§
Sen chose a wide area of open, relatively flat ground and helped me manifest there to wait for them to land. I found myself biting my lower lip as the craft touched down and made myself stop, because the others had told me not to do that.
It’s hard to avoid, okay? It’s also hard not to cringe or flinch, because it’s hard not to be nervous. I’m not an amazing adult like the others. I’m just me. But while two fairy warriors and the people I was here to meet came down from the craft, I pulled my shoulders back a little and kept my chin up, trying to use Sirth’s mannerisms to give myself strength, and it seemed to work a little.
The fairy warriors were here to escort the secret passenger. They would fly back to Narses and go back to their job of guarding the princess once they dropped her off. Diurhimath and Pasrue were here to meet me. And, I suppose, to confirm the reality of what the goddess had told Diur about me.
The fifth person… Well, she was who I was here to receive. She had the appearance of a beautiful elven blond who could well be Arken’s sister. She perked up when she saw me, then controlled her reaction.
The fairy warriors stayed back with the gangway. They had no part in this conversation and were here for the safety of the ship and its crew, not to meet me. The remaining three came forward across the battle-scarred patch of former forest until they were close enough for normal conversation.
“I am Lhan,” I stated, with a little bow. “I’m told that people in this world have difficulty with my name, so please call me Hiléa. I tell the mortals that I am a halfling fairborn.”
Pasrue looked bemused. Diur gave me an appraising look. “It isn’t a proxy, but something like it, right?”
“Proxies require more spiritual energy than Her Highness can provide,” I told him. “This adapts an alien technique to Blood Magic to accomplish the same thing more efficiently.”
I think that was actually Fan Li speaking. She fed the words to me so smoothly, I was able to deliver it like I was expertly answering for myself. I mean, I already knew the thing I just said, but there’s a difference between knowing something and being able to explain it quickly.
“Interesting,” he mused, his lips lifting ever so slightly. “And you are both the Commander and not the Commander, as I understand.”
“I’m an incarnation who lived after her death,” I replied. “Or I’m a recreation of this incarnation, if you like. I do have her memories as Tiana of you, Diur.”
His brow wrinkled. The situation clearly troubled him.
Again, I began saying things that I’m certain Fan Li was feeding me.
“Fragments that her original spiritual vessel survived her death, and grew into a powerful core during other lifetimes. The memories of those lifetimes became active personalities within it, so even though our memories have been temporarily wiped from Her Highness’s awareness, we are aware and able to work through her while we exist in the Spirit Realm.”
He nodded. “So Rhea explained. I’m not going to pretend I fully understand. And you dare not push your memories back into her because her current self would be unable to support it and probably die?”
“Exactly,” I or Fan Li answered.
“That’s the part I have the greatest trouble with. Don’t you have a small world with a much higher spiritual environment where she could survive the merge?”
I blinked. I hadn’t thought of that.
But Sen had, and told me, <I’ll take over for a moment, Lhan.>
<Yes,> I agreed, and dissolved my image.
§
Before manifesting, I cast [Vampire Veil], a skill I did not know as Tiana, but had recalled from Senhion’s days. We didn’t refer to what are now called vampire skills in that fashion way back then, so I coined the skill name for it myself. If the skill survives in modern times, I actually don’t know what it is called.
It’s a Darkness skill similar to the spell [Realm of Silence], except that it obscures light in addition to sound. The fairies and any crew on the boat watching saw only a curtain of Darkness appear around our group.
When I appeared, the ‘elven blonde’ immediately brightened and cried out, “Mistress!”
I immediately held up an imperious hand. “We’ve been over this, child. Your Mistress is my great-granddaughter.”
I don’t think I’m making any big reveal by admitting here that the ‘elven blonde’ was Shindzha in disguise. She frowned, fighting what she firmly believed in her heart– which wasn’t wrong, after all– then pursed her lips.
Diur’s eyebrows had shot up upon me appearing, even though he knew that the [Blood Effigy] was in effect a proxy. I guess it was due to my appearance. I gave him an Elder greeting, hands held in prayer position and forehead down. As a superior officer though, I kept my eyes on him rather than looking down.
“I greet you, Diurhimath, Observer serving the Twenty Fourth Legion. I am Senhion, Commander of the Third.”
He managed to snap out of his shock and return my pose, keeping his eyes down. Pasrue looked at him with amazement as he stammered, “Commander!”
“Please raise your head,” I said with a smile while dropping my hands. “It’s too hard on my great-granddaughter to maintain this body for long, even as a shadow of my former self, so I will make this brief. We sent my incarnation Lhan because she is the least expensive of the incarnations who could do the job, but she was struggling to deal with you and your questions, so I shall handle it.”
Diur looked a little contrite as he returned to a normal posture, but he defended himself. “It’s simply difficult to understand, Commander. And although Rhea explained your situation, I felt that your small world was a very obvious solution.”
Pasrue was still confused. I took a moment to explain my identity to her before returning to Diur and nodding. “You are actually quite correct that the princess would almost certainly survive if we brought her to my mountain and merged with her there.
“Then, why?”
“Rhea and I have chosen our strategy carefully, in consultation with Gaia. We considered that solution, but it has a serious drawback. Her Highness would– or to be more accurate, we would– be unable to return to Huade.”
He looked confused. “You could cultivate your pneuma much more rapidly there, though? And once you did…”
“Indeed, once we did, we could return. But what about in the meantime? We debated between the approach we have taken and the approach of sending a proxy in Tiana’s form back to Huade to take her place, and chose the latter for good reason.”
Again he looked troubled. “I should think using a proxy would be an excellent solution.”
I shook my head, giving him a gentle smile. I imagine I looked a little like a teacher facing her young student at that moment.
“Only if you don’t look too closely at the details. We would need to bring a group of mortals along to my small world, so we don’t erode the blood core in order to sustain ourselves. We would risk discovery as a proxy, potentially losing the trust of the mortals who cannot verify our identity by seeing our aura. This is especially a concern regarding Tiana’s husband. Just the fact that the proxy can’t eat or drink or take blood leaves us open to discovery. And most importantly, Tiana’s children would be at risk. Being already advanced souls, they might be unable to return to Huade after completing gestation in a place where their spiritual power would grow far more rapidly than natural.”
Just to be clear, I wasn’t just coming up with these reasons on the fly. We really had considered this idea. Lhan might not have realized it was a possibility, but it was the first thing Rhea thought of, and also the first thing she rejected for the reasons I just listed.
But I noted, “But if things go sour, we will indeed be doing exactly as you suggested. She and her children would at the very least survive in that case.”
I turned to Pasrue again, giving her a smile. “I detect your magic in my Servant’s disguise. How long will it last?”
“Until we are out of range, um… Commander.”
“Just call me Sen,” I recommended. “The legions of Heaven are long gone.”
“Sen,” she repeated. “I’m Pasrue.”
“Pasrue,” I echoed with a gracious nod, then looked to Shindzha.
“Are you ready to begin your task?”
She looked troubled. “Mistress, do you truly plan to trust me with this?”
I was glad she asked while I was still here. I’m not sure if Lhan would have handled the question well.
“I have no need to trust you, Shindzha. You and I both know that going back to the demons means your death. If you wish to live, you will do your work well. If you do not, you will find a way to get yourself killed. I wish to give you the chance to live and serve me, and that is all there is to it.”
I glanced at Pasrue, then told Diur, “You’ve noticed by now, haven’t you? That the training for Servants was far more important than we recognized in the past. The blood bond interferes with the free will of my Servants far more than I ever realized back then.”
He gave me a tight smile. “I noticed quite a long time ago, Commander. I’ve been living in this world for some time, after all. I couldn’t do much ahead of time, but I am training her.”
By which, of course, he meant Pasrue.
I returned to Shindzha and said, “I’m not fond of the idea, but I know you have developed a powerful loyalty to me, and I will tell you now, I am taking advantage of it. You were born to be our enemy, so perhaps I shouldn’t feel bad about it, but I do. So you will be trained in the future to live more for your own will.”
Shindzha shook her head with a sad smile. “There’s no point, Mistress. I served your enemy out of obedience, not loyalty. I never knew loyalty until I became your Servant.”
I suppressed the sigh I wanted to let out, as well as the words, That loyalty is artificial. I forced it upon you with the blood bond. But I let the matter be.
§
Sen made me take back over before dropping the [Vampire Veil], so the crew never saw a person who looked almost exactly like Tiana Pendor standing in the group once they could see us again.
After Shindzha and I watched the airboat rise into the sky and then disappear in the direction from which I had arrived, Shindzha’s disguise disappeared, leaving her once more as a hellspawn. She wore simple wilderness gear, not much different than mine, except hers added a hood and cloak, and hers was real. Sen didn’t want her using the raiment-like technique she had been clothing herself with, before. It was too flashy.
I reached into the mustard seed pouch that was pretending to be a belt-wallet on my hip and withdrew a locator stone. Unlike the one that Tiana had carried with the Hero’s Party, this one only showed the location of its single mate. That’s the normal operation, after all. The ones Tiana and the others carried were special.
“The Kasarene Highlands begin on the other side of this mountain,” I stated, pointed that direction as I handed the stone to her. “You are going to go that direction and descend until you reach the valley northwest of here. I will contact you when you have gone far enough. Wear this.”
Rather than putting it on, she tried to use it, which I guess makes sense. It was only common sense to confirm that such a thing is working before relying on it.
“It doesn’t work, Mistress.”
She was still calling me ‘Mistress’, which is very uncomfortable for me. I decided to give up on correcting her.
“Wait a moment…” I reached into the pouch and pulled the mate out. “Try it now.”
Sure enough, it worked fine. The mustard seed pouch was a folded space, created with Darkness. Naturally it interfered with an ordinary locator stone.
She looked curious about the strangeness of my ‘belt-wallet’ that she could see with her [Demon Sight] but she didn’t ask about it. She simply slipped the stone into her own belt-wallet.
I then said, “Now, we discuss how you should conduct yourself while you’re out there.”
