They landed on a green hilltop overlooking what appeared to be a broad savannah that stretched out in all directions.
The only mountains were purple jagged lines on the eastern horizon.
“We are eighteen hundred kilometers west of the caves of the Tua. If I abandoned you here, could you translocate yourself back to your cubicle?”
“No. Of course not. Why do you even ask questions like that? Did you hear anything I just said? No one c–”
Master Vane glared at her with as many of his glowing red eyes as he could fix on her.
“I don’t pay much attention to any of your blather.”
“Of course not.”
“You yourself admit that you know absolutely nothing, so what could you possibly have to say to me that I would need to take note of?”
That’s logical.
“I think so.”
Naero would bite right through her tongue and chew and swallow it if she thought it might help. Then she noticed that they were speaking back and forth directly in their minds.
Aren’t you supposed to be training me or something? Why bring me all the way out here?
I thought that if I had to destroy you today, that this would be a good enough place to make a big mess. Plus I don’t like the rain and getting wet.
She went back to talking out loud.
“Always pleasant. And just how do you plan on destroying me?”
“Oh, one of the usual methods. Perhaps a full protonic reversal and spontaneous explosive combustion of all your molecules at once.”
“Sounds spectacular.”
He invaded her mind again.
And extremely messy. Very gratifying, to me at least.
Master Vane, I know you can destroy me, probably a hundred times over.
Then he went back to talking. “More than that.”
Naero clenched her teeth and closed her eyes. “Look, we’re out here in the middle of nowhere. Can we just cut the crap?”
“You know I can read your mind, don’t you?”
She shook her fists. “I don’t care. Can you tell what I’m thinking now?”
“Of course I can. You barely shield your thoughts at all. And yes, it is possible for me to have more contempt for you than you have for me. Do you want me to teach you how to do so? Shield your mind? Then you can curse at me and insult me in the privacy of your own mind without annoying me so much.”
“Uh, okay.”
“Lesson One. Mind shielding. Also called mind masking.”
They proceeded to work on nothing but mind shielding for the next three grueling and exhausting hours.
Until Naero thought her skull was in fact going to split open and explode.
No such luck.
I assure you. It will not.
Get out of my head, dammit.
Vane stuck his tongue out at her.
Make me.
Believe me, I’m trying.
Try harder. Hmmm…Uh-oh.
Naero took a fighting stance and looked around.
What do you mean, uh-oh?
Master Vane vanished. He simply winked out.
Yet his voice still echoed in her mind.
Perhaps we’ve stayed out in the open in one place too long. Janosha has many large predators outside of the restricted area. One of which is rapidly heading this way to eat you.
What do I do?
Fight fiercely to stay alive, I suppose. I keep hearing what a great fighter you’re supposed to–
She cut him off.
She blocked Vane from entering her mind.
Naero drew her long battle blades and got ready, happy that at last, she got her mindshield working properly.
The thing erupted from the ground almost without warning, right in front of her.
A vicious looking segmented, giant black, hairy caterpillar monster, complete with barbed horns, bulging faceted eyes, clacking, flesh-ripping mandibles, and multiple sets of viscous claws.
The whole package.
Thing sufficed. A thing twenty-meters long, bent on gobbling her down whole.
First she leaped up and slashed its segmented eyes open with her blades.
Once she had it blinded, she broke one of the mandibles and proceeded to slice it to pieces.
The thing proved hard to kill. At last she rode the head down as it thrashed up in the air, shrieking and gushing nasty green fluids from its many wounds.
Just before it smashed into some rocks, she back flipped off of it and drove both feet back into into its head with all her weight and power.
She finished by thrusting both of her long battle blades deep into the armored skull, burying them up to her forearms where she guessed the brain might be.
The head actually snapped off and sprayed thing-blood everywhere. Including all over her.
It reeked as nasty and sticky-gushy as it felt.
Master Vane reappeared, not coming anywhere near the mess.
“I tried to give you advice and encouragement. Bad time to actually get your mindshield working.”
“Yeah. I bet. Another test, right?”
“Surprise. So you are capable of rudimentary learning. Let’s find a stream for you to…wash up in. You reek.”
“What, and have some other monster attempt to eat me?”
Master Vane yawned and then grinned. “If we’re lucky.”
They actually walked for a good while.
They did find a quiet stream. Naero jumped in and cleaned herself off. At least her Nytex body suit remained tough and durable. Even if she couldn’t program it.
“So, tell me about the Tua.”
Master Vane actually snorted.
“Less than nothing to tell. A worthless, garbage sub-species. A genetic dead end, vermin evolved from vermin. Literally from a kind of rat. That’s all they are. That’s all they will ever be.”
“Humans and Spacers evolved from a progenitor rodent-mammal as well. The Tua seem all right. So why did the Mystics pick them and their world?”
“It had nothing to do with them. We chose Janosha three hundred years ago, fifty years after the Awakening. Solely because of the intense Cosmic energy flows here. The existence of the rats here was entirely irrelevant.”
“But they’re good enough to chunga every night, even for a High Master?”
Master Vane shrugged and waved his hand dismissively. “They don’t care about such things. I don’t care. Why should you? The rats barely live three decades and then die. They spend their brief time on their world eating, shitting, and screwing–rutting in the open and spawning more litters of rats just like them.”
“So why trouble with them at all? Just to have little people to play god to and to dally with?”
Master Vane sighed. “If you must know, my vote at the time was to eradicate the vermin from Janosha completely. There, are you happy? The other two High Masters at the time took a liking to the rats for some idiotic reason, and actually made a covenant with them. I can’t tell you how ecstatic I am that that pair of idiots allowed themselves to die off. So blissfully eager to go on the next journey. The fools.”
“You…you said that was three centuries ago. You couldn’t have been there.”
“And why not? What if I was? A true biomancer of the highest order can find ways to regenerate, mind and soul transfer. I’ve had several bodies, while countless generations of rats have come and gone and turned to dust. Just as they did before. Just as they will into ad nauseum. What do you care if I chunga a few of them when I’m bored out of my skull and feeling randy? They’re more than eager to provide me with a little physical release. Don’t be such a stuck up prude, Maeris. You should try it sometime.”
Naero shook her head.
“If you’ve read my mind, you know how I detest bullies of any kind. That’s what you are, Vane. You’re a sick, sadistic, perverted bully.”
Vane yawned. “Flattery. Again, who cares what fools like you think, Maeris? You can’t levitate, translocate, or even
biomance.”
“I do. I care.”
“Too bad.” Vane laughed a deep roaring belly laugh. “Ah, that silly Maeris pride and defiance. How utterly tedious. Thinking that others must somehow answer to you and your own petty moral code. If you only knew how immense and indifferent the universe really is to all of us and our individual preferences and opinions. How ridiculous you sound. Don’t you get it?”
She was about to make another witty reply when a crushing pain attack struck her, almost paralyzing.
She dropped to her knees, her fingers knotting and twisting in anger and agony as she gasped and whimpered.
Master Vane clucked his tongue. “I suppose that’s enough progress for today. The rain will have passed on by now back home at the caves. I probably should have warned you before hand. Expanding your abilities will be excruciatingly painful, especially in your condition, after having that unfortunate mind sliver you had shot through your head.”
Naero gritted her teeth, breathing hard. “Must have…slipped your mind.”
Of course, I could heal the damage, but you’ll get around to it. Eventually…I suppose. Or you’ll go insane and die. Let that part be up to you. Consider it a personal goal. A challenge. Become a biomancer and heal yourself beyond this neurological block, and then you can open all of the other locked doors up there.
“Then we shall see which of us is the real monster, and if–as I foresee–I will need to destroy you after all.”
“Why not finish me now?”
Vane grunted. “What kind of challenge is that?”
Naero got out two words.
“Screw you.”
Master Vane grinned, grabbing her by the hair to transport them back. “Please…don’t flatter yourself, Maeris. Not while I have dozens of eager, tight little rat girls back at home, just lining up for me. All too happy to chunga the Great One. Why keep them waiting?”
18
Another hour of punishing sparring followed.
Hashiko released her frustrations and screamed at her.
“Here I am, wasting my time with a dead-end. All my life I’ve been groomed to become the next High Master of the Chaos Order after Master Vane. It is my right, my destiny alone. I have better things to do than trying to train a worthless turd like you!”
She kicked Naero clear out of the sparring ring.
Naero fell on her back, winded. Head whoozy.
That should have ended their match for the moment. But Hashiko sprang upon her in a flash, yanking her up by the front of her togs.
“I’ll tell you a secret, Maeris. I came to Master Vane years ago. Right after your outcast uncle fled Janosha and the Mystics. I was just a child. Master Vane took out all of his frustration and anger out on me each day as he taught me The Way. One brutal lesson after another. He swore he would force me to understand. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes he made before. And so you see, I have no great love for you or your family. And neither does he.
“Once Master Vane finds his way to ascend to the next plane of existence without dying, I will naturally step in as his replacement. And by then, you will have been long gone and forgotten.”
“Get off of me!” Naero shouted.
Without thinking she whirled and punched Hashiko right in the midsection, driving her thirty meters, back into the sparring ring.
Hashiko kept her footing and grinned. “Well, well. So you do have some minor ability. All I have to do, apparently, is make you mad. Come on, then. Inferior adept. Not to worry. It still won’t be enough. Tsk, tsk, tsk. So very sad.”
Naero attacked with everything she had.
Hashiko took her down with ease and rammed her back into the ground.
“See? I’m better, faster, and stronger. And nothing you do or say is ever going to change that.”
Naero resisted.
Hashiko slapped her.
“Pitiful. Stay down. Stop wasting my time.”
She got up and walked away.
Naero forced herself to stagger back up to her feet.
“Knock me down all you want. I will never stay down. Not for you. Not for anyone. Count on it!”
“You’re a moron then.” Hashiko rushed her again, blinding fast, closer to Baeven’s abilities more than anyone she’d ever met.
A spin kick to her right temple caused her to black out.
Naero came to. Apparently much later.
The strange starry sky of Janosha dark.
She lay outside of the sparring circle. Her head and the rest of her ached terribly. Dried blood crusted over her face, mouth, ears, and nose.
Actually, several of the Tua crouched, gathered around her. They sang to her softly and with concern.
Thanduu zoh ganuu, Peng shiikah vah kongo, Tur-rah-gah ziiko, Tur-rah-gah mah-duu…
They cleaned and dressed her wounds, tending to her many bruises and abrasions. Her skin tingled.
Tur-rah-gah mah-duu…
They apparently had some healing skill with the herbal salves and ointments they used on her. Naero’s own healing powers would take care of most of her hurts by the next dawn on their own. But it was nice to know their soothing touch and their genuine concern for her. They at least liked her.
Peng shiikah vah kongo,
With the strange stars of Janosha wheeling overhead in a dark azure sky, Naero caught the scents of Bahan and Iika among the ones tenderly washing her and leading the singing of the others.
They gave her food and drink as she needed them. Slowly her head cleared somewhat and she felt less injured, and more and more weary.
“The other halaena and the great one do not seem to like you very much,” Bahan observed.
“Hush,” Iika said. “It is not our place to judge the great ones. They are always very hard on the new halaena at first. Yet this does seem harsher to me.”
Iika hesitated a moment. Then she reached into her pouch and pulled out a six millimeter glowing green crystal. It pulsed with energy.
“What is that?” Naero asked.
“The other halaena threw this away out of her cave one night, shortly after the halaena before you left. He was a indeed a mighty warrior, bright green he was, and he was very kind to us, as are you. The other halaena could never defeat him, even after they became lovers. We think they used these star crystals to link their minds together.”
“Perhaps you could use it to speak with the green one who left,” Iika said. “He might be able to help you learn how to become as strong and fast as he was. And to defeat the other halaena.”
“Thanks, but I…I don’t know how to use anything like this.” It was probably psyonic in nature, and thus it probably wouldn’t work for her. If she did contact this guy, what would she say to him any way?
Hey, green guy. Help me learn how to beat the snot out of your former, stuck-up girlfriend?
Yeah. That would probably work just fine.
“Is it not worth trying?” Iika said. “I saw them both wear these at night before they slept.”
The Tua woman tied it around her head with the glowing crystal hanging down where her third eye had once been.
It did cause a slight jolt of pain in her skull. Something was happening at least.
“When you sleep tonight, reach out with your thoughts and try to connect with the green one. Wherever he has gone. See if he can advise you.”
“I’ll try.” Naero groaned and her eyes bulged as she got up. “Uhh…can you help me to my cave? I feel like I’m going to pass out as it is.”
She teetered.
Then she felt Om steadying her as a natural action.
Thanks Om.
“Of course, halaena. Everyone. Help us now.”
Iika and Bahan and the others lifted her up.
Back up in her cave, Naero was so tired she almost forgot about the glowing crystal on her forehead.
As soon as the Tua left her on her sleeping skins and furs, she drifted off.
She didn’t really focus on anything.
> But a short while later, her consciousness felt roused by a voice calling out to her hesitantly, as if from far away in the distance.
And it wasn’t Om. In fact, she couldn’t link with Om while this voice was speaking in her mind.
“Iko…Iko? Is that you finally? Are you there?”
Naero was still asleep. The voice seemed to come out of nowhere, as her shapeless consciousness floated in the dark expanse of her own mind.
She hesitated and then tried calling back.
“Who is this? Where am I? How are we communicating?”
“Who are you?” The voice instantly grew suspicious and defensive.
“How did you get Hashiko’s astral crystal?”
“I’m sorry. My name is Naero. Hashiko threw this crystal away in anger. The Tua found it and gave it to me. I didn’t steal it.”
The voice sounded both hurt and resigned. “Sounds like Hashiko. She was incredibly angry after I defeated her in our final match. Even I was surprised by the depths of her rage. To make matters worse, Master Vane had to step in afterwards and restrain her from doing something both forbidden and dishonorable. Using the forbidden Eye of Annihilation technique on me. She hasn’t really perfected it yet. She might have killed us both.”
“Sorry, I’m not following you. What was she going to do?”
“The most destructive of all Chaos attacks, and the most dangerous. Perhaps it is best if I say no more. So Naero, brand new to Janosha, huh? Enjoying your training in the Ways of Chaos, I suspect?”
“Things…could be better.”
“I can only imagine. They’re probably making things very hard on you.”
“Yes they are.”
Weird. While actually using the crystal, she still couldn’t reach Om.
Khai continued. “It was easier for me I’m afraid. By the time I came to Janosha, I had already trained with the other two High Masters on Taeha and Oorrii. The Way of Chaos is easier to learn once you have mastered The Ways of Order and Enlightened Change. And I could already defend myself extremely well. It always goes hardest on new adepts who start with Chaos training first. The High Masters have put you on one of the toughest paths of all. I do not envy you.”
“Thanks. I think. Who are you again?”
“Khai. Khai Adun Williams.”
Spacer Clans Adventure 2: Naero's Gambit Page 13