Volithur climbed into the hovering transport and sat where directed. The soldiers around him ignored his existence other than to block his movements when he approached anywhere he wasn’t supposed to be. He didn’t quite understand his social position relative to them, but he seemed to be simultaneously higher and lower than them.
Another of the youths taken on by the Lord General as a ward sat beside him. The brawny boy Thassily had been assigned to the fifth household as well, reporting to the marshal but without the positive note written in his file. Apparently Thassily didn’t look like any recently deceased subordinates, so no unearned benefits for him. Also no mandatory name change. Maybe that balanced out in the end.
A shout came from the front of the transport. “Lock it up!”
The soldier closest to the door swung it shut, placed a crossbar, and slid a pin in place. “Locked up tight!”
The person up front responded. “Prepare for movement!”
With that warning delivered, the transport shot straight upward, pushing Volithur down into his seat as if he were rocketing into space. The pressure slowly declined and then they started moving horizontally. Volithur cocked his head as far as possible and stared through the nearest window. They were moving incredibly fast through the sky, the ground racing past beneath them at speeds that put civilian aircraft to shame.
While the wooden transport vehicle didn’t look particularly aerodynamic or even airtight, it moved at a rapid pace without the slightest turbulence. The only indication of their motion was the sense of acceleration and deceleration.
Thassily cried quietly beside him and Volithur offered the only comfort he felt capable of at the moment by pretending not to see. Instead he watched the ground blur as they approached a giant spherical shimmer in the sky. They were surrounded by other transports. All of which began to slow and then stopped to hover in front of the reflective surface of the sphere.
When it seemed that the airspace could get no more crowded, a figure Volithur recognized appeared in the air before the sphere, suspended by nothing more substantial than willpower. Lord General Thrakkar Shaocheth floated towards the sphere and its surface deformed inward into a concave slope. The transports began to creep forward behind the general.
Slowly, the wall of the sphere moved inward like a beach ball being pressed inward along one side until it formed a cave. The cave grew larger as they entered inside, becoming a cavern that seemed every bit as large as the external dimensions of the sphere. Vehicles continued to enter through what was now a circular entrance to the dark interior.
When the flow of transports ceased, the circle leading to the light of outside shrank upon itself into a pinprick and disappeared, leaving them in darkness relieved only by the dim lanterns of the transports around them. Volithur stared about him in awe, unable to comprehend what exactly was happening. He assumed they were teleporting elsewhere. Another planet? Another universe?
The circle of light returned, rapidly growing in size until the shimmering skin of the sphere disappeared from sight entirely. The transport then began to move once more, first slowly as it navigated free of the pack of vehicles, then fast as before, causing the ground to blur past.
They flew for less than an hour before slowing on approach to a small town enclosed by tall walls. Figures stationed at the various guard towers lifted into the air under their own power to scrutinize the approaching transport before dismissing it as a non-threat and sinking back to their posts. The transport stopped to hover over the grounds of a nearby palace at the center of the town, then lowered itself to touch down on a stone patio.
The pilot called again from the front. “We’re down! Release the hatch!”
The soldiers opened the door and began to hop down onto the ground. Volithur followed them out and turned in a large circle to take in the grounds. The palace grounds were ridiculously immense. A herd of sheep were grazing on the grass. There were several ponds where geese congregated. Warriors sparred with padded spears and wooden practice swords, on the ground and in the air. Outbuildings following the same stepped pyramid design as the main complex swarmed with activity. Meanwhile, the main pyramidal palace squatted like a giant above it all.
The pilot hopped out of the transport and snapped his fingers. “Hey, ward one and ward two, I don’t have all day. I need to get you registered with the marshal before I can go off duty.”
Volithur and Thassily followed the pilot towards the palace proper at a brisk march. They walked under an arch set in the outer wall of the lowest tier of the pyramid and continued inside for several minutes until they reached a square courtyard that extended several stories up, balconies on the higher tiers of the pyramid looking down onto the space. The ceiling let in light, glittering like glass as he caught sight of people all the way up there walking atop it.
“What are you doing inside the central complex, soldier?”
The pilot turned on his heel and folded into a deep bow. “Master Castellan, I am here on orders of the Lord General to deliver two wards into service under the Marshal.”
The man who had accosted them pressed his lips together into a firm line. “I of course would never countermand his orders. However, the family is hosting guests presently. The presence of soldiers and untrained wards gives a poor impression. Kindly wait in the combat school and I will inform the Marshal of your arrival.”The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“At your command, Master Castellan.” The pilot straightened up from his bow, turned on his heel, and began to march back the way they had come.
“Hold,” the castellan snapped, bringing the pilot to a jarring halt. “Do these wards have no decorum whatsoever?”
The pilot rushed back, bowed as deeply as he did briefly, and faced the two newcomers. “Wards, please bow to the master and say ‘at your command, Master Castellan’.”
The two of them complied after a beat, whereupon the castellan sniffed. “Soldier, I would like to impress the importance of proper behavior upon these two. See to it that they are motivated.”
The pilot hesitated, mouth open.
“You have an objection, soldier?”
“Uh, my sincere apologies, Master Castellan. These two are from the other world. They do not know our culture yet.”
“And?”
The pilot sighed. “I will see that they are punished for their breach of etiquette.”
“You should share in their punishment, soldier, for speaking out of turn.”
The pilot bowed and issued another ‘at your command’ before turning to leave, this time with the wards in tow. Thassily rumbled a question as they reached the outside once more. “Are we going to be punished for not knowing the rules?”
“One thing you need to get used to very quickly around here is that the rules are set by those above you. If you want any reprieve at all, you need to gain as much power as you possibly can.” The pilot sniffed. “For example, I will be skipping out on my punishment because I’m a level five cultivator and trained pilot. The castellan won’t be pleased, but he will forget about the incident so long as he doesn’t lose face in public. The two of you aren’t even awakened yet. You’re level zero. Everyone you see here has the power to make your life miserable. Your lives are guaranteed for a time because of your wardships, but you don’t want to have enemies when that protection runs out.”
Volilthur clenched his jaw. “How do we get to higher levels?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that. You are going to be given as much training as you can handle. If you have ambition and even a tiny bit of talent, you will be force-fed knowledge of proper technique until you want to run away.”
They arrived at a smaller pyramid, this one only two tiers tall. The pilot walked up to a man cleaning a chalkboard. “Clerk, I’m delivering two new wards and their paperwork to you.”
“To me? They need to see the marshal.”
“A duty which I am delegating to you as the castellan forbade us entry.”
The Barracks Clerk rolled his eyes. “They can wait quietly in the corner.”
“The Castellan wants them to be punished for not knowing or showing proper decorum.”
The Barracks Clerk put hands on his hips and faced the pilot. “And what am I to take that to mean? Are they to be caned in public or will a stern talk suffice?”
The pilot shrugged. “That’s your call to make now. Good luck, wards.”
Left alone with the clerk, the two of them stared at the newest in a long line of strangers to hold their lives in his hands. The Barracks Clerk picked up the paperwork that had been left behind and glanced through it. “Doesn’t seem fair to punish the two of you for being foreign. Would be bad on you if the castellan thought you got off easy, though. I’ll just give you a week on septic duty. That seems cruel enough to make whatever point ought to be made.”
The Barracks Clerk erased another section of blackboard and then wrote their names under a column with the heading of ‘septic’. It took Volilthur a second to recognize his new name up there. Harridan. A stranger’s name that from now on would be his identity.
“The new duty rotation starts tomorrow, so don’t stress it much. You will hate the work because of the smell and the humiliation, but it won’t be harmful to you. Since I don’t want to babysit you until the marshal comes down from his office, I’m going to put you two up in a room with a cultivation manual.” The Barracks Clerk blinked. “You two can read, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Volilthur said.
“Oh, definitely do not use that form of address unless you want to be mistaken for Jinn sympathizers. In general, if you seek to show your respect, you call someone ‘master’ followed by their job title. That would be ‘Master Clerk’ for me. Though I would be horribly embarrassed by that kind of thing. Just ‘Clerk Anadra’ is fine.”
The clerk went into a library room, pulled down two roughly used books with the bindings falling apart, and tucked the two wards into a small room with a couple of tables and a tea kettle. When they were alone, they raced to sit and open the sloppily illustrated books.
Volithur’s eyes scanned the first page, taking in the three-dimensional rendering of a cube with each of the six sides labeled. One wall said ‘mind’, the one next to it ‘body’, the one beside body said ‘aura’, and the one between aura and mind said ‘domain’. The top bore the label ‘realm’ and the bottom ‘externality’. The entire image bore the simple label ‘soul’.
He began to read through the paragraphs of text below, which explained that the human soul was a hollow cube composed of what was called, for want of a better word, willpower. The energies of existence flowed throughout the universe and even into the soul of living beings. Willpower allowed for a limited manipulation of those energies, though its effectiveness was limited so long as a soul contained impure blends of energy.
There were descriptions on what each of the walls, or apertures, made possible, but Volithur skipped past the words and the images in search of what surely must be there. He found it several chapters further along. The method to attune a soul to a single form of energy. A method that, when successfully cultivated, would transform one from a baseline human into a Xian wielding cosmic energy.
Volithur’s heart beat rapidly as he read.