None of them were en-tire-ly sure what they should and should not say, but Ki'el spoke for a time about the world be-ing in great dan-ger from threats from be-yond, from mas-ters who may be an-gry due to the sins of this world. The more she spoke, though, the more she could feel that Sobon's own ex-pla-na-tions had been in-com-plete; it went be-yond the fact that she couldn't ful-ly ex-plain what Sobon had told her and Mian, and touched on some-thing deep-er.

  When she con-sid-ered it, Sobon hadn't known about that con-flict when she first met him, but he had still been... dis-tressed. Un-able to live in the mo-ment, he had been dis-tant from the start. In a way... or to an ex-tent, he had been sim-i-lar in his spir-it to her, and the dis-tressed beasts of her vil-lage. Of course, he had died and come back, and was trapped in-side the body of a squir-rel, but... that did not com-plete-ly match what she felt from him. What-ev-er both-ered him didn't seem so... per-son-al.

  She was sure, though, that Da Chi-an was mis-un-der-stand-ing her mes-sage, as the girl seemed pos-i-tive, even up-beat to hear that there was some glob-al prob-lem that need-ed solv-ing. She sat back, con-sid-er-ing things, but sim-ply nod-ded. "I don't think my clan would be in-volved in any-thing like that," she said, quite mat-ter-of-fact-ly. "We would proud-ly meet the mas-ters-from-be-yond, and work with them, if nec-es-sary."

  Ki'el and Mian ex-changed looks, but nei-ther said any-thing. Sobon had seemed to be-lieve there was no hope of peace, but... was he cer-tain? Or sim-ply afraid?

  "Still," Da Chi-an sat up straighter, look-ing at Ki'el. "It is an in-ter-est-ing sto-ry. And there is much dan-ger in the world. I don't know about any of it--if I were home, I would bring prob-a-bly bring it to my grand-fa-ther, but it would be a long way to go from here. Bai Be-nai might be able to send word, but I wouldn't ex-pect more than a spir-it mes-sen-ger, es-pe-cial-ly since your mas-ter isn't here or re-quest-ing any-thing." She con-sid-ered. "If in the fu-ture, your mas-ter builds a no-ble house... it might not be im-pos-si-ble to ne-go-ti-ate, but I don't think it would be easy. We live in the shad-ow of one of the Djang Great Clans--the Han fam-i-ly, one of the top ten in terms of pow-er. They don't rule us di-rect-ly, but they per-mit us in their ter-ri-to-ry, and I as-sume there are rules."

  "I would imag-ine so," said Xoi Xam with a cer-tain bite to her words, that Ki'el thought was dis-ap-prov-ing of the un-der-state-ment.

  If she no-ticed, Chi-an didn't mind. "The Han fam-i-ly don't hunt us, but they don't pro-tect us much, ei-ther. The moun-tain I grew up on--"

  But Mian stood up. "I don't mean to in-ter-rupt," he said, "but I for one am not con-fi-dent in my abil-i-ty to clear the Gold-en Wall by the end of the month. You can talk freely, but... I need to fo-cus."

  Chi-an, though she said noth-ing, had a look on her face that was al-most of-fend-ed. Ki'el put a hand on hers, to try to com-fort the girl, but the look she got back was still dis-pleased. "We all have much to work on," Ki'el said. "Some peo-ple, some-times, need to work when they can. Mian does not mean any-thing by it."

  "No, he does not," agreed Chi-an, blow-ing out a frus-trat-ed breath. "And I sup-pose since we all just ex-pe-ri-enced some-thing, we should all med-i-tate on it. I just... en-joy talk-ing about home."

  Xam got up and moved away. "You two can talk," she said, "but I will be with my hus-band."

  That left Ki'el and Chi-an by the fire. This close, al-though Chi-an's ears and tail were con-cealed, when she looked at the girl in the dark-ness, she could al-most imag-ine where they ought to be. In a way, Ki'el thought, she seemed... in-com-plete with-out them.

  "I ap-pre-ci-ate what Kuli said," Chi-an said into the still-ness, and Ki'el fo-cused on the oth-er girl. "That be-ing healthy--be-com-ing health-i-er does not need to mean be-com-ing sub-mis-sive. In many ways, it's un-like the teach-ings of our fam-i-ly. They only al-low one way for-ward, and all oth-er ways are harm-ful and wrong." Chi-an closed her eyes. "I... could imag-ine that the oth-er ways for-ward are dan-ger-ous. That oth-ers have tried them and failed. But if there was only one way, all fam-i-lies would fol-low it."

  Ki'el nod-ded. "If there was only one way, the Di-a-mond Lord him-self would have fol-lowed it."

  Chi-an flinched at that. "Let's not say things too far above our sta-tion," she chid-ed. "But, you're right. The way of our fam-i-ly nev-er led us to those kind of heights. The Clan Ma-tri-arch is only..." she paused. "I should not say. But if she could have crushed the head of the Han fam-i-ly, she would have. And he is well be-low the Di-a-mond Lord."

  Ki'el just nod-ded. "I don't tru-ly un-der-stand the way of my mas-ter, but I know that much of what fol-lows is prepar-ing our-selves to hold greater pow-er with-out mak-ing mis-takes. Un-der-stand-ing pow-er, and what's com-ing..." she paused. "But I don't. And I don't be-lieve that I'm sup-posed to. Even he seemed to be wait-ing un-til he was stronger to han-dle un-lock-ing deep-er lev-els of his pow-er."

  "It would be strange if some-one of-fered us all that we need-ed be-fore we were ready to han-dle it," Chi-an agreed. "But you be-lieve he had un-der-stand-ing far be-yond his pow-er?"

  Ki'el paused, but sim-ply looked Chi-an in the eye. "I am cer-tain," she said, and her voice held no doubts at all.

  Chi-an ac-cept-ed that, nod-ding sim-ply. "I be-lieve it," she said. "I wish that I had that in-sight, or pow-er, but I feel like it will be a long time be-fore I'm ready for any-thing be-yond the ba-sics." She looked down at her hand, and af-ter a mo-ment, one of her aether cy-cles ap-peared above it--Right-eous, Ki'el thought, though it was hard-ly mov-ing at all. "Even this. My spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy rec-og-nizes it, but there's no un-der-stand-ing there. Some-where in-side, I know how to wield it, but be-yond that..."

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that. What makes her spir-i-tu-al en-er-gy dif-fer-ent from aether? Or qi? What is it that holds such pow-er but is be-yond us?

  She felt some-thing strange from Kuli, as though she was dis-con-tent, but she an-swered Ki'el silent-ly. { It is sim-i-lar to a qi na-ture, but qi cre-at-ed by some-one else. The 'key' or 'way' to use pow-er is with-in the en-er-gy it-self, and can-not be eas-i-ly ex-tract-ed. If you had the qi of a fire mas-ter, but did not un-der-stand fire, it would seem sim-i-lar-ly tem-per-me-n-tal. }

  Ki'el con-sid-ered, and af-ter a mo-ment, re-peat-ed what Kuli said aloud, and Chi-an looked over at her, nod-ding when she was done. "That is much like what I've heard," she said, "but more than that... the pow-er of my blood-line con-tains some bless-ings and will of its own. They told me many things they thought it meant, but... they also don't like to an-swer. It's hard to even know how much they know." She scowled and bunched up, de-fen-sive-ly. "They also don't like any-one con-fronting them about those stu-pid things. Even with-in the fam-i-ly. But..." she looked at the aether ring in her hand, again. "...I don't know what it's all sup-posed to mean. They taught me a lot of small things that they said would be need-ed to use my pow-er lat-er, but not the things that un-lock it. And yet, when I look at things like this... I feel like I'm clos-er to the an-ces-tor than to any-one in my fam-i-ly. Touch-ing raw things, and not sim-ply re-peat-ing what oth-ers taught me."

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that, and con-sult-ed pri-vate-ly with Kuli. Is there a way to turn qi back into pure out-er aether? Or aether of any lev-el?

  { No, } Kuli said. { The pow-er that binds qi to-geth-er merges the lay-ers. You can repli-cate the ef-fects of the low-er lev-els, but you can-not ex-tract them, or re-move parts of qi that are un-want-ed. }

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that. That is why pri-mor-dial qi is so im-por-tant, she pushed the thought at Kuli. There is no know-ing what pow-ers have touched the en-er-gy you use, on lev-els you can-not de-tect or un-der-stand, not un-less it is cre-at-ed from scratch.

  Kuli didn't an-swer di-rect-ly, but Ki'el got the dis-tinct im-pres-sion that she was cor-rect.

  Ki'el said, "I know about the lay-ers that come next, but... the only one I've been able to touch is the sec-ond lev-el, and I can't cre-ate aether of that lev-el yet. But... I did find a pair of stones touched by nat-ur-al aether that mim-ic-ed the ef-fects." She paused. "I wish I had kept them. But it went against what I was told to do at the time, and I didn't think about the fu-ture. I doubt I could find the place or those stones again. But..." she hes-i-tat-ed, then spoke. "It is a pair of en-er-gies, one flow-ing end-less-ly out, one flow-ing end-less-ly in. Gen-e-sis and Con-sump-tion Aether."

  "End-less?" Da Chi-an leaned for-ward, her face in-ter-est-ed. "A source of end-less pow-er?"

  "No," she said. "A flow that seems to come from nowhere and go every-where, but does not. And the op-po-site... is a flow that seems to come from every-where and re-turn to noth-ing, but does not." Ki'el looked around, then fo-cused back on Chi-an. "Sobon says they are the 'space' lay-er of aether, but I don't re-al-ly know what that means."

  "Space..." Chi-an made a face. "I wouldn't re-al-ly know what it means ei-ther, but if it only seems to be flow-ing in and out, that means it con-nects over dis-tance, right? So that the cir-cle is com-plete even if you can't see it."

  Ki'el nod-ded, hard-ly notic-ing in her ex-cite-ment of talk-ing how much she was say-ing. "It has to mean more than that, or it has to have hid-den uses... he uses it to cre-ate aether script and struc-ture in midair."

  Chi-an looked at her, then sighed. "Ki'el... don't give away too many se-crets, even among friends. But." She closed her eyes and con-sid-ered. "Com-plet-ing a cir-cle across any dis-tance... it doesn't re-al-ly make sense. If only half of the cir-cle is vis-i-ble, what is the oth-er half?"

  Ki'el flinched at the re-buke, and didn't an-swer Chi-an's ques-tion, though she did think about the ques-tion. Sobon had said that the aether flowed in high-er lev-els, and that the cy-cle had to pass through them. But what did that mean? What ex-ist-ed in the place that aether flowed through? If her own qi in-clud-ed aether in all of those lev-els... wasn't her mag-ic, and every-one else's, al-ready flow-ing through all of those lev-els? Didn't she al-ready ex-ist, in some sense, in those high-er lev-els of aether?

  Was some part of her-self con-stant-ly cy-cling from the phys-i-cal world into the world be-yond, and back?

  As Ki'el sat there and con-sid-ered it, she felt an urge to pull out her sword and med-i-tate... but, no. Lan Wu had just said that she had been snoop-ing and try-ing to catch her with the sword, and sug-gest-ed she wasn't alone in that. Ki'el... should have watched what she said, she re-al-ized, and as she glanced out at the dark-ness, she could only feel the dark-ness more dis-tinct-ly. Was some-one out there, and she had just missed it?

  "Wor-ried about some-thing?" Chi-an's voice brought Ki'el back. "There's no one near. I wouldn't have let you talk more if I thought there were."

  "You are cer-tain?"

  Chi-an's good mood seemed to fade at that ques-tion. "We can nev-er re-al-ly be sure. If some-one from the rest of the Sect, es-pe-cial-ly some-one who tru-ly stud-ies stealth, want-ed to hide from me, they could. And I don't al-ways cir-cu-late my qi. But... when we start-ed to talk more se-ri-ous-ly, I did. There is no one close, and no sign of qi ex-cept from your friends."

  Ki'el turned to look at Chi-an again, sur-prised. "I didn't sense any-thing."

  "I hope not. That's part of the tech-nique." Chi-an sighed. "I al-most envy you, talk-ing so eas-i-ly about your se-crets. But even if I want-ed to talk about it, most of it is in-stinct, and con-trol tech-niques. The most I could re-al-ly de-scribe is how to con-trol the spir-it en-er-gy, what I can do with it. It's not like I could talk about cre-at-ing the qi that I use, not the way I'm learn-ing fire. But then, with aether..." she made a face. "It feels... I don't know."

  "Sobon talked about aether as though it is the base of every-thing, a nat-ur-al part of the uni-verse that came be-fore life it-self." Ki'el looked at the oth-er girl, as Chi-an seemed to be lost in throught. "Even spir-its must cre-ate their strength from some nat-ur-al pow-er. I guess that must be aether."

  "I guess," Chi-an agreed. "If that's the case... I won-der what it's like to use all of that pow-er." She reached one hand up to-wards the sky, al-though the trees around them blocked most of the stars, and the night above was hazy. "We're at the bot-tom, but what is at the top? Gods? Some-thing else? Or maybe noth-ing has ever reached that high be-fore?" She closed her fist, as though grasp-ing at noth-ing. "I won-der what it would be like to be the first. To tran-scend qi, tran-scend aether. To mas-ter the world it-self."

  Ki'el shiv-ered at the thought, not lik-ing it. "It... is not for me," she said, though she felt like her ear-li-er con-fi-dence in liv-ing a sim-ple life, like a sword, was some-how weak-ened lis-ten-ing to Chi-an speak, or... weak-ened, some-how, from her spir-it. "To gath-er pow-er for the sake of pow-er..."

  "Yeah, but that's it, isn't it?" Chi-an turned to look at her. "It's not hard to see the bad peo-ple who gained strength and did ter-ri-ble things with it. But did those peo-ple lose their way be-cause they searched for pow-er? Or were they screwed up by oth-ers be-cause they didn't have enough pow-er? The way your Kuli talked about be-ing in-jured and be-com-ing a worse per-son be-cause of it, and the way your mas-ter talks about prepar-ing to have pow-er... it sounds like it's not hav-ing pow-er that's some kind of prob-lem, is it? You just can't let any-one or any-thing take you off of the path. If you're healthy and pre-pared for it... then there's noth-ing good or bad about pow-er. It just is, right?"

  Ki'el stared at Chi-an, feel-ing some-thing stir-ring in-side of her that she didn't know how to put into words. But she looked away af-ter a mo-ment, feel-ing like she shouldn't be hav-ing the feel-ing, and looked for some-thing to dis-tract her. "Well... I mean, that's all we would have want-ed in the first place, right? To stay on our path, be healthy, pre-pare for pow-er we don't have yet...?"

  "I guess," Chi-an said. "And I guess many of the peo-ple who be-come lost in a place like this... they must have had some mis-step, or been forced off the path by some-one else. But it all feels like..." She fi-nal-ly let her arm drop. "...talk-ing with you makes me feel like it's ac-tu-al-ly pos-si-ble. And not just some-thing weird and dis-tant." She looked back at Ki'el, who re-fused to meet her gaze. "So... thank you for that, Ki'el. I... am glad you're my friend. And I'll do what I can to help you, I guess."

  Ki'el felt her face flush, and pushed some right-eous aether into her spir-it to try to quash the feel-ing... but it only made a strange heat stir with-in her. She stopped, and grasped at some-thing to say in re-ply. "You guess?" she said, fi-nal-ly.

  Chi-an just laughed. "Well, we've only known each oth-er a few days so far. But yes, I will help." She paused. "And as part of that... I'd like to ask about what else you re-ceived in your for-fei-ture. I know you re-ceived that space ring from it," she glanced at Ki'el, who did noth-ing to deny it. "...but what about herbs, trea-sures, any-thing?"

  "The con-tents of the space ring were nev-er re-turned to me," Ki'el said, "be-cause they were un-der sus-pi-cion. But there were sev-er-al reser-va-tions..." Ki'el list-ed them, again, watch-ing Chi-an's eyes, but only two things seemed to reach her.

  "As I'd hoped," she said. "With the sil-ver and time with an in-scrip-tion-ist, plus one oth-er in-gre-di-ent, it would not be dif-fi-cult to cre-ate a tear em-blem." Chi-an looked at her. "They are com-mon-ly used for sum-mon-ings, and with the qual-i-ty of our ma-te-ri-als, they could only do the low-est-lev-el ones. But it would suf-fice to call a spir-it from my fam-i-ly."

  Ki'el heard all that, but wasn't sure she un-der-stood. "You want to sum-mon a spir-it from your fam-i-ly?"

  "It would be a small an-i-mal spir-it," Chi-an said. "Bound to serve the sum-mon-er, they would pro-vide in-sights, and user their spir-i-tu-al pow-er to de-fend them if nec-es-sary." Chi-an rocked back and forth a lit-tle. "My fam-i-ly has a lot of them, but I couldn't bring one when I left. I have to be strong enough in spir-it to forge and main-tain the link my-self."

  Ki'el con-sid-ered that. "But hav-ing this spir-it would help you?"

  Chi-an went qui-et for a mo-ment, at that. "Ah," she said af-ter a minute. "You re-al-ly are a nice girl, Ki'el."

  Ki'el's con-fu-sion must have showed, but Chi-an only seemed to bask in it for a minute.

  "I said I was do-ing some-thing to help you, didn't I?" she said, fi-nal-ly. "I wouldn't ask you to sum-mon one for my sake. In a while, I'll be able to han-dle that my-self. I was say-ing I'd help you sum-mon one for your-self."