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I alighted upon a promontory overlooking the Oseri countryside and let Shindzha down onto her feet while dispelling my wings. [Vampire Cloak] was in full force, of course. I didn’t want any monitoring demons in the area to notice my presence. I could always just dismiss the [Blood Effigy] and escape, of course, but it would be inconvenient if they mistook me for my main body and attacked.
Contemplating her, I mused, “I need you to meet up with one of the fairies before you get too close to Oseri. You’ll need a disguise for the job I want you to do.”
“What do you want me to do, Mistress?” she wondered.
“You’ll go into town with one of the fairies and help her investigate the townspeople,” I explained. “But you’ll need to look more human for that job.”
“You mean, like when Her Wisdom Pasrue disguised me to ride on her air boat?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” I nodded. “But Pasrue isn’t with us, so I’ll need to ask the fairies.”
I pointed down across the plain in front of us to the town. “That town that you can just make out on the horizon is your destination, but my friends aren’t there. They are staying outside it for now. I’ll have the fairies meet you on the way in.”
After that, I spent several minutes giving her a detailed explanation of what had happened there, which horrified her more than I thought her jaded Hellspawn heart could be horrified.
This woman witnessed her former ‘Lord’, her likely father, consume her mother’s lifeblood and then have her body roasted for dinner. Despite even that horror, the fate of the former residents of Oseri and the Demon God’s part in it could still appall her. Perhaps during her upbringing as a Hellspawn, her mortal mother imparted more human values to her than I expected.
After I finished explaining about the mysterious new inhabitants and how they concerned the fairies, I focused my spiritual voice on Serera and sent my request to her regarding Shindzha’s disguise.
To my relief, Serera quickly confirmed to me that she would be able to do it. I had been prepared to keep Shindzha under [Vampire Cloak] while she went into town, but I didn’t expect it to be necessary. Like pixies, fairies are masters of illusion, and I would frankly have been surprised if, between the three fairies available, none of them could pull off what I was hoping for.
I told Shindzha, “We’re all set. Make your way down to that town. I’ll keep a light Cloak on you so that Serera can find you along the way. If you somehow get close to the town before she finds you, stop and wait for her.”
“You aren’t coming along, Mistress?”
I tried not to crack a smile at her childlike, wistful tone. I did understand that my presence was quite a lot more important to her than one might expect, and this was a serious matter for her.
When I forcibly blood-bonded her, Shindzha became a woman without country, tribe or family, with the exception of me in my various Incarnations. Her brief contact with the Oto Expedition members and her fellow Servants were the only other companionship she’d experienced. I suppose Kiki and her grandchildren also counted but, even though both the pixies and her fellow Servants had worried for her to a degree that surprised me, they were at best passing acquaintances from her perspective.
“I am, but not like this,” I reassured her. “And I will probably be Sirth when I return. You won’t be alone. Now, get going.”
She gave a brief, humble nod, then set off, wending her way on the circuitous trail down to the plain below. Where I landed had been more of a foothill than a mountain. In fact, it was an uplifted and tilted piece of rock that reminded me of the ‘flatiron’ hills in Colorado, and she had to start out descending the shallower slope that faced away from the town so she could reach the base where she could circumnavigate it.
I scaled back the [Vampire Cloak] on her, then went immaterial and flew at high speed back to Narses.
Fan Li understands the ‘physics’ of the [Blood Effigy] much better than I (as Tiana) do, so there are things about it that I can’t really explain, like what happened to the [Mustard Seed] pouches that act as stomach and belt-wallet for Sirth as this effigy merged with the effigy in my bedchamber. I do know that the blood, spirit and mana that formed its substance returned to my main body in Sky Ocean in that moment, and I know that the next time Sirth forms an effigy, they will be back, contents and all, regardless of whether that effigy spawns from the one in Narses or from my main body.
When Fan Li recognized that I wasn’t comprehending it from her thoughts, she tried to explain how the [Mustard Seed] technique worked in terms I would understand, but it turned out to be an Einsteinian nightmare of math and metaphysics way beyond what I ever knew as either Tiana or Robert. Daq understood it without any difficulty and tried to explain it to me as well, with no more luck than Fan Li. I suspect that it is knowledge outside what Senhion knew back then. Someday, when my persona has expanded to become her again, with Daq and Fan Li and the rest included, I’ll understand it. Until then, I give up.
I arrived in Narses and my bedchamber to quickly to pay attention to what was transpiring in my bed, so my first awareness in my body– or rather, in the effigy currently shaped like pregnant me– was of Syl ‘returning the favor’ and Sirth breaking her promise regarding how far she herself would go in that regard.
Quickly walling off Sirth’s senses and retreating to the back of her mind, I weighed my options, being interrupting, giving up and enjoying it, or heading elsewhere, then chose to head elsewhere. Specifically, I joined Lydia in Sky Ocean.
I breathed a sigh of relief that Lydia was not also in a romantic embrace with anyone at that moment, then quietly fumed.
Lydia, at that moment, was actually enjoying a quiet swim in Grandmother’s lake by herself. Specifically, she was lazily sculling along, face-up on the surface, while singing a lullaby in Ancient Greek to our babies. Of course, when I arrived and she picked up on my embarrassment, she interrupted the song with laughter.
“Well, she never explicitly promised you anything, Your Grace,” she noted.
I was going to retort, then realized she was right. I told Sirth where I wanted her to draw the line, but she never actually said she would do so.
<Damn it,> I muttered.
After a brief additional titter, Lydia declared, “The line is already crossed. If you aren’t going to go back and stop her, you might as well go join your Servant for now.”
I saw a very embarrassing, completely different possibility in her mind, of what Lydia and I might do together here, which she had chosen not to bring up.
“Well, I know you aren’t prepared to go that far,” Lydia replied with a smirk. “Although, really, the mingling of the main body and an effigy is really just an advanced form of touching oneself.”
<Why did you actually have to go and say it!> I fumed. Was I really like these trollops in my prior lives?
“Well, obviously!” Lydia laughed. “You were us at those times, after all.”
The skillful analysis of Fan Li during the last two months had allowed me to master Rhea’s trick of connecting me to the senses and thoughts of my Servants, much to the goddess’s surprise. It turned out that Fan Li’s method to connect to her paper effigies during her life on Huajie, when she wasn’t outright using them in proxy form., was somehow slightly different from how I connect to the [Blood Effigy] technique here and much more like Rhea’s method. I had actually used it, just now, to enter first Sirth’s mind and then Lydia’s, because it’s easier than the way I would have done so before. So I could now easily slip into the senses and thoughts of one of my Servants.
Which is what I meant when I told Shindzha I would be coming along, and is what I did now to escape my libertine prior incarnations. As long as I had my Servant’s senses to cling to, I wasn’t at the mercy of Sirth’s libido, which clearly affected Lydia when she peeked at what was going on in Narses while we spoke. I could see in her mind, after I turned her down, a plan to head to the lake bottom to ‘nap’ while she slipped into the back of Sirth’s mind to enjoy it directly. I might as well leave and let her do it.
Jeez.
Shindzha immediately sensed my presence when I arrived.
<Welcome back, Mistress!>
My landing spot was only a foothill, rising perhaps only a hundred paces, so Shindzha was already at the bottom, and navigating a winding animal path that would carry her around it and onto the plain.
<It’ll be me for now,> I commented, to let her know which Incarnation was present. <Sirth was… busy.>
<Are these different personalities the reason you can be in several places?>
<That’s right,> I confirmed. <The one with you now is my persona in my current life. The others are previous lives I have lived.>
Demonic beliefs have a somewhat different idea about reincarnation, so what I felt from her was a sort of superstitious dread at my words.
<That’s how the eight billionfold worlds work, Shindzha,> I assured her. <And it’s the top reason I want to release you from the demonic mana within you. I’m afraid it could prevent your next trip through Samsara. Demons who are not purified when they die revert to gidim and remain trapped here on Huade, when they ought to get a new chance in their next life. I don’t want that to happen to you.>
<Samsara?> she asked, fumbling over a word unfamiliar to her.
<I’ll explain it some day. Anyhow, I want to make sure that when you pass away someday, it’s with a soul that isn’t doomed to slavery as someone’s gidim and continue to be stuck in the Demonic ranks.>
That fate was the reason for her negative reaction. Because postponing that fate for as long as possible is a demon’s sole motivation to stay alive, strengthen themselves and evolve up the demonic ladder.
As we walked, I used my spiritual sense (which is present in this form, although a bit weak) to check the farmsteads we passed. They were all abandoned when we came here last time, but, as I more-or-less expected, they were reoccupied. With no supplies coming in on the abandoned railroad tracks, the farms would be the only possible source of food for the town, after all. Right now, they probably could still rely on the stored supplies left in the town, but that would run out soon enough. Whatever the enemy planned for this town, it had to include keeping the mystery occupants fed, after all.
Then I felt a slightly sheepish Sirth nudging my mind, and sent my dissatisfaction back at her.
<Well, when yer actually doin’ it, one thing leads to another, y’know…>
<No excuses!>
<I’m snuggling with a very happy maid who would very much like you to feed on her next, Yer Highness.>
<You mean, you’ve been going until now?>
I could feel her suppressing her laughter so as not to disturb Syl, and mentally rolled my eyes before switching with my unrepentant prior Incarnation.
