Chapter One-Hundred-Forty-Eight: Talon-Ben Nul Huduk - Part One

  Galactic Quadrant: Darna Quadrant

  Ruling Government: Talum Merchant Federation

  Solar System: D-447

  Three weeks crawled by and I barely noticed. Thoughts of Luna, Arrum and the others fill my mind often. When I asked for a way to communicate with her and the others, Solara told me it was not possible because the ship was shielded. Whether this is true, I do not know. Solara does not speak of Luna when I ask how she is, she did not speak at all for days. Though she did continue my training, always patient, even with the sorrow that filled her. Thankfully it has begun to lift the last two days.

  There is much that she has taught me, besides the next phases of mana tracing. She teaches of decorum and etiquette. How the noble houses function and the various gods that claim them. What common runes mean, and how they function. In weeks she has dwarfed all the knowledge that I gleaned from Luna in months. There is some sourness at this.

  “Good,” she looks at me with a tilted gaze, “Your mana tracing has improved at an incredible rate again.”

  I made a mistake here, tracing three lines and weaving them into a new pattern. The day before she only saw me do two.

  “I had a good teacher.”

  “Luna?” she asks, less spite in the name then she last spoke it.

  “And you. Before that, I had the Sage to guide me.”

  She smiles, “I’ve always found it curious that you call him that. Did he pick the name?”

  “No, Artemius did not pick the name. It was given by the people he helped.”

  She stands, lowering a hand which I do not need to stand, but I grasp it in the spirit that it was given.

  “Tell me more about him while we meditate.”

  She leads me to a small chamber that is filled with an extraordinary amount of Etherium, cut and chiseled in patterns. Adorning the floors and walls, held by metallic clasps in patterns that please the eye. There is no light source in the room, besides the hum of deep blue from the Etherium. It casts beautiful shadows.

  “He was a kind man, more so than any I have met since.”

  “Kinder than me?”

  “You are not a man.”

  She sighs, “You always take everything so literally.”

  “Words have meaning.”

  “Yes, but you surely understood that I meant was he kinder than me, not that I was inferring I am a man,” she leans forward, her top hanging low, “I am clearly not a man.”

  “My people are careful with the words they speak. A lifetime of blood spilled for a misspoken word has carved that into them.”

  Her face does not have pity on it, but it is saddened by my words, “That must have been difficult.”

  Difficult… I press back the painful memories.

  “There were good moments. Besides, it taught me many things that must be seen to understand.”

  “Such as?”

  My eyes lower, ruminating on my past, thinking of Arrum and the brothers, Haki and Daki.

  “That true friends are precious.”

  She comes closer to me, more than she needs to, so I shift away, giving her a reminding glance that doesn’t need words to say, Luna is my only interest. She sighs and closes her eyes, beginning to meditate.

  The room itself is one that she has had me start and finish each day in. The sheer amount of Etheric Maka in the air is strange after a lifetime on planet Ora, where the ambient Netheric Maka is so high that normal people would turn to Shulka without protective equipment. Or so Solara tells me. She told me these chambers are made to purge the body of Netheric mana and saturate it with Etheric. She said that nobles often outfit their ships with them, as often their pride results in them pushing past their capabilities, these chambers can reverse the changing easily.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  The room also serves to help me find the rhythm that I felt before and practice it. Though I do not think she has realized that I figured it out two weeks ago. These weeks of being fed until full and being close to so much Etherium, it is a chance that I cannot pass up. My withered frame has become less sunken, my muscles feel fuller, stronger, even more so than before. In another week I will be ready for whatever comes my way.

  “Are you ready to tell me more?” I ask, my eyes closed as I pull the Maka back and forth through my body, each cell bathing in it.

  “Are we friends yet?”

  “By your definition, yes.”

  “By yours?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever tried lying?”

  “Yes.”

  She lets out another sigh, “I suppose if anything, your brutal honesty is refreshing.”

  “Truth is not brutal, expectations are.”

  I can feel her eyes on me, searching for a connection that I cannot give her. It is not that I find her displeasing, if anything, she is beautiful in many ways. There is only one flaw that she will never overcome, she is not Luna.

  “If I had met you first, do you think…” she begins but does not finish, the words hang there, unanswered. I feel her stand and the door opens, “When you finish, we shall spar, your body is recovered enough.”

  My eyes slowly open, tracing up into hers.

  She tilts her head, “If you best me, I will tell you whatever you ask. If I win, you will tell me.”

  “Then I am ready.”

  A grin creeps across her face, she has wondered as I have wondered, which one of us would win in a fair fight. A lifetime of training different styles, two warriors seeking to test their blades of will against each other.

  ***

  We stand across from each other, the room is large, nearly the size of my old Clan’s hall, the height of it though, much taller. This ship was not designed for function. They could have reinforced the hull here, instead, an oversized ceiling hangs above with dazzling lights and fixtures that serve no purpose other than to please certain eyes. I will never understand the needs of such things. Raised by efficiency, all I see are flaws.

  “How do you want to do this?” she asks, tracing the edge of the large mat, her eyes focusing like a predator.

  My stance is calm and open, eyes closed, but I feel the room, the shape of the swells of Maka. My vision of it has been improving the more I meditate in that chamber, to the point that someday I may not need my eyes to truly see.

  “We can do a match as your people do it, and one as mine.”

  “I told you to stop calling them my people,” she says, shaking her head, “A person can be more than their heritage.”

  My thoughts draw into memory, can they? I have seen few examples of it.

  “Perhaps.”

  “We do it your way first, then mine.”

  “Agreed, I will need ink and dulled blades.”

  “Just pull back at the last moment, there is no need for a dulled blade.”

  I shake my head, “A hand that is taught restraint will seek it when the mind falters. The blade must be dull in practice, so that when it is sharp, it will always find its mark. Besides, the ink tells the truth that the mind does not want to accept.”

  “Fine,” she breathes with an eyeroll, “I don’t think I have any though. I’ve never kept dulled blades.”

  “The sheathes will be fine,” I say, thinking of how Dargo used his to strike us.

  “They won’t feel the same as a blade’s handle.”

  “We train with every shape and size of handle, it will be fine for me, you can use a sharp one.”

  She tilts her head, “And how will I mark you without cutting you?”

  My eyes open, meeting hers, “You won’t.”

  She laughs, a challenging grin sliding across her mouth.

  “Don’t cry if I cut you to ribbons.”

  “Kuwathi do not cry.”

  “For fuck’s sake,” she breathes shallowly, “Would it kill you to relax?”

  Being relaxed is why Mallock was able to take us in the first place, if I had been more vigilant of my surroundings, perhaps I could have warned Fennec sooner. My eyes lower, no, her master… Dargo. He would have found us regardless.

  “How many questions will you answer?” I ask, gaze narrowing at her.

  “As many as you want, not that it matters.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?”

  She tosses me a sheathe dipped in black ink, “You’re not going to win.”

  It is my turn to grin at her.

  “Begin,” I breathe.

  The air cracks as she bounds forward, faster than I expected. My stance lowers as I duck her blade and roll to strike her ankle, as I do, my eyes widen, she shifts her weight at the last moment and rolls with me, nearly stabbing my stomach.

  “Did you think I would be that easy?” she asks as a flurry of blurred strikes nearly claim me.

  I bound backward to increase the distance.

  “Where are you running?” she asks, bounding after.

  Sekat… I underestimated her. Still, there is a smile forming on my face, one that only musters in the presence of a challenge. I leap forward, twisting my body and shifting my momentum with a single kick at the ground. She follows as I wanted her to. I have been feigning my speed this entire time. Wishing to gauge her, I sense that she may be also. She has the same smile as I do.

  Seventeen blows land without purchase for either of us, save a small mark on her forearm. I can feel the one who taught her the art of war. Dargo’s blade song is mixed with hers. Even if she hadn’t told me, I would have known it. She is at a disadvantage because of it, as I have studied him closely.

  There is something sad in her movements though, a song that wishes to be sung, but is trapped beneath her master’s melody.

  “Your blade sings like his.”

  She strikes seven times in the blink of an eye, a proud smirk on her face.

  “I am his disciple after all.”

  It is here that I decide to end it, in the moment where she relies on the pride of his blade to fight. It is here that she must see it fall to believe there is hope for her own to rise. My pace explodes in a blur of movement, feigning twice to the right before sweeping to the left. My eyes no longer show where I will go. They look where I will not be, confusing her rhythm.

  The first fatal mark is across her inner arm, running diagonally across the artery. The next is a strike between her ribs where her heart lies, then her right lung, then her throat. She gasps for air, blinking quickly, unable to process what happened.

  “There is something that is beneath the song he has taught your blade. A song that only you will know how to sing. If you wish to become better than him, you must step from his shadow.”

  Her smile fades into a snarl.

  “We go again, I will not hold back this time.”

  “In the way of your…”

  “No,” she interrupts, “Same rules, I will show you my true strength, I will make you bleed for insulting my master.”

  “Insulting?” I ask, tilting my head, did she not understand my meaning? I sigh, taking position across from her.

  The Maka in the air stirs as her runes begin to hum with light upon her skin. Intricate runes, only rivaled by the ones I saw on Luna.

  I guess it’s time to get serious, and test the runes I have been shaping in secret.