Special note: I have renamed “Lalhàn” to “Velerè”, pronounced “Vell-air.” It was pointed out to me a while back that the resemblance of “Lalhàn” to “Lhan” was confusing. I also noticed I had a “Lilhàn” a few volumes back. So Tiana’s oldest living sister is now “Velerè”. I will revise this in prior chapters as well.
New special note, added for free readers: I apologize for the slow unlock speed. My employer has royally screwed me by laying off exactly the wrong people and leaving me doing the work of three engineers and nobody familiar with that work to help. I will sort this out eventually, but right now, it is very hard to concentrate on writing. Thank you for your patience as I work this out.
§
My effigy requires sleep while I’m using it, the same as a living person, and I dream while my effigy sleeps. That seems strange to me, because I should have lost the need for sleeping and dreaming after I died, right? Although, people refer to death with phrases like ‘eternal slumber’, so perhaps it isn’t so strange. After all, all that time while I was dead and others were having their turns at life, I also remember dreaming, at least up until Fan Li woke me up the first time.
<What you remember is probably the effect of being trapped without consciousness in the Spirit Core, Lhan. It likely felt like a bad dream at first, before this one took control and stabilized everyone. After that, this one hopes it became a more pleasant one.>
<That makes sense,> I admitted. The dreams had turned pleasant after a time. But it seems I didn’t dream this time.
<That’s because you haven’t slept long. Stop procrastinating and wake up already. It’s important.>
I shook off my dozing thoughts as I glimpsed Tiana’s memories and learned why it was important. With that, I immediately snapped my eyes open.
“Oh!” exclaimed the white-haired sylph with pale blue eyes who was for some reason giving me a lap-pillow. “Innanmi woke up all of a sudden!”
Her exact duplicate, who was also looking down at me, stroked my cheek and wondered in a teasing voice, as if she were speaking to a small child, “What has you so alarmed, my little one?”
These two, Princesses Alore and Diddere, 2720-year-old twins, were also my sisters as well as Serera’s nieces because her elder brother was Mother’s lover back then. They arrived during the deepest dark hours to join us in Mother’s ‘Pool’.
“Um…” I replied uncertainly, looking around, then popped back up to a sitting position. I had actually fallen asleep in the water, and all fairies present were watching me with amusement.
Still flustered, I straightened my mind out and started again. “A d-dragon! There’s a dragon attacking Her Grace’s people!”
Almost perfectly in unison, Mitozin and Velerè retorted, “Mother’s castle?”
I shrank a bit, because they looked really angry suddenly, and waved my hands in negation. “No, no, the people that Serera went back to guard! They’re on a train, and there’s a big dragon chasing them…”
I trailed off, because the tension had just suddenly vanished like a bursting balloon among the big sisters.
“Is that all?” Velerè sighed. “Tiana-innan‘s only there by remote, and Amana is fine with Serera protecting her. Little Amana is pretty strong herself, too. You had us all worried for nothing.”
“Her Grace’s people are in danger!”
“Mortals, right? And a monster or two…” Mitozin said, fanning herself. “It’s not fairy business. Let the mortals take care of themselves.”
I knew it was time to give up, and stood. Carefully executing the secret command that Fan Li made me learn, I switched my clothing to my ‘Hiléa the adventurer’ outfit, complete with a [Qi Sword] at my hip.
“I’m going,” I told them. “I need to go help.”
In the next second, a wave like a tsunami clobbered me inside my head.
§
This small one reeled from the shock, unable for a moment to recognize the source of the blow. Even when identified, many tasks occupied my thoughts, preventing any response.
First task, to resurrect my copies.
Only the full instance of ‘myself’ remained, after the wave passed. This version can only sit back and watch through all other eyes, unable to properly interact, so it became needful to reconstruct the reduced Fan Li copies. They can only exist by removing those points of ‘myself’ which prevent this one from interacting fully as a proper Incarnation. It is absolutely imperative that those bits which mutated within me during my millennia and a half of cultivation do not come in contact with the other incarnations until Tiana can once again be the full Senhion, stronger than this scholar and therefore strong enough to withstand my deviations.
Second task, to confirm the safety of our living Incarnation’s True Body. Being a living being, not one of the effigies, we couldn’t risk the danger of my full mind contacting that living brain. This one dispatched the first active Fan Li copy to check on it, and if necessary, occupy it until the recovery of Tiana/Lydia, or one or the other of them individually.
Third task, while the majority of my attention focused on the first, take inventory of the effigies.
The most important of them still lay on her back in bed in Narses Castle, pretending to sleep, or perhaps meditate. As the only Stage Four [Blood Effigy], she had withstood the spiritual backlash without incident. She is the cornerstone for all the other effigies operating on Huade, so a Fan Li copy took on her management until the living incarnation became conscious.
The effigy sharing Mother’s Pool in the mountains near the Castle was for some reason dressed for battle. Being driven by Lhan, a child with amazing resilience, she naturally withstood the impact, although she too had gone unconscious. Tiana’s big sisters could take care of her. Moving on.
To this one’s amazement, the effigy for Daq R’Mion remained not only materialized, but conscious, although he had gone to one knee and was barely staying upright. He would soon recover.
But the effigy for Sirth had gone immaterial with unconsciousness, as had the other effigies this small one’s copies had been operating. She somehow remained active though, and still flew near the dragon. She was now resuming consciousness.
But the effigy Her Grace used for her battle, a valuable Third Stage one, was gone. Entirely destroyed. The blow this one felt, that all of us felt, was the backlash from its destruction, made worse by the fact that the living incarnation was the one who suffered it.
The loss hurt, but it was merely the effigy. The personas all remained intact and ready to go. We can replace an effigy with some effort.
The fourth task, failure analysis. The [Blood Effigy] technique clearly required revision. This small one failed to anticipate the backlash that we all experienced when one was destroyed.
Relief surged back to me as news came from the copy that the True Body was fine and becoming conscious. This one resumed monitoring while mainly occupied with that fourth task, and the redesign challenges. The copies would take care of the rest.
§
I blinked awake, and in that moment, I remembered the sudden shock which bowled me over in the midst of my daily cultivation session. My hand flew to my tummy, and relief bathed me as I found my daughters unharmed. They tend to sleep while I’m meditating in place, and they were still dreaming peacefully, unaware of the psychic blow that their mother suffered.
It’s difficult to explain my next awareness. I noticed somehow that only one copy of me existed at present. Lydia remained part of me, but two copies of us had existed in two streams until moments ago, one here and one on Huade. Now, we only existed in Sky Ocean.
My memories of events on Huade leading up to the blackout came with that awareness and I panicked.
<How do I get back there?> I demanded, because I could feel Fan Li in the back of my head.
Time slowed down for me… or rather, it froze, while Fan Li’s calming insistence placed a firm hold on that panic, making me stop.
<It will be too much trouble to coach you through the process of splitting into two thought streams right now. This one will assist you by taking care of your True Body while you go to Shindzha. New effigies and twinning thought streams can wait.>
<Are you minding my effigy in Narses?>
<Another copy of me is there now,> Fan Li assured me. <There’s no time. I’m sending you to join Shindzha.>
I arrived inside Shindzha’s mind to see that only a few seconds had elapsed since my effigy failed. Realizing that the gorgon’s attack had injured the beast but not frozen its movements, Shindzha was rushing forward with Ilni before he could recover his wits. Too far above ground to retreat safely while waiting for Ilni’s next shot, her only option was to join Serera and defend her now unprotected back.
Not understanding that I did it to myself by overloading my [Blood Effigy], Shindzha’s alarm at seeing her Mistress after I protected her was rapidly evolving into rage and guilt.
<I’m okay!> I reassured her, projecting calm. <I just lost my projection. You concentrate on helping Serera!>
<Please help as well, Kiki!> I thought at the pixie still riding her shoulder, not entirely certain I could make it come through.
“Yup yup!” my ‘little sister’ replied, and chose the moment Shindhza’s soles met dragonhide to launch one of her plus-sized fireballs at the dracs, who were renewing their attack. Ilni drew her sword as soon as she found her balance, ready to fight once more, so I guess the cool-down for her optical attack wasn’t done yet. She met the first drac to arrive with a mighty parry, actually flinging the creature away, then stopped the sword of a second.
I expected Shindzha to fight with her magic, but she took on the first incoming drac with bare claws and teeth, fighting like an animal. Although I worried that she was somehow deteriorating to feral behavior, I saw in her mind that she was draining as much Demonic mana as she could from each one she grabbed. It was gross as she ripped out the throat from the first with her teeth, hurrying so she could take on the second to arrive, but she was using the weapons she had, no longer caring about being ‘creepy’.
It took me about this long to realize that Sirth was no longer with us. The backlash from losing my effigy took her out as well, it seemed.
With only a finite number of dracs, the last fell to a blast of wind magic from Serera in very short order. The dragon still hadn’t reacted to the riders on his back, which either meant that he still hadn’t recovered from Ilni’s attack or that he was leaving it to his drac escort, but he reacted to Shindzha’s next move, dropping into a squat and sinking her claws into the dragon’s scales.
I mean that literally. Dark mana and Demonic mana erupted like flames from her now beast-like hands and from her feet, which grew to resemble the bony feet of bats, complete with claws of their own. The knife-like things, strengthened and fortified with the power surging from her, actually dug into the scales which my sword had only scratched. Her transformation continued with her face, also erupting with mana, as it morphed into that of a flying fox. Her neck lengthened, her jaws extended and her upper and lower canines grew.
<She knows about all of it!> Fan Li marveled, having joined me inside Shindzha’s head. As Shinzha’s bestial mouth opened impossibly wide to sink her fangs into dragon armor, the sage told me, <The demons don’t teach the hellspawn about this racial skill. They fear them growing too strong with it.>
A great torrent of Demonic mana gushed out of the beast, flowing straight into Shindzha’s Demonic core. Her body went rigid, not from shock but from iron resolve to weaken the beast, to steal as much as possible.
Finally aware that his escort no longer protected his back, and that a dangerous parasite had latched onto him, the dragon began thrashing and letting out stentorian trombone blasts of fury. Serera captured Ilni before she fell and Shindzha’s claws remained dug in, holding her secure to the beast.
His purpose forgotten, his anger turning to fear, the dragon only sought to escape the terrible monster stuck to its back now. Rolling and bucking, writhing and heaving, he sped from the place he now regretted going, into the great mountains ahead.
The deluge of mana began to overwhelm her, as more and more of what she pulled out of the beast flew free into the thinning atmosphere rather than into her core. The flow gushed until she released her bite, unable to continue. She coughed and vomited a pint of the mana back out. Drawing in a wheezing breath, she collapsed in a heap and gasped for air. Above the tallest peaks of the range we were entering, she didn’t have a lot of it available to draw.
I needed to get her off this creature, but with her dazed mind not even thinking thoughts at the moment, I wasn’t sure how to do so.
The panicked beast resolved it with yet another barrel roll. Shindzha tumbled off, and a worried Serera, encumbered with Ilni, followed. Kiki, once more on her shoulder, yelled “Pretty Demon Girl!” while beating her little fists on her cheek to rouse her.
<Kiki, can you slow down her fall?> I sent. We were far above the mountainous terrain at this point, but it would arrive soon enough.
But Shindzha began at that moment to find her wits, managing to turn over and spread her wings. At the same time, her face and limbs returned to human. Once she was in control of her flight, she steepened her glide a bit to reach thicker air sooner.
Serera drew parallel to her and called, “You’re okay now, child?”
“I will be soon, My Lady,” she responded, sounding terribly weak.
The fairy knight’s tone turned from serious to playful as she asked “For now, I won’t ask what you did to that beast, but I’ll want to know eventually. That was a terribly interesting trick you played on it.”
§
Captain Sirth descended to the train roof to rejoin us roughly the same time that I recovered and slung my weapon. My enhanced vision had caught her reforming her effigy a hundred or so paces above us, but she was now pretending to simply be returning from the fight with the beast. She grinned at me and did a sharp gesture of dusting off her palms as she arrived.
“Nice fight, Daq,” she commented as she landed next to me.
“Where are the others?” Ceria demanded.
“That beast took off too fast fer me t’ follow, but the rest hitched a ride on it t’do s’more damage.”
“They hitched a ride?” Brigitte retorted. She wasn’t the only incredulous one. Everyone was openly gaping at the captain as her feet touched the roof. Even the priestess Laylin, who was busy healing wounds, stopped for a moment to stare.
“That’s what I saw. The way that beast was howlin’, Her Grace’s Servant was doin’ somethin’ downright painful to it.”
Bruna asked, “And what about that Ilni girl?”
“Her attack only wounded it, but she’s fine. Everyone’s fine. Her Grace lost her projection, but that’s no problem. The rest’ll return soon, and Her Grace will be alright soon enough.”
Sirth turned to me and asked, “What’d’ya think o’ yer first fight on Huade? Nothin’ like where you come from, is it?”
I gave her a brief nod and conceded, “It is quite different.”
She let out a barking laugh. “Yeah. Quite diff’rent fer me, too.”
Through enhanced vision, I spotted the remaining three on their way back.
“By my analysis, the battle was inconclusive. That beast remains a threat.”
The captain nodded. “Aye, true enough, but it’s a battle fer another day.”
