Keys of Awakening
Virupa

CABIR ( B E C O M I N G )

The Ninth Power of the Arcanum

Cabir is a Passive power.

It means literally changing one’s self and becoming other. As the Seeker learns to transform, so does this power make itself available. However, an intimate knowledge of the thing one wishes to become is required. Only through great clarity and knowledge can this be achieved.

Application: Cabir is the power to take on a different form in order to accomplish something that may otherwise be impossible. The most common form of becoming is shape shifting.

A practitioner of this power is known as a Changer.

From The Arcanum of Wisdom – Introduction for the Initiate

Dawn found the five of them wending their way along a narrow but well-travelled trail through the forest. Up in the trees ahead, eight Shimina warriors fanned out, leading the way and scouting for danger. Behind Illiom and her group came another eight, for there was no guarantee that danger might not come upon them from that quarter.

Illiom was not sure what they would do if the warning call ever came that a Mudaral was heading their way. She did not see how they could escape through the dense forest that pressed in on both sides of the trail.

She mused on how slow their progress must appear to the Shimina. She saw the scouts stop frequently, waiting for them to catch up before covering a similar distance in just a fraction of the time. She was beginning to perceive her own kind as being impaired in comparison to the physical prowess of the Qwa’kol.

Tarmel had taken the lead and Illiom walked in his footsteps. Behind her came Scald, followed by Malco. Grifor brought up the rear. Their translator, Mara, had chosen to travel in the treetops with the scouts.

The five walked in silence through the forest’s morning symphony. There was birdsong, some so unusual that Illiom wondered if they were indeed birdcalls. There were other sounds as well, perhaps of animals. There was also the drone of insects, the all-encompassing undercurrent that lay beneath all other sounds.

It was all quite unsettling.

The elder Clan Mother had embraced Illiom as they were departing, taking the opportunity to press a tiny, leaf-wrapped package into Illiom’s hand.

“Muliahan,” she had whispered in her ear and, drawing back, had held up a single digit before her. Illiom had been worrying over the word and the gesture’s meaning since they had left the Shimina cavern. It came to her as she walked: it was the seeing potion that the Clan Mother had taken to consult with her ancestors.

She did not know of what use it would be, but as she had lost everything else, including her precious bow and quiver, she found herself grateful for this small, unexpected gift.

The hours passed slowly as they followed now this trail and now another – as the scouts directed – and even though nothing happened to mar their journey, still they remained reticent to speak for fear of alerting the wild forest powers to their presence.

The path rose and fell and was rarely level: it would descend until it squelched underfoot to ford a shallow waterway, or rise to crest a suddenly steep slope; it meandered from time to time to sidestep enormous boulders draped in thick moss. These rose from the earth to claim their place amongst the trees, blind and stoic sentinels, standing watch over this kingdom’s deepest secrets.

Never once did they manage to shake themselves free of the forest’s embrace, nor did they chance upon a clearing with an uninterrupted view of the sky. The forest floor was a world of permanent semidarkness and dank shadow, a realm where things were often heard but remained unseen.

Death, when they chanced upon signs of it, did not lie undisturbed for long in this place. Fallen trees occasionally blocked the way, often their entire length swallowed up by colonies of orange and red fungi. Similarly, the corpses of animals acted as springboards for a myriad of other life forms, the decay providing sustenance for all the smaller creatures: the secret and unseen workers who clean away what is no longer wanted or needed in the world.

By degrees, Illiom felt herself caught by the forest’s spell. The noisy silence bombarded her from every direction, and within its quiet roar she saw and heard a semblance of the Goddess Sudra, in all of her mysterious forms. Never had she felt her presence so keenly in any of her supposed temples as she did here, in this terrible, forbidding and beautiful forest.

So lost had she become in her communion with the forest that she was not startled when one of the scouts dropped suddenly out of the trees and landed on all fours on the path just ahead of them.

The man brought his fingertips to his lips and Illiom took the gesture to mean that they should be quiet. In a voice that barely carried any sound beyond the shaping of his lips, he conveyed a single word ...

Virupa.

They had made contact.

As the guide who had come to warn them climbed rapidly back up to vanish amongst the trees, Mara in turn dropped down amongst them.

“Near they be,” she whispered.

Illiom looked up, searching for any kind of movement, but saw nothing.

“From now on, we close stay, yes?”

“Is there a problem?” Illiom whispered back.

Mara looked nervous, agitated.

“No,” she replied without meeting Illiom’s gaze, her attention entirely upon the canopy. “Long time since I Virupa see. Soon now, challenge comes.”

Illiom was sure she did not like the sound of that. She was about to ask Mara to explain when a jarring scream caused her to jump. It was the voice of a male, strong and yet pitched high, intended to be heard far and wide. It changed to become a shrill keening that sent shivers down her back.

She looked to Mara, but the translator’s attention was turned towards the cry. She raised a hand to command silence.

The quality of the keening changed; it became an inchoate string of sounds, like words that flowed into a continuous stream, one merging with the other.

Illiom closed her eyes. Without understanding a single word, this call stirred a knowing in her belly. It carried simultaneously the qualities of command and of warning. Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the call came to an end with a deep, guttural growl. The silence that followed was much deeper than the silence that had preceded it. It was as though the whole forest had stopped and was holding its breath.

Several heartbeats later a different voice sung out from directly above: a Shimina voice responded in kind.

The reply held a very different quality. It too was loud and carried through the green but, to Illiom’s ears, it was as though this song told a different story: unfrightened and unapologetic, it sought to answer in calm strong notes.

“Who we are he say,” Mara explained in an aspirated whisper. Listening, Illiom actually distinguished the word ‘Shimina’ at least twice in the exchange.

“Name of our mountain and name of our river he sing, so Virupa know we Shimina be. Name of spirit guardians who over Shimina watch, he also now sing; how spirit guardians bad problem for Virupa make, if Virupa Shimina attack, if kill …”

Mara paused, listening.

“Now about you he speak, not who you be but who you not be. Not Th’ekera, he say, not from this land. He reason why you here give, reason for replace lost friends, reason for problems in lands where sun set.”

Again Illiom strained to hear beyond the meaningless string of words; she discerned pride and an assertion of right, as well as an invitation to openness. The exchange was more complex than she could ever have anticipated.

“Virupa of strong ties between our ancestors remind, of old alliance and of marriage between our peoples. For ancient bond to rekindle, he speak. Virupa hearth and Shimina hearth not two fire, but one fire make.”

They listened to the song as it stretched on.

“It is interminable; we could be here for days,” Illiom heard Scald lament behind her. “Surely they already know these things …”

Mara looked at him sharply.

“This important ritual for prevent misunderstanding is, prevent war, needless death.”

To prevent your death, the look she levelled at Scald seemed to imply.

“This song important to all Qwa’kol be. This clan memory be; clans together bind, strong make! This how knowing and wisdom from mother to daughter, from father to son, pass. Every girl and boy in tribe to sing these words learn. When life new experience give, then this to song we add, so song grow. When song grow, Qwa’kol also grow.”

Scald nodded quietly.

The exchange between the two tribes reached a pause. Mara looked intently at Illiom’s group.

“Listen! This important be. Men front stand, women behind stand. Virupa leaders all men be, so Virupa our men to come first expect. Do not this wrong do!”

They all showed their understanding with nods. Scald, Malco, and Tarmel arranged themselves at the front of the group where they were soon joined by the eight leading scouts.

Illiom, Grifor, and Mara brought up the rear.

“Why do you bend to their rules? Are you frightened of them?” Grifor asked softly.

Mara hissed in response.

“No! We to Virupa now come, we respect to Virupa way show. When Virupa to Shimina come, they respect to Shimina way show.”

Up ahead, the Virupa warriors dropped from the trees and onto the trail some fifty spans ahead of the group. Illiom peered at them but they seemed much like the Shimina to her. Their garb was different and their fur several shades darker than the pale fawn of their neighbours, but other than that, Illiom would have found it hard to tell them apart.

Suddenly Mara intoned a song that brimmed with fire and passion. Simultaneously their party began to shuffle slowly forward. Ahead, the Virupa tribesmen stood immobile and waited for the intruders to approach.

As they neared, Illiom mused that it would be utterly impossible for a stranger to be aware of these protocols. This ritual probably ensured that only tribal members – or those educated in tribal ways - had even a remote chance of approaching the Qwa’kol. They would be quickly identified as either kin or outsiders; certainly no one could pretend to be kin if they were not.

The approach continued, painful in its slowness.

When their party was within five spans of the Virupa they stopped. The Virupa formed a tight cluster that blocked the way completely. They numbered about a score, including the woman who had sung earlier.

“Not fear now show,” counselled Mara.

Illiom frowned, wondering what she meant, when the Virupa party suddenly released a blood-curdling roar. Drawing their weapons, they leapt forward, landing in a defensive squat with their blades extended against the Shimina.

In this stance they screamed a war-song into their opponents’ faces. It was accompanied by gestures that showed graphically what they intended to do with their enemies. Eyes bulging in their sockets as if they were completely deranged, the Virupa bared their teeth and released menacing growls.

And that was when Illiom saw that the Virupa had fangs.

Her heart skipped several beats and a cold shiver of terror washed over her. A moment later her insides seemed to suddenly turn to water and her knees began to tremble.

Her dream rushed back to her with a violence that chilled her.

The Virupa all displayed the same interlocking sets of fangs, weapons built into their very bodies, killing equipment that was an actual part of their natural makeup. Illiom knew beyond doubt that it was one of these whom she had fought in her dream, that the incident had now become as unavoidable as death itself.

The words of the old crone’s foretelling in Calestor came back to her.

You will die. In a bad place, you will die.

Was this the place?

The Virupa war dance came to a sudden end with a final scream, full of hatred and power. In the silence that followed, Illiom saw how each Virupa visibly drew their energy back from the brink of the abyss, back from the vision of their enemies’ annihilation. Their nostrils flared with deep indrawn breaths as the violence they had conjured up slowly receded from their eyes and the grimace faded from their lips.

After a silence another Virupa voice sang. This time it was a woman’s voice, and it held an entirely different tone to all the preceding songs. Illiom looked at Mara questioningly.

“I thought you said only the men talked …”

“This good sign is. Virupa men challenge, Virupa women welcome,” she explained softly. “This welcome song is.”

The first Shimina men now approached the Virupa party and the two clans began to greet each other.

Illiom watched the meetings carefully.

Both men placed their left hand upon the centre of the other’s chest, while the right hand came down to rest upon their shoulder. Then both would peer closely into each other’s eyes, the tips of their noses almost touching. This gaze was sustained for a prolonged span before they moved on to do the same with their next encounter.

While the two parties continued their ritual in this way, the remaining warriors from both sides descended from the surrounding trees and joined in the ceremony.

It was not long before it was Illiom’s turn. She had not needed further confirmation that her dream two nights before had been anything but prophetic, but if she had, seeing the blood-red irises of the Virupa would have dispelled any lingering doubts.

Looking into those eyes was like looking at her own unfolding destiny, and with each new meeting Illiom braced herself, in case she recognised the man she had fought in the dream.

After more than thirty meetings, of which only the last two were with women, they were done: she had met all of the Virupa. None of them was the one she had feared to meet.

Instead, as she gazed into each set of eyes, much of her fearful animosity dissipated. It was impossible to look someone in the eye and touch their heart without experiencing the bonds of connection rather than the differences of separation.

Afterwards, the Virupa and Shimina both took to the trees, while the Albradani continued to follow the Mudaral tracks. The forest was full of shadows by the time they reached their destination.

They had to push through one final, dense tangle of growth to get there but they finally arrived into the first and only clearing they had so far seen.

The hill before them was, for the most part, stripped bare of vegetation, and rose steeply beyond an unusual palisade that surrounded its base. Tree trunks had been honed to sharp points, seared with fire and set, almost horizontally, into the hill’s steep flank. Illiom wondered if this defence had been erected primarily with the Mudaral in mind.

As they approached the palisade she saw that the Virupa who had escorted them here now joined ranks with the Shimina and the Albradani, and that together they now approached the Virupa settlement as a single group.

As soon as they came close enough a cry arose from the village. As this was a woman’s cry, Illiom assumed that it indicated welcome, and not challenge. A lengthy series of exchanges ensued and only when these were complete was a section of the palisade finally raised and the outsiders were allowed to approach as far as the entrance.

But immediately beyond this entrance a wall of armed Virupa warriors blocked their passage. A woman bearing a large wooden tray squeezed past the wall of warriors. She set the tray down upon the earth in the empty space between the two groups and retreated, walking backwards, until she was enfolded once more by her own people.

One of the Virupa warriors who had escorted them to the village walked forward to retrieve the tray.

“Food for testing be,” Mara whispered. “When eat, proof to Virupa that we human and not demons be. Not here to children and women kill. Demons not food eat, only souls eat.”

As soon as they had all partaken of a portion of the food, the same woman who had sung earlier sung once again. The warriors parted, revealing beyond them a path leading up to the top of the hill.

It was up this path that the party of Shimina and Albradani now shuffled. The path was lined with villagers - men, women, and children -who gaped silently at the newcomers as the latter quietly walked the path towards the hill’s crest.

Rising above the onlookers and lining the path all the way to the top stood tall, black carvings of fierce beings. The creatures, each carved from a massive tree trunk, stared at the intruders with implacable eyes of shimmering mother-of-pearl, their mouths twisted into horrific grimaces.

Illiom looked at Mara and asked a silent question.

“Spirits of ancestors be,” she whispered in response. “Guardians of village.”

At long last they reached the top. Here, filling a large, bowl-shaped depression, and crowding upon several surrounding mounds, the entire tribe stood assembled to watch the arrival of these intruders from the mainland.

Illiom knew what was to follow: the greeting was about to begin all over again. It was to last, she suspected, until she had touched the heart and gazed into the eyes of everyone in the village.

A chorus of women sang another song with strong, loud voices, as the greeting began.

As she gazed into so many different sets of eyes, she lost all sense of time, and ended up having no idea of how long the event took. Yet, sometime during the endless meeting, the light of day was vanquished and replaced by many blazing torches made from tight bundles of reeds. While it lasted she met with both young and old, with men and women, and even babies were offered up to this great meeting between strangers. Though she searched every set of eyes she did not recognise the Virupa warrior she feared.

Again she found it impossible to meet in this way and remain untouched. As she surrendered to the ritual she felt the beginnings of a smile bud on her lips, one that took the whole length of the greeting to fully blossom. Just one persistent thought marred her experience of the occasion, causing her smile to wilt at last.

Where is Azulya? Where are the others?

She kept scanning the crowd around her, but saw no sign of them. When the meeting ritual was complete her concern grew insistent. She sought out and found Tarmel.

“Where are they?” she asked.

She had no need to clarify what she meant.

“Mara,” he said. “We should ask her.”

They found their translator talking to a tribesman. They made their way slowly towards the pair, their passage accompanied by incomprehensible but friendly-sounding words from many of the tribes-people.

When they reached the Shimina translator, Illiom waited until there was a lull in their exchange.

“Mara, we need to replace our people. I thought they would be here, but I have not seen them anywhere.”

“Soon now with whole tribe we sit. They first speak, we second speak. Then good time to ask.”

Illiom groaned. But there was nothing she could do besides curb her restiveness.

She did not have to wait long.

A small number of people gathered in the centre of the depression, where everyone else could see and hear them.

On one side sat the Virupa chief with the village elders, all of them male. The chief wore nothing but an imposing headdress of white tufted reeds.

Their own party seated themselves on the ground opposite them.

One by one, the elders sang and Mara translated. Illiom listened vaguely. Many things were mentioned: bonds, promises, marriages, wars, pledges, and so on. But soon Illiom stopped listening altogether.

Something was not right here. No mention had been made of the other Chosen and their Riders, even though Mara was certain that they must be nearby. But if they were and yet were not mentioned, what could that mean? She did not like where her thoughts took her.

Illiom looked at the chief intently and, as she did, his gaze found her also. She did not look away and neither did he.

During that silent exchange Illiom became aware of two things: the first of these was that the Virupa chief was intentionally withholding something; the second was that the fire in her belly was building up like she had never experienced it before.

One of the elders was speaking, so it was probably not the best time to interrupt; but she knew that there would never be a good time unless she made one. So she stood up.

That simple action was enough to bring a deafening silence down upon the entire gathering.

“I have a question,” she announced. An old, tired part of her balked at her daring, but she pushed it back down. “What has become of our people?”

She looked at no one but the chief.

Distantly she heard Mara’s frightened protests.

The fire within Illiom roared.

“Just ask,” she said.

The Virupa leader looked upon this exchange with a deepening frown, clearly showing a disapproval rapidly transforming into outrage.

“Ask him,” Illiom repeated, when Mara continued to hesitate.

She did not move her gaze from the leader’s eyes, nor did he look away from hers. She heard Mara speak and hoped that the Shimina was translating her words accurately. The man’s expression changed as he received Illiom’s challenge; at first incredulous, then venomous.

He spat something in the Virupa tongue.

“He ask if you to join them wish,” Mara spoke the words weakly. “Please Eeliom, must not …”

Illiom ignored her plea.

“Do they still live?”

“For now they alive be,” came the reply.

“Why are they not here, then, at this gathering?” she asked, indicating the people around them. “These are our people; you know that by now.”

A dangerous smile crept into the man’s eyes as Mara translated. When she had finished he rose to his feet.

“Virupa not them here invite,” he responded. “They not permission ask when come. Weapons they bring. When Virupa surround, they fight. They lucky as prisoners we take, lucky we not kill all, like other Th’ekera.”

As he finished, the chief raised his chin, as though he was looking down on her, daring her to contradict him.

“Then you must have seen how they were being pursued by the very same Th’ekera that you …” Illiom started, but then suddenly floundered. Her train of thought was derailed by something that was happening to her vision, to the scene before her: everything began to unravel and waver as if she was waking from a dream. The drama and realness of the situation receded from her awareness.

Seeing her distraction, the chief grinned broadly, but she paid him no attention, for she now saw something happening within him as well. It was as though she was suddenly seeing right through him, and at last Illiom saw what lay at the root of this issue. Although she had no idea how she knew, Illiom recognised within the chief the presence of a conflict. Both pride and fear mingled to form an uncompromising potential for violence.

She suddenly saw into the man’s energies clearly, and the truth that was there brought a smile to her lips: the chief’s fear was only for his own status within the tribe. His energy was not really focused on her at all, but upon two younger men who stood nearby and were even now watching him intently.

The problem at hand did not really concern him. His only real concern was that his next action should demonstrate to his tribe that he, and only he, was fit to lead them.

Had she made a mistake by forcing him into a corner? If so it was too late to back out now.

Illiom saw that there were only two ways out of this predicament for the chief. The first one involved violence and she knew that he was already preparing himself for that. The second was more complex, for it rested not upon his shoulders, but upon what Illiom did now.

Despite her trepidation, she stepped forward.

“You do not need to waste your time and energy on this. We are not important to you, I see that. But I also see what is important.”

She walked around the chief and stood before one of the two young contenders. She looked him in the eye.

“Your concern is that there is division within your ranks,” she said calmly, exposing the chief’s true concerns, showing him that she knew.

She held the first man’s eyes for a moment longer and then, when she saw signs of his energy contracting, she moved to the other.

Here, Illiom might have balked in turn, for the Virupa now before her held a vicious ball of red fire burning in his stomach.

She had not recognised him earlier, but now there could be no mistake: this was the man in her dream. The realisation left her feeling cold and alone.

She forced herself to tear her eyes away from him and back to the chief. Her reward was to see recognition flare in the leader’s eyes. She had just singled out the greatest threat to his power, and had exposed it before the tribe, without uttering a single word of accusation.

“A dreadful change is sweeping across all our lands,” she prophesised. Slowly, she walked around the gathering and looked at all the people there. “You are the great Virupa, yet you will not be spared. Nothing you do can stop the evil that is coming. But it will require a strong leader for any of you to survive at all … and a leader’s strength lies in the support of his people. This is not a time to further personal ambition or to create internal squabbles. It is a time for all to stand together in unity and strength.”

As Mara translated these words, Illiom beill feedanslated these wordst,ou treatcame around to face the chief one more time.

“In this very moment, you hold in your hands the future of all the lands. What will you do?”

Illiom let her fire diminish to a single flame.

The Virupa leader listened to Mara’s final words of translation, his eyes transfixed on Illiom.

But before the chief could respond, the second contender, the one who harboured the darkest poison within his being, leapt towards Illiom. His face was so close to hers that she felt the rank heat of his breath upon her face. Baring his fangs fully, the warrior released a half-shouted, half-sung blast of rage at her before turning to face the chief.

“He say he now do what chief should do. He challenge you for your friends to fight. If you win, they free. But if lose, he all tribe with fine Th’ekera meat will feed!”

The man looked at Illiom with supreme self-confidence as Mara translated his terms.

She had been wrong. The choice had always been between violence and more violence. As Illiom stared into the man’s snarl of contempt she knew that there was only one path open to her.

“Very well,” Illiom said. “Tell him I will fight him …”

“No!”

Tarmel cut in with a shout.

“No! Mara! Do not translate that!” Tarmel was on his feet now. He turned to face his Chosen.

“Illiom, you will die! You must not do this … I will fight in your stead ...”

“No, Tarmel,” Illiom said softly, disengaging her gaze from her Rider.

She had not taken leave of her senses. She would never have spoken in this way and paved the way for her own self-destruction under normal circumstances. But today the circumstances were far from normal: the fire in her belly had shaped itself into a ball of pure energy. It was still contained, but now brimmed with explosive potential, like a small sun.

Never had she felt its presence so keenly, and though her mind did not comprehend what was happening, she trusted it. Implicitly.

This power that had saved her twice, that had cursed her to a solitary existence, was now burgeoning into something new: something larger than she was. By some miracle she managed to hold it in and, like a well-trained hound, it heeled before the leash of her will. Yet she had to hold on to it with every ounce of mastery and control that was hers to command.

As a wide space formed around the two contestants, the unprecedented potential continued to unfold within her.

True, a small part of Illiom’s mind was thrashing about and screaming with fear, but just as she had earlier, she quashed it before it could take hold of her.

Hers was the Key of Faith, and that was what she needed the most right now.

She called upon its power.

The Virupa man discarded all of his weapons, thrusting them into the hands of the nearest clansmen, dropping into a fluid fighting stance as he turned to face her.

Illiom did not emulate him. She was no fighter, and pretending to be one would certainly not transform her into one. She faced him and just allowed herself to sense what was happening inside her. She knew that she might die in the next few moments, but a greater part of her had already accepted that as a possible outcome.

If she was to die, then let it be here and now - not hiding and cowering from the world.

She studied her opponent: he was relaxed, poised, the faintest of smiles lingering at the corners of his lips. He circled her like a predator playing with a prey that was already as good as dead. She doubted he would need to strike more than once. So she knew enough to concentrate on preventing that first strike.

Illiom felt the ball of energy pulse in her belly and, as she focused on it, it began to extend outwards from her body. Without any thought to guide them, her hands lifted up to meet that energy, to feel it and to cradle it there, just where it hovered, over her navel.

She felt a vague pressure, like a subtle membrane pressing against the palms of her hands, and then the fire was spreading into them, travelling through her wrists and up into her arms. The pull was so intense and complete that she yielded to it as though she was letting herself fall into the arms of a lover. She smiled as she closed her eyes.

As a result Illiom did not see the look of consternation that crossed her opponent’s face, nor the horror that dawned in Tarmel’s eyes.

Instead, she breathed the energy in, allowing the fire in her belly and her hands to spread and encompass her entire being. The vision of the world that came to her in that instant was like nothing she had ever experienced. It was as though she had stepped up and out of herself and was now looking down upon an entirely different layer of reality.

She saw the space around her as an emptiness interspersed with small concentrations of light. It was easy to see that the lights corresponded to people, for she could simultaneously make out the physical forms that enveloped each light. It struck her as odd, however, that while the lights appeared strong, clear, and real, the corresponding bodies did not: these seemed as ephemeral as shadows, lacking substance.

But there was yet another wonder: each individual nexus of light was connected to all the others by tenuous lines that flowed every which way, in all directions. These lines of light ranged an entire spectrum: from bright and intense to insubstantial and ghost-like.

She saw the individuals gathered around her as no more than the coalescing of those very lines of energy into substance; into individual forms, each pulsing with entirely unique hues, density, and intensity, all corresponding exactly to their inner state of being.

She saw within many a dark red fire that issued from a central core of darkness, and recognised it as anger. She witnessed the whiteness that shone, small and bright, within others, and knew it as hope. There was also the grey miasma that formed the energy of despair and, finally, the black vortex that sucked everything else into itself: the energetic manifestation of fear. Hundreds of forms clustered within this maelstrom and each was marked by its own entirely unique pattern.

It all unfolded in one instant but, in that timeless span, Illiom discerned it all.

She saw herself and her opponent, facing one another within the centre of the almost empty hub of a wheel of power. She was keenly aware of the subtle lines that linked the two of them to those around them in a configuration that defied comprehension.

In that instant, as her mind succumbed to the absurd complexity that enveloped everyone, Illiom came to know a scintillating and exhilarating truth.

There was no difference between her and him; or between any of them, for that matter. The same energies flowed into and out of each, and the dance that they re-enacted was one that had been performed countless times before, in a myriad of previous situations. The two opponents were as balanced as a pair of dancing partners might be.

Within that maelstrom of energy she now perceived a shift in her own personal pattern. It was as though the knowing she had just received burst out from her to blossom like a golden-petalled flower. Its unfolding was as vibrant and quick as the beat of a dragonfly’s wings. It bloomed, sending evanescent tendrils of light shimmering in all directions, and spread like quicksilver, across the web of lines, transforming everything in its wake, touching everyone, bridging distances in the blink of an eye.

Fast as lightning, the Virupa warrior moved.

It took only a moment for Illiom to realise that the man had not moved at all; only his energy had shifted. And in that instant she had seen what he intended to do, before his body even acted upon it.

There had been no real harm behind his intent; he had simply meant to slap her, to mock her and humiliate her, to show his people his true prowess and superiority as a fighter, and how he could toy with his prey and even touch her with impunity.

But the humiliating slap never found its mark. Forewarned, Illiom shifted her posture fractionally, adjusted her filaments of light to his so that they would not intersect, and the warrior’s hand flew past her, slapping only air.

He staggered off balance for an instant but regained his footing almost immediately. His look of disbelief was soon replaced by a sneer.

Luck, the sneer said, my next move will take your life.

And with his second strike he attempted just that: to crush her throat, to kill her with his very first attempt.

Almost absently, Illiom noticed how she could also stretch the filaments and make them longer so that their execution was slowed down even further. She tried it and saw the warrior‘s deadly attack as if in a dream. It was so slow that she thought the air must have acquired the consistency of treacle. It was only afterwards that she realised what had happened - extending the filaments of intent in this way had slowed time itself.

She noticed the immediate effect that missing his first real attack had on the man; his confidence took a blow and uncertainty crept into the light that enveloped him. He followed the first attempt with a series of lunges.

It was almost as an afterthought that Illiom moved out of the way each time he attacked, and even then it was only a fractional movement, a small adjustment that saw his energy fail to make contact with hers by the narrowest of margins.

He continued to try, however, and each time he failed his energy grew more frantic; his red fire dissipated with every failure and soon became consumed by a growing blackness.

Suddenly Illiom knew instinctively what was required. Without stopping to think, without calling upon reason or logic, she released the energy gathered at her navel, willing it in the direction of the man’s darkness.

She had no idea what it would achieve – for hers was not a counter-attack as such – but simply an action that the moment required.

The energy moved across the space that separated them, invisible because it was unaccompanied by any physical movement.

But when it reached him, the change that ensued was instant: all of the blackness dissolved into a magenta flash, all the tension that had built up in the man’s limbs dropped away and was gone.

It was done.

Even so, Illiom stood there, breathing hard, unwilling to open her eyes, reluctant to let go of this vision that had so enthralled her.

But it was over and soon the vision began to let go of Illiom: it lost brilliance and its definition receded until it was only a shadow of its former self, an after-image imprinted upon the retina of her soul. And as the window onto that other reality began to close, Illiom opened her eyes.

The Virupa warrior was on his knees, head tilted back, facing the darkness of the night and the pure dazzle of stars overhead. His cheeks were lined with tears, his rage replaced by a child-like softness. Illiom looked up as well, and it was as though the sprawl of the stars was nothing more than a remnant of her former vision.

She heard the chief singing softly, but of course, whatever he said was incomprehensible to her. She did not even turn to look at him.

It was Mara who came up behind her.

“Your people free, he say. Powerful spirits for you fight. You all with Virupa now stay, honoured guests be …”

Mara’s voice trembled as she translated, and Illiom realised that the Shimina woman was now in terror of her.

She did not try to reassure her, however. Even this served a purpose of sorts. Illiom turned and saw how the Virupa leader looked at Mara. The Shimina’s fear gave his own a legitimacy of sorts, one that he sorely needed; maybe it would help him save face before his people.

“I want to be taken to our people immediately,” she said, as the final remnants of that other reality faded from the present and became a legacy of the past.