30

Adimora

SWEAT POURED DOWN WINTER’S face as she finished another round of sparring with Urstadt in the late summer sun. The volume of cheers that rose at the end of their session jarred her—she could remember a few people stopping to watch in passing, months ago, but now there were dozens at least, gathered around the tip of the great rihnemin where Winter and Urstadt were training. She did not mind that the cheers had been for her defeat—the fight had almost been close, after all. And the tiellans had actually taken a liking to Urstadt, despite her being the only human among the Druids. Dozens of tiellans now dispersed as Winter took a deep draught of water from a skin near her belongings.

The majority of Winter’s Rangers remained in the Eastmaw Valley. They had set up a strong supply line from Adimora to the Ranger camp, extending through the Underway beneath the Undritch Mountains. For now, their position was strong. She spent most of her time in the Ranger camp with her soldiers, but on occasion returned to Adimora to report to Ghian, the elders and matriarchs, and the Cracked Spear. She enjoyed her time in Adimora; she was growing attached to the strange underground city, the great rihnemin, and her people there.

But Winter was growing restless.

Urstadt approached her, her glaive resting on her shoulders, both arms crooked over it, hands hanging limply. Her chest heaved up and down, too, and her tunic was soaked through. “You faltered in bu-haka,” she said. “And that flawed the rest of your form set.”

Winter nodded. She’d been aware of the mistake. She still had trouble balancing during bu-haka. The form required her to parry as she balanced on one leg, crouching like a coiled spring that then struck forward in the bu-hado, bu-lor, and then bu-hakan forms.

“Practice your balance,” Urstadt said, “and you might have a chance at besting me one of these days.”

Winter laughed, the sound strangely familiar in her throat. The past few months, she realized, had been more or less happy. She practiced with Urstadt for hours each day, and she loved the way her body felt afterward. The sweat and the soreness made her feel cleaner than any bath could. She had plenty of faltira, too—she’d been able to keep herself to less than one crystal a day, lately, and still had supply enough to last her another four or five months at that rate. She would need to figure out how to get more eventually, but for now she had enough.

She had led the tiellans in another decisive battle against the Khalic forces, this time against a large group of reinforcements en route to bolster the Steel Regiment. The River Setso ran red with the blood of Khalic soldiers for days afterwards.

After arriving in Adimora, the Druids had sent small emissary groups to the cities with the most prominent tiellan populations, and hundreds of tiellans had come to join their cause.

The Cracked Spear prisoners she had sent home after fighting their brothers before the battle of the Setso had told the rest of the tiellans in Adimora what had happened. Afterwards, the rest of the Cracked Spear chieftains had united with Ghian under the Druid title. They had pledged their fighters to Winter, and Winter had undisputed command of the Rangers on the field. She had made sure that was clear. In Adimora, however, the power dynamic was complicated—more complicated than Winter thought it needed to be. The chieftains each still had jurisdiction over their own clans, but Ghian was a figure of power in the city now, too. She respected the way he united the tiellan clans; where she intimidated, Ghian soothed, and where she divided, Ghian connected. His leadership was a valuable complement to hers, providing something she could not, and Winter was grateful for his presence.

And now, with the addition of the final Cracked Spear clans, and the influx of female Rangers and other tiellan refugees willing to fight, Winter could field almost nine thousand Rangers—more than half of which were cavalry.

Word of their victories had spread throughout Khale, and tiellans from all over the nation flocked to the Eastmaw Valley, and eventually to Adimora. Between Urstadt, Selldor, Rorie, Eranda, Darrin, and Gord, Winter could even say she had friends, again. Old and new.

And yet, despite all the good, Winter could not shake the feeling that she was an outsider. She experienced it while walking through the depths of Adimora, surrounded by a crowd of her own people, her kin—and yet felt no connection with any of them. Or she experienced it at night, alone, when no one else was around, when she wondered what in Oblivion she was actually doing, leading tiellan forces into battle against her own government.

But, for the most part, she was not unhappy. And that made her cautious.

“I don’t know whether I will ever be able to best you,” Winter said honestly.

“I do,” Urstadt smiled, “and you will not.”

Winter laughed again, but was interrupted by someone running up behind her.

“Commander.”

Winter turned to see Selldor walking quickly towards her. She tensed. The recent defeat of the Khalic reinforcements at Lake Dravian would not go unanswered. The Legion would come at her in full force, now. She just hoped it was later rather than sooner.

“What is it, Selldor?” Winter asked, wiping sweat from her brow. As she did, she caught scent of herself. Goddess, she smelled worse than she did after an entire day of fish-gutting in Pranna.

Then, behind Selldor, she noticed a group of tiellans walking towards her. They wore traditional tiellan clothing: long dresses and siaras for the women, long-sleeved shirts, trousers, and araifs for the men.

Tiellans were not, as a general rule, overweight. Winter suspected this had more to do with the fact that food, and ways to pay for food, were more difficult to come by for them than anything else. But the old woman who led the group walking towards her was immense, and Winter had seen her before.

This was Mazille—the tiellan woman who had sold her faltira in Navone, and the only other tiellan psimancer Winter had ever met.

An uneasy weight settled into Winter’s gut.

“I suspected it was you,” Mazille said, her eyes bright beneath a head of long silver hair. Despite her girth and age, she moved easily across the grass towards Winter. “From the moment I saw you, I sensed you were something special.”

“Do you know these people?” Urstadt asked.

“She and I are acquaintances,” Winter said, nodding at Mazille. “The others…”

She remembered rushing through the alley in Navone, fleeing other psimancers. She remembered feeling herself being lifted off the ground by another’s tendron.

Deep in her belly, the uneasy feeling grew.

“What brings you to Adimora?” Winter asked. She still held a sword; the sheathed tip rested on the ground with her hand wrapped around the pommel. She was suddenly very aware of her appearance: sweaty, smelly, and disheveled.

Why do you care what these people think of you? Winter wondered to herself. They are just like all of the other tiellans.

And yet they were not. They were like her.

“What brings any tiellan to Adimora?” Mazille asked with a smile. She stopped a few paces away from Winter, and her companions—five others, male and female tiellans, representing a wide age range—stopped with her. “The draw to our cause,” Mazille said, answering her own question. “The cause of the Druids. And, of course, rumors of a tiellan warrior who can’t be beaten in battle.”

Winter gripped the pommel of her sword. She had a frost crystal in the pouch at her belt, as she always did, but she did not want to take one in front of this woman and her companions. She could use acumency, of course, but that was always risky. Half of the time when Winter used acumency, she ended up in the Void, her body going dormant in the Sfaera. She could not risk that now.

But, for all she knew, these psimancers had their tendra at the ready, and could attack her at any moment.

Then, Mazille knelt before Winter, and her companions followed suit.

“’Tis our pleasure to present ourselves at your service, Winter Cordier,” Mazille said, her head bowed.

Winter stared at the people kneeling before her. Then she glanced around, suddenly very self-conscious.

“Rise,” Winter said quickly, regaining her senses. “Who are your companions, Mazille?” Despite their show of fealty, Winter still did not trust them.

“Ah, you do remember me,” the woman said, smiling. “Wasn’t sure that’d be the case.”

“You are the only other tiellan psimancer I’ve ever met,” Winter said. “I’m not likely to forget you.”

“Of course, my dear. Forgive my rudeness; I’ll introduce my companions. This one is Opal,” Mazille said, indicating another older woman, to her right. “She’s been with me the longest.” Opal was tall for a tiellan woman, and bone-thin, in stark contrast to Mazille.

Mazille pointed to an older man standing to her left. His pointed ears protruded from long locks of straight silver hair, despite his wrinkled skin and stooped stature. “Phares has been with me for almost as long. Orsolya and Astasios are siblings.” She indicated a man and woman, both a few years Winter’s senior. Both had long brown hair, and light brown, almost golden, eyes.

Finally, Mazille looked at the last of her group, a young lad, perhaps in his fifteenth year. Blonde hair. Light eyes. Serious expression. The lad reminded Winter very much of Lian. “Vlak’s our newest. He came to us shortly after you and I met, in fact.”

“Are they all psimancers?” Winter asked.

Mazille smiled nervously, her face turning red. “Ain’t typical for us to talk about such things in public, though—”

“I don’t care what you usually do and do not do,” Winter said. “I asked you a question.”

The color in Mazille’s face deepened. “Of course. We’re all psimancers, as you put it, yes.”

“Telenics? Acumens?”

Mazille frowned, and behind her Phares coughed. Winter was making them uncomfortable. Good. She was glad of it. They had to know they had the same effect on her, coming to see her here.

“I really think it’d be better to discuss this in private, Winter—”

“I think we’re discussing it quite effectively here and now.”

Mazille threw up her arms. “Well then. I’m a telenic, as you’ve likely noticed, as are Orsolya and Astasios. Opal and Phares are both acumens.”

“And Vlak?”

“Vlak is a voyant,” Mazille said.

A voyant. Winter had not met one face to face before. She stared at the young man without hiding her curiosity.

“Which one of you attacked me in the alleyway?” Winter asked. And then, suddenly, the reason the worrying weight had settled in her stomach was clear to her. If these people were psimancers, at least some of them were variants—they required the use of frost to access their power. There was a point where Winter would have done anything to secure more frost for herself. She was not sure she was beyond that point now, in fact.

There was no telling what these people might do.

There was a moment’s hesitation, and then Astasios stepped forward. “That was me, madam,” he said, bowing his head.

“He only did what I ordered him to do,” Mazille inserted. “The amount of faltira you bought from us was valuable. Can’t blame us for attempting to get it back.”

Winter snorted. She hadn’t stolen the faltira; she’d paid for it, and at an exorbitant price nonetheless.

“Forgive me, Winter, but we’ve traveled a great distance. We’re hungry. Let us get a meal. Let us rest our feet. Then, we’ll tell you all you want to know.”

Reluctantly, Winter nodded. She could use a bath, anyway.

* * *

That night, after cleaning herself up, Winter sat at one of the large campfires in upper Adimora. Mazille and her group had been billeted with the Druids in the upper city, near the massive rihnemin, and now sat around the fire with Winter. Urstadt had accompanied her at her request—for protection, and because Winter found there was very little the woman didn’t know about her. What she was afraid to tell Eranda or Gord, Urstadt already knew.

“I assume you have something to discuss with me,” Winter said, when Mazille remained silent across the fire from her.

“I do, Winter, but…” Mazille glanced at Urstadt. “I don’t understand why you brought a humans here.”

“Urstadt is close to me. I trust her more than anyone else on the Sfaera.”

“Never been comfortable around humans,” Mazille grumbled. “Ain’t sure I can—”

“You’ll either tell me what you have to tell me, in their presence, or you will not,” Winter said. She did not have time for such discomforts. There had been a time when she could hardly look a human in the eye. Things were different for her, now.

Mazille cleared her throat. “Very well, Winter. We will do as you ask.” She paused, looking closely at Winter. “You have taken faltira recently, have you not?”

Winter forced her face to remain expressionless. She had taken a frost crystal when she’d seen Mazille and the others approaching. How had Mazille discerned this? “I have,” she said. No use hiding it.

“You have learned how to create it yourself, then? Is that how you perpetuate your supply?”

“I can provide for my needs well enough,” Winter said cautiously, although speaking of the topic brought the heavy suspicion back into her gut.

“But you have not learned how to make it yourself?” Mazille asked, her head cocking to one side.

“Not yet,” Winter said. She hoped the woman might offer to teach her, but no such offer came. It had been so long since she had spoken to someone who could help her learn more about psimancy. Kali had not approached her since their falling out in the Void, and that was fine with Winter. She had never trusted Kali.

She did not trust Mazille, either, but Mazille was here, and Winter might as well take advantage of that. Frost burned within her, and she was ready for anything Mazille might try.

“Do you know of the Nazaniin?” Winter asked.

Mazille nodded. “We have little to do with them.”

“They are psimancers too,” Winter said. “You could learn from them.”

“There is nothing of any importance we could learn from them,” Mazille spat. “They are abominations. They have inherited something that is not theirs.”

Winter narrowed her eyes. “They seem to understand psimancy far better than you do,” she said. “And unless you’ve hidden groups of psimancers throughout the Sfaera, there seem to be far more of them, too.” Winter realized how likely what she had just said might actually be. That was the Nazaniin’s tactic, after all—plant their cotirs in as many major cities as possible, gathering information.

But Mazille’s face told Winter all she needed to know. Her features fell as she shook her head. “Psimantic ability in tiellans is rare. Far more rare than in humans. The only surviving tiellan psimancers I’ve encountered are here, at this campfire.”

“And did the power manifest itself in tiellans only recently, as it has in humans?”

“That, my dear, is a long story. And it is why we have sought you out.” Mazille’s gaze flickered to Urstadt.

Winter said nothing. She would not dignify Mazille’s implied question with an answer. Winter had already given hers. Instead she met Mazille’s eyes, unblinking.

Mazille sighed deeply. “Very well. I must first go back, far, far into the ages…”

* * *

In the Beginning, there was Light and Dark. Light had no end, and thus had no beginning, and likewise Dark had no beginning, and thus no end. And Light was stronger than Dark. And yet Light understood that, without Dark, she had no beauty; without Dark, she had no definition, and no purpose. Without Dark there was nothing to illuminate; without Dark there was nothing to change. And likewise Dark, the weaker of the two, acknowledged that without Light, what use was he? For Dark meant nothing without Light to define him; Dark had no purpose with no source of conflict.

And so the two existed together, Light and Dark, in harmony, and both were happy. Thus they played for countless millennia, moving their forms around and through one another, until one day they lay in such a way that both experienced the greatest pleasure that has ever been known. The two moved together in a moment of such ecstasy, that suddenly they could not discern what was Dark and what was Light. The two became one, for a moment of hazed pleasure, and then both collapsed in content exhaustion. As the breath of Light and the breath of Dark merged together, the stars in the sky were born.

Light and Dark looked on what they had created, and smiled. The stars were beautiful to behold, and countless. But soon they saw that the stars were lonely. They were countless, yes, but they were all so far apart; they had no way to communicate with one another, no way to love one another the way Light loved Dark. Light shared her worries with Dark, and the two agreed to create a place for the stars to live, a place they could be born and exist and die, and meet. Thus, Light and Dark formed the Sfaera, with great waters to house fish and whales of the deep, and high mountains to reach the sky, and rolling forests to beautify and sustain the land. Light and Dark looked on the Sfaera with pride, and began to send the stars down to the Sfaera, to live, to die, and then to live again.

Light created the form for the first stars, and that form was created after the likeness in her own mind. She created the form, and the stars inhabited the form, and thus the tiellans were born.

Dark, too, created a form for yet other stars, and that form was created after the likeness in his own mind. He created the form, and the stars inhabited the form, and thus the humans were born.

And the humans and tiellans lived together in harmony, with love and affection toward one another. And thus the stars, the countless children of Light and Dark, found happiness, life, and love on the Sfaera.

Light and Dark looked on the Sfaera with happiness, and were content.

* * *

“My father told me that story,” Winter interrupted. “He said my mother used to tell it to him. I thought she had made it up.”

“She did not make it up,” Mazille said, quietly.

“Then it is real? Dark and Light were real, and we… we are their children?”

“It is as real as any other creation story you have heard. As real as Canta’s,” Mazille said. “But this story is only the beginning. I have more to tell you. We do not know what happened to Light and Dark…”

* * *

Perhaps they grew bored of their creations and left for new horizons. Perhaps they have finally grown old and passed away into Oblivion, as all things must. Perhaps they are still there, waiting, watching.

But what matters is that, other than in their most basic forms, they no longer show themselves. We no longer interact with the great Beings that formed this world, and formed us.

And then came the First Age. By all accounts, that First Age was a paradise. Tiellans and humans lived in harmony, if you can believe such a thing. We hunted the beasts of the Sfaera, we gathered plants and other forms of food, and soon began to grow crops. There was only one monarch, and she ruled with a loving, benevolent hand.

* * *

“The Chaos Queen,” Winter said.

Mazille glared at her, annoyance plain on her face.

“Some call her by that name,” she said. “We called her the Great Matriarch. She loved her people, both human and tiellan, and she treated them fairly.”

“The monarchs of the First Age ruled benevolently,” Winter said, “until the last one went mad, and broke her kingdom. Bedtime tales. A human once told me there was only one monarch,” she added, thinking of Galce. “But she did go mad. She did as Chaos directed.”

“Your human friend was only partly right,” Mazille said. “There was only one monarch, throughout the entire First Age. She was endowed with long life, somehow, but at the end of her life, her mind failed her. She destroyed society as people knew it then, and we fell into the Starless Age…”

* * *

In the Starless Age the Sfaera fell into a terrible cycle.

The Mad Queen continued to degenerate, until she was finally overthrown by another being of great power. But that being, in order to keep the Sfaera together, to keep the Outsiders from invading, and because of Soren’s Folly, had to take over the Mad Queen’s role, and became the Mad Queen herself.

This cycle became known as the Annulus.

The Starless Age lasted longer than all of the other ages combined. Over ten thousand years, and the Sfaera existed as if in stasis, going through the same motions, the same cycle, every thousand years. Until finally, a new queen, the woman Khale, after whom this nation was named, sacrificed herself, and sealed the opening into the Outside, and saved us all from destruction.

This ushered in the Age of Marvels, and this is the age where psimancy truly began. You may have been told that it was a recent thing, and for humans that may be so. But not for tiellans.

Psimancy was a new art, then, though it was not the same as it is now. There was no such thing as faltira in those days; all psimancers were actuals, and they were all tiellans. The histories teach that tiellans were one with nature, could control the elements. Tiellans were psimantic masters, and the greatest warriors of the Age of Marvels—Rana Dalther, Kels Erie, Kuote, and Merle of the Lin clan—were all psimancers.

Tiellans rose to power through psimancy. They were respected, honored for their ability not only to fight but to engineer great machines and use their arts to help those around them. There were psimancer Druids, and psimancer Rangers.

But, as all ages must, the Age of Marvels came to an end. The Great War between the humans and tiellans began when the humans became jealous of tiellan psimantic power. Tiellans prevailed at first, because humans could not compete with the very power they coveted. The children of Light fought the children of Dark, and beat them back.

Then, a new weapon was introduced.

No one knows where the ability came from. But one day, the human king brought with him a dagger, and his dagger broke the world.

The dagger, imbued with the blood of a Scorned God, had the power to quell a psimancer’s power in an instant. Any psimancer near the dagger lost all power. And as the psimancers fell powerless around him, the king slew them with the dagger, drenching it in their blood, and the more psimancers he killed, the greater the dagger’s power became, until he all but wiped out the most powerful warriors.

When the dust cleared, and the blood ceased to flow, the humans found themselves victorious. They enslaved the surviving tiellans for thousands of years.

But the tiellans, while defeated, did not lose hope. They created rihnemin, the great monuments of our people, to stand as witness to their fallen brothers and sisters, and to house the power that they would one day reclaim. Psimancy was passed down through tiellan bloodlines, but only a precious few were chosen each generation. Often their power was latent, or simply weak, just a shadow of what was once possible. Tiellans bore their psimantic ability with sacred pride, and soon not even other tiellans knew of this birthright, save for the families who carried the blood themselves.

* * *

Mazille said, motioning around the fire, “We few are the inheritors of the true power of the tiellans. Our powers are much stronger than those who came before us. Together, we could move mountains, and crumble nations.”

Winter stared, blinking, into the fire. So many questions rushed through her mind, but one above all.

“My mother must have been a psimancer,” Winter said softly.

“I saw the resemblance the moment you came to my shop,” Mazille said. “You have her hair, and her eyes. You two are very much alike.”

“You knew my mother?” Winter asked. Her mother had died when she was too young to remember her. Beyond the stories her father had told her, all she had were the horrifying visions she had seen of her in Azael’s presence. Visions Winter could only hope were not real.

“Effara was one of us, for a time. Opal, Phares, and I all knew her.”

Winter shivered. She had not heard her mother’s name since before her father was killed.

“What happened to her?” she asked.

“She left us,” Mazille said. “We did not know why at the time. But I suppose now it is clear. She lost interest in our order. She intended to start a family.”

Emotions tumbled within her, fighting for breath. She desperately wanted to know more, but another part of her was cautious, distrusting of anything Mazille had to say. Still another part of her fostered the tiniest grain of hope. Perhaps, after all of this time, this was why she had never felt she belonged.

Perhaps, more than the tiellans, more than the Druids and the Rangers, more than even her father and her kin in Pranna, this was where she belonged.

“We thought she had gone south,” Mazille said. “We searched for her for a time, but in the end it seemed a lost cause.”

“She made her intentions clear,” Phares said. His voice was deep and quiet, and Winter realized it was the first time she had heard him speak. “She wanted nothing more to do with us. We could not force her to stay, as much as we tried. As much as we wanted to.”

“Why did she not want anything to do with you?” Winter asked. She could not imagine leaving the group of people that were more like her than any other in the Sfaera, for any reason.

“She lost her belief in our cause,” Mazille said. “She no longer believed our story, everything I just told you. She thought it was something our ancestors had made up, to make us feel special.”

“But she could use psimancy?” Winter asked. “She saw the evidence.”

“She could,” Phares said slowly, “but psimancy alone was not evidence enough. Especially when the humans began to manifest the power as well.”

Winter shook her head. “If you knew I was Effara’s daughter, why didn’t you tell me all of this in Navone, before I left? Why did you come after me, try to kill me?”

“I had not been ordered to kill you,” Astasios said. “Just to reclaim the faltira you had bought from us, and bring you back. We were going to tell you everything that very night.”

“But you were too strong, too quick, even for us,” Mazille said. “With each generation we get stronger, but… but you seem far stronger than any of us. How many tendra can you wield?”

Winter hesitated. Sharing such a detail seemed dangerous, somehow. She did not want Mazille to use it against her.

And yet, the truth did not seem all that harmful.

“I don’t know,” Winter said.

“You don’t know?” Mazille asked, frowning. “Have you not tried to access your full power?”

“I… I can use more than a dozen,” Winter said after a moment. “I think I might be able to wield a few more, if I really tried.” That was technically not a lie, but she wasn’t disclosing how many more than a dozen she could wield. Typically, maybe two score, and that was without testing her limits. She could not remember clearly, but under the dome in Izet, and in the Circle Square in Navone, she thought it was possible she used even more than that.

The other tiellans around the fire stared at her in stunned silence.

“More than a dozen?” Vlak was the first to speak, his eyes wide.

“Are… are you sure?” Mazille asked after a moment.

Winter shrugged. “Not exactly, but I do think I’ve used at least a dozen.” She met Mazille’s eyes. “Why? How many can you access?”

Mazille blinked, then her eyes shifted to the fire. “Six,” she said. “On a good day, with the purest faltira. Vlak can match that, and we are the most powerful tiellan psimancers to exist in memory.”

Vlak? So a voyant uses tendra? It made sense, if acumens and telenics both used them as well.

That, however, was the least of her questions. “I want to know more. About the rihnemin, and this blood dagger.” The strange tale had reminded her of the monks she had faced in Roden—and Daval himself—who had been able to block her telenic ability. “And more about my mother,” she added, unable to stop herself.

“Of course,” Mazille said, nodding. “We will be happy to share with you all we know.”

Winter nodded. “Good,” she said. She had other duties, of course—her Rangers, the campaign against the Khalic Legion, and her training sessions with Urstadt—but this was important. She needed to make time for it.

She might, after all, have finally found a home.