“Stay out his mind, Thrall. You are only making things worse.”
Thrall looks at Boran. “I am not in his mind. His thoughts and concerns are just obvious. With his latent talent, he would be able to feel me in his mind. His collar is not impeding his Power. It is not a real slave collar.”
Looking back at me, Thrall appears exasperated. “This would much easier, if you were not caught up in your fixations on the wrongs done to you. I know you have no reason to trust us, but there is no reason to distrust us either. I understand betrayal. I was betrayed and enslaved by my brothers, and I took vengeance, but in the end, I did not let it consume me. I chose to let them live. Letting the betrayals of the past cloud your mind, you will never move forward. I can see that you refuse to trust us, but we are not your enemies. We hope to have you as an ally. Working with us, you will come closer to your own vengeance.”
I look at Boran again. “Keep talking.”
“The Labyrinth of Yggr is one of the dimensional battle fortresses of the true Dragons. The source of its Power is a Life and Death furnace. We Dvergar had thought it destroyed long ages ago, but somehow it survived and fell into the hands of the Jotun. Though we crushed them at the time of the Jotun-Dragon War, we were never able to wrest control of this fortress from them.
“This fortress has the Power to destroy universes. Used improperly, it can destabilize multiverses and perhaps the metaverse as well. The Nameless is using it improperly and the Jotun Lords are preparing to do the same. They will destroy Taereun and probably all the dimensions contained within the Labyrinth. You and nearly all other living things within the Labyrinth will be destroyed. I am going to wrest control of this fortress from them and render it useless. I have a task I need you to perform to accomplish that goal.”
I scratch my chin, feeling the stubble under my fingers. I need to shave the right side of my face. The left never needs shaving; no hair grows from the scar tissue.
“How long do we have before they wreck everything?”
Boran shrugs slightly. “Several hundred years at the least. Probably, a thousand or so.”
My jaw hangs open for several seconds. “Several hundred? A thousand? I doubt I'll even be alive in a hundred years, let alone a thousand. Why the fuck would you think I want to get involved? I'm not as altruistic as you are.”
Boran's single bark of laughter contains nothing resembling humor. “Altruistic? I am a Dvergar. We are not an altruistic race. I have unfinished business where this fortress is concerned, and I will not surrender what I have nurtured to the Nameless or the Jotun. They seek Power and are endangering what is mine, so they will be crushed. If they are lucky, they will die.”
Boran stares at me for a moment. “Do you know the preeminent truth of the universe?”
“Strength.”
Boran shakes his head slightly. “Not exactly. The preeminent truth is Power. Right, wrong, morals, laws, everything is subordinate to Power. Power is the only real truth of existence. With enough Power, you can do whatever you choose. You can defy everything except Life and Death. I have that much Power. You are already walking the path toward Power. You are on the Path of Transcendence. Keep walking until you become Transcendent or are destroyed.
“If you do not leave the Path of Transcendence, in a thousand years, in ten thousand years, you will still be alive. You will be affected by what the Jotun and the Nameless do. If you do not choose to grant my request, I will find another way to do what I need done. Using you is just the most efficient option. Thrall will still help you and train you. Not everything is in place, and certain events still need to unfold, before the time to act will be right. You are not yet ready, and there might be time for you to become ready.”
Perhaps because he is deliberately showing it, I see an earnest intensity in Boran. Looking toward Thrall, his face is more impassive. He gives the impression of a man ready to carry out a task that needs to be done, but one he would rather not do.
“I'll think about it.”
Boran smiles slightly. “That is all that I ask.”
After glancing at Boran, Thrall turns back to me. “You are a latent Trinary. You have the potential to become a Triune. I recommend that you do so. Your Power will be several fold stronger, if you become a Triune, but you will have a more difficult time reaching Transcendence. The choice is yours.”
I purse my lips but do not respond at first. “What is involved in becoming a Triune?”
“You have to fuse your ki, mana, and psi into a single Power: Trinity.”
His words do not quite make sense to me. “What do you mean when you say a single Power, Trinity? Aren't the three of them already the Trinity?”
Thrall smirks slightly. “Many many beings have used the term Trinity in such a way as to obfuscate much of the truth in it. Ki, mana, and psi are separate Powers, but they are not separate Powers. All are born of the Trinity, and within a living being, all can be fused back into Trinity. It is not easily done, because of the amount of raw Power necessary, but you have enough raw Power to do it. If you do, the volume of Power you can wield in a single aspect will tripled, and the strength of Power wielded in each aspect will be tripled. Be warned, once you start to fuse the three into Trinity, you either complete the fusion or forever give up the chance to Transcend.”
All or nothing, eh? Putting everything on the line for the chance to be stronger? I do not need to think about it. I like that idea. Thrall could be lying to me, but I will take that chance.
“I'll do it. Show me how to become a Triune.”
Thrall nods. “Good. The first step is to fix your abomination of Shadow Fist, and the second step will be to awaken your psi.”
My face twists in to a confused expression. “Huh? What does Shadow Fist have to do with becoming a Triune?”
Thrall looks down his nose in a condescending manner. “Nothing. Your half-learned version of Shadow Fist simply offends me. I am Thrall, Son of Rig, Second Generation Master of Shadow Fist.”
Second Generation Master? Does he really know the origins of Shadow Fist?
“There's an old saying in one of the states in my world. Show me!”
The ceiling is made of stone, just like the floor under my back. My face feels like I used it to stop an armored car, and most of the bones in my body feel like they are ready to turn into dust. I have no clue what the fuck just happened. I must have been hit, but I never saw Thrall move. I never heard anything or had even an inkling of warning.
Sitting up, I see Thrall staring at me. He is standing exactly where I remember him being.
“How can I show you, when you are too pathetic to see me move?”
“Fuck you.”
Yep. The stone the wall is made of is hard. Everything is tinged red out of my right eye, and the blood from my broken nose is mixing with blood from my forehead and dripping from my chin.
Thrall's face is dark with anger. “Watch your tongue around me. I am not the trash you normally associate with. If you want something to stick its dick in your shit, find a troll or a beastman.”
“Fucking bastard.” My lips part in a snarl. Flooding my body with all the ki I can summon, I hurtle to my feet. Space almost warps as I close on Thrall. I try to turn and attack the flash of movement on my right side, but a crushing force hammers into my chest.
The wall stops my flight, driving what is left of the air out of my lungs.
“Do not kill him. He is still only human.” Boran's soft words fill the room.
“Ha! I won't kill him, but I will show him pain. You've seen his pattern. The more he suffers, the faster he grows. When it comes to learning, pain is like meat and drink to this one. There is nothing wrong with teaching him a few manners along with my Shadow Fist.”
Boran's laugh is grim, as his image fades from the silver oval.
“Get up!”
Gritting my teeth, I clamber to my feet. Thrall controlled his strength. Nothing is broken, but everything already hurts. The pain is not a pr
oblem, but the dizziness is going to make fighting difficult.
“Now, why don't you show me what you call Shadow Fist?”
There is no point in trying to outmaneuver Thrall. He is so much faster than me that I cannot even tell how much of an advantage he has. I charge straight in, attacking with everything I have.
Thrall does not retreat, using only his hands or feet to deflect my attacks. No matter where I strike, he has no weakness in his defense. Space starts to warp around hands and feet, as I use the movement techniques from Shadow Fist to increase the speed my attacks, but it is still useless. Thrall looks like he is moving slowly, but no matter where or how I strike, his block is always there.
Brand is stronger than this. Why is Brand losing?
I must have been daydreaming about Perzey. This is one hell of time to be dreaming about her. I am staring at the ceiling again. I do not even know when or how Thrall hit me.
Sitting up, I stare at Thrall. His face is an impassive mask. Even though he is taller and much heavier, his speed so outclasses my own, it is obvious we are in completely different realms of ability.
“Teach me the real Shadow Fist.”
Thrall smiles, but it is not a friendly expression. “You will suffer.”
“I'm not afraid of pain. It's my only friend.”
“Follow me.”
We go back through the Smithy, to the door opposite the sealed entry. The corridor is over a hundred feet long., with several doors along its length. The door at the end opens into a dojo.
Looking around the dojo, I am not sure how it can fit in the Blood Rose Stable compound. If I am right about where we are, the ceiling is too high, and the room is too wide. No matter how I look at it, this room should be impinging on the gladiator cells and the second floor rooms used by Elan'fer'sha.
“This training hall does not exist in the same dimension as the rest of Gor'achen Citadel. It is a dimensional pocket that I created.”
The training hall is huge, easily a thousand feet long and five hundred wide. The walls are lined with weapon racks filled with thousands upon thousands of weapons. An area in the near-right corner from where we entered has training equipment made from wood, stone, and metal. The far-right corner has what looks like a jungle gym designed by an insane amusement park builder.
I would say I am amazed by this training hall, but my brain has not caught up enough to reach amazed yet.
“First, you need to learn how to think, feel, move, breathe, and exist properly”
*** Gor'achen Citadel (Over Tallifer) - Battleground of the Damned ***
Return: Day 149
Five bull orcs faced off against a single DokkAlfar female, and more than a dozen bull orc corpses littered the floor around them. Though outnumbering the DokkAlfar, the orcs looked at her with fear in their eyes. The DokkAlfar female was faster and stronger than each of them.
Before being enslaved by the DokkAlfar, each of the orcs had been an alpha ruling over more orcs than they could count. Each alpha's horde consisted of more than a double fist of warbands, each having more than a double-hand of marches, with each march made up of a double-hand of double-hands of fists. In orc math, a hand is five, a double-hand is ten, a fist is twenty-five and a double-fist is fifty. All of those numbers are approximate, since orcs do not like to be bothered with learning math, when they can learn to kill instead. The crude orc counting methods totaled roughly one and a quarter million bull orcs in each horde, with the bitches and brats increasing that size to at least eight to ten million orcs in the horde.
The DokkAlfar female was dressed in chainmail so thin and so formfitting that it looked more like a leotard than armor. If it did not have a pattern containing a massive amount of Power, it would have offered no protection whatsoever. Instead of the glaive, which was the most common polearm used by the DokkAlfar, she was using a spear that was more than a foot longer than she was tall.
“Mistress. The human animals are here. I have them in one of the lesser supplicants waiting salon.” Dressed in black pants and shirt that had been considered proper formal clothing over eight millennia in the past, A DokkAlfar male stood near one of the bull orcs.
Jerking around in shock, the bull orc growled at the tall lean DokkAlfar, until the DokkAlfar turned a cold stare on it. In a few seconds, the bull orc went from angry hostility to cowering and pissing down its own leg.
The DokkAlfar female named Aluras'bektsh'tar, was the Clan Mistress of Clan Vardne'tar. She turned to look at the DokkAlfar male, with a slight hint of a frown on her lips.
“That orc will now be useless for a practice dummy.”
“Apologies, Mistress.” The DokkAlfar male half-bowed to Aluras'bektsh'tar.
Aluras'bektsh'tar's slight frown turned to a slight smile, and the power of her psi uncoiled from within her mental shields. *Canth, you need not apologize. I understand how difficult it is for you to suppress your bloodlust, and you are the only retainer I can ever trust implicitly.*
*Thank you, Mistress.*
The cold touch of Canth's psi had once chilled Aluras'bektsh'tar to her very soul, but long centuries of association had numbed her to the killing intensity of the male's mind. In all the Atran'ler Empire there are few as deadly as Canth. I still do not understand his fanatical loyalty to my Line of Provenance, but without it, I could never have risen so high as to reclaim control of Clan Vardne'tar for the Bektsh'tar provenance. Even if I am now the last of the Provenance, with the threat that Canth embodies, I can easily retain control of the clan.
The delicate platinum bracelet on Aluras'bektsh'tar left wrist was dimensional storage device, and the spear in her hand disappeared into it, to be replaced with a scabbarded short sword. After she fastened the short sword to her belt, Aluras'bektsh'tar negligently waved her hand in the direction of the orcs.
“Put the animals back in their cages! Canth, accompany me!”
“Yes, Mistress.”
As Aluras'bektsh'tar and Canth left the room, over twenty DokkAlfar guards stepped out of hidden recesses in the walls of the practice hall, and began to herd the orcs out though a different door.
Stalking through the near-silent halls of the Vardne'tar Manor, Aluras'bektsh'tar used secondary halls to reach the salon. Only a few slaves of the clan witnessed her passage, and she reached out with her powerful mind, destroying their memories.
The door to the salon that Aluras'bektsh'tar silently opened was a servant's entry. From her position at the back of the room, she had a clear view of the five people waiting for her. Even though there were chairs in the salon, all of the waiting supplicants were standing. They all had their attention fixed on the main door to the room, and their conversation was being conducted non-verbally. With the nature of the spell construct they were using, Aluras'bektsh'tar could listen in on their words without alerting them to her presence.
*The sigils developed by these Possessed animals to make up for their lack of psi are very interesting.*
*They are poorly designed, Mistress. The holes in the spell webs leave the animals excessively vulnerable to a number of psi assaults that their minds should be better protected against naturally.* Canth's disdain was clearly projected in the tenor of his thought.
*True, but for animals like them, it is still amazing they even developed something with this level of efficacy. I will have to probe their memories and understand what led these Possessed to think of such interesting spell constructs.*
Canth's lack of a reply did not surprise Aluras'bektsh'tar. She often used the near silent male as a sounding board for her thoughts, and he would only give voice a reply, when he found fault with something she stated.
Aluras'bektsh'tar turned her gaze toward Canth, considering his elegant profile. The Clan Elders are making too much noise about continuing my Line of Provenance. They fear that it will extinguished should I meet with an accident. I do not understand, how the pathetic fools think I would allow one of the disgusting males they keep advancing to stick his pathetic
little male-thing in me. If only Canth had a recognized provenance, I would use him for impregnating myself, before casting him aside again. A progeny sired by a male of his prowess have much better prospects for being of use to me.
Turning her attention back to the supplicants, Aluras'bektsh'tar stepped into the room and paused, watching The Postmen. More silent than a ghost, Canth moved in next to her, while she calmly and coldly evaluated them.
All but one of them were Possessed, their minds and souls not matching with their bodies. The female Half-Alfar with a human on either side of her would be the one called Alva. From their positioning, she was the obvious leader of the group, but her relationship with the human male at her right was not a simple superior to subordinate relationship. Judging by his appearance the male should be the one called Graham. The pair of them were the founders of the Possessed guild called The Postmen.
The human female on Alva's left was clearly subordinate to the other two and was extremely nervous. She was not someone that fit any of the descriptions or images that Aluras'bektsh'tar's spies had collected.
The other two were a middle-aged adult human male and an early teenage human male. The middle-aged man was Herodotus, and he was the one who had arranged the meeting on behalf of The Postmen. Herodotus was holding the the teenage human male close to his body while stroking his cheek the way one would stroke a pet's head.
Aluras'bektsh'tar gently touched Alva's mind with her psi. There was no sign of the Half-Alfar being aware of her probe, and she inserted it deeper, enabling her to more easily listen to their conversation though Alva's perceptions.
Graham stiffened for an instant, before turning to look behind himself.
*Alva, behind us.*
Alva turned, her eyes widening at the sight of the two DokkAlfar watching her party. The rest of the humans turned a few seconds after.
*When did they come in?* Alva's nervousness was obviousness, her voice held a slight tremor.
Slave Pits of the Tyrannical God (Path of Transcendence Book 2) Page 8