similarity to my world’s life arts and I seem to grasp them well. I am listening to your [Blood Sigil]s already.
In hindsight, I shouldn’t have been surprised he had already begun the work. The moment I woke his personality, he already knew what I was asking of him. And the aura powers from his shaman’s wisdom had some similarities to blood magic.
– Thank you. I will rely on you.
– I am honored, Your Highness.
I rolled my eyes a bit at the address he was using for me. It was natural to him, since he had learned court manners after he made the almost impossible transition from primitive shaman to Imperial soothsayer. He was defaulting to my highest rank as a simple matter of propriety, and there was no point in me trying to convince him not to do it, since he already knew what I would say.
It would be necessary to continue the technique of holding higher density spiritual energy in my consciousness to support both of us, but I could leave that task to Kwelabi as well. I confirmed that my vampire cloak was still active, then stood and regrew my wings.
My Lady, I find your conversations with yourself quite disturbing, Durandal grumbled.
I was a little surprised that he was apparently listening in. I wasn’t using spiritual voice. Of course, my connection with Durandal through our bond is not normal spiritual voice either.
I’m a little uncomfortable with it, myself, I admitted. But it’s actually just me talking to myself, as weird as that sounds.
That’s actually the case. I could use the same technique and have both trains of thought be Tiana. The only reason I don’t try to be Tiana twice is that it would be confusing to keep my thoughts straight. Although I think I could probably do it with practice.
A suggestion came to me from my mental associate.
– Perhaps you should consider being Robert for one of them.
I frowned at that.
– I am Robert. There’s no boundary between my life as Robert and my life as Tiana to separate the two.
– That was likely true at one point, but now it is less so. You should begin to search for that boundary soon, or you may lose your connection to his life entirely, forgetting your bonds and memories there. I would dislike it if he were to disappear. He is as much ‘me’ as the rest of our personalities are.
My frown deepened. This was not a subject I cared for.
Kwelabi continued.
– He is probably the most suited to handling your techniques. It is only your personalities that need to be separated, not your memories and skills. You already do it to be purely Tiana. You should practice doing the same as Robert.
This was frustrating. I did not start this technique in order to get lectured by one of my alter-egos. Although the wise old Kwelabi was not someone I should ignore.
The old shaman went on a different tack.
– Let’s consider this. What gender do you see yourself as right now?
I blinked.
– Female, of course. I mean, that’s obvious, right? Look at me.
– There was a time when you would insist, ‘I’m still a guy inside’. It wasn’t that long ago.
Those words hit me like a bat hitting a fastball. They were one hundred percent true.
– This isn’t the time to start, but spend time as Robert as well. He doesn’t deserve to fade away.
Clearing my throat, I decided to focus on my current tasks. Kwelabi understood that I accepted his words, but couldn’t deal with it right that moment, so he said nothing further. But…
My Lady…
I grew a wry smile. You were listening to that, Old Man?
You were originally a man?
My absolute origin was as a female Immortal. I’ve had many lives since, as you already know, and some of them have been as men. But my most recent life prior to this one was the ‘Robert’ that Kwelabi mentioned.
Durandal mused, It was my impression that this Kwelabi also was a man.
He was male, but he wasn’t human.
The fact that I had reincarnated many times wasn’t news to Durandal. And during our ‘vacation’ together, I had let both Sirth and Fan Li out to play several times, so he even had become acquainted with them. But, for some reason, I had avoided the male personalities. It might have been out of embarrassment. I’m not really sure.
I decided, next time I went back, to try letting them out. I would start with Robert.
I flew over the Hamagaaran camps, confirming they were maintaining picket guards and surveillance units and otherwise remaining in bivouac. I could have determined that much without leaving no-man’s-land, but it was good to get confirmation that I wasn’t being fooled by some advanced illusion technique. Then I went searching once again for the wolf.
I already knew where Trisiagga was. She was maintaining her fairy knight disguise and playing at inspecting the troops. So, once I was safely away from her, out in the last area that I had sensed the wolf, I went ahead and began my [Blood Mist], allowing a thin stream of condensed blood to flow out of my core.
Condensed blood does not contain the physical component that mortals think of as blood. Physical blood starts out with both that physical component, containing plasma, white and red blood cells and platelets, and the bound coil of pneuma and mana that is the true lifeblood of a being. When I condense the blood, the bound mana and pneuma are stripped away from the physical components, and those dead remains pass into my stomach to be digested, leaving only the living blood.
So the precious condensed mortal blood that I was letting out was invisible, although it was very visible to my vampire and fairy senses while condensed. I then, while keeping control of that blood, allowed it to expand, and expand further, far beyond the volume it originally filled. A few gallons worth spread out to fill the valley I was currently overflying, becoming a thinly atomized mist.
Through that mist, I felt carefully for the mana signature I saw before, but found nothing. Frustrated, I moved myself and the mist up the valley. I continued this process while moving along and combing the ground carefully, without results.
Kwelabi’s thoughts interrupted my work.
– Your Highness, you need to handle this.
The thoughts came accompanied by a basic understanding of the emergency I needed to address immediately. I immediately sucked the [Blood Mist] back into my core, turned and sprinted headlong toward Aenëe’s position.
