Sobon, for his part, kept care-ful watch of Ki'el as she went about her evening busi-ness, and even as she slept, en-sur-ing that her new aether dy-namos sta-bi-lized, as he'd pre-dict-ed. They did, if slow-ly; she had made too messy of a job putting them to-geth-er, and her men-tal state wasn't par-tic-u-lar-ly sta-ble on its own. If she didn't work so hard on keep-ing her-self cen-tered... there wouldn't have been much he could have done to pull her through all of this trou-ble.

  In the morn-ing, once she be-gan her chores, he ac-cel-er-at-ed his own ef-forts, feed-ing en-er-gy into his col-lec-tion dy-namos. Al-though the dy-namos were small, he was con-fi-dent that as long as he built them up, the six left, six right, one in, and one out dy-namos to-geth-er would be enough to take on at least a cou-ple ded-i-cat-ed war-riors, though per-haps not... what-ev-er it was he was able to sense from this dis-tance. Giv-en what lit-tle it had tak-en to im-prove his squir-rel body's core to a sil-very col-or, he was sure that any-thing less than that--the cop-pery col-or, and the duller gray, which he sup-posed were Bronze and Iron, giv-en what peo-ple had said--would be fair-ly unim-pres-sive.

  Of course, he had no idea how ef-fi-cient they may be at us-ing their pow-er. If they had built up a cul-ture around us-ing their strange qi-fla-vored aether, with its high-er-di-men-sion-al flows, even a rel-a-tive-ly weak war-rior might be able to gen-er-ate re-al-i-ty-bend-ing pow-er. He want-ed to ask Ki'el what she knew... but he al-ready knew that it was lit-tle enough. Out here, far from any em-pire or great na-tion, a vil-lage may not have any qi war-riors, let alone ex-perts or schol-ars.

  When she fin-ished mak-ing break-fast... Sobon not-ed that, as she had all along, she was still mak-ing a serv-ing of food for him. He most-ly hadn't been eat-ing it; she was no pro-fes-sion-al chef, and ac-cept-ing the food felt more like ac-cept-ing a place as a do-mes-ti-cat-ed an-i-mal, and less like shar-ing a meal. It ran-kled him, though frankly, he knew it was an over-re-ac-tion. As he stared at it now... if noth-ing else, he de-cid-ed, he couldn't stand try-ing to eat on a plate on the ground.

  He'd been putting off most of his ef-forts to ac-tu-al-ly mold aether into prac-ti-cal ef-fects. He could; he re-mem-bered most of the li-braries, chains, pat-terns, and field geome-tries, but... with-out his cy-borg data-base linked straight into his mind, he would be fig-ur-ing out many of the de-tails from scratch. He'd... most-ly put it off, so far, but it was long since time to work on it.

  Nat-u-ral-ly, he didn't start on the plate of food, in-stead spin-ning up one each of the left and right dy-namos, and spin-ning thin thread into the ef-fect pat-tern for telekine-sis. The pat-tern it-self... was com-plex, and he got bits wrong, but he was able to nudge the ar-ray in the few places where he wasn't sure un-til things fell into place.

  At least this, un-like the ri-fle pat-tern, wasn't so like-ly to cause se-vere dam-age if he got it wrong.

  With-in half an hour, at most, he had the telekine-sis pat-tern fleshed out, and picked up his plate of food and his own lit-tle fur-ry body, de-posit-ing them on the near-est par-tial-ly-in-tact rooftop. He mea-sured the con-sump-tion of the pat-tern as he used it to eat, de-ter-min-ing that the two small dy-namos were, to-geth-er, well more than the pat-tern con-sumed. It would be dif-fer-ent if he were mov-ing a hu-man body, or even a heavy iron weapon, or try-ing to over-drive the pat-tern and throw some-thing at lethal force; cer-tain-ly, he didn't ex-pect to be able to fight off a sail-ing ship with telekine-sis, not any-time soon.

  When he fin-ished eat-ing, he saw Ki'el star-ing at him, and he leaped to a near-by tree and down to the ground, com-ing over to her. She kept look-ing at the roof where he'd been, though, and for a mo-ment he wor-ried that he had brought back some kind of trau-ma.

  "I could bare-ly tell what you were do-ing," she said at last. "It was... com-pli-cat-ed, wasn't it?"

  Sobon let him-self breathe out a quick sigh of re-lief. [ Yes. It... will be dif-fi-cult to teach you every-thing I know, Ki'el. But, noth-ing is im-pos-si-ble. It is only knowl-edge. ] He left un-said that he wouldn't re-al-ly be teach-ing her all he knew; he doubt-ed he would even teach her all he could, or all she would need to know. But he de-cid-ed that she would feel bet-ter with that white lie.

  Ki'el turned to look at him. "Can I use it to de-fend my home?"

  Sobon's face could no longer smile quite the way he want-ed it to, but he felt his fa-cial mus-cles stretch any-way. [ That is the right ques-tion. That tool will not help you. I... will pre-pare some-thing that will work. But first you should un-der-stand what you have. ]

  The girl turned and im-me-di-ate-ly start-ed walk-ing, and it took Sobon a mo-ment to re-al-ize she was head-ed for the pier. He fol-lowed, tak-ing the first op-por-tu-ni-ty to leap onto her shoul-der.

  Ki'el let her-self be calmed by the mo-tion of the waves for a minute be-fore turn-ing her at-ten-tion to Sobon, who had drawn two of his glow-ing rings out, let-ting them float be-side him-self. Ki'el, with some dif-fi-cul-ty, sought out the two rings in her spir-it, and gen-tly coaxed them to move out into her hands.

  It was, she con-sid-ered silent-ly, a bit coax-ing an-i-mals had once been, be-fore all the an-i-mals around her had be-come too hand-shy and fer-al to ap-proach. A pro-ject-ed sense of in-vi-ta-tion, di-rect-ed at them, and they ap-peared where she could reach them.

  [ Very good, ] Sobon sound-ed im-pressed, and she wasn't sure whether to feel pleased or in-sult-ed. It had al-ways come nat-u-ral-ly to her; was it not the same for oth-ers? [ I don't know if you did it on pur-pose, but you drew the ...cy-cles, out, in your op-po-site hands. The one in your left hand is right-hand aether. Can you tell? ]

  Ki'el stud-ied the cy-cle, not-ing that when she placed the thorn up-wards, it seemed to be flow-ing ...back-wards. She nod-ded, and with a mo-ment of fum-bling, switched the two rings.

  [ Good. It's not nec-es-sary, but it helps you keep them straight in your mind. ] Sobon drew his right ring for-ward. [ Let's start with right-hand aether. I... am most-ly sure this is true, here, but right hand aether should have a pos-i-tive ef-fect on your body, so it is eas-i-er to ex-per-i-ment with. ]

  Ki'el gave the squir-rel a look, and it just looked back, im-pas-sive-ly.

  [ Look, ] Sobon said af-ter a mo-ment, [ I'm not a de-ity. I am from far away, and things are dif-fer-ent there. I am... ] he hes-i-tat-ed. [ It is true for this body, and it was true for... an-oth-er hu-man I knew. What is im-por-tant is that ei-ther left or right is usu-al-ly help-ful, and the oth-er... well, you don't want to force it into your body. You can force it into an en-e-my's body, to slow them down and con-fuse their... their qi, I sup-pose. I don't in-tend to lie and tell you that I know all. I know much. ]

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that for a long mo-ment, and then let the left-hand cir-cle re-treat back into her spir-it, bring-ing the oth-er one in front of her.

  [ Al-right. Be-cause the cy-cle al-ready has been giv-en a pur-pose, you don't need to force it to spin; sim-ply feed it, and it will do its job bet-ter. You can draw ex-tra en-er-gy ei-ther from your own spir-it, or from the cy-cle's own thorn, but don't be in a rush. If you make it un-sta-ble, you may have to start over. Don't use up all the en-er-gy in the thorn, ei-ther; that will tend to make it break. ]

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  Ki'el con-sid-ered all that for a mo-ment, be-fore de-cid-ing to try what seemed the most ba-sic; as when she had sum-moned the ring from her spir-it, she just sent it a sense of of-fer-ing, with an in-tent to give. To her sur-prise, the ring re-spond-ed, im-me-di-ate-ly go-ing from a bare-ly-de-tectable spin to a slug-gish ro-ta-tion. Al-though she didn't see more of those blue sparks, she felt pow-er gath-er-ing in the thorn as the cy-cle spun.

  [ Good. ] Sobon's voice was calm enough to keep Ki'el fo-cused on her task. [ Since you have it spin-ning, try to reach the thorn. Don't pull en-er-gy from it, for now, but take it so that you can use it when you're ready. ]

  Again, Ki'el had to read be-tween the lines of what her in-tent should be, but she sent the thorn a sort of... re-quest for loy-al-ty, and a slight tug to-wards her left hand. Al-though she had to rephrase the idea twice, or per-haps three times, af-ter a mo-ment she felt some-thing in her left palm.

  [ You should keep us-ing your right hand for right-hand aether, ] Sobon chid-ed, gen-tly. [ Be-lieve me, you don't want to mix them up. ]

  Ki'el felt a brief flash of ir-ri-ta-tion, but was able to con-vince her right thorn to switch to her right hand af-ter only an-oth-er few mo-ments' work.

  [ Good. You can sep-a-rate pieces from the thorn and treat it like aether thread that you were mak-ing when you cre-at-ed the rings in the first place. In terms of what to do with it... for now, feed it into your body. Start with... let's say, your hands. ]

  Ki'el frowned, but com-plied. Af-ter some fuss-ing around and one in-stance of break-ing off a piece of the thorn with-out be-ing able to con-trol the re-sult-ing piece be-fore it dis-ap-peared, she was able to of-fer the en-er-gy to her left hand.

  Im-me-di-ate-ly, she felt a hot flash cov-er her hand, and her skin felt smoother, her mus-cles en-er-getic. She brought her hand up to her face and stud-ied it, but there was no vis-i-ble dif-fer-ence, even when she flexed it.

  [ Right-hand aether match-es the nat-u-ral-ly pro-duced aether of your body. When you feed it in, your body sim-ply has ex-tra en-er-gy to use. It's not a com-plete re-place-ment for sta-mi-na train-ing; there are side ef-fects to burn-ing aether to pow-er your mus-cles. I... don't sup-pose you know enough bi-ol-o-gy to talk about that, though. ] The squir-rel paused, and she turned to look at him, but when she didn't speak af-ter a mo-ment, he con-tin-ued. [ It can help tough-en up your body, and most im-por-tant-ly, it in-creas-es your chance of sur-vival when you have a wound. I... sup-pose that your nor-mal qi does the same, but the point is, this is all spe-cif-ic to right-hand aether. ]

  [ Left-hand aether doesn't match your body. If you were to push it into your body, it would do the op-po-site, mak-ing you lethar-gic, weak-er, soft-er, and more like-ly to die. It will do the same to an en-e-my, if you can force your aether into their body--and if you push raw right-hand aether into an en-e-my, or a friend, it will en-hance them, just as it will you. ]

  "Do not mix them up," Ki'el said, sound-ing a bit snip-pi-er than she meant to. "I un-der-stand."

  If Sobon was of-fend-ed, he didn't show it. [ If you in-tend to use left-hand aether as a weapon, you will need to learn to pro-ject it with-out ab-sorb-ing it. In this, again, we see aether's need for pur-pose... ah, no, maybe that's too com-pli-cat-ed. Try... while work-ing with the right hand aether, still, try tak-ing just a bit of your thorn and let-ting the en-er-gy emp-ty out into space away from your hand. ]

  Ki'el did so, or in-tend-ed to; ap-par-ent-ly, Sobon in-tend-ed for her to some-how bridge the aether into the phys-i-cal world, and not mere-ly have it in-ter-act with the spir-i-tu-al, which was a new chal-lenge. When fi-nal-ly she was able to press her qi out into the phys-i-cal, she could vis-cer-al-ly feel some-thing odd shift in the air, a flick-er-ing quiver, and she could al-most imag-ine that she per-ceived... some-thing more, a cloud of sil-very-blue smoke in the air in front of her hand.

  [ Good. That's enough for now. The only oth-er thing I'll tell you is that if you have aether in hand and sim-ply re-lease it, re-ab-sorb-ing it into your spir-it body, it will ap-par-ent-ly in-crease your body's qi. This is dif-fer-ent from us-ing the en-er-gy to feed your body, so you can do it with your left-hand aether as well. ]

  "Why is it dif-fer-ent?" Ki'el closed her eyes and tried to ex-am-ine her qi core, and was sur-prised to find that it had ad-vanced quite a bit over the last few days--and was now at four bronze stars, just start-ing to lick at five.

  [ There are many kinds of aether, ] Sobon, replied, sound-ing a bit ir-ri-tat-ed. [ Where I come from, they are de-scribed as var-i-ous kinds of spins, though var-i-ous... di-rec-tions. Any-thing above the ob-vi-ous is com-pli-cat-ed, but there is also spin-less aether. The... the cy-cle is an ef-fi-cient way to gen-er-ate aether, more-so than hap-pens in na-ture. The act of re-leas-ing aether should re-move its spin, al-low-ing your body and... core, I sup-pose, to do with it what it wish-es. ]

  That should tick-led some-thing in Ki'el's brain, some-thing that had been wait-ing for a nasty sur-prise to crop up any-where in the tree rat's ad-vice on aether, and she bris-tled. "Should?"

  There was a mo-ment's em-bar-rassed si-lence, but only that much. [ You'll should only be able to ab-sorb it by re-mov-ing its pur-pose, and thus its spin. Forc-ing the en-er-gy into your-self with-out re-mov-ing its pur-pose will feel very dif-fer-ent. ]

  "But you said I need-ed to learn to pro-ject left-hand aether with-out ab-sorb-ing it. As though that mis-take would be sim-ple, and ob-vi-ous."

  [ Learn-ing to pro-ject it re-quires forc-ing the aether. Forc-ing it out and forc-ing it into your-self are sim-i-lar. ]

  Ki'el forced down a snap re-ac-tion, one she wasn't sure even had any thought be-hind it, and looked away from her teacher. If only her teacher wasn't some stu-pid tree rat...

  [ I must apol-o-gize, ] Sobon said, af-ter a mo-ment, and she turned her at-ten-tion back to him, forc-ing the ir-ri-ta-tion back down. [ Af-ter all that has hap-pened to you, I un-der-stand that ex-pect-ing so much of you isn't rea-son-able. You need help that I can-not pro-vide, Ki'el. I am a war-rior, not a ...heal-er of ...hearts? ] His men-tal words sound-ed strange at the end, as though try-ing to fit a con-cept into a gap that didn't quite fit.

  And yet, de-spite what he said, she found that she didn't un-der-stand him at all.

  "I do not re-quire a heal-er," she said, cross-ly, and felt a ris-ing stress in-side of her that she could bare-ly rec-og-nize. Usu-al-ly, when it came, she was alone, and... and it was al-right to just let it take her over. All she lost, then, was time. But now... "What I re-quire... what I de-sire..." Ki'el found her jaw clench-ing, and she wasn't sure what she was try-ing to say.

  [ For you to be healthy, you would re-quire a world that had not be-trayed you. I can-not pro-vide that. I can only be a per-son who will not be-tray you in the fu-ture. ]

  "I do not re-quire the im-pos-si-ble of you!" She found her-self snap-ping at him, and sur-pris-ing-ly, felt her qi re-spond, form-ing a rough dis-charge in the air be-tween them, one that blew back the grass and ruf-fled Sobon's fur, but didn't budge the squir-rel at all. She bare-ly no-ticed that de-tail, her thoughts dragged along by a for-eign mo-men-tum. "But all of this, these triv-ial de-tails and dis-cus-sions of... of math and cir-cles and thorns, of lefts and rights, these do not feel like a war-rior's way. This is the way of a cow-ard-ly tree rat who... who pre-tends to know com-bat in or-der to feel bet-ter about his in-ad-e-qua-cy."

  Ki'el found her-self clenched, eyes sealed shut, per-haps ex-pect-ing her mas-ter to strike her to main-tain or-der. Her grand-moth-er had, a time or two, when she drift-ed off in a lec-ture about ei-ther qi, or in those few dis-cus-sions about the world be-yond their is-lands that had been too un-in-ter-est-ing for her child-ish mind to keep hold of. But that si-lence stretched for a long mo-ment, and she let her eyes open and look out.

  Sobon had turned to face the wa-ter, and she could read noth-ing in his pos-ture.

  It was only a bare frac-tion of an in-stant be-fore Ki'el would have launched into an-oth-er tirade when Sobon's voice reached her mind. Some-how, the words con-veyed tired-ness. [ I should have known that you would not be ready, ] he said. [ I sup-pose it was the staff train-ing. I con-vinced my-self you had the mind-set of a war-rior, but you are still a child. ]

  "I am not--"

  Ki'el gen-uine-ly did not know how she found her-self in the wa-ter. Be-fore she was able to re-spond, she'd not only been dunked head-first into the riv-er, but drug out to sea, be-fore the rat Sobon let her go. She was no stranger to swim-ming; she had her legs un-der her very quick-ly, and when her eyes were clear, she saw the squir-rel float-ing in midair be-fore her, look-ing every bit the wise, mys-te-ri-ous crea-ture she knew he must have been, de-spite the small, fluffy ex-te-ri-or.

  [ When the en-e-my comes, I will deal with them, ] Sobon spoke into her mind. [ I will not say, do not fear them. But you will not be harmed. You may take what-ev-er time you re-quire to de-cide how much you trust me. ]

  And then it was gone, in a flash of qi, or aether, so quick-ly that she lost track of his body be-fore she even knew that she need-ed to try to fol-low his move-ments. So she just hissed through her teeth, most-ly at her own id-io-cy and in-dig-ni-ty, and swam back to-wards shore.

  It was the eas-i-est swim she had ever done, and that was sober-ing food for thought.