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I know my personality has gone through many changes, but I’m coming very close to seeing myself as Hiléa and thinking of Lhan as that meek mouse of a girl back then, nearly to the same extent that Tiana thinks of herself as a different person than Robert. I get why she needs to do that, but I don’t want to be the same. My name is Lhan and I want to keep it, even if nobody around me can pronounce it right.
I don’t dislike the confidence I’ve never felt before, the strength similar to the older Incarnations who used to strike me with awe. I wonder if this me with more will and emotional energy could have clung to life for the sake of her baby. I wanted so desperately to live for the child I never had a chance to know.
Fan Li says my big sisters took good care of my daughter. And that my daughter, being the child of a half-fairy, had a far more fortunate life. She benefited not only from her fae blood, but from the well-timed death of our owner and the decision of her older brother, his heir, to free and educate any slaves whom he believed to be his siblings.
He’d be more meritorious if he freed all of his father’s slaves, but at least he had something resembling a conscience. So I must simply be happy that I held on long enough to give birth to the live child who lived that more fortunate life, and who always remembered to thank me for it, every year on her birthday.
Fan Li’s ability to learn these things through divine deduction is amazing. I can see why they considered her a ‘sage’ in her world. I’m glad she was able to tell me.
Until now, I’ve remained with the forces of Alwain, the Lady of the Red Tower, and the last months have been a grind, to be honest. Rather than pushing deeper into Fiorene territory, the war goal of the forces of the Kasarene Highlands has been to create a buffer zone all the way across the northern foothills of the Arbolian Mountains, both eastward and westward, until we reach the Eastern Sea. Alwain and her allies don’t actually care who runs Orestania. Her goal has been to cut the rebels entirely off from their source of war-capable monsters. But it’s important to our war goals, so we support her.
I actually played a big part in it. I negotiated with the Lady of the Gray Tower to join our effort, with Alwain’s assistance to provide evidence of what the demons had been doing to residents of the Wild. Her territory covers all of the Eastern Highlands from the Kasar Pass to where the Arbolians flatten out into the Ulerian Plateau and the Wilds become somewhat inhabitable for mortals, and that was vital for our plans.
The Ulerians who live beyond the Kingdom’s border in Southeastern Baris speak their own language and have no love for either Dorians or Ostish, but their merchants saw a business opportunity and took it, becoming suppliers to the rebels. So, once the Lady of the Gray Tower threw her weight into the fight, we cut off the land route between Southeastern Baris and rebel territory. Now, they can only trade by sea, and must run the blockade of the Royal Navy to do it.
The commanders from the Duchy and the Viceroyalty went along with our preferred war plan because we promised this as one of the goals. I’m glad we pulled it off.
Fighting westward is going more slowly, but we are making progress. The mortal lands bordering the Kasarene Highlands fell quickly, but once we reached the north slope of the Oserian Highlands, we began having to persuade the various independent groups dwelling there to cooperate. Without their assistance, it’s difficult to extend our forces into the rebel lands facing them, but once each local leader joins up, we take the rebel ground bordering them in a matter of days. It’s a boon that the inhabitants of that region are largely dwarven, elven and halfling rather than non-mortals. It’s a blow to rebel morale when they suddenly find themselves fighting fellow mortals rather than monsters.
The goal is to meet up with the Pendorian Army holding the Hart Valley at the other end. Thanks to the losses they suffered at Brigdion, they have only held their ground, rather than advancing toward us, but as long as they hold, we will reach them. And once we entirely cut the rebels off from the Arbolians, the enemy will lose their best source of magic materials, monsters and mana sources.
Yes, I am indeed no longer the naive little girl from the banana plantation. I would never have had any of these big thoughts, or be able to speak of any of these terrible things, back when I was alive. I’ve learned so much more than I ever knew before, both from my big sister Incarnations and from my experiences on the battlefield.
Which is why I feel strangely sad to be leaving it, no matter how good it feels to get away from the battlefield.
At dinnertime, I went to report to Lady Alwain, and then to Captain Macla, who insisted on bringing me to General Costa and Lady Falerè, the ones now in command of the Pendorian and Faerie forces assisting the Highlanders. To each of them, I explained that Her Grace summoned me back to Narses, now that matters were well in hand here. Of course, they were expecting this, since Sirth gave the same reason five days before, when she left to carry Shindzha to Oseri.
It wasn’t a lie, exactly. After all, Sirth and I are also technically ‘Her Grace’, as are everyone who came to that decision together. Our reason was simple. The time for Diur’s expedition to leave Oseri was fast approaching, and Tiana had an obligation to defend the civilians that Diur intended to leave behind, should the demons notice their presence. We didn’t want Tiana trying to do it herself.
Someone else must take care of Oseri so Tiana can concentrate entirely on dealing with her sisters. Sirth was staying in the back of Shindzha’s mind, but without an effigy. Someone needs to be nearby with a [Blood Effigy], ready to react instantly when the time comes. So, I would go, keeping my effigy hidden outside of Astaroth’s formation, deep in a cave in the hills, while I monitor the situation through Bruna’s [Blood Sigil].
Why not leave it to Sirth? As she is now, she has to spawn a [Blood Effigy] in Narses and bring it to this place. But since one [Blood Effigy] can spawn another, if I’m present with one, we can both be instantly on hand in our own bodies, ready to defend the townspeople.
So I would say ‘bye’ and pop over to Oseri… Yeah, no. I had a bunch of SAS troops to bid farewell. Macla wouldn’t hear of letting me just toddle off without a word. It was after midnight on Firstday, before I actually left, and by that time, my destination had changed.
Fan Li’s idea, not mine. I dissolved my effigy, returning its substance to Narses while I spawned a new one from Her Grace’s body in Sky Ocean, where she napped on a sleeping mat in front of a painting hung on the wall.
The scene was of daisies in starlight next to a windless pond. The broad swath of stars above it was so like the Spirit River I knew from my world, which I knew now to be the galactic plane. From Lydia’s memories, I knew this was a ‘dynamic’ painting, which we apparently painted when we were Senhion, and it would change from night to day and back exactly in time with the world where it hung. Sky Ocean was currently synchronized with Huade, where it was just after midnight, before the thin waning crescent moon rose, so the light level was very low.
Curator appeared beside me and gave a deep Dorian-style bow.
<Welcome, Miss Lhan>, she greeted in her spiritual voice.
<Thank you, Miss Curator,> I replied in the same manner. <Should I announce my presence to Little Jia?>
<I have informed her of your arrival,> she replied. <I have set the scenario for your entry. You will automatically enter when you step inside.>
It’s a really strange experience, stepping into a painting. Especially one where one can see obvious brushstrokes. When I put my hands on the frame to steady myself, accidentally inserting them into the painting slightly as I prepared to step in, I laughed a bit as my fingers sank into the surface. With a nod and a brief <Thank You> to Curator, I entered.
My mind had to struggle with the idea that I noticed no strange effect while my body was partly in the 1000:1 world and partly outside. If you think about it, that math just doesn’t work. But after a moment, I realized that Curator simply dropped the time compression momentarily while I entered.
A scent of wood burning met my nose as I entered, which surprised me, because nothing in the painting suggested it. The air was certainly cool enough to merit a fire, although it was a springtime cool, without any winter bite.
The visible brushstrokes in my surroundings persisted for a while, as I walked to the shore of the pond, they slowly smoothed into a more natural image. Except, if I concentrated, I discovered that they didn’t. It was my eye adjusting to the imagery that made the strokes disappear. I guess it was like how a realistic painting turns more natural if you step away from it a little. At a certain distance, it looks photographic.
These thoughts show how I’ve adjusted to all the knowledge I’ve absorbed from the other incarnations, by the way. During my lifetime, I never saw a realistic painting. My owner had a couple small sepia photographs on the wall of his home, and a reproduction of a religious painting that was very stylized. The photos were one of himself with his late wife and his son at a young age, and one of his parents. Other than those, the only ‘artwork’ I ever saw were the primitive wall decorations we slaves made for ourselves using homemade paints.
Once I had followed the pond shore to the brook that filled it, I was well outside the view in Senhion’s painting. A short distance upstream, a small campfire burned at the center of the triangle between a trio of well-made but tiny shacks.
The longer I stayed here, the more information gradually filtered into my mind. The largest shack was Kwelabi’s. The two smaller shacks were respectively the one for Fan Li and the one shared by Daq and Rugau.
“Are they asleep?” I wondered to myself as I arrived, because nobody came out to meet me.
“They are,” replied Lydia/Tiana from behind me, nearly startling me out of my skin and causing me to yipe like a puppy.
Wearing an impish smile, she passed me and circled the fire, taking a seat on a large flat rock on the opposite side.
Suppressing a sigh, I took a seat on another rock. Four were arranged around the fire, and it appeared they had been sitting in this formation for quite some time. The hearth was old and well-used as well.
The thought nibbled at the back edges of my mind that it had been a long time indeed.
I asked, “It looks like they’ve really made themselves at home here. How long have they been using this place?”
“They’ve been here for nearly eighteen years now,” she answered.
Her dimples grew again at my expression.
That explained the staggering amount of information that kept on coming to me. The memories of all those years pouring into my mind were such a great volume that minor details like this were lost in the flood.
Her Grace didn’t wait for me to sort it out. “We coordinated things so that the others would be asleep when you arrived, so you could have time on your own to catch up. I have enough control of my thoughts while I’m in here to assist you so that you aren’t overwhelmed. We want our Lhan to remain Lhan, after all.”
“Eighteen years…” I echoed, having trouble believing it.
“I have to take care of Tiana’s body, so I can only spend a matter of hours ‘inside’ at a time. The visiting mortals and fairies need to go out for regular breathers to allow their bodies to refresh and ‘update’ with any physical improvements they’ve achieved, so they can only manage a year or two per day. But Incarnations have no physical bodies to maintain. Nothing prevents them from just staying inside and doing their work. They mine Senhion’s memories for knowledge and receive the deductions made by the copy of Fan Li who is staying here with them, to learn what is possible and what is needed, and apply it to their tasks, stopping only to rest every so often.”
“So I’m just here to watch the fire and let my mind catch up?”
She nodded. “That’s the idea.”
“Until morning?”
“Morning in this place is many months away. Until the rest wake up. Which will be about when I have to leave.”
I was confused, then I understood. The day-night schedule is synced to the outside world, moving a thousand times slower than here. Dawn was a very long time from now.
Another vague thought tickled my mind.
“Why am I here now?”
She tipped her head. “What do you mean?”
“Diur isn’t ready to leave Oseri yet, but I can dimly tell that you chose to bring me here now, rather than tomorrow or when they depart, for a reason. What’s the reason?”
