#flight novel

[fakesurprise]

The dealings with various states and provinces were interesting, but far less so than just casual statements of underground roads that involves carriages without horses that ran along tracks like a child’s toy brought to life. Entire cities where floatstone was used almost casually to keep them above swamps and there were at least four provinces of the Niand Empire that were like the island that floated above Vhandrel, only the people there could actually move and direct their floating islands.

The complications this created politically were amazing, and those were only some of the casual statements. There were bridges spanning lakes of water and of magma, cities made entirely from forests – every tree becoming a home, the entire cities traversed by networks of bridges made from vines. There was even one city made in a glacier that floated south of the empire proper and was its own province as well. And this was all just casual knowledge Koel knew, nothing remotely secret or hidden. I privately wondered if an empire that was that varied could be destroyed, but wasn’t about to voice such thoughts aloud. The Blight might not listen, but it was said to like a challenge.

[fakesurprise]

The thing they never taught about power is that it goes away. You could ride it for a time. There were riders without horses. Paths one can walk down faster than others could run. You could go on the right direction, ride power like a knife edge you never know is an edge at all.

You could do that, until one day you can’t anymore. One day the power just isn’t there. It is still you. You are still you: still speaking, still moving, but whatever you had over other people is gone. Perhaps we get complacent in our power, think it will last somehow when we will not. I think it is more than we come to desire other things than power, but it is hard to give that a name. 

I know how to fight, better than most. But in time it will be something I know, and not something I can still do. I will still move, but it won’t be fast enough. Time withers all around us, but the lie of power is that we might be exempt. I suspect even the gifts of Providence are like that. Time diminishes. People fade. But the Blight just digs in deeper. Power goes away. Curses linger, no matter how far away from them we try and go.

I never thought such things in the Six Kingdoms. But here, in the Niand Empire, the weight of time presses in. Everything is so much older; what remains is that which has endured. 

[fakesurprise]

“Sometimes.” In the dream, the voice is a shadow of cold ice.

A shape moves behind me, nothing so obvious as a presence. I don’t move. Even in a dream I know better. I wait.

“Sometimes you disappoint me,” Knort’s voice whispers, both craggy rock and the water that breaks through.

“I do not understand how,” I say. There is an edge to my own voice I cannot hide.

“How you look at Leos is somehow a how others look at you, Sia.”

In the dream, I dare to laugh at the armsmaster of New Dakesh.

“I am not blinded by foolishness. Skill such as his comes by once a generation. If that. I have seen him spar. I have seen him kill. To face Leos without a weapon is to lose. To have him with one at least a small chance.”

There is silence. Even in a dream, somehow silence. And then words of quiet thunder. “You rust your blade against truth not your own. You are Sia aKnort. You dishonour yourself to forget that.”

I wake disbelieving, The air feels cold despite Cel’s arm about me. I breathe. I do not move. Dreams lie. I knew that better than most. Dreams lie. But they are also all we have of hope.

[fakesurprise]

“An empire survives in part by being careful what weaknesses it does show. And causing a Blight War is more than mere weakness or accident. Sometimes when a failure is so deep, people can’t believe it was a failure. Nothing could go wrong by accident, someone must be at fault. Other people, entire nations: having a focus for blame is sometimes the only defense against the reality that most things occur from random chance more than deliberate choices. For good or ill.”

[fakesurprise]

“No offer to spar?” Solthren asked.

Leos snorted. “I was a prince. And even if I were not, I’d like to think I know better than most to look beyond the tyranny of appearance.”

Solthren chuckled softly. “Your flattery is impressive. But I am old, and slow with age, and two decades of lunches and fine drinks have done this old body no favours.”

“You run the Crest; you could just ask ask archers to fire, and they would count as you,” Leos said. “I won’t pretend I am good in a battle; I am not that good.”

“That is true, yes. But it would hardly be fair of me to do so,” Solthren said.

“No one achieves victory by being fair,” Leos replied in the same mild tone.

“That is true.” I sensed Leos tense, which is the only reason I moved aside in time.

[fakesurprise]

When novels snap into place...

Did over 6K last night for Flight. Sia, Leos and Cel finally have a goal (however nebulous, and despite Leos protesting). The next few scenes are part of is Sia working toward that, and a slow understanding of just how damn impressive she is in her mastery of the combative arts. 

She did spent a whole novel basically comparing herself against Leos, which was entirely unfair to her given his training is far more extensive at least as far as unarmed combat goes :)) and he did have years of constant training and pushing from Knort that no one else has got. In his own way, Leos is the kind of prodigy that comes along once a generation. 

But Sia is no slouch and was picked by Knort to bodyguard Leos for very good reasons. Reasons even she did not grasp. And Leos did not see this because, well, he is a prince. He just figured she knew how good she was, because he saw it. Sia coming into her own understanding of herself - both as someone trained by Knort and as Sia - nobility or not - will be a lot of fun.

[fakesurprise]

The man who entered the room was had seen as least forty winters, his beard peppered grey and white. He had no weapon and moved with the easy looseness of one who did not need any.

I saluted him with a hand and he came in. Earth, yes, but also sparks and ash and fire. A style not formal, one honed by those who were mostly self taught. I evaded each blow, earning a handful or bruises in turn. Our breaths were harsh but controlled, movements speed against speed. I met earth and fire with water, evading and twisting, forcing openings and driving blows in to slow him. He had me on skill, but I had youth and sparring with Leos on my side. We move in and about each other in a short, brutal dance of bone and breath before I snagged his legs in mine like twigs against rapids and he hit the ground hard.

I was breathing heavily as I stood. We’d amassed an audience of at least a dozen.

“How long?” I asked.

“Ten minutes.” The woman named Dimet, her tone shocked.

“Felt like five.” I held out a hand.

The older man accepted the hand up. “You were reluctant to spar at first; may I ask why?” he said.

“Spears are better than swords for most real training.” I shrugged. “I have a blade, but a lot of that is status; most of the speed I was trained in was just to get inside the range of a spear as they were seen as weapons of commoners. Possibly a way for the noble houses to cull themselves, that. I used a spear more as a guard, a blade more as a bodyguard.”

“And without a weapon?”

“Different training, for different ends. Unless I read it wrong, the Niand Empire uses the same style with and without weapons. Because you’d often be fighting as a group, or could be. You need consistency more than victory, if that makes sense?”

[fakesurprise]

“My grandfather once told me to never trust the very old,” Cel said softly. “They are full of stories about how the world is ending because theirs already has. Too many lost, too much has changed and they look about in a sea of faces that are all strangers, and they wish that the ending that is coming for them would take the world as well. I always thought it untrue, or at least kind.”