A cannot hold in a single barking laugh. “Ignore it. It's already working. With those minor injuries, they should be healed in less than a hundredth.”
“What about you? Your wounds are . . .” Mikumi's voice trails off as she stares at me. All my injuries are scabbed over, and for the minor ones, the scabs are already peeling off.
“I heal fast.”
“Is it okay to leave now? Will the Mistress get angry?”
I shrug. “It should be okay. Elan seemed to be over her pique, but I don't understand what set her off. You would be best off getting out of the stable, while she's calm.”
“What about the guards?”
“I'll walk you out.”
* * * * *
When I reach Thrall's territory, he is at his forge, but he is not forging anything. I do not notice even a hint of emotions from him. He might as well not exist on an empathic level.
“Did you know about the spirit that following me?”
Thrall turns toward me. “So, she's gone. She was no danger to you. The opposite. She tried her best to distract and damage your opponents in the arena, while you were playing games to see how tough you had become.
“Empathy. I would never have guessed you had a predisposition for it. Hone your control over your emotions, they will become your tools and your weapons in time. Empathic assaults are extremely destructive, if the wielders emotions are strong enough. Hate and rage are good weapons.”
Thrall begins to stoke the fires in his forge. “Take out your armor. It is time to reforge that mask, so that Elan'fer'sha does not get upset when you wear it. I will show you how to alter patterns, while you are at it.”
I lay out my armor on a workbench and disconnect the mask from the helm.
Thrall stares at the mask for a minute or so. “It really does look like him. You have a good eye and deft hand, but it is best if memories of Talon are not conjured up in Gor'achen.”
“What did he do that makes him such a sore subject?”
Thrall smiles. “An all DokkAlfar arena team was competing that season. They were all the scions of lines of Provenance from the High Clans. There was a implicit understanding among the stables that they were not to be killed. During the general melee, Talon wiped out the entire team. If Blood Rose Stable were not under my protection, it would have been destroyed. Elan'fer'sha was forced to make numerous reparations, and she lost almost her entire fortune. In the end, she was only able to come to terms with the Citadel Lord, when the Central Fane of Yggr interceded. The result being that she has been at their beck and call for nearly two hundred years now.”
I cannot keep from chuckling. From what little of Talon's memories are left to me, it was clear that he had a really bad attitude when he was younger. He had mellowed a lot by the time he was Possessed, but most beings that knew of him still feared him.
Thrall drops the mask into the forge. “We will make a plain visor out of it. Doing this would normally break the pattern, but there are three ways of Making that can be used to alter items without destroying the pattern. The techniques are not exclusive to Smithing, they can be used in any form of Making. The first two will maintain the existing structure of the pattern and the last will allow the Maker to alter the pattern.”
A thick book appears in Thrall's hands, and he opens it to a specific section, before handing it to me. “Read this, it describes the three techniques. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of variants on these base techniques, but that does not matter. If you encounter variants, do what you will.”
The techniques are both simple and ridiculously complex at the same time. It all depends on the complexity of the existing pattern, and the complexity of any alterations for the third technique. I can understand them on a conceptual level, but applying them will not be easy.
“When I trained in Tallifer, my master, Roderick, never mentioned anything like this.”
Thrall's grunt might be meant as a laugh. “He probably does not know about them. Very few non-Transcendent smiths in the Battleground would be aware of these techniques, and the ones who are would be unlikely to teach them. The manual is yours. There are many techniques you might find useful in there, but almost all of them are only meant for rather explicit situations. You will probably find countless others over the course of you life. There is no end to Making.”
I store the book in my belt.
Thrall holds out his hands and the image a pattern appears over each. Neither is a complete pattern. They seem to be attributes meant to included into larger patterns.
“Hardness and resilience. Find a way to link them into the pattern of your own armor. With these included in your armor's pattern, it would have been more than strong enough to use against the Ogre.”
Holding my armor's pattern stable, while I reshape the mask into a visor is not difficult, but that is only the beginning. Before putting the final temper on the visor, I need merge the two attribute patterns into the whole. Hours pass as I struggle with the structure of the whole, and my mana burns dangerously low. If I cannot complete the pattern before I run out of mana, the pattern on my armor will be broken, and I will have to start Patterning it all over again.
In the end, my mana runs out first, and I can only watch the armor's pattern shatter. The surface of the armor takes on a dull and corroded appearance.
Thrall nods in apparent satisfaction. “Your attempt was well done. The approach you used was solid, and if you had more mana, you would have probably succeeded.”
My laugh is full of bitter frustration. “So what do I do now?”
“Re-Pattern the armor, and re-temper it. Then, start over trying to modify the pattern to include the new attributes. Do it as many times as it takes for you to succeed.”
Another Assassination
*** Gor'achen Citadel - Battleground of the Damned ***
Return: Day 283
“Very good!” Thrall's face is revealing a pleased smile.
The finished armor lies on the worktable. Mastering the technique for modifying the pattern proved far more difficult than I anticipated. In the end, I only succeeded so quickly, because of Thrall's suggestion that I use etchings help focus and bind the new pattern elements. Now, my armor has two fists engraved into the breastplate.
“The strength of your mana has improved greatly by performing this task. Working until you completely exhausted it so many times has opened up much more of your potential.”
As Thrall said, the result has been an enormous improvement to the size my mana pool and the amount of mana I can channel. What was a small stream only weeks ago has become a torrent, but it still does not feel like it is more than half the strength of my ki. A not quite as noticeable change is the effect that my increased mana has had on my body, mind, and soul. By circulating mana through my body, mind, and soul in the same manner as I do with ki, it has increased my strength speed and resilience.
I am not sure of the difference in level from before, but because of my distinct lack of mana, I have been working out with the gladiators. The difference in my speed and reaction time has reached the point where even the speed Tyrend's attacks is starting to look mundane.
“What is your understanding of the symbols of breaking?”
Thrall's question catches me flatfooted. I still cannot tell what tangent he is going to come at me with at any given time. Since the assassination, I have not really thought much about the symbols of breaking, but there is obviously something about them that Thrall considers important.
“They allow a Smith damage or break the patterns within forged objects, maybe within any metal. Using the symbols, a Smith can destroy an enemy's weapons and armor.”
“What else?”
“I don't know.”
Thrall snorts. “How do the symbols work?”
I scratch my scarred cheek, while thinking for a moment. “The symbols permeate the objects pattern to find any compatible faults in the metal, then fracture the metal along the faults.”
/> “Is metal the only physical object that has faults?”
“No. Wood, stone, cloth, leather, and almost everything else has faults. Noting is perfect.”
“What about living beings?”
I just stare at Thrall for a moment. “The symbols will work on living creatures?”
Thrall smiles faintly. “You are a Trinary. Once you develop all three Powers, as long as your enemy is not also a Trinary, he will always have at least one area in which he is vulnerable. Your mana is strong enough for you to use it as a weapon now. Remember, Makers are the greatest of Destroyers. Because you understand how to create patterns, you have the tools to understand their natures and find their weaknesses. They symbols of breaking are tool to aid you in this. Over time, there is no reason that you cannot develop new symbols even better suited to your own mentality. When your psi is stronger, you will have yet another weapon in your arsenal.
“You will find very few adepts under the Third Circle of Coalescence that you will not be able to defeat, if you are smart and sneaky about it. You will even have the chance to defeat many in the Third Circle and with surprise at least injure those in the Fourth Circle.
“Coalescence only improves on the base you have to work with. Just because you enter a new Circle of Coalescence, does not mean there is a miraculous transformation to a state of being that means those at a lower Circle or no Circle can no longer touch you. Your base level of ki is already far beyond the average. When you fully develop all three aspects of the Trinity, you will be stronger than all but the extreme outliers in terms of Power. If you become a Triune, your Power will put in the realm that can only be reached through Coalescence for those who are not Triunes.”
*** Gor'achen Citadel - Battleground of the Damned ***
Return: Day 287
Elan'fer'sha pauses in the door of Thrall's training hall. She does not seem to be aware that even with my back to the door I can still watch her with my spatial awareness. From her posture, she seems to be hesitant to enter the hall. A leather satchel is clasped in her right hand.
Since the night she made Mikumi watch our fucking, she had been different. She no longer wants to be abused and only draws out a small portion of my Power, when we fuck. I think something scared her that night, but I do not know exactly what it was. Was it the depth of my Power? Was it my violent reaction to her games? Was it something else?
From what Tyrend picked up, the amount of money she raked in from the betting on my fight with the Ogre was astronomical. None of the bookies thought I could win, and the odds were heavily stacked against me. Where Tyrend acquires his information is unclear, but there are probably information networks among slaves and the non-citizens in Gor'achen. In the eyes of the DokkAlfar, the only real difference between the two groups is that the slaves already have their collars on.
Ignoring Elan'fer'sha, I continue working with my axe on a target dummy. No matter how badly I chop up one of the dummies in Thrall's training, it will automatically repair itself, when the spell formation is activated. My Blood Iron axe still has not been Patterned, so the training dummies will last for ten to fifteen strikes. Considering its weight and sharpness, if I Patterned the axe, it would probably be able to cleave through the armor of one of the old Earth tanks.
After watching for close to ten minutes, Elan'fer'sha enters the training hall. She starts slightly, as I turn to face her.
“You knew I was watching.” There is no hint of a question in her voice.
I shrug faintly. “You seemed caught up in your own deliberations.”
Elan'fer'sha almost smiles, before putting a stern look on her face. “Aluras has sent a messenger with you next target.”
I frown. “What about my payment?”
“You botched your last mission. The target was killed in the wrong location, and you exposed yourself to the Left Hand Order assassins. Aluras is demanding this kill in compensation.”
“I don't owe that dyke jack or shit.”
Elan'fer'sha's eyes glisten for a second, and she looks away from me. “If you do not do this, you will cause problems for me.”
“What's the hold she has on you?”
Elan'fer'sha frowns for real and clenches her left hand into a fist. “She doesn't have any hold on me. We have been allies since we were children. Now, I need her more than she needs me. The only thing I have to offer her is the adulation of the stable's fans, and that is only a secondhand devotion at best. Aluras gives me access to the information her espionage network collects. Without that information, I will have no chance of ever finding the murderer of my clan.”
“You've twisted your life around vengeance. It is really that important to you?”
Elan'fer'sha turns and glares at me. “What else do I have? I am a Wytch, and outcast among my own race. If my clan was not betrayed and destroyed, I would not be trapped in this life. Three clans and seven line of Provenance were destroyed in only a few years, and the traitor was never found. Aluras and I may be the only ones still looking.”
I sigh. “It's been what a hundred, two hundred years? You haven't found any real clues about a traitor. Are you sure that your clan was betrayed? Couldn't there just have been mistakes made that left them vulnerable to the LjosAlfar?”
Elan'fer'sha looks like she wants to scream at me, but she does not. After a few moments, she looks at the floor. “I don't know anymore. We have never found any clues about how the convoys or secret outposts were found, but that doesn't mean we won't. Aluras' clan has one of the largest spy networks of any of the Citadel clans. If the information is there, it is only a matter of time.”
“Do you have that much time left?”
Her eyes wide from shock, Elan'fer'sha stares at me in silence for almost a minute. “How do you know?”
I close my eyes for a moment and look downward. “I've had too many dealing with Umbral casters. Every one of them was being corrupted and destroyed by the Umbra. You have all the signs of an advanced level of damage. Do you have any idea how much time you have left?”
Elan'fer'sha turns her back to me, her arms tightly crossed over her chest. Her voice is barely even a whisper. “Too little. Less than twenty years. Probably, less than ten. No matter what entities I summon or what scrying spells I use, nothing has ever turned up any information. I have poured all of my resources into buying information, but none of it has ever led me to the traitor. But I can't give up now. If I do, my life will have meant nothing. Everything I have done will be meaningless.”
As I put my hand on her shoulder, Elan'fer'sha stiffens, but after a moment, she relaxes. When I turn her around, she does not resist. Her eyes empty. They look like soulless amber gems, faintly glistening with unshed tears. Her lower lip quivers, when I take the satchel out of her hand.
“I'll kill the target, but this is the last one. I'm not suited to be an assassin. After the last job, I understood how mismatched I am to that profession.”
“Why?” Confusion mixes with hopelessness, as she stares at me.
I shrug. “Why not? It will be my last assassination for Aluras'bektsh'tar. Two are enough. I don't like her. I don't trust her. I'll help you for as long as I stay in Gor'achen, but I won't do shit else for her.”
Elan'fer'sha nods, but I have no clue what the gesture is supposed to mean. After looking at me for a moment, she turns and leaves the training hall.
Why? The question resonates in my mind, but it is only my own inner voice. Perzey's voice is gone forever. If I had noticed her spirit sooner, would it have made a difference?
Why? I cannot answer my own question. I do not know why I am going to make this last kill. I do not think I am doing it for myself, am I doing it for Elan'fer'sha? I do not care who the victim is. I need to know where Woden took the targets of my own vengeance, before I can move. Though, I will not let myself obsess over revenge. The way Elan'fer'sha has destroyed herself in her quest for vengeance is warning enough to not do the same.
Moving into Thrall's Smithy,
I spread the contents of the satchel out on a workbench. This time the First Layer map has a tower marked. Other maps contain details of the interior of that tower. Assuming the maps are accurate, Aluras'bektsh'tar or her source for these maps knows this tower very well.
The target is Sinla'aveyka'tar of Clan Mistress of Clan Aveyka'tar. According to the information, she is another one of the Stoics. Her clan only has five blood members, and everyone else in the compound is a retainer.
Talchok'aveyka'tar is the Lord of Gor'achen Citadel and the Clan Master of Clan Gor'achen. The information Aluras'bektsh'tar provided does not give any information on the link between the target and Citadel Lord, but they are obviously of the same Provenance. What is the relationship between the two? What the fuck is that fucked up dyke plotting?
I really do not give two shits about DokkAlfar politics and grudges, but I have no intention of getting caught in the middle of some political power struggle.
Thrall is not around, so I cannot ask him about the political state of Gor'achen. It is not unusual for him to disappear for a day or three, but I need to figure out what I may be walking into. Elan'fer'sha is my only option.
The guards do not say anything, when I leave Thrall's territory and head up the stairs to the main residential part of the compound. Except for Elan'fer'sha, her butler, and a handful of female human slaves, no one else lives in a residence that could support several dozen people. Since declaring myself not a slave, Elan'fer'sha has not tried to stop me from exploring the stable. Most of the residential section is closed up, with the unused rooms empty and covered in a layer of dust.
I have never found Elan'fer'sha to be in her bedroom. She is always either in her study or her ritual chamber, when I come up from the gladiator cells. A number of times, I have found her sleeping at her desk. Knowing she is dying, she must be under enormous pressure to finish her quest for vengeance, and most of that quest involves digging though information, trying to find the clues that will lead her to her target.
Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) Page 26
