CoJ: Chapters 29 through 37

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JasonPratt

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Chapter 29: Victory

___"Now I am going down to eat!" Gaekwar laughed exhaustedly.
___"Too bad we can't have fresh meat waiting for us after that!" Even Dagon seemed to be enjoying the camaraderie.
___"Ha! My friend, we'll have meat aplenty!" Portunista's memory reported that she'd never heard the 'cowherd' calling Dagon a friend even once before... "There should be a severed bird already down the stairs. Chopped its head, and kicked the body through the door!"
___"Foul roast!" Othon snorted—Portunista could practically hear his smiling strength, however.
___"I'm afraid so," Seifas sighed. "Aasvogel meat is tough and stringy. Then again, we were only taught about the full-grown birds; these chicks may be more tender."
___"Chicks!" chimed in two or three together.
___"Yes; adults are not as small as those. Qarfax must have set his tessers near a nesting ground."
___"Just how large do those things grow?!" Dagon demanded.
___"Large enough to hunt a shoulderbeast, or even wyrms," Seifas somberly answered. "No one knows the limit. Giants roam the Middlelands."
___"How can something so large fly?" marveled Jian.
___Before the juacuar could answer—"How'd you get up on th' back o' one-a those turkeys?!" Pooralay roared.
___"Wasn't easy!" chuckled Jian. "Good thing I put on my gloves," he added, with a touch of wonder in his voice. "Just like riding a barrel made of feathers!" he laughed again. "For a while we bumped around the lower branches of the trees; she was trying to shake me off, or knock me off, or anyway get back up through the canopy into the open sky. It was very dark down there...But sometimes, we were gliding beneath those trees...as if floating through enormous castle halls. She eventually got used to me, I think, and decided I wasn't going to hurt her; so she calmed and got her bearings, and then she swam through the air until she found a channel back up through the branches. I could hear this other racket going on—but, it seemed like she and I were alone in another world...and then we shot up through that clearing of living leaves and branches, and we plunged into a lake of stars! She spread her wings and cried for joy, and..." he sighed. "And I kissed her neck, as I clung to her feathers. I thanked her for the things we shared. I hope I dream about them..."
___"You kissed...the back...of a killer...bird..." Dagon flatly said.
___"Hmph!" chuckled Jian. "Do you have no poetry in your soul?? Even if she was my enemy, how could she not love the life she lives, even more than I? And if she couldn't, then I would love it for her, for her sake; such an experience, as she is, ought to be loved. But, I think she must also love what she does. And if we are loving something together, I would be a traitor not to love her, even if she was my enemy; for we share that love. If we must fight, then we will fight; but I would love her anyway. And if she cannot love me...then I will love her still, though I die—for she is my sister, even if she cannot know me for her brother."
___"You should try to love cows sometime..." Gaekwar muttered cynically.
___"You," said Seifas softly, "should have been among the Guacu-ara."
___"Pooralay!" Jian exclaimed. "What happened with the door?"
___"Blindwitted idjit!" Poo retorted. "Didn't y'see what happen'd when 'ista went through th' door th' first time? What didja 'xpect w'd happen when you jump'd through?!"
___"Well," he answered—Portunista heard him shrugging in his voice, "I figured the door would close again, of course. But we had to find her. And I'm expendable." No rancor or regret, only a fact. Her heart and stomach twisted together... "I meant, that I was surprised the door stayed open when the rest of you came through. How did you manage that?"
___"Th' way I woulda managed it th' first time, if y'd'a waited, y'punkie-brained fool! Got a strip o' paper rolled on a spindle in m' pocket. It's been treat'd with an ex-tract, made fr'm honey trees 'n other stuff. Peel it back, cut offa slice, an' then it c'n hold things together. Handy, in my line of work." The maga heard his thoroughly devious grin. "So I scotched that hair we found, onto th' plate. Good f'r in-ter-ro-ga-tions, too. Put it on some hair'n...rrrrrrip!"
___Everyone was laughing, even Seifas.

___Everyone...but her.
___Why wasn't she laughing?

___Because.
___Everything now was right. And everything was wrong.
___Everything mattered, now. And that was worse than nothing mattering.
___If he had never come into her life, she might have always been content with nothing mattering but herself.

___When he was gone, she knew the truth. When he was there, she knew the truth.
___The truth, was that she wasn't the most important thing in all the world. The truth, was that it was better for her, not to be the most important thing, the only thing, that mattered to her.

___It hurt. It hurt in different ways. She hated that pain...why wouldn't he leave her alone...?! He was laughing, laughing in her pain...she hated that pain...she hated...she hated him for doing this to her! She hated him for bringing her a truth she did not care for! She would show him...she would show...
___"I will show him..." Portunista muttered. "I will show him...he can't do this to me..." She whistled up a wisplight, and refused to hear how shaky she was sounding. One erratic wisp appeared...was it dimmer?
___"Um...Portunista?" Jian was looking at her, with those innocent eyes. Why did he not ever seem to hurt?! He was laughing at her, laughing from the grave he didn't have...
___"He won't get away with this..." she promised him. But—she couldn't face those eyes, those eyes that didn't hurt, that never seemed to thirst, those eyes she couldn't set her teeth into, invulnerable to her, only giving, always ready to give, and never seeming to need. She sobbed and fell against the inner wall, throttling down her sob with rising fury.
___"He won't do this to me! He won't hurt me like this and get away with it!" She pounded her fist upon the wall.
___"Not to sound nervous, or anything..." Gaekwar nervously drawled. "But I think I missed a part. Who are you talking about, again?"
___She ground her teeth and groaned. She would strike out, strike out and not be hurt, strike at the man who hurt her, strike at...at...
___"Qarfax!" she exclaimed. "He's laughing at me! He thinks he's smart, and that I cannot get to him! But I will! I know where he's weak!"
___"He's dead," Othon pointed out.
___"He thinks he's won," she grated, "but he hasn't! He thinks I cannot get to him! But I can! He hurt me when I tried to find his laboratory...but I won't give up...I will get in, and I will do it tonight!"

___Gaekwar stood, and very carefully walked to her. Portunista was sure that he meant well; she could see his eyes.
___She understood those eyes. He wasn't understanding her.
___And that was fine. She was comfortable with that.
___But Gaekwar wasn't the one she wanted to understand, and wanted to be a mystery to...
___"Commander," he said, looking her in the eye with the eyes she understood. "I'm not being funny anymore. It's time to go downstairs, and get cleaned up, and eat, and get some sleep. Tomorrow, if you want to go through that door and look around," he sighed, "I guess we'll go. We'll back you up. But you need to rest—"
___"To hell with the door! I will defeat the magus tonight!" Portunista declared. Gaekwar's eyes showed anger and frustration now. That was what she wanted to see!—that look that told her she was in command, that she was the most important...!
___She looked down and to her left. Jian was shaking his head, his own eyes narrowed, though not in fear or anger.
___"Gaekwar's right, Commander..." Every time he called her that, she felt a blade-tip pierce her heart. He was mocking her...! "Tomorrow morning you'll feel better, and then we'll beat the magus' traps for sure; and then—"
___"Tonight!" insisted Portunista. Jian couldn't order her around! She was the commander! He said so, but she knew he didn't mean it...! "Right now! You don't have to do a thing! Just watch...just watch..."
___She turned to step away from the wall...she nearly stumbled over Jian, who still was sitting...why would he not move?! All he had to do was move...She would show him...
___Portunista ignored the way the landing tilted wildly in the flickering light, as she focused her intent. Gurgling, bubbling, she infused into the wall, left of the door, the right proportions of the elemental Yrthe.
___It took her longer than she had expected...she was so intensely tired...but she wouldn't stop. She would show him...
___"Look," she rasped. "I'll show you. Do you see?"
___"Yes." Jian sighed. "I see." That was what she wanted to hear in his voice. Resignation. To the inevitability, of her. She smiled.
___He wasn't smiling.
___She bound her jotting into place, barely, softening a swath of stones: an Yrthepool, in the wall.
___She exhaled through the curvature of her tongue behind her teeth, sharp as a small explosion. With a finger flick, her veckinesis pushed the mud; and further she exhaled, a tear pressed seeping out of an eye, spots gyrating blackly in her vision. But she would not stop, even to inhale...she would go through...
___The wall fell, wetly.

___There it was.
___The laboratory.
___She sent the wisp into it, where it shivered, dully, luminating secrets now exposed for her to take. She breathed the painful air, and blinked, and forced the vitalized stone to puddle inside on the floor.
___Finally. It was finished.
___She had won.

___Except—she still must enter the secret room, consummate her victory, justify her actions with success.
One step forward.
___Twice.
___...a rising whine, inaudible almost—sounding familiar—
___"Portunista, get back!" Jian was pushing, pushing her away, from her victory, from her prize—!
___Was that a fear she finally saw in his eyes...? Fear of her?
___fear...for...
___The silence and darkness crashed open with bright strobing bolts of materia, lancing from every quarter and also the center point, striking down from on high...
___—striking down on Jian—

___She heard him grunt with every hit. But he didn't scream.
___He fell—before a bolt smashed into his face, she saw his eyes on her...no longer afraid...because she was safe...But he didn't scream.
___She saw him crawl in lurches across the floor, dozens of bolts, hundreds of bolts, hammering down onto him. Away from her. But he didn't scream.
___She saw him roll in a fetal ball behind a chair, seeking any cover from the relentless energy-storm that shattered the chair into kindling, lancing past it into him. But he didn't scream.
___She saw him twitch and then lay still. The pentadarts continued pounding for another tick of time; then stopped.
___A single thread of smoke arose in a wavery line, from behind the wreck of the chair, breaking into curling shards.
___But Jian did not scream.

___She wanted to scream, for him. No, she didn't want to scream. Her throat was sore. Her soul was sore. Hadn't she just wished for this? Wasn't it funny?
___She tried to laugh. She heard the whine, mixed with her broken laugh, and stepped to embrace and welcome—
___—the ragged hole jerked left, and she felt something, someone, wrapping her, cushioning her...
___...indeed with force but gently, enfolding her and twisting, the thunder rising in crescendo, puffs of air buffeting them, and then he grunted as she landed on him...
___"Jian...?" she heard her voice, as wavery as the smoke that had been rising from behind the chair...
___"No, 'ista,"—a whisper she knew, had known before in moments of quiet happiness, but for which she no longer felt that feeling... "I'm Gaekwar. Quiet, 'ista, shhhh..." Why was he saying that? She wasn't crying. Was she?
___He turned her over slowly, as they lay upon the upward stairs, placing him between her and the landing.
___"Listen to me...Commander," Gaekwar whispered. "Please be very quiet. If it chews the floor to pieces, we'll have a harder time escaping."
___She couldn't make sense of anything he was saying. Maybe he could see it on her face, because...
___"Listen to me, Commander...are you listening? Whisper to me softly..."
___Too many things went through her mind at once, and she started giggling...a giggle like the distant scream of a ghost.
___"Okay," he said, holding her close...

___And Portunista pounded the floor, with her right hand, over and over; with her left she clutched the back of Gaekwar's fighting jacket.
___He held her close, so no one else would hear.

Skip JRP commentary and go to next chapter
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Notes from the real author...

Well, he kept saying he was expendable.  ;)


"Aasvogel" is a realworld term, from Dutch/Zulu, roughly meaning death-bird. ("Vogel" is the Dutch portion of the term.) It refers to vultures, not to eagles or falcons, but seemed appropriate. The African kite is the largest eagle in the world (recognized officially by scientists at this time anyway), and reportedly grows large enough to carry away lambs; consequently to the Dutch Boers it was known as the lammefange, the lamb-lifter.

This will be trivially important later (so to speak), in the second half of the book.  8-)


In the original draft I had Seifas explain a theory to the effect that birds this large could fly due to being invested with vitalistic materia somehow (i.e. they're more naturally magical than other birds), but I ended up shaving that to move things along in a later edit: I won't be coming back to that theory for several books, so a throwaway mention here doesn't help much.

Regardless of whether superlarge raptor avians still exist today (and there's strong folk anthropological evidence they still do), they certainly existed in the past, along with flying reptiles just as large, and scientists hotly dispute how and why creatures that large managed to fly. (Or for that matter how much larger creatures managed to functionally live, or even live at all, walking around on land!--either ought to have been impossible by modern scientific standards. Real-life "shoulderbeasts" for example should have been only as large as the ones seen in this novel so far, about the size of an African elephant, not as large as we know for sure they grew in real life!)

If I recall correctly, this is the first time in the final printed text that someone talks about how much larger animals grow closer to the equator of Mikon. That happens to be kind-of true in real life, too, though not to the same extent; the prevalent theory is that due to the bulge of the Earth's shape (the Earth isn't a perfect sphere but more like a slightly squished stress ball  8-) ), areas near the equator are further from the center of gravity and so weigh less for the same mass. Mikon is a smaller sphere to begin with, which would reduce the differences involved (in a couple of ways), but that isn't the explanation I'm using in the book anyway.

On the other hand, gravity clearly affects the inhabitants and their grown on par with an Earth-sized sphere, despite Mikon's smaller size, and I do have some (more-or-less-loosely) scientific differences in mind to account for why the gravity is about the same. (Also some fantasy differences in mind. ;) )


Anyway, I've set up another deadly environmental puzzle for Portunista to figure out. There will be a couple of others before the end of the book, but starting next Section the threats will mostly be personal not environmental. Portunista is rather a threat to herself and others, too, of course!--and that's something she'll also start to deal with more proactively in the next chapter. 'ista represents (among other things) the ancient classical categories of dramatic conflict: Portunista vs. herself; Portunista vs. other people; Portunista vs. society; Portunista vs. nature; Portunista vs. divinity (the latter of which is related to the classical dramatic fault known as "hubris"). She's reached her lowest character point for the book (or one of them), so it's time for her to get her protagonistic act together and make some improvements.

And if Jian has to die for her to get a clue and do better, well... he looks like he would think she's worth it. :) In narrative design that's one way to bring things to a dramatic crux.

(In theology sometimes, too. :) )
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Chapter 30: Facing The Facts

___She sobbed into his shirt, not thinking, only racking with her sobs. But she was very quiet—so the others wouldn't hear.
___Somehow...it helped. She didn't feel as though her brain was made of broken glass.
___To blow one's nose upon a former lover's shirt, she decided, must somehow make everything seem more real, afterward...
___"Alla yous okay up there?" came a shout across the landing.
___Raw materia instantly thrashed the floor and wall.
___She stifled a yelp, pulling her left hand under Gaekwar after being struck with molten chips. Muffling a curse he swatted his hair—wasn't it good, the hair on the back of his head was so short? she thought within her quieting grief. Otherwise, a spark might have worked its way to where he couldn't get it out...
___Despite this idle thought, she found she now could focus better. The bind upon the latest wisp had been long lost; she whistled up another one, now much brighter, steadily floating above where she and Gaekwar lay. He turned to look across the landing; together they could see remaining members of her squad, looking up around the corner of the narrow curving stair.
___"Sorry," mouthed the thug. Gaekwar motioned for them to go downstairs. They did.
___"Now, Commander," Gaekwar tried again—with his smile and drawl that once had attracted her so much... "I need you talking to me, very softly." Portunista nodded. "Tell me what is shooting at us over there. I think I recognize it, but I want you to confirm it."
___"Pentadarts," she said.
___"Five were shooting? I mean five sources."
___"Yes, that's right."
___"Can you tell me when they fire?"
___"When they hear sufficient sound," she said, smiling very faintly; Pooralay had demonstrated that...
___"I agree. What else sets them off?"
___Her eyes unfocused, as she sent her memory back into the minutes earlier—her breath began to catch again.
___"Mo...mo...movement...when people move..." A stray thought crossed her mind—if Gaekwar said one word about a cow, she'd scalp him to his skull...! But he didn't.
___"I agree. Any movement?"
___Any movement? What did he mean...? She tried to think...

___and in her memory, she saw Jian—being hammered mercilessly; trying to escape and failing, trying to protect her and succeeding...
___protecting her from being blasted into smoking pieces...

___"Jian is still in there," she said.
___But before she could continue, Gaekwar spoke.
___"Tell me of pentadarts, Commander." She didn't answer; she was still untangling all her feelings.
___"Tell me of pentadarts, Commander." Not annoyed, just persistent. Blast his eyes...
___"Pentadarts," recited Portunista, "are high-kinetic bursts of raw materia, not directly elemental in their composition. They transfer kinetic force, with little burning, through conductive material. Metal especially is susceptible to a pentadart attack; while thickened leather armor, such as could be made from plates of shoulderbeasts, can insulate the victim from the deadlier effects."
___"What are those effects, Commander?"
___She swallowed. "A pentadart, when striking the torso of a living creature, transfers...a kinetic shock into internal organs. The vic...victim's body..." She crushed an urge to cry again, and made herself continue, "...will often not be damaged on the surface. But, internal organs such as lungs, the stomach, or the heart, will rupture. Other organs often flatten from the transfer of kinetic force."
___"How many pentadarts hit Jian, Commander?"

___She breathed two times. And then again. And then she looked at Gaekwar, in the eyes—the eyes she understood.
___"Too many," Portunista said.
___He nodded.

___She sniffled once, to clear her nose. "Sorry. I'm okay."
___"I can tell. I'm glad," he smiled, "because if I try to jump that gap, I'm worried those things will toast my buns."
___She giggled very briefly; and felt better.
___"Gaekwar," Portunista said, looking up at him. "Thanks."
___"You're welcome. I liked him, too. He...mm...well, he wasn't a cow. 
Y'know." He shrugged, and turned around, rotating off her to the right, reclining on the stairs against the inner wall.
Portunista carefully leaned forward, cautiously preserving the scraps of rationality she had gathered, studying the landing. Gaekwar watched her, as she thought the situation through; and he smiled.
___"Hey, Commander..." Portunista slid her eyes suspiciously, hearing his whispered drawl. "You're not one either."
___She snickered, "You are so full of cow-juice," and batted his ridiculous bangs of hair.
___Then she sighed, and firmly wiped her nose again.

___"Okay," she said. "Now I've got a plan."
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Chapter 31: When Something Matters (Part 1 of 2)

___Having found the strength to think about the past few minutes, Portunista now recalled a fact that gave her hope.
___"Watch," she murmured to her subcommander; the wisplight floated over to the gap.
___Both of them tensed for the fusillade. But nothing happened.
___She smiled as, almost playfully, she bobbed the wisplight in and out of the gap. No rising whine; no crashing devastation.
___She looked at Gaekwar; his own smile mirrored hers. "Any movement?" he asked her once again.
___Now as she danced the wisplight in defiance of the generators, Portunista finalized her plan.
___"Hsst! Hsst!" she called, trying to avoid the sensors. Seifas' head appeared around the corner, further down the stairwell. "Poo!" she mouthed, and gestured to the juacuar. Moments later, Pooralay edged into view.
___"Tape!" she mouthed, while miming a pull and a strip. The thug held up the roll.
___"Throw it!" she instructed him with mouth and mime. He sighed and glanced quite pointedly toward the wall-gap; but he did as she asked.
___The tape traversed the distance without trouble.
___Pooralay's eyebrows perked; but Portunista gestured for him to retreat to safety.
___Sliding over, Portunista quickly gave a kiss to Gaekwar's cheek; he rolled his eyes at this.
___Then she whispered once again: "Now, watch."
___She had been studying some new jottings, from Gemalfan's disciplex, practicing in secret during Hazyslope—she didn't like for others to see her failures when she practiced.
___Now, into the gap, she jotted one wide plane of Silveraire.
___Gaekwar nodded as she moved the mirrored surface. As expected, no  attacks.
___"Great, Commander! Let's get moving!" That is what he began to say and do; but she stopped him.
___"They still will respond to sound," she murmured. "And I can also deal with that," she added, watching his confusion. "But—I won't be going past. I am going in."
___Sighing in exasperation, Gaekwar tried to argue; but she looked him firmly in the eye and told him: "Hush!"
___He blinked, and closed his mouth. She continued:
___"I am the brigade commander; this is my expedition; and this is my responsibility. I came here for this laboratory, and I will possess it. I wish..." She felt her lower lip starting to tremble, so she bit it. "I wish that I had taken your advice. But I didn't—so, here we are. I know now how to defeat it; and I am going to do it. I won't go off my head—but neither will I let his body lay in that room overnight! So." She paused to smother several types of anger... "I will take care of both those problems now. I hope," she added.
___"If you're so set on going in, then let me do it. You're the co—" But he silenced, at her look.
___"That's right," she said. "I am the commander. And, I am the maga. I can do this; you cannot. I am the one who put you all in danger; and I will be the one who will take care of what I've done. So, when I go to do that, if I gesture to you, you run on past behind me, go downstairs, and put our supper on the fire," she wryly smiled. She knew what his expression meant, and so she continued: "If my plan goes wrong, you run anyway! I will fall into the room, and draw the generator fire, and so you should get safely past. Then you can do what you want," she finished. "For I will be dead, and so no longer Commander," she did not explain—but it wasn't necessary. Gaekwar got the message.
___She thought that maybe he would argue...then she saw him, in his eyes, reevaluating her.
___"As you command," he finally complied.
___She didn't peck him on the cheek again. That had been appropriate, before: one last thanks for helping her, by being who he was. Now that time was past. She was the commander, he was the subordinate; and both of them, to their surprise, were comfortable with that. She grasped his forearm, receiving and giving strength.
___Then she stood and moved away from him, over to the stairway's outer wall. It wasn't far; but she wanted him to understand that she would do this by herself. She waved for him to go back up the stairs, away from her.
___She didn't want his lungs to crumple.

___One deep breath, to steady herself. And then she realized, she didn't need much steadying—which, a corner of her mind ironically reported, was a pleasant change of pace...!
___Then she jotted an Airebelle around herself.

___A deadly silence fell.
___The echoes from the stone, the bare caress of moving air, even sounds from Gaekwar that would normally be imperceptible...all were gone.

___Only sounds within the belle remained: the beat of her heart, the saliva she was swallowing, her shallow rapid breaths.

___The silence of a living grave.

___The belle redirected all the air it contacted, to the Puria. No sound could enter—and so no sound of hers would reach the laboratory.
___But the redirection worked both ways: if she moved the belle, then its inner curve would inescapably scoop a vacuum.
___The way that she had burst the heads of aasvogels.

___Beads of sweat were trickling down her skin.
___Gemalfan's disciplex had not revealed the answer to this problem. But it must be something simple, for she knew this was a common Cadrist jotting. Air must enter, to replace the air departing. But the silence mustn't be defeated...

___Shutting her eyes, she felt the shape of her intention. She had made the sphere complete, but—there was something strange...

___Opening her eyes, she looked and saw the stone wall of the Tower to her left. Interesting...There was real though ephemeral elemental Aire, mixed with raw materia, intersecting and extruded through that wall to form her sphere. What would happen if she took a tiny step away...?

___She had bound her jotting on the second button of her shirt. She risked the tiny step, the belle moving in conjunction.
___With a softly smacking pop, the left side of the belle failed, rupturing the minor vacuum already accumulating.
___She deeply breathed, in relief; the fresh air tasted good.
___She continued edging rightward, discovering she could still maintain her bind despite the leftward rended hole. What would happen when the belle's surface touched the inner wall...?
___It flattened to fit the shape.
___Well! Inspired, she felt around more closely. The rending when she'd moved had been extensive; more than she had first detected: behind, below, and to the left—wherever the belle had been jotted through the Tower stones.
___Very interesting. She could now be sure she wouldn't smother or explode—the aasvogels' necks must not have moved enough to overcome the seals around their moving heads.
___However, all these gaps would be about as silencing as the columns holding up an outdoor temple!
___She knew she shouldn't have to jott the belle again at every step. What was the solution...?
___The belle's flattened shape, along with its persistence where unrent, provided her the clues. A few moments more of experimenting, and she found that she could use the bind to fix the gaps by re-extending her intended shape.
___She stepped ahead, altogether off the stairs, and then repaired the shape behind her. Good. Now there would not be another new gap; unless she leaped into the air! Crouching—she tested—only pooled the belle, around her in an arc; and standing up again allowed the belle to resume...its...

___—her skin pulled all directions!—her eyes evaporated!—her eardrums stretched to bleeding! her breath yanked from her lungs! which seemed to help a little bit, though now she couldn't breathe...!
___She cursed herself: her crouch had scooped her atmosphere across the inner surface of the belle; standing had decreased the pressure drastically!
___Don't drop the belle! she commanded herself. There had to be a way around this—but she never would find it if she didn't face the pain. If she collapsed unconscious, the sphere would vanish; so her pride and body would be bruised, but nothing worse.
___Probably.
___The belle could be ripped by accident, without destroying its existence overall. So...
___Reaching to the left with her intent, she...erased...a minor hole.

___The recompression nearly brought her to her knees; she gulped the air until she could gain her control.
___But, now she was prepared.

___She stepped, with just the slightest quavering in her chest—behind the screen of Silveraire.
___Then she turned to face it.
___It mirrored her reflection.
___She looked nervous.
___She expected that she wouldn't hear a warning whine of charging energy; but she thought the plane of Silveraire, although as thin as atoms, would reflect the first few bolts—and not be kicked aside the way a wisplight would.
___Then a surge of fear: she should have checked to see her shield would hold before she stood behind it—!

___she thought of Jian, lying dead—because of her.
___She stood in place.
___A quarter minute ticked away.

___She was still alive.
___She started to breathe, finding she had held her breath while waiting. Despite a subsequent dizziness, she held her concentration. Firming her expression—she reflected grim determination now, she gladly saw!—Portunista beckoned Gaekwar.
___She watched him on her jotted mirror, as he trotted past behind her, feeling him deform the belle like a bubble.
___She saw worry in his eyes.
___She could understand that.

___Now, next: turn and jott a second plate of Silveraire, to her right, her throat vibrating strongly to produce a tinkling glassy sound, as she smoothed the mirrored surface with her palms—
___—she gasped! pain!!
___—head rocking, pounding blows!—heart leaping into her teeth!
___She ground her teeth, biting on her fear. The shocks were not yet physically harmful. And they quickly ceased. The Silveraire in the gap had warped and bulged, twisting with the pounding of her mind. But it had held.
___This time. For the bursts of one brief moment.

___Her sweat hit stone in spatters. The sensors must have heard her after all! Or, maybe they'd heard Gaekwar running past, and then hair-triggered afterward when she started percussive jotting...? She'd hoped the hole she had put behind her for a vent, would not emit enough—
___Damnation! The hole!
___She had placed it on her left, because she had been facing down the hallway at the time. It must be turning as she turned—yes, she felt it, to her left but pointing down the stairway as she faced the Silveraire—closer to the gap! And so, of course, when she had turned to jott the silver on her right, the hole had pointed toward the silvered gap—in line with every generator!
___Blind her eyes...she was such a cretin!

___...did she even have the faintest clue what she was doing...?!
___She could leave, she thought as she sealed the sphere, erasing a new hole behind her. She could think it over, get some food, get some sleep, maybe even pass the deadly opening once again to sleep upstairs...up in the room and bed of Qarfax—who was more clever than she was after all...
___...leaving Jian to lie alone, where she had killed him with her pride...

___In the Silveraire, her nose now wrinkled, in determination....had he ever seen that, too...? what would he have thought of it...?
___Now she saw a snarl.
___Qarfax would not win.

___The maga took a step, closer to the furious destruction that would burst her innards to pieces...
___Portunista smiled, however. What could the pentadarts do to her that was worse than the pain she already felt inside?
___There. She felt the belle making contact with the edges of the gap in front of her. She pushed, expanding her intent, until the sphere had sealed the gap.
___Now let's see if they can hear me! Portunista wryly thought...

___Firming her resolve, she jotted to her left: another pane of Silveraire.
___No vicious shocks.
___And now for one last panel, overhead.

___The effort nearly swamped her...her vision wavered...her binds would vanish—leaving her staked naked to the sight and sound—
___She bore down hard upon her bindings.
___They steadied.

___Four large planes of Silveraire; one large Airebelle; a wisplight, too...at least she was long familiar with that...!
___Three jotting types, six binds to hold, between one slip of concentration and her life.
___She held it all, counting slow to sixty, steeling her intentions and resolve.
___She could do it. She was ready.

___Portunista closed her eyes...
___...and slowly stepped again.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Chapter 31: When Something Matters (Part 2 of 2)

___A corner of her mind observed that she had thrown her arms out wide, in automatic reflex, mirroring the balance she maintained. The Airebelle would follow without a problem, bound upon that second button of her shirt.
___But, she still had five more bindings that she had to move...at the proper angles...at the proper distances...not the smallest gap allowed to let a sensor find her body...stay the proper shapes—keep them in existence—
___she was losing balance—! straw of towers wobbling—!
___—she threw away her wisplight bind, and seized the shields—!

___They held.
___Barely.
___Sweat was falling from her hands. But she didn't care. She paused to swallow, breaths and other beatings in her body filling all her hearing...

___She stepped across the threshold of the gap within the wall.
___Now the sensors all would have their firing arcs upon her.

___She told herself the situation hadn't really changed. Two or three, or even one, would doom her to a frightful death; so what did all five matter?!
___More precisely—something mattered to her more.

___She stood some moments, still; regripping on her fear and concentration, feeling as if sensors were caressing her, watching for her to uncover, waiting to embrace her...
___She very nearly laughed. She very nearly killed herself by laughing.
___She truly was besotted, wasn't she? Her weakness was so pathetic, it amused her. Jian was dead—only honor and revenge remained for her to take, however far she could.
___And she would!

___Her binding grip was sure as frozen diamond, as she stood upon the solid puddle she had melted when she pushed the wall into the laboratory. She now rotated, half a turn; sealing then re-rending her belle, until she faced the wall-gap once again.
___Whistling up another wisp, she snapped her head around to send it soaring toward the door on her left. The dazzling Silveraire reflections didn't break her concentration; still, almost instinctively, she altered the wisp's intensity, remembering how that had felt when it had dulled before by accident.
___Very satisfactory...One more jotting might be more than she could manage—but she didn't need another.
___She would defeat the Cadrist now!

___Planting her wisp in place, she walked with her ungainly binds, following the wall inside the laboratory. Only two or three more steps—and now she stood beside the door!—a little disappointed not to see a matching plate, but that was fine—her plan allowed this possibility. She was certain it would work...

___her mind exploded.

___—hundreds crashing, ricocheting reflective surfaces, still transferring fractions of kinetic force onto the fragile mirrors—
___She shrieked inside her soundproofed bubble, first in pain and fear, and then in anger—Why...?! What had she done wrong?! She was going to be plastered onto this stupid door—!
___She bit down on her scream, converting it into a growl, as storms of pain and force threw water droplets flying off her face, her hair, her hands. Intuitively, she dropped the wisp and Airebelle, to redirect her focus on the floating sheets of almost-nothing set between the onslaught and her death.
___Darkness and the sound now crushed against her mind and body both.
___Four bound jottings, and she dared not drop a one—nor could even try to jott another—muscles cramping and spasming, arms refusing at first to obey, then drawing inward from their splayed positions, feeling for the handle, praying to whatever might be listening that it wouldn't be false like the hall-side of the door—!
___The handle worked.
___She wasted pushing at the door in crumbling panic, feeling her mind ripping with the shields—no, she had to pull it toward her...! Had she reasoned this correctly—?!

___She had!
___The landing and the narrow tower hallway; not a jungle.

___She needed light, but dared not jott.
___"LIGHT!" she roared. "I need a torch!—blast your bleeding eyes!" She cursed and shouted, concentration strained and failing...
___She might run now...through the door...run away, and escape and live...

___—no —she refused —Jian was still in this room, where she had killed him with her pride
___—and she—was going—to win—!

___Portunista stood in place, bearing the pain that he had borne, defying the room's defenses to kill her, crying out for light...

___A torch curled blazing around the corner, bouncing off a wall, skittering down the floor.
___Good enough.
___Nearly vomiting from the effort—slowly and precisely Portunista tore a sticky paper strip, dropped the spindle afterward—stuck the tape onto a breeches-leg, fingers wet would drench it—
___Slowly and precisely she unbuttoned one belt-pocket, bending down her head to see, straining in the mix of strobing flickers orangish bluish white—sodden clinging hair now stranding, funneling the sweating salt into the burning corners of her eyes—synaptic shocks eroding her control, foretasting the final agony, her body being smashed from deep within would be relief compared to this—!
___Slowly and precisely, she carefully dragged her dripping fingers up across the inside of this smallest of her pockets...
___...lifting out the follicle of Qarfax.

___She placed the hair between her shaking lips—wiped her trembling hands upon her shirt, her breeches, on the door, anything to dry them...

___the pain was irresistible—
___—against her will, she stumbled forward, through the door, sobbing with the single fleeting moment of relief—unconsciously, she tried to drag her shields—
___—which couldn't follow through the doorframe—

___—three silvers slipped and vanished—
___a single warning—she collapsed, the right—a bolt, nicking her head in passing, spinning her around...everything was spinning...her brain throbbed nauseating...hold the final silver, but it shattered her intention, raking shards across her mind...all striking round her, blasting searing chips of stone...they couldn't get to her, she was in the doorframe lee...but they ate away the stone, had torn the door apart already...she was screaming through her teeth and couldn't stop, they heard her screams, relentlessly they sought her blood and body—

___...but she...was going...to win...!!

___The hair hung from her lower lip...she seized and pressed it to the 
sigilpanel...

___The sigils worked.
___She had told the generators, that she was their master.

___Her keening faded with the echoes of the blasts, leaving only gasping with relief.
___She wiped her left hand one last time upon her breeches, pulled the tape from where she'd placed it, twisted round to face the panel—
___—and taped the hair, onto the sigils.

___It had worked. She had won.
___...no, it wasn't over yet.

___She scrambled to her feet, and charged into the laboratory, whistling wisplights everywhere. There, along the quarters and the center of the round room's ceiling, hung the generators, pestles resting on internal gimbals that allowed rotation.
___Her throat was hoarse; but she didn't need her voice to do this jotting—only her aching jaws and raspy tongue.
___She hammered every generator to pieces—with her own pentadarts.
___Now, it was over.

___She forced herself to deeply breathe, regularly, in and out.
___"It's safe!" she shouted—or tried to shout. "Come on up!"
___"Hmph." Pooralay snorted from the gap behind her. "D'pends on whatcha callin' safe..."
___"Better leave the hair..." she told him.
___"ah-duhhh," he mumbled, pressing sticky strips already. The other men were entering the room.

___She had to sit. The scarred and pitted wall, between the gap and door, felt good to lean against.
___"Not to be a next-day general, 'ista," Gaekwar said, "but why not tape the stupid hair onto the panel first?"
___She shook her head...needed a drink so badly...water would do...mead would be better...aasvogel blood was almost worth considering at this point...
___"It only would have opened onto the nesting grounds again," explained the maga. "The hallway and the laboratory needed to be linked, before the panel could affect the generators." She wondered in her calm exhaustion what the other door looked like, so many kilopaces distant. It probably simply opened onto normal space, and thus was still intact—unlike this door! The tesser would be on the entry-side, of its special doorframe. The other portal-side would end up here, inside the laboratory's doorframe edge, an inch or so away from—
___She closed her eyes. Trying to puzzle this out any further, only made her head hurt worse. A thought drifted across her mind, however, and she opened her eyes again, looking to the floor.
___The floor in front of the frame, inside the room, was stone—and covered with sigils.
___She allowed her eyes to drift as well, showing her what they would...a thin stone parquet covered the laboratory in plating, and every plate was sigilscribed. Except where she was sitting. When she had smoothed the vitalized blocks of stone, having pushed them into the room, she had covered up the sigils under the gap in the wall—mostly forward, but left and right a little, too. And then she had stepped from that new layer, onto the uncovered floor, when she had moved in front of the door.
___Of course. That was why the pentadarts had fired. Qarfax had anticipated a mage might hide from sight and sound.
___She weakly cursed her deep stupidity. She only had needed to step through the door, into the hallway—not too far, to avoid detection by the generators through the gap instead—and then they would have ceased their firing.
___Assuming, she reminded herself, that she had thought enough ahead to leave her shields behind. Her shriek of rage and fear had not been helpful, either. She was too exhausted even to laugh; still it was bitterly funny: she would have been much safer, if she could have shut her mouth a few more moments...!
___Well, a win was a win.
___She closed her eyes again, unable to stop the gently welling tears. Behind her eyes, she saw Jian moving, still alive, stumbling, rolling, crawling on the sigiled floor, drawing death down onto him with every move he made. He hadn't had a chance.
___And, it would have been her...
___She wept again, softly, too depleted to prevent imagination from providing detailed picture-feelings: this is what Jian must have felt—as he had struggled, carrying death away from her, so that she wouldn't have to share it...
___how had he done it...? how, without screaming...?

___"About bloody time," she heard the Krygian's muttered satisfaction. She didn't have to open her eyes and turn her head to know that he was standing near the blasted chair behind which Jian had tried to find a final hopeless chance.
___"I seriously suggest you shut up now," Gaekwar softly warned him.
___Let Seifas stab the fool, she decided. She didn't have the energy to kill him yet herself...and, she had decided not to kill him, anyway, earlier, minutes ago, hours ago...hadn't she? Yes, before Jian had smashed through hopelessness, answering her cry, saving her from death, after he should have died...
___He wouldn't be jumping out of the darkness, on the razored edge of victory, this time.

___She needed a drink; she deeply needed water. Maybe she wouldn't cry again, even later sleeping in a dead man's bed.
___No. She wouldn't cry again. Never again.
___She raised her hand to wipe her eyes.

___"ow," she heard.

___A corner of her mind observed that she had recently exhaled, and that if she didn't soon inhale she would be passing out.
___Another corner thought that passing out would be just fine.
___Another corner firmly vetoed any notion of passing out! But neither had she yet inhaled.
___Another corner calmly noted: her tears had now been sucked back into her eyes, perhaps because her lids had opened wider than they should. The trails of moisture felt to be freezing solid. Bracing; but uncomfortable. On the other hand, now she wouldn't have to wipe her tears away...
___Another corner told her where the mumbled "ow" had come from.
___Another corner tallied all this up, and so concluded: her wits had finally cracked. The voices must be beginning now. Her troops would dress her in a long-sleeve shirt, tie the sleeves behind her back, and haul her in a wagon looking for any honorable way to be rid of her—feeding her until then with a long and cautious spoon.

___"—eyes of the watcher by night..." Seifas murmured in reverent terror. This did not make Portunista feel any better. She tried to bat away the hope that gripped her throat insanely.
___"It...it isn't possible..." Dagon sounded throttled, too. She followed his voice and his scuffling feet, as he backpedaled into the wall with a thump.
___She scraped her head around to her right—not to her left, not to where she couldn't bear to look, but to her right. The stones of the wall passed under her faintly itching nose; then the wall planed off into a gentle distant curve.
___There was Dagon. She could bear to look at him. She wanted to see his face.
___She wondered if her face looked that distraught.

___She had to breathe. She had to know.
___She chose to look.

___Continued right, around to what had been her left. She passed her eyes across the other men. She didn't care to see them; she could see them any time she wished. What they thought, wasn't important.
___Except they also saw what she was seeing; demonstrating she was not  insane.

___Jian was standing to his feet, behind the sharded chair.
___His face had not been harmed.
___His arms and chest had not been harmed.
___His curly sandy-colored hair, which caught the wisplights' glow so well, had not been harmed.
___His shirt...that was harmed. It hung in tatters off his chest.
___He shook his head as if he'd just been dunked in icy water; but unlike herself, no sweat was oozing from his body.
___Another corner of her mind was noticing that his chest had plenty of much the same hair as his beard...
___Jian removed his shirt, the red of which seemed black as blood within the bluish light; and started laughing quietly.
___"So much for that, I guess," he said, and gently laid the shirt upon the shattered chair. "I hope I won't be needing that again, anytime soon...!"

___She inhaled, rawly.
___He turned toward her sound.
___"Hey there, Portunista! I am so glad you're okay!! I was worried, for a minute. Aww..." he looked around, in regret. "The lab's a wreck." He sighed apologetically. "I'm awfully sorry. Almost looks like all those aasvogel thingies packed themselves in here with Tumblecrumble for a fight! I know you were hoping that you would find something useful in here...But," he added, in good cheer, "who knows! I bet you still can find a lot in here worth keeping! But, let's start tomorrow morning—'kay? I'm hungry." He walked to the mouth of the wall-gap.
___She followed him with her eyes.
___"I'll go start the fire, okay?" Jian suggested helpfully.
___And then the man who should have been a dead man left the room.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#5
Chapter 32: To Believe And Not To Believe

___The dark man lies in darkness, guarding as the others sleep; the nearby firepit-glow does not even reach the ceiling overhead.
___Seifas has recounted many happenings this day, as much as he remembers. He knows that soon his watch will end; but unlike the others he will not be sleeping in the garrison chambers. Instead he will sleep on guard, near the fire.
___He hears the breeze moan faintly once again, and smiles, for now it almost seems a pleasant friend.
___If only he could shake the feeling that it heralds tragedy to come...
___"Well," he writes, "we have already faced tragedy several times today—and hope remains.
___"Although this latest incident unnerves me, when I think about it..."

❖ ❖ ❖

___All of us wandered down the stairs, as if caught into a dream—all, except for Jian. He bounded down ahead of us, full of life.
___Gaekwar's fire—which he had lit while Portunista fought against Qarfax's defenses, saying that he did not intend to starve while she was killing herself—gave us plenty of warmth inside the chilling Tower stones. Jian suggested we each take turns in washing ourselves with water from the well below.
___I seemed to awaken, as I washed away the blood and grime with cold fresh water, cleansing cuts across my back from one of the aasvogels, drinking the water in with my skin as well as with my mouth.
___Jian refused to wash himself until we all had been refreshed, saying that preparing Gaekwar's kill would be a messy job. When we returned, one by one, we found some aasvogel portions roasting on the firepit. We watched the food that he had prepared for us; he put the carcass out the door for any scavengers to eat. Then he bathed himself; and with the bucket from the plank, he spilled clean water down the stairs and hall to help remove the blood.
___Then we ate as we had washed, watched and waited—in silence.
___I wondered who would be the first to speak.
___I thought it might be Pooralay.
___I hoped it would be Portunista.
___It was Dagon.
___"How did you do it?"
___Jian blinked, once or twice, as if he didn't know whom Dagon addressed; and swallowed the meat he was chewing.
___"Excuse me?" he asked politely.
___"How did you do it?" Dagon repeated, flatly, like a man whom dice have turned against, now facing debt's reality. "How did you escape the pentadarts?"
___"I......didn't," answered Jian, cautiously.
___"So why are you alive?"
___Jian considered this a moment; then looked up at Dagon again. "They malfunctioned?" he brightly asked, like a boy with an answer in school that he hopes is right but isn't altogether sure.
___Jian returned attention to his meal as if a minor puzzle had been adequately solved. Dagon mumbled to himself—"Malfunctioned...yeah...that's it...a malfunction...of course..." And since he drifted into silence shortly afterward, maybe he did convince himself of this.
___No one else said anything, until the meal was over.
___Then after finishing, Jian stood up, stretched, yawned, and said, "Well!—we've had a busy day! Since I don't have a shirt anymore, I think I'll go curl up beneath a blanket, on one of those grassy beds...what did you call them?"
___"Quitches," I answered.
___He yawned again. "Quitches," he repeated. "See you all tomorrow!" He walked down the stairway landing hall. "I guess I'll try this one..." He chose the room next to the upward stairs. "Oh...has anyone claimed this room already?" He turned toward us deferentially, blinking sleepily as we watched him.
___"Aren't you worried a Roguent might attack you if you're by yourself?" Gaekwar asked, quietly.
___Jian smiled. "I haven't seen Rogue Agents here, or even any evidence that they've been here. Have you?"
___"I would've thought a pile of Qarfax-dust would count as evidence!" Dagon sneered.
___"Really?" Jian inquired. "So, what part of that suggests a Rogue to you?"
___Dagon began to retort—then stopped.
___"Mmm-hmm," nodded Jian. "Here we are, in the tower of a Cadrist who experimented and researched, installing confusing and lethal mechanisms, and who had expected an attack, while his peers were certainly fighting one another. I repeat: do we have any positive evidence that a Rogue Agent killed Qarfax? Any positive evidence that a Rogue has ever been to this Tower?"
___This would have helped me feel better about our chances of surviving overnight.
___Except for how the conversation ended.
___"Are you saying you don't believe in Roguents?" Dagon tried regaining some of his sneer.

___Jian stopped smiling.
___One old sconce-torch smothered on itself, near the hallway end, flickering shadows over Jian.
___Watching us. Watching us, watching him.

___"Do I believe that Agents of the Eye rebel against Him?" Jian answered softly. "Yes. I do."
___I tried to swallow; my throat was dry. I wonder: do we, even we of the Guacu-ara such as I who ought to know better, slur the descriptions of such creatures so that we will not have to face the implications—that even lords of Heaven might rebel...?
___"Do I believe in Rogue Agents?" And Jian slowly shook his head: "No. I do not."
___He turned away from us, to his chosen room; and put his hand upon the latch...and paused.
___Looking down, at an angle, as if into a distance, he added,
___"At least...not anymore."
___He went into his chosen room, closing the door behind him.
___The silence settled around us thickly—silence within the crackling of the fire.
___The silence of an eternal burning.

___Sometimes, mundane realities save us from a morbid introspection. My bladder needed relief.
___Saying nothing, I walked the stairway hall; into the flickering shadow.
___I do not remember what I thought, when I passed Jian's room.
___Turning to the right, I walked downstairs into the 'basement'.
___Normally, it would be foolish to relieve myself into a well from which I would later be drawing drinking water; but now I know why Qarfax had told us we could: the rushing river at the bottom carries all our waste away, quickly and efficiently, constantly refreshing.
___Then I realized, I was relieving myself into a tesser.
___The strangeness and disparity was worth a chuckle; and that dispersed the darkness, somewhat.
___I finished; and then I said, "You may come downstairs." Had I heard the boots, despite the rumbles and cascades below? Or had I sensed the presence in some other way—as one of the Guacu-ara?
___I don't know. I know I suspected and hoped that I knew, who would come down the stairs.
___I was right.
___Portunista carefully climbed, down the stairs of extruded stone, steadying with her back to the outer wall. She sat on a lower stair; her soft boots dangled over the floor.
___"Yes?" I asked, knowing what she would discuss, but wondering how she would choose her path. I walked across the room to her, kneeling two stairs lower; I wasn't looming over her nor was I sitting much beneath her.
___I could look into her face...

___She didn't speak. I waited.
___Then she said:

___"Seifas...what are errants?"
___I watched her face so carefully...

___"Errants are men or women, commissioned by the Eye Himself, typically through a dream."
___"...why?"
___"Usually, to find something. No..." I cast my memory back to certain classes given in the Hunting Cry. "To search for something. The errant is given no guarantee to find it; but the search itself would serve for other purposes."
___"Are they always...sent...to search for something?"
___"Perhaps they aren't. I don't know," I honestly answered. "I suppose it could be a task of any sort."
___I watched her as she thought her next question through.
___"What are the signs that a man...a person...is an errant?"
___I heard her lapse, but managed not to smile.
___"Errants are men and women only, such as you or I," I said. "Not even a mage or warrior neccessarily. A baker or a tavern-keeper might be called to serve."
___This surprised her, I could see—hadn't she heard the stories?
___But then she added, "Even clowns, I suppose."
___I hardly dared to breathe. "Yes," I said. "I suppose."
___"There are no signs by which they may be recognized?"
___"They are always difficult to kill," I told her softly. "Very difficult—whether battlemage, or baker."
___"Why?" she asked, like a child, listening to the stories of the sky.
___"The Eye Himself has chosen them, and so protects them. It would hardly do to set a person to a special task, and then that person prematurely die!"
___"They cannot die or be killed or be defeated?"
___"They can fail—if they choose to fail. Or they may be defeated, as the Eye allows some plans of His to be defeated, in order to protect His goals in other ways.
___"Even so—if I fought against an errant, I would expect to badly lose.
___"Even if he was only a clown."

___"Do they die?" she asked.
___I looked her in the eyes, and said: "In all reliable stories I know, the errant always dies—accomplishing the purpose for which he, or she, is called."
___I saw this hit her like a slap.
___"They live so that they may die. They expect to die at any time. Not a bad way to live, once one becomes accustomed to it...to die for a purpose..." I drifted into musings of my own.
___We sat in silence another minute; then she stood to leave. "Is there anything else?" she asked, already turning to walk upstairs.
___"Magical force will usually fail, when applied directly to an errant."
___She froze on the stair; I heard her breathing stop.
___"I don't know why," I added.
___She didn't look back to me; although she moved her head.
___"Seifas...you know those generators weren't malfunctioning."
___I nodded. "The bolts could shred a chair and shirt, but not the man behind them."
___She walked upstairs again; so she didn't see my smile.
___I wondered—I wonder: for her sake, I hope she accepts the hope that has been given to us.
___And yet...
___What if I am wrong?

___...what does it mean—to believe, and not to believe?



Skip JRP commentary and go to the next chapter
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Notes from the real author...

I was mostly out of pocket over the weekend, so I've posted three days' worth at once, catching me up to Monday on my schedule. And speaking of catching up: Chapter 32 finally catches the main storyline up with the foreshadowing jump ahead last seen back in Chapter 18, "Signs Of Change In The Weather"! (Here's a link for comparison and reminder.) I'll be kind-of explaining that distant sounding quiet intermittent moan soon, don't worry (and more directly confirming it in commentary)! ;) But the scratches on Seifas' back are now explained: he got those fighting the aasvogels.

I figured I had better clarify (as far as I could without undue spoilers) in-text, as soon as possible, that Jian hadn't really died, so that's one of the main purposes of this chapter (the other being to establish where Jian is sleeping.) Not that there aren't some minor purposes, too. ;) I had introduced the concept of errants earlier as the group were trooping down the slope of the dell toward the Tower, so this gave me an opportunity to spell out what someone with Seifas' religious training would know about them.

I'm afraid I wasn't very good about getting across that Portunista did in fact know some things about errants already; specifically, she was fishing for the one salient point that would concern magi most: that magical force usually fails when applied directly to an errant. (I know why, of course; and also why it usually fails! ;) But I'm saving that information for much later.) The idea that Jian is an errant will be something she factors henceforth into her calculations regarding him.

Writing a protagonist like Portunista is a difficult balancing act, because (as an early editor of mine sort-of complained ;) ) she starts off more than half-weak and more than half-bad. So I can't have her doing utterly evil things all the time, but on the other hand I have to think in terms of her character growth sputtering along--sometimes she makes great strides and sometimes she slips back. Dynamic character development shouldn't just jump straight to the point intended by the author. Furthermore, with greater power comes greater responsibility but power brings risk of corruption and abuse. So as she grows stronger, in skill and in character, Portunista can help or harm people more effectively and thoroughly, and more temptations arise to be selfish with her strength. Which doesn't even count her various mental instabilities based in her history previous to the start of the story (some of which are not her fault and a few of which are being foisted on her as will become more evident later)--but I have to keep those in mind as well as I write her character and design her plot progression!

So this time when she thinks Jian is dead, and it's more obvious that this happened due to her own raving selfishness, she has a different response, partly because she faces the fact of her responsibility in what happened more directly, and partly because she's willing to acknowledge Jian matters to her. But since she'll be mulling this over in some detail soon, I'll leave those ruminations for her to chew on in the next chapters. :)

Naturally it was time for her to get her act together more competently, but from a perspective of realistic character development I couldn't just have her becoming totally über and selfless all of a sudden. So she still makes mistakes, and some of those mistakes come from still being rather selfishly focused (and selfishly emotional)--but she overcomes them enough to eke out a win. So that's real progress, despite the messiness of it. Also, her mistakes of various sorts allow me to get past various difficulties in the plot which would have ended the incident too soon and/or not as dramatically.  8-) Though if she has to juggle the idiot ball, I do want her to recognize her mistakes and learn from them. That helps the real progress, too.

But that doesn't mean she's going to progress smoothly in character growth from here on out. A serious advance like this, is at risk of being matched by a reaction back in the other direction.

And that's what the remaining chapters of this Section will be about.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Chapter 33: Matters Of The Heart

___Dark clouds billow over Dichosa, my beloved; although some gleams of gold shoot through to touch the city on occasion.
___In her upper room, the Empress thinks back seven years and more—back, to her first night in Qarfax Tower.
___Yesterday she glided through the glassless window of her fana...and then stared, blankly, for an hour at the clay.
___She had done the same the day before.
___Two days now, without a single new word engraved in the clay.
___Nevertheless: she remains determined to compose her testimony. So she reaches out once more—to write of a betrayal.

❖ ❖ ❖

___On that night, I paced a dead man's room, thinking on a man who wasn't dead but lay asleep instead, below me on a bed of quitch.
___How should it be, that he could sleep in satisfaction on some dirt that any vagrant might acquire—for I was sure his sleep was sound and full—while I, who claimed a bed of kings, could only circle restlessly?!
___Bah—I would plunge into my own bed I had won with sovereign effort, and be comfort to myself...!
___But, although I paused to do just that, the bed lay cold and empty still. The sheets and downy pillows and the firm supporting mattress—weren't alive.
___I saw and felt instead, the mossy living grass.
___I'd slept on quitch before, resenting it as being beneath ambition.
___And yet, I'd always slept upon it well.
___The simple grass had given comfort, despite how I despised it. Yes...comfort and enjoyment in its gift of sleep, two living things together in a harmony...
___Instead I'd gained my dead ambition: I would be the only thing that mattered in my bed.
___And with that thought, another thorn was sticking in my mind. I had discovered, earlier that evening: if I mattered only to myself, then nothing mattered, even my own self. The fear of life and death provided by that revelation still was curdling on my tongue. Now I sought to overcome this fear.
___When had I become aware of that despairing knowledge?
___The first time I had thought that Jian was dead.
___Why had that affected me in such a way?!
___Because...to Jian, I mattered.

___He gladly risked his life for me—with no regrets, with no coercion, no compulsion, nothing to gain for himself by doing so...
___not even expecting thanks.
___I had never mattered to a man like that, before.
___To overcome my fear of life and death, I had been driven to convince myself I mattered: that my wishes were sufficient to establish such a truth.
___But, I had failed. If I hadn't mattered to someone else, then I would have lost, and would have been lost, whether I had lived or died.
___Jian had shown that I, I myself, truly mattered.
___and...Jian mattered to me.

___This was deeply bitter.
___I preferred to be a fortress to myself. To be, instead, invested in another's value, left me open to attack!
___And yet I still could taste the fear I'd felt: when I had seen a point, itself, has no true strength. A single point can't even claim existence!—except by postulation, by the grace, of something other than that point.
___So: it was weakness, or else...what? More weakness, in dependence...?
___No! I was strong! I had defeated Qarfax's traps, through my strength of mind and body! That was something to be proud of, something to set against my prior despair...!
___But then, why hadn't I been strong, earlier, in those forests? Yes, I had succeeded in slaying some avians. But my attitude, and the meaning of my accomplishments, had been completely different—for my victories against them would have been completely worthless, even if I had defeated them all.
___Yet my victory over the generators mattered; and would have mattered even in my death. So, where was the difference?
___Jian had shown I mattered, but in both the cases—so that was not the crucial factor.
___But now I remembered: after Jian's apparent second death, I had admitted to myself, however vaguely:
___Jian mattered to me.

___So. There was strength in this, after all.

___I wasn't satisfied. Strength there might be, but also terrible danger to myself. I would be vulnerable.
___Most of all, to Jian himself.
___What if he betrayed me?
___How could I ensure that Jian would love me?
___And here was the nub, at last! I wanted to be loved—worse, I had discovered that I needed to be loved.

___As a pretense of something to do, rather than think about that, I stripped from out of my unclean clothes—sodden still with blood and sweat as well as water—and flung a wardrobe open.
___A royal robe commended itself. I tried it on. Very satisfactory: its quilted fabric and fur would soon be warmed; and in the nearby mirror I could see a queen—a furious queen!

___A queen within a dead man's robe, too many sizes large for her, like playing dress-up...

___Never mind. It was mine. I didn't need a mirror.
___I wrapped the robe around myself, and cinched it up, and then resumed my march around the empty bed, dragging the tail of the robe behind me like an outraged bride.
___How could I ensure that Jian would love the way I wanted to be loved? That way lay more safety; a measure more of control. I would minimize my vulnerability.
___The simplest answer was: make him addicted to me. Then I would be indispensable.
___I knew how to do that.
___And after all, wasn't this what I had wanted down in my heart for weeks?
___Good! I thought. Everything has led to this. Now I could satisfy my wishes in such a way that wouldn't make me seem a fool, and which would serve me properly!

___But, I was still a fool.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#8
Chapter 34: Opportunity

___Now I had made my decision; and I would act.
___I plotted my assignation, as if an assassination.
___Part of me recognized that I was about to attempt a treacherous thing. Furthermore, Jian himself would probably try to reason me out of it. After all, he wasn't Dagon.
___Who raised another consideration: I wanted to get this done with minimal interference from anyone who might be feeling possessive, resenting the new competition.
___And I didn't want to wait any longer.
___Sneak in tonight, accomplish the deed without detection—except by Jian, of course—and then...
___Well, I wasn't thinking of that far ahead. I wanted it done. I wanted what I thought was safety, only on my terms.
___And, I wanted the satisfaction.

___I jotted an Airebelle onto myself, leaving the usual puncture behind me; then I left the room of Qarfax, ghosting silently down the narrow stairs, excitement bringing alive each nerve, matching my wits against my men.
___I passed the next landing down; the laboratory's two gaping maws held no more attractions for me that night.
___Here was the garrison landing. I stopped, several steps above it. He lay just beyond the inner wall. If only I could tesser...! But I couldn't, yet. I would have to improvise.
___And I could do that very well.
___My only real concern was if a man came up the basement stairs, while I was making preparations. That would wreck my plan—until another night—but otherwise would not be problematic. I would simply drop my Airebelle, in case they somehow sensed a special silence, and then inform whoever came upstairs, or round the corner, I meant to use the well-room for a privy. The robe would be embarrassing, but it could be easily justified for what it was: a substitute for filthy clothing.
___Doing what I wanted without the others knowing I had gone down to him, would be harder.
___I jotted a sliver of Silveraire, silently within my belle, edging it round the corner, angling it like a mirror.

___Dagon stared, ready to kill.
___I jumped, too shocked to even defend—!

___...then I realized: he wasn't moving. Except for his eyes.
___A moment later, I figured it out: in my nervousness, I had smeared the normal alignment of Aire and basic materia, so that now it magnified what I was seeing. The mirror was showing me Dagon, as he sat beyond the firepit, keeping our first watch.
___I tested my discovery, over long minutes. I had little else to do—with Dagon so alert, I couldn't slide into the garrison room where Jian was sleeping, or even try another tactic to disguise my entrance.
___So I watched, at first impatient—and then with curiosity.
___Dagon only moved his eyes, from one target to another: dark, murderous eyes. All his face seethed with hate; aimed at every door behind which other men were sleeping.
___He also looked across the pit sometimes, where Seifas lay asleep; his back was set to the fire, resting his head on something not a pillow.
___Did Dagon look at me like that, when I could not see him...?
___I shivered; and resolved to never fall asleep again with Dagon in a room...
___Surely Seifas couldn't know about this concentrated hate, and also sleep so soundly. Or, did Seifas even care? I myself would not be fool enough to stab a sleeping juacuar; but what stayed Dagon's hand? Fear of being discovered?
___Probably fear of Seifas, I decided. Such a murder would be, paradoxically, easier to get away with while in camp.
___But, Dagon sent his gaze most often, and most harshly, toward the door of Jian. Not surprising, given their relationship since Jian's arrival; also only likely to increase with Jian's infatuation with me—which is how I saw the matter, and how I wanted to have it seen. When that happened, I expected to need to murder Dagon, or arrange to have it done, lest he should cause me problems. The other men I could trust to keep their place.
___However, this begged a question: why had Dagon not decisively struck already against the man whom he already had hated the most?! The fair man posed a far less physical threat than one of the Guacu-ara!

___...was Dagon simply scared of everyone?

___I pondered this; and waited for his watch to end.
___I came to no conclusions on that night—or none that I admitted to myself.
___But now I can see; and now I admit, what I could have seen, but didn't want to see:
___when one's self has become an inflammation, then every other self can only be feared—and hated as an enemy.

___how well I know this, from experience...


Skip JRP commentary and go to next chapter
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Notes from the real author...

Ah, yep, Portunista is about to try what you probably think she's about to try.  (Also, whatever you were thinking about when she said that she had intended to comfort herself alone in bed... that, too. ;) )

This is absolutely not supposed to be romantic, by the way.

What it is, from a more literary standpoint, is one of the reasons I designed the story (or this part of the whole overarching story) in the first place.

There's a story archetype or trope dating back at least as far as Medieval times, that can be called the "Paladin and Enchantress Paradigm". The noble religious knight goes out on a quest, and along the way he runs into an enchantress who tries to seduce him out of his path. Sometimes she partially succeeds, she may even completely succeed depending on the subtype of story being told about that character (as a way of explaining why he's a failed knight for example), but in any case she's a speedbump in the way of the knight. The story isn't at all about her, it's about him.

In modern times there have been some popular and successful attempts to invert that concept: the enchantress is the (more-or-less) noble heroine, probably of an explicitly different religion (and so more likely a priestess), and the knight (generally still religious if perhaps hypocritically so) is the speedbump in her path. Maybe depending on the story he's still a basically good man although, in story terms, ignorant of the truths represented by the enchantress. But she's clearly both the protagonist and the morally superior heroine.

I was thinking about that one day, while studying some other things, and realized that I couldn't recall reading a story from the perspective of the enchantress as the clear protagonist yet still clearly the moral inferior. Why does the enchantress in the normal paradigm do what she does?--what is her side of the story?--not in the sense of explaining away what she does as not being that bad after all, but trying to explore the character of a person who would act in such a way while still emphasizing that she is in fact the protagonist whom the reader, ideally, ought to be rooting for.

That's a challenging dynamic characterization to create and work out.

It also happens to match up well with a concept from my Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Israel, even in non-Christian Judaism, is clearly the protagonist of their story, for whom (in a literary design sense) we ought to be rooting, and who too easily gets waaaaay too caught up in the pride of being the protagonist of their story. The Jewish scriptures are among the most, maybe the most, self-critical religious foundational texts in world history: they themselves constantly represent themselves as ungrateful traitors who routinely abuse the grace of God.

The people who take that for purposes of religious anti-Judaism or racial anti-Semitism are hugely missing the point, though. Israel stands for all of us, because whenever we do something we ourselves recognize to be wrong, we're also abusing the grace of God (and also, or at least, the grace of good people if you happen not to believe in God).

So this isn't exactly a new thematic form I'm working with after all. How Portunista treats Jian represents how any and all of us, myself especially included, occasionally (or for some of us more than occasionally) reject that which we ourselves perceive as good and true in order to protect our own self-importance.

(I say "myself especially included" because whenever I'm writing Portunista's ethical failures she tends to serve as a self-critical tool. Whereas, whenever she does something particularly awesome, I'm thinking of someone else. :) Or of a daughter of someone else rather. )
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Chapter 35: As Silent As A Breeze

___Time passed, slowly. But it passed.
___I saw Seifas wake. Dagon reacquired his normal nonchalance; although I now could see the signs beneath.
___Dagon chose a room, and closed its door, leaving Seifas to keep his watch alone.
___Seifas stretched, near the firepit, on the floor, having pulled out a tiny vial from a belt-pouch. Opening his 'pillow'...Ah! An answer to a mystery!—a leather-covered book! He must have kept it in a trouser pocket. From within the book he picked a writing bone, dipping it into the vial.
___Seifas kept a journal.
___He lay on his stomach, leaving the healing scars upon his back to open air, his nose almost on the page, his hand precise and quick despite dim light—too dim for any normal man to read and write, but not for juacuaran eyes.
___Why so dim, I wondered...? Because, only one torch remained alight; and as I watched, it also sputtered and then extinguished. Older torches needed some attendance—but Dagon had been too intent on his hateful thoughts; and now the great and cautious juacuar was too intent on writing his book!
___Still, a meager firepit glow would be enough to show me, if I walked onto the landing.
___Seifas quickly settled into a habit: write one page, look around, and then begin another.
___Plenty of time.
___Gemalfan, in his disciplex, had written of an incidental property of Silveraire—one that now would serve me well.
___I waited, until Seifas gave the area a piercing gaze.
___Then I quickly jotted a plane of Silveraire, halfway down the hall, toward the firepit, filling it in from floor to ceiling and wide from wall to wall. With my smaller mirror still in place, I now could see the dim reflection of my section of the hall. I specially bound the jotting, securing the image of my hallway half, and then revolved my plate around its axis, like a cattle gate.
___When Seifas next looked up, he still would see my hallway section—just as he had seen it before!
___True, he would be seeing it reversed, as with a normal mirror; but in a symmetric hallway such a difference wouldn't be instantly notable. A close inspection might have shown the stairways leading up and down had now reversed positions; but in chancy light this seemed unlikely. Besides, it only had to last for half a minute.
___I walked around the corner, to Jian's door.

___What did I feel?
___Too many things.

___I placed my left hand near the handle of his door, and bound on it another, larger Airebelle—for of course my current sphere was pooling on its surface, not surrounding it. With my other hand I pushed the latch, opening the door within its silent belle.
___Dark inside—too dark for me to see. Now I had to take a risk. I whistled up a wisp, but fashioned it in the new alteration I had discovered that evening.
___It burst into its existence, but not brightly; glowing as faint as starlit mist instead.
___Showing Jian asleep upon the quitch.
___No furniture to speak of; only wooden framing in the far left corner, holding the grass and patch of dirt upon which Jian was sleeping. The frame was long, but wasn't wide enough for two.
___Not under normal circumstances, anyway.
___I stepped with care into the room, then shut the door; and as it neared my unmoved wrist, I dropped its belle and yanked my hand inside, gambling that the small remaining "snick" would not be heard by Seifas—nor by Jian.
___Now that I was in, I dropped the Silveraire plate outside: at worst the juacuar would only see the firelight stretch a little further down the hall.
___I was in. I deeply breathed.
___My conscience twinged; I tromped it underfoot.

___I had come too far, I told myself.
___I owed this to myself, I told myself.
___Jian owed this to me, I told myself.

___Then why not let him choose to give it?
___Because I want it now, I told myself.

___I am so ashamed, for what I did that night.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#11
Chapter 36: How It Is To Be

___Short pegs hung above the bed along the wall. I jotted a larger Airebelle upon a peg, filling most of his room, and the next one over, leaving one small cleft for us to breathe fresh air.
___Still he slept.
___I released the bind upon my smaller belle. He would hear me now, and might awake too soon unless I acted carefully.
___Still he slept.
___One more jotting...and this I wanted Jian to hear.
___I started thrumming, deep in my throat.
___Yes, this sound was more than any human might emit in certain situations—just as stories say of magi. When combined with jotting, it can...interfere...with the intents of other people.
___I would render Jian susceptible to my suggestions...

___But, then I stopped myself.
___Not for shame of what I wished to do, I am ashamed to say. Something else occurred to me.
___Errants, Seifas had said, resisted magic. And Jian had been immune to pentadarts.
___No matter; I knew other ways to reach my goal.

___No matter.

___With those two words, I threw away what I had learned that night about reality—because the implications didn't comfort me.
___I wanted to matter to Jian. It mattered to me that I matter to Jian.
___I refused to think of what Jian might think, about the matter.

___I lay myself, covering us within a dead man's robe, to betray the fairest man I ever knew.

___I began.
___Jian turned and stretched beneath me. That was fine.
___Jian opened his eyes as he awakened to me. That was fine.
___I raised myself above him; showing him my self in my pride.
___Jian's eyes focused onto me. That was fine.
___And then he spoke.

___As he opened his mouth, fear sliced into me.
___What I wanted, was for him to worship me.
___What I feared, was that he would repudiate me.
___What he said, was:
___"So.
___"This is how it is to be."

___That was not exactly fine. But it would do.

___And then he pulled me down to him.
___And he was glorious.

___Soon I had lost my grip on everything—but on him.
___I didn't care.
___I curled up in the darkness, safe and warm away from the world,
___where there was only healing and nothing that ever would hurt me.



Skip JRP commentary and go to next chapter
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

Notes from the real author...

Yep, the title of Chapter 35 is my hint that after she lost her grip on the final Airebelle, she wasn't entirely as quiet to avoid discovery as she wished.  Thus accounting for an earlier mystery. ;)

These are the two shortest chapters in the book, by design (although when trimming the Preface it ended up almost as short as 35.) The Preface Author will reveal later (at some time when I think it's dramatically appropriate) that he has been touching up his transposition from direct sources a little for his wife instead of copying them directly--in textual studies we'd call this benign redaction--but Portunista wouldn't want to dwell on the details so the PA is taking source from her Testimony pretty directly here.

As to whether this is the reason why she's writing a confessional testimony in the first place--well, it's kind of early in her story and the arc words "sharp cliff" don't factor in, so the reader should guess not. I'll make it very bluntly obvious when we get there, although I'm going to play with the reader's expectations on it, too. I might as well spoil slightly and say that, in a way, all of Book 2 is about leading up to and going over the sharp cliff (also reflected in its title, Edge of Justice), so it won't happen in this book. But Portunista, from her future perspective, doesn't conceptually distinguish between various betrayals as being categorically different from one another: they all connect to the sharp cliff incident itself ultimately.

A couple of readers have told me they were surprised Jian not only didn't talk Portunista out of it but actually went along with it. Good!--that ought to be surprising under the circumstances. I can't explain why at this time without spoiling whassup with Jian, but I definitely had my reasons for going this route. Anyone who read my previous chapter commentary may guess that one of those reasons is that I'm playing with the standard paladin/enchantress trope. (Which I will confirm, if vaguely so, that's a safe guess. ;) )

Naturally, chapter 36 explains the title of the whole Section ("First Night"), although there's also a more literal meaning (the whole Section, except for the morning after at chapter 37, takes place during their first night at the Tower.)
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#13
Chapter 37: Good Morning

___I slowly awoke; feeding my soul on comfort and safety.
___I mattered.

___Then my eyelids popped in shock.
___Under the door, light was seeping.
___Daylight.

___Jian's breathing changed beneath me as he awoke as well.
___Daylight. This would be embarrassing.
___To put a bold face on it would be better, I decided.
___But, not just yet.
___I kissed him on his nose.
___"You should smile like that more often—" but I put my finger on his lips to hush him, holding him close before I faced the world again...drinking our contentment.
___Then I faintly whispered, "Quiet, Jian. I need to think." Wasn't there some other way to save my dignity, without parading brazenly—?

___Jian replied, in equal whisper,
___"As you wish, my wife."

___I heard my throat clearly click.
___"What?!" That was what I tried to say. A dehydrated throat, belated prudence, and a dozen wild emotions, all conspired instead to make a quiet croak!
___Jian began to chuckle. "I'd best get up before you change back into a frog, I guess!"
___He disentangled from our couch, from his thin blanket, and from my thicker borrowed robe...a minute earlier, he would have found it far more difficult extricating himself from me!
___I dared not speak: my brain was reeling, trying to sort out too many things—be furious, or laugh at his naivete?!—and I would not announce my presence here, if possible.
___Jian quickly dressed, and buckled on his shortsword. It did look good on him...but I was not about to sanction this idea of being married, of all things!
___Still, he had me at a disadvantage: I couldn't upbraid the impossible man without alerting all the others that I had gone to him last night!
___Yet he somehow understood my wish for some discretion. Edging to the door, he put his ear against it, nodded, and then tiptoed back to me again, smiling with his blasted cheerfulness!
___He didn't touch me—I suppose my glare had some effect!—but he whispered: "They're eating breakfast around the fire. Be prepared; I've got a plan."
___With a wink, he listened at the door again—probably to ascertain that someone wasn't passing by—and then he quickly, smoothly left the room with minimal movement of the door.
___I stood and cinched my robe around me—my robe now, most certainly, and not Qarfax's! I eased to the door.
___"Good morning! We made it through the night together after all!" Coming from another man, this boisterousness might have seemed suspicious—
___"Look!" shouted Jian. "A Rogue Agent!"
___I nearly bit my tongue: he sounded so sincere, I almost thought he meant it! Then I cursed his foolishness: now their attentions would be surely redirected, but only for half a moment—nowhere near enough for me—
___"Ha-HAAAH!" Jian's cry receded down the hall; over frantic scuffles and a muffled comment on his mother—"FIEND!" he thundered. "YOU MUST DIE!!"
___I threw his door as quietly as I could, and with the briefest right-hand glance, I heeled myself around the corner to my left and up the stairs.
___My glance was enough to see that Jian had drawn his sword and leapt the firepit, scattering men behind his charge downhall.
___I surged up stairs, two at a time. Below I heard Jian laughing.
___"I'm sorry for the joke," he gasped. "You ought to see your faces!" And now I could hear him folding up in laughter, bouncing joy up stony stairs, echoing in my heart: I couldn't help but laugh a little, too.
___I reached my room—my room now; it hadn't felt that way the night before. Perhaps because the clear light shone through sashes of the window slits.

___Or, because Qarfax's ashes now were smeared across the floor...
___my breathing froze against my dash upstairs—

___—then I laughed in horrified amusement: from the streak's direction, and my memories of my leaving, I had dragged the robe across his ashes in my haste!
___I almost disrobed instantly; but too late now for squeamishness: I had been quite intimate in and with this robe already!
___What I really wanted, I decided, was a bath. Some breakfast, too, but first a bath. Last night I had observed, although I hadn't cared to notice, a bathing basin made of brass, sitting on a rug of fur.
___I wasn't keen on lugging water buckets up those stairs; but then I realized, that such a clever magus who enjoyed his comforts, might have made provision for this  already.
___Putting some trust in him—a trust established on his lethal ingenuity!—I searched the bathing tub more closely. Soon I found small sigils traced above a pair of holes, near the top-edge of an end. They matched with two brass pipings down the outside of the tub and through the rug, into the floor.
___Excellent! I'd heard of tubs like this, although I hadn't yet enjoyed one! A minute of experimenting; and then a stream of steamy water poured into the bath. A nearby dresser carried bathing implements, and even towels.
___I set aside my robe, and climbed into the basin, leaning back to let the rising water slowly cover me. I broke some soapbark chips to swirl for froth, luxuriating in the smell and feelings, sighing in contented closing eyes...
___Someone walked into the room.

___Before I could yelp—
___"Good morning, Portunista!" Jian announced; his voice shone like the morning sun outside. "Oh, that's a good idea! Congratulations!" I suppose he meant my bath.
___"What are you doing here?!" I sputtered—but then I saw the answer.
___"I brought breakfast!" he smiled, just like a child who had fixed up food for parents on a holiday.
___I couldn't find sufficient phrases for a proper cursing. Partly, it was difficult to do so in the face of his affection for me. Also, I did want to eat some breakfast.
___And our love's euphoria had not entirely vanished; the water was reminding me, with rising splendid power!
___On the other hand: I suspected why, from his perspective, he had brought the food. And he might as well have given proclamation we had spent the night together!
___My imagination melded these disturbing thoughts.
___"Jian," I said, attempting calmness. "Did you tell anyone downstairs that you were bringing breakfast to your wife?" He was placing barely balanced meats and travel-bread upon a tray he'd found across my room.
___"Ah, um..." He looked up somewhat vaguely as he thought about it. "I don't believe I told them I was bringing food to you. Although, why would I take two breakfast servings up those stairs?" he grinned at me. "And since I didn't mention you, the answer to the second question also is a 'no.'"
___I sighed. The sizzling breakfast meat, the aromatic soapbark, and the water's rising kisses—all were eroding steadily any ability to think. The fact that Jian was in the room—my room—our room?—wasn't helping, either.
___"Jian, please; I have a favor." There wasn't any use in shouting at the impossible man. "Don't tell anyone that we are...wife and husband..." I managed not to lose my temper. "Not until I give permission."
___And he shrewdly looked at me.
___And I knew my ploy had been transparent.
___But I didn't care—so long as he would do what I requested.
___"Okay," he answered quietly. "I will not tell anyone, until you give me your permission."
___Again I sighed, and leaned back in the bath. Clearly, he would be firm about our being married, even if only in private.
___Then my mouth began to water for the stronger smell of food, as he walked to set the tray upon the bathing cabinet.
___"You know..." I heard him judiciously say, "that basin looks as though it could very comfortably hold two people."
___And, as usual, he was correct.

___Afterward...I reclined upon him in my bed, looking at the sunlight playing on the ceiling overhead...not focusing on anything, just looking. My bed now—not a dead man's bed. The bed itself no longer seemed a cold dead thing; two living things now shared it in their mutual contentment. Had our spirit passed into it...? I lazily perused. And what about the quitch? I once had heard that quitchgrass had a spirit of its own, to share with those who slept upon it. Was that supposed to be good or bad? Probably good. It certainly seemed to feel very good. Better than this bed? Or only different? Something about that grass was bothering me. I couldn't hold the thought; I let it drift away, and didn't worry. The thought had come already more than once.
___The light's reflection from the polished floor, diffused, had crossed the ceiling with the passing sun. Now the men would have conclusive evidence: taking extra food upstairs was one thing; staying there for hours was another.
___I vaguely cursed beneath my breath; but this annoyance couldn't breach contented joy. Let them know. At least their confirmation now would come from Jian's own coming up to me. So, it didn't matter.
___No, better: everything mattered now. Now it was fine for everything to  matter.
___This trace of a thought reminded me of husbandry, somehow. My satisfied inertia dampened even that annoyance. I am brigade commander—and soon I shall be a queen, I dreamily thought. I could have a consort. That pleasantly settled that ridiculous notion.
___I breathed, enjoying breathing; and I shifted once or twice, enjoying movement. Everything was very satisfactory. I was glad that I had gone, to do what I had done—I ignored the base intentions for my going—I was glad I hadn't tried to sleep alone in this dead bed, and joined with Jian instead upon his bed of living grass.
___And now my bed was also full of life.
___And Jian had come to me.
___The grass would do much better in this room, I thought. I'd order Jian to bring the frame and sod. Or cut new sod, if necessary, since the grass must now be dead from want of light and water after spending seasons in that room. Here it would surely grow, lush and green—with water from the basin, even!
___The grass...Something about that grass was bothering me. I couldn't hold the thought; I let it drift away, and didn't worry. The thought would come again; for it had come again already more than—

___"Jian!" I shouted—or I gulped, as panic cut through bliss. I bolted upright on the bed, and looked down at the startled man.
___"Someone has been here!" I exclaimed. "...and planning to return!"



Skip JRP commentary and go to next chapter
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!

JasonPratt

#14
Notes from the real author...

And so ends the third Section, with a solid hint of antagonists afterward.

This seems like a good time to talk about "quitchgrass" for a moment. "Quitch" is a realworld term from which we do in fact derive the English word "couch", and did in our real history refer to a simple bed. I don't recall at the moment for sure if it referred specifically to a bed of sodded grass, but such beds have been used by peasantry in realworld history, so the connection made intrinsic sense to me.

Mikonese quitchgrass grows wild but is also specifically cultivated for use, not only by rural peasantry (its typical realworld application, mirroring its usage here in CoJ) but also by wealthy urban people looking for a safe exotic experience (a detail I haven't worked into the novels yet). Not that such people would normally sleep on mere 'dirt and grass'--an attitude toward it held by Portunista earlier, thus a hint from me by design that she comes from a fairly high class of citizenry--but unlike realworld sod beds Mikonese quitchgrass has special properties. It's a symbiotic and relatively benign partially carnivorous mossy grass functioning as an interconnected colony. It doesn't subsidize its nutrition by eating animals, but rather by processing various oils and liquid proteins exuded by animals.

How does it acquire those proteins and oils? By encouraging mammals to sleep on it. (But not to death--that would be far too much.) How does it encourage mammals to sleep on it regularly? By exuding aromatic chemicals which encourage temporary sleep and... let's see, how can I put this... well, to put it bluntly the aromatics also encourage mating. :) Which from the quitch's perspective generates excess non-waste proteins not being used by the animals. Everybody wins. The effects are slight enough however that most people simply regard the effects as rural tradition.

As might be expected, there are variant species in the wild, one of which encourages waste material production (thus is inconvenient to humans and so is avoided). Another variant, different enough to be regarded as "moss" instead of "grass" by the Mikonese, develops tough dead gripping hooks which combined with stronger aromatics keeps small animals trapped (if they have fur) and sedated until the animals starve to death after which the decomposing animal adds nutrients to the colony. This variant is cultivated on a large scale by the nation of Krygy (on the eastern coast) to create the Mikonese version of velcro! (I invented it for Book 2, so it won't be seen here.)

So if "quitch" sounds like a faintly disreputable word--well, even in the real world it also stands behind the slang "cooch" and "coochie"!  8-)


We'll be getting back to quitchgrass, and what Portunista suddenly inferred, in the next Section. (Not the more exotic properties of quitch, by the way.) At which time I'll have a story about how amusing it is for an author when a character has been developed far enough to start making unexpected contributions to the plot!--the latter half of this chapter really does exist largely because I was meandering around in my head trying to figure out how to transition into the next stage of the story while something about that quitchgrass was bothering me in the back of my mind: I felt like I had left a large plothole somehow but couldn't figure out what... and then the answer, and its unexpected implications, suddenly occurred to me by means of the character I was narratively roleplaying at the moment!

Despite how it may seem, I don't usually think of myself in terms of being "Jian", or rather no moreso than I try to get into the character of anyone whose behaviors I'm currently designing. But in this case it did literally feel and seem like Portunista "sat up in bed" and I could hear her blurting out to me, as a separate personality, "Someone has been here! And they're planning to return!"

That isn't the last time a character "decided" he or she was going to contribute to the plot in some way I wasn't expecting, and it still doesn't happen often, but that was the first time, so I remember it with special fondness: it's something most authors hope to achieve.

Yes, authors are crazy, and even when we aren't we intentionally make ourselves a little crazy. :D


While this the halfway point of the book (or of what became Book 1) by structure, it isn't the halfway point by wordcount; so I'll be able to introduce the antagonists (somewhat) and work out (and set up) some plot mysteries by the time my First Half Project is done. Which is slightly ahead of schedule: I had thought I'd be here by Valentine's Day, whereas instead I'll be finishing the project on Valentine's Day.
ICEBREAKER THESIS CHRONOLOGY! -- Victor Suvorov's Stalin Grand Strategy theory, in lots and lots of chronological order...
Dawn of Armageddon -- narrative AAR for Dawn of War: Soulstorm: Ultimate Apocalypse
Survive Harder! -- Two season narrative AAR, an Amazon Blood Bowl career.
PanzOrc Corpz Generals -- Fantasy Wars narrative AAR, half a combined campaign.
Khazâd du-bekâr! -- narrative dwarf AAR for LotR BfME2 RotWK campaign.
RobO Q Campaign Generator -- archived classic CMBB/CMAK tool!