“You're your mother's son.”

  The words echoed through Itharaak 's artul, threatening to catapult the aging irsu over the railing hanging over the expanse of Khaihylo-Kli’s central fissure. He had just finished his conversation with Ronjah when the gravity of what he'd said just hit him. He'd spent what felt like hours processing the ramifications of that sentence. And the sense of fearful respect he had for that iluun. General Itharaak Colrui centered himself and focused on his current task: negotiating a trade deal between D’varoan and Yghastian Union markets. It would be a means of reaffirming the terms of the Accord he'd signed 199 years ago. He still couldn't believe it had been 199 years since the fissure housing the city he had been visiting had formed. He had been atop the Tower of Thirst that day, watching it from Tylagen’s Rhas-fueled projections. Had the basket case of an irsu managed to wire the tower since he'd started visiting? He couldn't take over and run the tower himself, he'd have to set up a headmaster… who was the current -

  “Forgive the intrusion, esteemed commander, but I've been told we must head to the council chamber. The room has been cleared for you and the other diplomats.”

  Itharaak turned around from the glazed ceramic wall that served as the balcony and railing overlooking the cavernous maw below. And was greeted by a squat, yet muscled and petite iluun whose feisty demeanor hid well behind her respectful tone. He knew this iluun – Jenniah, Ronjah's old childhood friend.

  “It has been a pleasure and a privilege to be seeing the daughter of Thoddaus and Sarisha again after - has it really been 70 years?” They walked inside Itharaak’s apartment. They walked past the kitchen into the lobby as the conversation continued. The granite flooring clattered with the briskness of their footsteps.

  Jenniah’s bared fangs crowned a soft smile. “75. You were here to recover Ronjah for his return home.” Itharaak could barely feel the weight of those years. They had seemed to have flown like weeks and yet, thinking that felt preposterous when he was looking at such an accomplished young iluun.

  “Why, I feel that I must repeatedly express my gratitude for the hospitality and friendship you’ve shown our leader,” Itharaak told her as they entered the town house alleyway. Two guards - one YU military police guard (Jenniah’s guard) and D’varoan military police guard (General Corui) walked in step as they walked out from the diplomat’s guest village and toward the lift.

  “I’m not sure that I can tell you that my feelings about those years are the same,” Jenniah replied. Her expression was harsher now. The soft glow of her smile was eclipsed by the solemnness of the occasion. Silent now, the two walked on, crowds of tourists, tradesmerchants, and natives giving way to security checkpoints. Green lights bathed them as WiFi sensors scanned them. Soft chimes cleared them through deeper into the city. Further from the miles wide fissure at its core. South towards Acheypno, the khan's capital and the current season's seat of the world. As Jenniah and Itharaak left the core districts, the hallways’ dim light hit like a soft wave pushing on like low tide at a beach. Offsetting, but noticeable.

  Perhaps it would have been helpful to have brought maple-shades, Jenniah thought to herself. The shifting light levels - from dark to light - were enough to inspire whiplash for the princess. The red lights glowed barely bright enough to help the city’s denizens to make out its details. Hardly enough to illuminate finer details. It wasn't the softness of the light that gave her this sense of unease. The city had its own primal rhythm underneath the industrial polish Itharaak had allowed himself to be consumed by. A rhythm that washed her in an aura of paranoia. Itharaak had his sights glued ahead of him, almost as if he was trying to ignore the violent desperation infecting the area's communal psyche.

  Probably his way of respecting her feelings and space. Had she been rude, more than she had meant to be? Jenniah coughed, straightening out her throat as they entered the bright lights of the lift.

  By Valilna's veil Ronjah, you really are your mother's son. Itharaak pondered on what exactly could have encouraged Jenniah's response to his gratitude. Was the irsu he had grown to respect too much like Almia?

  “I understand that this is your second visit to Khaihylo-Kli. It would be an honor to share with you the major advancements the city has accomplished since the first year of groundbreaking,” Jenniah offered.

  A feeling of weightlessness overtook Jenniah as the lift pushed against the planet's intense gravity. It was a short reprieve for the iluun's dense muscle and fascial fibers. Itharaak waved the younger llcyran’s offer away.

  “I’m sure I know everything I need to know about Yghastia’s new precious node within the Arem under-well. I’ve been up late at night watching those G-DAW doc-streams. Have you heard of Elos Eawne?” he asked, teeth clenched in a smile threatening to split his face in two. Itharaak’s excitement was surprisingly authentic, especially given Jenniah’s experience as junior council member of the YU-CD. Council Delegates were often less giddy to visit projects that would potentially threaten their own agendas. Especially in a world whose borders were all established through betrayal and desperation. The ride up to the surface was stretched, the tension tight and fragile. Its fragility was as volatile as the delegation set to happen across the city inside Rain Pillar 5.

  “Ok, explain to me exactly what these schools of thought were again?” Ubloi Hanakahn, city taiji or mayor, was hosting syngruun Tylagen’s students, fellow sorcers and scientific masterminds of Glacia’s Tower of Thirst, a monument meant to guarantee union in a mission to solve a global resource crisis. A symbol of a needless attempt to solve a problem Galiloen herself had built within the world itself. Mother nature was quite unfathomable in how solutions came packaged as problems. Though if Ubloi was to be honest with himself for just a fraction of a second, wasn’t what he saw with his guest.

  “Ok, let’s get one thing clear here, I’m a Fleuyrra – not a squirrel. If you must be specific, I’m an Ymbiko, a tree climber,” the sorcer before him began. He wasn’t dressed in a robe, more some patterned polo, brown trousers, and a labcoat. The bipedal, flat faced squirrel of a man, wagged his bushy tail absent-mindedly. “And secondly, my species of origin has nothing to do with my thoughts on Rhasweaving and the nature of physical reality. I feel like I have to get started with that clause every time I begin going into Current events and Emmanent topics.”

  “That’s right! Emmanence and Meta-pluralism. The two theories of everything,” Ubloi interjected. The Fleuyrra winced at his host’s conclusion, his ears curling from atop his head. The city taiji tilted his head, half as embarrassed as he was curious about his guest’s reaction.

  “What is it Leo? Did I say something wrong?”

  Leo raised his index finger. Those two paradigms don’t aim to be theories of everything. They’re contextual nodes, idea containers that define what science is and where things begin – if we can find it. Do you know the difference?”

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  Ubloi shook his head. And Leo adjusted his glasses. “Do you know of the five elements? They should have taught you this after your year of understanding what the five dangerous exhales and safe ways to do them.”

  “Right, it’s the lead up into what Rhasweaving and the Artul are. Let me guess, this has something to do with quintessence. That’s the idea that every element must be to even express its inherent nature. All things decay and build toward the same beginning and end from which change is unending,” Ubloi replied quoting the scripture of the 13 interlocked rings, an omnibus of religious teachings from Old Yghastia and the Sai Empire, back when it was known as the Fractured Eastern Estates. Back when the empire of Yghast Khaogg was at its zenith, eclipsing both Glacia and the Sai continent. Back when spearbeak riders roamed the plains with lance-rifles outstretched towards the setting horizon. Walls meant something then. They were interlocking chains to hold back the dense turbulent earth and other nations’ armies. Fluid like water, to tame the fires of war and ground the airs of heaven. This was a time before the hands of night fractured their hold on the south. D'varoh. A country best restrained to Xelryia - truly isolated as it claimed - cut from its entanglements in the Haeydlaic Territories.

  And stranded from its neighbors. Eigyst was sovereign over the continent, and its fleets would have dominion from plain to plain. Even if the Khan himself, Aizehir Zephtiir refused, destiny would be thrust upon the Union. The clans would be one again.

  “Wow. That was legitimately impressive, Leo replied. The ymbiko scrunched his soft padded nose. “I knew they taught it, I just wasn't confident that you'd remember.” His eyes narrowed. “Since there is common knowledge of the core base beliefs of this planet's most shared civilizations when it comes to core symbolic resonance, I can tell you about the two competing metaphysical “sleeves” we see in common academic debate. “

  Ubloi leaned against a wall. He was strangely engaged with all of this yapping. He sat mulling over the core basics of Spirit-code, a shared guide book and language for those into understanding the empirical/ experiential domains: science and micro and macro psychology. The 5 elements were especially a great gateway into teaching emotions.

  He rapped his knuckles against the chipped lime/ salt-crete making up the walls of the moisture treatment complex and rain collector. “You know, I have no idea why I - you must be a songweaver,” he interrupted.

  “Or maybe what I have to say about knowing what something is – or what we call ontology– is important,” the ymbiko replied. Leo's face frowned in annoyance, displeasure betrayed by every wrinkle born from his scowl.

  “Fine, continue your lecture,” the “mayor” told his guest.

  “So, what I was talking about before Jenniah left to grab another guest, was how we have schools of thought that contextualize everything we engage with. Specifically, the two schools of thought that define how we relate to each other and objects amongst this world “we've” built together.”

  “Finally, on to the subject at hand. Ora Laho, how long did it have to take to get to the point?” Ubloi was anxious. Jenniah had left twelve minutes ago, and it was a fifteen minute trip to the tourist villas at the middle level of the pit-city. The deep freezer deep within the city's fissure was the chief manufacturing center of the entire country, and with Khaldos’s blessing, the entire union. Tourists could only rent balconies looking over within wheel or district 5. She should be back within the hour if the traffic on the upper levels was manageable.

  “Hey, sometimes it's good to get some review in,” Leo replied. His eyelids were half closed in irritation.“So we have Emmanence and Multi - pluralism as the two competing ways we see the world right now. Emmanence tends to suggest that everything arises from a constant stream of information, akin to how the Vise technology works, but in reverse. Instead of all that data being streamed to your brain and getting filtered through e-signal, the data explodes outward through everything.”

  “So it's like an iron-call, but expanded to everything?” Ubloi stroked his beard, a long thin thread of hairs trailing onto his shirt collar.

  Leo nodded. “Pretty much. It's like summoning the constructed form of whatever ancestral weapons, armor, or tools from the recesses of the Katvirn Artul, the space spirits are said to reside.”

  Ubloi knew of the Katvirn Artul or Twilight, the liminal space between dream and underworld. It was a space accessible only through the mind. Morgoroth and the Black Arboretum lurked deep within along with other psychic “worlds”. Worlds where Artuls were processed and recycled. Or at least that's what the academics within the Scholar Forums said about [the wheel of souls]. Ubloi walked to the edges of the room he and Leo stood in, looking for his mug. It was Klugyuj, a mixture of raw spear beak egg, D’varoan bittersweet chocolate, and Oomlaa yak milk, cooked in searing hot, bitter coffee and mixed with cinnamon to create a smooth gel- like concoction. It was an Yghastian staple. Ubloi found the mug among the many pages and papers lining the table, partially obscured by the stacks of old school mediums for communication and documentation. Picking up the mug, he took a dip, savoring the sweet, yet yolky buildup of bitter slowly giving way to grainy texture and subtle sweet and heat. Ubloi had added enough milk to keep the egg from going solid as the coffee’s own heat cooked it. He paused, letting the silence hang before Leo decided to continue his explanation. “The other paradigm, meta-pluralism, is less about tying holons or whole systems together and more about “lanes”. These holons, the idea suggests, predate the Artul, and it's only through their interactions that consciousness and everything else develops.

  “So matter giving rise to thought,” Ubloi mused.

  A soft knock stalled the conversation. It was too early for Jenniah to have been able to have made her way back. Jump shuttle traffic was heavy today.

  “Enter,” Ubloi spoke to the door. A slim line of light from outside grew as two small people, about the size of a first grader, about four feet tall. They were Fey elves, females or fermen. Specifically ambassador Chroma and her guest, Stalgia Suprakheit. “Excuse us,” Chroma began, her voice as small as her stature. “We are here to meet with delegates.”

  Leo turned to Ubloi. “Looks like we'll have to continue our convo some other time,” he said. The ymbiko pushed himself off of the table he was leaning on and sauntered towards the door. It slammed behind him, missing his bushy tail by a hair. Ubloi turned to his new guests. Steepling his fingers he announced: “ I'm still waiting for our junior delegate to get back with our guest from D'varoh. They should be on the shuttle to the tower right now.”

  Jump shuttles were interesting vehicles. Named as such because they were able to jump from one point of Sekaia to another almost instantaneously. Hypothetically, these floating buses could be used to travel the stars. Jenniah sat scrolling through the information packet projected onto her cornea via the single contact lens in her eye. It was a D-ocul, a cutting edge technology that allowed those with it to interact with their local network and Global Digitally Assisted Web without tying up their hands. Reading about the jump shuttle was a suitable distraction. Especially when avoiding anymore conversations with the D'varoan general seated beside her in their private shuttle.

  “Tiellus has told me a lot about you and some of your adventures with Ronjah,” Itharaak began, trying to fill the awkward space between the two of them with conversation.

  “That's nice,” she replied, continuing to scroll through the jump shuttle’s digital brochure. She wasn't going to talk about the D'varoan prince today. “What's with D'varoh having military installations within the inner systems and my people's land still?”

  Itharaak was taken back. Jenniah was known to be confrontational and blunt. But he hadn't expected her to be so forward. “As much as we prefer isolating ourselves, you must understand Ms. Brava, that D'varoh is committed to maintaining its competitiveness and autonomy throughout Sekaia.” He shuffled uneasily in his seat. The movement was small, but Jenniah saw it. Jenniah noted just how unsuited this irsu was to be a general, much less the famed Stone Warden that had thrived in the midst of the first Uniciv War. He had struggled holding back tears on the way to the shuttle. Something that hadn't gone unnoticed by her at least. She squinted, suspicious of the irsu’s reputation of being a warrior.

  “If you wanted isolation, you'd stay out of the world's business. And yet you're entangled in our trade, our defense, and our internal policies. Make it make sense.” Rolling her eyes, she turned to him looking him right in in his eyes. Watery as they'd been since they left his flat.

  Itharaak took a deep breath. It was hard trying to isolate his emotions from the city’s. Khaihylo-Kli, for all its engineering, wasn't exactly peaceful. He could feel the spiraling despair and desperation of the middle levels where the impoverished dwelled. ‘Sometimes having a strong emotional resonance with the collective scalar fields around him was a curse,’ Itharaak thought to himself. He tried focusing on the feelings pulsing through his Artul, but the background noises throughout were so strong. “I notice this ride is taking a bit long,” he said, trying to change the subject. He leaned back as a tear trailed down his cheek. Jenniah tried holding back her disgust. The irsu before her was supposed to be one of the most dangerous willbenders alive and yet it looked like he could barely keep himself from breaking down.

  “Traffic regulations do that. The union uses field propulsed craft for its energy efficiency, not speed. It'll only take fifteen more minutes. What I've been telling you can't be that harsh now could it?” She asked.

  “No, I just opened myself to the city. There's a lot of death and desperation here. Especially in the work sectors where it's dangerous. Some of these people aren't wise enough to keep from hurting each other and themselves,” Itharaak said sniffing.

  Jenniah 's thick eyebrows furrowed. She hadn't known that Itharaak was an empath. ‘It all made sense,’ she mused. He wasn't breaking down - he was taking in information. This m

  ade him far more dangerous than she thought. This was an irsu unafraid of pain.