Solo The Intricacies of Planning

[Alses]

Timestamp: 2nd Day of Summer, 513 A.V.

A bright, sunny dawn broke over Lhavit, bringing a smile to Alses' perfect face as she strolled gently along the city of stars' green boulevards and through its fountain-bedecked courtyards. The Dusk Tower soared up to a perfect blue sky, a total contrast to yesterday's unsettled weather, much more congenial to a Synaborn Ethaefal.

'Sunkissed' was more than just a sweet image - for a Synaborn, at least, and Alses gloried in Syna's regard from on high, delighting in the rain of photons and warmth that sluiced over her fire-opal skin and was drunk in by the tyrian silk of her instructor's robes. It was almost enough to set her to dancing, the energy thrilling right through her body, reminding her powerfully of the Sun Temple and the dance of the Taiyang, fierce and powerful and full of life – fierce, cheerful, unyielding life in all its forms and with all its problems.

She was early, this morning, as she processed through the open gates to the Tower proper, with a half-bow to the Shinya on guard, because there was such a thing as manners, after all. It was earlier than strictly necessary, true, and that was due only partly to the summer sunlight, the lengthening of the days so delightful to her kind. No, today what had called her forth from the steam-wreathed baths and rose-scented morning room of the Towers Respite was a summons to a staff meeting, the periodic get-together of all the Tower's instructors, and with the promise of tutelage from Chiona Dusk afterwards to further sweeten the deal.

Despite the warm glow of the sun overhead and the gentle warmth of the day, Alses still moved carefully, as though on eggshells, unsure of herself. She'd overgiven yesterday, thanks to her own arrogance and hubris, caught up in teaching so much that she forgot to watch herself, to monitor and examine every erg of djed expenditure, and it had left her with dilated pupils – making everything uncomfortably bright, even for an Ethaefal – and sending sharp spikes of agony deep into her brain.

Headaches, the bane of any mage's life – but also the saviour, on so many occasions, disrupting concentration and stopping greater consequences from manifesting. That didn't mean they weren't uncomfortable, though, bell upon bell of aching pressure wrapped tight around her head, pressing cruelly where horn met flesh and fused seamlessly into her skull and with nothing to be done apart from sit there with a cold flannel draped over most of her face.

Which, in point of fact, she'd not been able to do, since she'd had marking – marking, of all things, to do for most of the afternoon. Never mind that she'd taken shameless advantage of being Chiona Dusk's apprentice to get into the nicest dayroom in the entire Tower and sat, drenched in what little sunlight there was, marking lazily until the Change was nearly upon her.

Some of her students were in for a bit of a shock when she handed back their work; her comments had been cutting and terse, rather than ramblingly soothing, the consequence of feeling rotten. She'd make it up to them – well, those who deserved it, anyway – sooner or later. For some, it would perhaps be a long-overdue wakeup call.

Alses shrugged gingerly, still expecting the stab of a headache and relieved when it didn't come. The doors to the Tower swung open at her touch – she could feel the thrum of wards and deeply-embedded enchantments underneath her hand, now, unlike the vague hunch she'd had when first she crossed the threshold, what was once obscured and hidden now unveiled and obvious before her senses.

The atrium, which had once seemed so grand and imposing, now had an air of familiar welcome to it, the subtle aura of the Dusk Tower itself, imbued with the virtues and vices of its presiding family down the centuries, enveloping her softly. She exchanged greetings with the few staff and guards about at this bell, padding through the glowing corridors.

Mr. Secretary looked momentarily nonplussed as she stepped over the threshold of his office, frowning slightly at the unlit grate that sustained her through three seasons out of every four. It might have been Summer now, true, but it was only just the best of seasons – some of Spring's unsettled chill still hung in the air.

Oh, all right, a fire might not have been strictly necessary, but it was still a nice thing to have.

The soft sounds of cloth rustling drew her attention back to Mr. Secretary, hanging a scarf that whispered of cocooning softness and warmth from a hook and draping a heavy outer coat over another – she realised with a mild jolt she'd caught him just as he was settling into work, having only just arrived.

“Early, even for you, isn't it, Alses?” he asked, slightly breathlessly – although it would have taken someone who knew him well to see that – sliding into his chair with a sigh and ceremoniously giving his knuckles a good workout that resulted in a fusillade of cracks echoing around the room.

“And even for the season,” he added after a moment, remembering that the Watchtowers had flared and it was now, technically, Summer. “Bad dreams?” he asked gently.

Alses shook her head in the negative, gingerly at first and then more strongly as the headache remained absent. “No, no; Syna's influence waxes and wakes me earlier and earlier with the Change, it's true, but we normally like to luxuriate in it a bit before coming to work.” A theatrical sigh and a shrug, belied by the faint smile touching her perfect features. “But today is a full staff meeting, concerning the...” she tasted the words with relish “...Open Day, I believe?”

Mr. Secretary grunted, opening a fresh pot of midnight-black ink, sending a phantom waft of scent across the immediate world. “Ah, yes, I remember now,” he replied absently, leafing through a document. Not rude, just busy – this was the tone their meetings had taken, comfortable enough with one another's company to lessen a few of the normal social rules.

“It's in the Family drawing room, by the way, not your normal staffroom. Too many people,” he clarified, seeing the confused look Alses sent him. “The Open Day involves every facet of the Tower, you know. 'Tis a major operation, every year – the Shinya to control the crowds, the cleaners to make sure the Tower gleams, the instructors to decide who does what with the hopefuls, the Family to preside and assess any particularly promising cases, the gardeners to manage the refreshment marquees on the Tower lawns...everyone's involved in it from the Patriarch on down.”

He cast a glance at the timepiece mounted on the wall, tutted absently, and began to gather papers, ink and a small wooden travelling desk she'd not seen before. “Shall we go up together?” he asked. “I'm to minute discussions, as usual, so everyone knows what was agreed when we draw up the formal plans.”

Alses smiled happily. “I'd be glad of the company on the walk,” she confided. “We've only been to the Family wing a few times, even with Chiona Dusk. It's a little unnerving, if I'm truthful. We still remember our orientation and the fantastically fierce House Guardsman who warned us off certain doors.”

Mr. Secretary smiled, fine crow's-feet spidering the corners of his eyes. “No-one will stop you now,” he replied, gliding across the skyglass and marble. “Not now Lady Dusk has you under her wing.” He nodded at the door. “Shall we?”

[Alses]

The drawing room was one of the larger rooms in the Tower, as it turned out, although when Alses had last seen it it had appeared no more than generously-proportioned. What she'd initially taken for walls were screens – elaborately carved with scenes from history or silk-printed with idyllic bucolic scenes: trees, mountain peaks, valleys – and had been folded back by the Tower's legion of industrious servants, and now the room was a cavernous hall. Still lined with sumptuous furnishings and hung with paintings both valuable and old, most likely, but now more a gathering point than a formal room to receive honoured guests.

The Tower – right down to the rooms, it seemed – was nothing if not adaptable, and all manner of people were filing in, Alses and dapper Mr. Secretary amongst the gentle flow, drifting across the acres of floor to take their places in the assembling throng.

The airy space, flooded with light from the broad windows gazing down at Lhavit and the Misty Peaks beyond – a breathtaking view even in a city surrounded by stunning scenery jostling for attention on all sides – soon filled with the low, electric hum of chatter and the occasional burst of laughter as the slowly-assembling group of people networked, found acquaintances and friends and passed the time until this meeting was officially due to start.

Slightly unnerved by the press of people – all wearing instructors' crests, many of whom she'd not really met - the sounds and the noises, Alses stuck close to the known and the familiar – Mr. Secretary, mostly, who seemed completely at-ease, strolling over to a scroll-backed chair and settling in with every appearance of familiarity, setting up his travelling desk with exacting precision and then simply...waiting, a body switched off and at rest until needed.

Just as the bells began to ring out their latest peal of the morning, doors clicked open at the eastern end of the expanded drawing-room, admitting in Chiona Dusk and several other members of House Dusk close on her heels. Exquisitely-attired as always, her face was expressionless as she scanned the assembled crowd, but flickered into a sly smile as her gaze ghosted across Alses, perched at the periphery of where the instructors seemed to have congregated, and therefore as far away from madam as possible whilst still remaining a part of the group, a member of the meeting. The cold martinet who'd first taught her was sitting bolt-upright and radiating cold indifference to Alses' biased senses.

A crystal chime rang out, calling the meeting to order – Chiona, tapping gently on a glass set before her. There was little evidence of the mischievous, sometimes-childish woman Alses had come to know, all of it overlaid with a thick veneer of formality and procedure.

“Good morning.” Her voice was clear and bell-like. “Thank you all for your attention. As you know, the recruitment day for the Towers this year has been set for the twenty-fourth. We have twenty-two days to plan and prepare, therefore, and as such I would like each and every instructor to contribute to the event.”

In the silence caused by many brains suddenly shunted into overdrive, Chiona flashed her mischievous smile and took a seat, that simple little movement releasing some of the tension; with that ephemeral snap came a low hum of conversation and the rippling susurration of silk on silk as teachers and aurists and scholars many years her senior turned to one another and began to discuss, in low, earnest tones, the sorts of things that could be done.

The suggestion of mind-reading – although the term sent a ripple of laughter round the room – was readily accepted; it was an impressive, albeit imprecise piece of magical theatre, in a way, integrating emotional states with a few careful questions and a keen eye for body language – according to the man who proposed it. She'd missed his name yet again, but recognized him easily enough as the jolly, portly fellow who'd ostensibly orchestrated Chiona Dusk's little test. Rotund and short, his feet – in their twinkling little black boots – really didn't touch the floor, a thought which amused her inordinately until she wrenched her rebellious brain back to the topic in hand.

As though his idea had been the raising of the floodgates, ideas began to come thick and fast. Curiously detached from it all, Alses watched Mr. Secretary's quill scribe intricate curves through the air as it raced across creamy paper, minuting every piece of official discussion with care and precision and above all speed, always ready to record an interjection, a new idea, a decision, anything that might then be put into practice or need to be referred to at a later date.

Someone – Alses never saw who, precisely, just the retreating backs of two servants – dragged in a big plan of the Tower and its grounds and soon a tight knot of serious-looking teachers were gathered around it, gesturing and using it to illustrate points in favour of their own ideas and against anyone else's.

Just when it all looked as though they might be wiping blood from the ceilings, consensus emerged out of apparent anarchy, chaos steered to productive action by a calming word, a gentle gesture, a compromise reached – and not a bit of it directed by Chiona Dusk from her magisterial position at the head of the meeting, all of it spontaneous, the community cohesion of the Tower working to resolve differences and arbitrate disputes without the need for a decree.

She hovered on the edges of it all, unsure and craning to see the map which was quickly becoming thick with markers and arrows of arcane purpose, the physical representation of the mental horse-trading going on all around.

Alses saw markers for mind-readers, for finders of the lost and the forgotten, for traders and merchants – she vaguely recalled Chiona's offhand comment about contract-work for various businesses, ensuring that truth was told and covenants adhered to during negotiations – indications of marshalling points (whatever they were) and lectures for the academically-minded, even a sparring area carefully marked out in red and marked 'Master' and much else besides.

She jumped as a cool hand landed on her shoulder. “Something on your mind, apprentice-mine?” came Chiona's voice, soft and low and pitched to carry just as far as her ears, no further.

A few ticks to quiet her racing heart, another few to formulate a polite response – they were with company, after all, not alone. “It seems to us we're missing the essential delight of auristics,” she said quietly, turning away from the map to fully face her teacher.

“How so?” Chiona asked, perhaps louder than intended – or perhaps not, in actual fact, Alses considered later. More than a few people turned from their own discussions at the sound of her voice, eyes glittering in the opulent chamber, all of them watching, assessing, judging.

“What are we missing, Instructor?” Chiona intoned formally – Alses flinched at the title, never used between the two of them, and then rallied. Two could play at that game.

[Alses]

She swept a shallow bow – suitable for between apprentice and master, Ethaefal and highly-respected mortal – before responding; there were the niceties to observe, after all.

“Auristics is a beautiful discipline,” Alses replied. “We defy anyone to tell us the rainbowed panoply of sight and sound and smell and touch that swirls around us every day, always shifting and always changing with a million different factors, is boring or mundane.” She gestured expansively, trying to capture the numinous with the elegant motion of her fingers, ravelling the ambient djed of the world between them in an effort to illustrate her point and carefully ignoring madam instructor, focusing instead on Chiona who was, at the end of the day, the one she had to convince.

“The auras that we sense paint masterpieces for us to interpret and delight in, the primary effect of our magic. People are drawn to beautiful things, and there are few things more beautiful than a crowd of auras shifting and changing with every tick that passes, but we aren't showing them the world we can all see. We're showing them tricks and results rather than the pulsating glory we all delight in!”

Chiona nodded, as though she'd been presented with an interesting conundrum. “And what would you suggest, then?”

Alses took a deep breath, trying not to listen to the susurrus of voices rising behind her as more and more people turned to watch. 'These are your peers,' she told herself fiercely. Buoyed by her prideful nature, reinforced by what Chiona had termed the arrogance of the Ethaefal, she had the strength to speak out.

“We've some skill as a magecrafter,” she began. “As most here are aware, no?” At Chiona's amused, encouraging nod, she continued, voice becoming stronger and more assured as interruptions were not forthcoming.

“I could create an artifact that would reflect the world we all see,” she suggested quietly. “A bright and glowing aura mirror of some kind, that anyone could look into and see the infinite regressions of colour we all delight in. Only a minor creation,” she reassured quickly, “Nothing too insightful, just enough to let everyone see the rainbow.”

The atmosphere was not an optimistic, upbeat one, true, but nor was she being shot down outright – there were whispered conversations all around. Alses kept her gaze on the tawny eyes of Chiona Dusk, right up until someone piped up: “I'd like to know what practical use the esteemed apprentice thinks her suggestion would be?”

She turned, bringing a fussy little man into her field of view. His hands were limp, his wrists seeming to disdain their burden, with a moustache that looked as though he'd had a bowl of hot chocolate and the foam hadn't had time to vanish from his upper lip. A long face, slightly horse-faced in the manner of the well-bred and set with weary gray eyes, but bearing an expression of slightly-sceptical interest rather than anything else.

“Most people see auristics using their eyes, don't they?” Alses asked, as a reply. “It's the easiest way to percieve the deeper world, and it's beautiful. I teach the novices, they all tell me how immensely pretty the world is when they look at it.” A faint smile. “It seems no-one thought it worth telling them it would be.”

“But how would that persuade people to come to us, rather than the Dawn or Twilight Tower?” her questioner asked, voice neutral as far as she could tell.

Alses shrugged. “People like beautiful things,” she admitted. “The lightshow to draw them in, all the other exhibits – the mind-reading, the object hunting, all of that, to hold their interest and show them the benefits of the discipline.”

People were nodding thoughtfully. “We'd be able to use it to show people how we can read their emotions and state,” the horse-faced teacher mused, with mounting enthusiasm. “I'm always at a bit of a loss to explain how everything works to non-aurists, I confess. How long would this mirror you're talking about last?”

Alses blinked; he continued, perhaps misinterpreting her pause. “That is, is it akin to the glyphic lights we all use that need to be rewritten every so often?”

In reply, she shook her head sharply in the negative. “I'm a better magecrafter than I am a glypher,” she replied. “Our artifacts last forever. A thousand years from now – always providing it wasn't destroyed – it'd still work perfectly well. That's the joy of magecrafting, its principal benefit over glyphery.” A pause, as another idea flowered in her brain. “While on that note, actually, we could also create glyphed scrolls or some other object that would give people a brief indication of what it's like to be an aurist.”

Chiona nodded thoughtfully. “The glyphic objects sounds like an eminently feasible idea,” she offered, and then continued: “As for an aura mirror, I'll consider the suggestion further.”

That seemed to be all she planned to say, however, cutting across the tide of conversations and turning to the others, being quickly drawn into further and more complicated discussions, formality ablating away under enthusiasm and mental effort.

Soon, though, the flood of concerns and ideas began to die away, and Alses brightened, thinking of the promised and forthcoming lesson with Chiona – but such was not to be, at least, not yet – a flood of servants filed in as everyone reassembled together into a semicircle, this time facing the doors. Once more, screens were pushed back even further, opening up the already-large drawing room until it would have been ample to hold a grand ball in, and then a new tide of people washed in.

These were earthier than the cerebral instructing staff, in the main – the Tower's legion of domestic staff, from grizzled gardeners baked under Syna's sun and looking decidedly uncomfortable with the indoors to the ranks of sparkling-clean men and women who kept the interiors immaculate; from the housekeeper all the way on down to heavy labourers, everyone was ranged in ranks throughout the opulent expanse of the expanded drawing room, all assembled for some arcane purpose.

Said purpose became clear when the map was once more brought front and centre and Chiona once more took charge of the meeting. “Good morning, all. Thank you for your attention and service, as ever. If I could direct your attention to the map the instructors and I have drawn up for this year's Open Day, we'd value your comments on whether it's doable.”

“Master Zentris, your report on the gardens?” Chiona's finger tapped the map and then she looked up, expectant, at the throng gathered in front of everyone.

Mildly intrigued, Alses perked up, looking forward to her first real glimpse of the elusive master of the Dusk Tower's grand gardens. The figure who rose was weathered, skin ridged and puckered with age and brown as a nut, a stark contrast to the flyaway shock of white hair that sprouted like a dandelion clock from his head. He had a hawkish, hooked nose and an aura that chimed with a fierce intellect and a stubborn spirit that bent its head to no-one.

“I've been having m'staff strengthen the western lawns and laying down a good dousing of fertilisers and vigour philtres,” he pronounced, voice harsh and hoarse – doubtless from long years of shouting instructions to his gardeners in all weathers. “They should stand up to marquees and the tromping of everyone and their neighbour's boots with no lasting problems by the time we're done. With a bit of work, I'll be able to adapt the plan and we'll not have unsightly brown blotches or snapped and trampled rare plants.” Chiona held her gaze on him until: “M'lady,” was forthcoming, and then moved on with a nod of thanks.

“Very good. I'm sure the grounds will look as splendid as ever, even after we've entertained on the lawns.”

[Alses]

“How stand the domestic staff?” was Chiona's next question, and no sooner had her dulcet tones rippled out across the assembly than a portly woman stood up, a silver chatelaine clanking at her ample waist.

“We'll be ready for the inrush, m'lady, have no fear! We plan to lay in extra staff to deal with the cleanup process, if the Exchequer will consent to release a little more money, and our stocks are very healthy – we should be well able to cope.”

There were more reports – from a Shinya liaison officer, shimmering in skyglass plate, from various other officials of the Tower itself; a delegation from the Exchequer detailing the funds that had been made available by the Patriarch for the day and much else besides.

Alses shifted, restive – although it was interesting, seeing how a large organization geared itself up for a major event, seeing how every disparate part from the kitchens to the cleaning staff came together in pursuit of the common goal, she was impatient for all of this...this...logistics, that was the word – she was inordinately pleased at having recalled the correct term - to be simply over, that her lesson with Chiona, pushing at the boundaries of what she could do, could commence.

Selfish, perhaps, but Alses had never claimed to be a paragon of virtue. A pillar of faith, perhaps, but never virtuous in all that she did. Sorceresses almost never were.

Always on the edge of things, she waited and planned and tried not to look too impatient as issues arose and were dealt with, markers were moved around on the map and a plethora of further indicators were added – red for security, yellow for refreshments, white for Catholicon support – something Alses was always glad for – and much else besides.

Eventually, wave after wave of bows and curtseys began to ripple across the assembled servants of the Dusk Tower and, like rats leaving a sinking ship, the drawing-room began to empty, the screens were once more unfolded and the ballet of furniture taking up its more usual positions entered its second movement, until the only two people who had remained seated and stationary whilst activity hummed and flashed and buzzed all around were Alses and Lady Dusk herself.

“Alses.” Her voice was quiet and controlled. “You really must learn to control your emotions more precisely.” Cool and studied, detached, the layers of makeup and ornate dress making her a painted doll, her face a mix of pallor and rich darkness, unsettlingly like the cold martinet who had preceded her as Alses' tutor, it was impossible to tell if she was joking or deathly serious.

Her brain, without any conscious input whatsoever, decided to play it safe, making her gulp and sketch a half-bow towards the elegant figure perched ramrod-straight on one of the few chairs not being moved around by the efficient servants. “My apologies, Chiona,” she said, as humbly as she was able.

The sense of a magisterial, reserved nod. “As you should be.” A pause, and then a wicked gleam entered Lady Dusk's fiery tawny eyes and a smile touched her blood-painted lips.

“Gotcha.”

A low chuckle hummed between them even as Alses groaned. “It never gets old, doing that to you,” Chiona observed, rising in a waterfall of silk and gesturing for her student to accompany her. “You're a perfect Ethaefal, graceful and beautiful enough to make me look like a hag in comparison...but you can be ever-so gullible now and then.” Another bright smile, full of amusement. “It amuses me to trick you every so often.”

Alses cast her eyes skywards. “Syna give me strength to deal with the trials you lay before me,” she proclaimed loudly, knowing Chiona's response even as her mentor bridled.

“Trial? Trial? Surely you've not forgotten you address the heiress-presumptive of the Dusk Tower and one of the most skilled aurists in the city? The lady who has, out of the goodness of her heart, agreed to take one of the most difficult apprentices in recent years under her generous wing?”

“All of which you instructed us to forget about when you played that childish trick with the invisible ink on us,” Alses returned equably. “And all the Tower knows I'm nothing if not obedient.”

Another giggle at the blatant lie as they padded together through the curving hallways. “Obedient you might be, when no other option presents itself, but you're hardly graceful about it,” Chiona observed. “If you disagree with what you're asked to do, that is.”

Arriving in the morning-room – an airy solar with a near-transparent skyglass dome for a roof and a similar substance forming much of the exterior walls – Chiona threw herself into a chair with such force it nearly forced her out again, the heavy armchair shrieking back on its elaborately-carved feet as she made herself comfortable.

Alses, for her part, was more sedate, eventually selecting a chaise longue on which she could comfortably lounge and drink in the abundant sunlight pouring down. She looked away from her mentor for just half a chime or so, drinking in the spectacular view of Lhavit spread out before and below, a fairytale city of light and fantasy, framed becomingly against the bursting green and white and gray of the Misty Peaks, the vicious geology of the region cradling the starry city in a prickly embrace.

When she turned back, Chiona had a tall, cool drink in her hand, sipping it appreciatively. That had become something of a ritual, in truth – the Tower's solar often became uncomfortably hot for non-Ethaefal, especially on a clear day, and Chiona's way of coping seemed to be cold drinks and lots of them; Alses had become used to a steady stream of silent-footed servants shimmering in and out, dealing with Lady Dusk's insatiable thirst with quiet efficiency.

Seeing her look, Chiona raised the glass in jesting toast. “Don't get too comfortable,” was her advice, in between gulps of sweet, cold liquid.

“We shan't be here that long,” Chiona announced, but made no move to rise from her seat. Taking her cue from this, Alses curled up more comfortably on the plush upholstery, waiting patiently for whatever was to come. “We need to stretch you,” her mentor informed her with a smile – the sort of smile Alses was coming to dread. “You've been coasting along quite nicely for a while now, getting used to your evolving powers, my prodigy, and it's high time you started to push the boundaries of what you can do.”

“Push the boundaries?” Alses echoed, feeling rather like a parrot.

“Yes. If you don't reach beyond what you're comfortable with, you won't learn, your djed won't understand any more than it does right now. Do you truly notice much improvement after you've just used your power to taste my drink any more?”

Alses frowned in thought, and then had to concede defeat. “No,” she replied. “We can't say our skill grows with such uses any more.”

Chiona nodded triumphantly. “Exactly, apprentice-mine! You already know how to do it, and with the most elegant economy of expenditure at that. No point practising that further. Not if you want to improve, anyway.”

[Alses]

“But,” Chiona continued lazily, waving one beringed hand in an airy, encompassing gesture that threatened to tip whatever she was drinking all over her silken robes. “First, I'd like to talk a little more about your ideas. Tell me, how were you planning to do this aura mirror of yours?”

Alses blinked, slightly nonplussed. “We were going to find a mirror and magecraft it,” she said carefully, slowly, unsure of what Chiona was getting to. An impatient hand flapped at her.

“Yes, yes, yes, but how are you actually going to do it? You don't have a laboratory, this much I know.”

“The Dusk Tower does,” Alses pointed out, slightly confused. “And since it's work for the Tower, we thought there'd be no problem in using it.”

“Except my honoured father's using it right now,” Chiona pronounced with a faint smile. “Taking advantage of all the wards that were built into its walls.” A faint, tolerant sigh, the love of a daughter for a father's foibles and eccentricities. “Zintila alone knows what he's doing.”

Alses sagged at the news. “That puts paid to our idea, then,” she murmured, slightly sadly.

“Not necessarily,” came the lazy reply. “Heard of the Overflowing Phial? Elena Lariat? You must have seen the place, near Tanroa's Temple, full of pretty people and lit up with fireworks almost every night of Summer.” A shake of the head. “She sometimes allows magecrafters and alchemists to rent out her laboratory.”

Alses quirked an eyebrow. “And she'd let us do so?”

“No idea,” came the lazy, half-asleep response – heat seemed to have that effect on her inestimable mentor. “But, from observation, she's more kindly disposed to beautiful people – and that's one thing you have in spades, and don't you dare try and contradict me. You know you are, even if it's as natural as breathing to you. Worth a shot, most definitely.” Chiona shifted in her armchair, rising slightly from her slump, shaking herself more thoroughly awake.

“What will the mirror be able to show?” she asked, curious.

Alses frowned, thinking. “Given we were only thinking of creating a minor artifact, it should just show the passive lightshow we all experience; the melting colours and flashing auras around everything. It won't show vast coronae, or able to reflect their meaning straight into the mind as a greater artifact, imbued with more auristic power, might be able to, but it should still provide an insight into the world we see.” A stronger smile, this time. “Auristics is probably the only discipline we could do this in,” she remarked. “All the others require a conscious trigger, which means I'd have to craft at least a minor intelligence in with the magic, but an aurist's passive sense carries over without that requirement.”

Chiona nodded, eyes intrigued. “That's good, that's good. How much will all this cost the Exchequer?” she asked, and Alses winced, having been hoping that question wouldn't arise. She knew how much things actually cost, of course, and how much this sort of work would generally go for, but the Dusk Tower would doubtless expect some sort of discount.

She squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable on her chaise longue. “For the most minor sort of artifact, of the kind we were thinking of creating, we'd normally charge around three thousand kina.” She said it fast, trying to get past the vast figure as quickly as possible. “Although I could perhaps cut a bit off it.” That would be only fair, Alses admitted in the privacy of her own brain, since she worked for and was apprenticed at the Tower.

Chiona didn't seem too bothered, however – or, at least, she showed little outward sign of it - and Alses once more found herself wondering just how much money House Dusk had accrued down the centuries. “And how much would you really need to break even on a commission?” was the next, lazy question.

“A thousand,” she whispered, hands bunching unconsciously in the rich silk of her robes.

A considering nod. “I see. Expensive discipline you practise, isn't it?”

“Only to start,” Alses replied, slightly stung in spite of herself. “At least, for us. Then it pays for itself. Or should, at any rate.”

Chiona nodded, considering, and then changed the subject slightly. “Glyphing. Tell me, how would that work?”

Here, Alses was on firmer ground and the words burst out of her in a relieved rush. “Oh, that's quite easy. We can create scrolls or other objects that store auristic power for release later, when someone says a trigger word whilst holding it. I can't use my full power, of course, which makes it easier to produce lots of less-powerful scrolls.”

Chiona blinked. “Why not?”

Alses, for her part, winced at the memory. “We tried it once, actually. I had to drug my testee – if that's the right word – into insensibility until it wore off. Too much, too quickly; his mind wasn't prepared for the influx of impressions.” A weak smile. “So I'll not do that. Brief bursts of weakened power, just enough to let people see something of the discipline for a few chimes, that should be safe enough.”

“We'll have Catholicon support, too, just in case anything untoward happens,” Chiona reassured her. “We always do at these big events, because fate can be a nasty thing on occasion and it doesn't do to trust too much in luck.”

Without so much as a groan of protest or resignation, Chiona Dusk sprang upright in one lithe, graceful movement, stretching as she went from mostly-horizontal to formidably vertical in the space of just a few ticks.

“Enough of that,” she said, with an air of finality. “The Tower will commission you; I'll see to it. A paltry few thousand kina for perhaps centuries of productive return. Let's turn instead to our lessons, hmm? Lovely as it would be to laze here, there's a gap in our schedules and we must seize it with both hands! Let's go forth, apprentice-mine, into the city! And maybe there'll be time to select a mirror for you, too.”

So saying, Lady Chiona Dusk gathered her silks and swept forth from the family wing of the Tower, down its wide staircases and out into the city proper, Alses hangdog at her heels and keeping up as best as she was able with her mentor's confident strides.

[Alses]

Eventually, her ladyship came to a dignified halt on the broad, shallow steps which formed a sort of dais for the entirety of Koten Temple, with the banner-bedecked, stall-strewn expanse of the ceremonial string of plazas and squares leading from the Amaranthine Gates to the Temple itself sprawled out before them.

With a gentle sigh, she gathered her silken robes close about herself and sank down onto the warm skyglass of one of the many benches dotted around the ceremonial heart of Lhavit, waving an airy hand of dismissal at the two servants who had accompanied them, having detached themselves from the atrium staff and following Alses and her mentor like living shadows.

“Off you go now, thank you,” was all Chiona said, and yet they took off like a shot, soon vanishing into the crowds that filled Surya Plaza, a mixing melange of citizens out for a stroll, tourists, mercenaries, adventurers and other transients gawping at the sublime beauty of the starry city, the merchants arriving from Port Tranquil with their goods for sale and many others besides, a shifting and melting and mixing hodgepodge of a thousand different emotions and auras.

“Beautiful day it's turning out to be,” Chiona observed, tawny eyes dancing around the . “You'd not believe it was still Spring just a day or two ago, would you?” A sly glance to her apprentice, still stood beside.

“How're the roses coming along?” It hadn't taken much to work out that they were among Alses' favourite flowers – the attar of roses she habitually wore was a heavy clue, as were her offhand comments on the progress of the various rosebushes around the Tower and the Respite both.

A frown creased Alses' perfect forehead for a moment. “Still closed,” she replied, dissatisfied. “At least for the moment.” A sudden smile, as an idea came to her. “We might start to speed them on a little.”

“Doesn't Tanroa frown on such a use of Her gift?” Chiona asked, eyes still tracking through the crowd.

Alses laughed briefly, a liquid chime. “I don't presume to know the Time Lady's mind,” she replied, “But I've never been struck down yet, and we've Blessed plants by the hundred by now. I used to use it every day to take away the bruises from couriering the Tower's blasted message-boxes all over the place, or just to give our aching arms a rest, too. I like to think She gave it to the Ethaefal as a helping hand to make our lives a little more bearable, and if we decide we're best served by ripening fruit or encouraging rosebuds to open a little ahead of schedule, that's our choice.” A smile towards the glittering dome of the Temple of Time in the distance, shining bright and new in the abundant sunlight.

“I've lost count of the number of times I've thanked Her for the gift. A worthy deity for worship, we think, even if her Temple is...unsettling.”

“Blessed one indeed,” Chiona murmured, knowing full-well how the common title annoyed her apprentice. “So. Today, apprentice-mine, we'll be considering the most difficult environments an aurist can work in.” A grand gesture to the full plaza, right ahead of them both. “Crowds. Hundreds, if not thousands of auras to deal with, and it's not just that, is it, Alses? Tell me, what other difficulties does a crowd such as this one present?”

Idly, Alses let her eyes drift across the sea of people washing from side to side across the grand expanse of skyglass, studded with statuary and bedecked with ornamental trees and fountains, the mass of citizens and transients continually replenished as fast as they left from the many feeder avenues, streets and alleyways – some grand arteries, to switch metaphors, others tiny capillaries and veins, endlessly cycling the mostly-human flood.

“Jostling might be a problem,” she observed, “Some disruption of our concentration or other. Not something we experience a great deal in Lhavit, only when the crush is truly pressing do people step close to an Ethaefal, but some of the other cities of Mizahar aren't always so considerate.”

Chiona made a carry-on gesture, and so Alses once more bent her brain to the problem. “I suppose...people are like Okomo,” she began, puzzling it out in her head even as she spoke. “In that they herd together. Enough impressions on a place, over a long time, can bleed into the stones, like it has in Tanroa's Temple – although that wouldn't be too much of a problem here, since the skyglass is famously resistant to djed.”

She tapped her finger on her chin thoughtfully, still considering possible problems. “We could always get overwhelmed by the inrush as we sank deeper into the power, or overgive by trying to perceive everything and end up wrecking my mind.”

“Lovely thought, isn't it? That covers the more common risks of crowd sensing fairly well – someone's been doing some reading, no?”

“Your ancestors, my lady, were overly concerned with form over function, even in their own internal writings. The puzzles are fine – if not enjoyable, then stimulating, at least – but the poetry is simply bad, and singularly unhelpful when it comes to trying to learn the intricacies of auristics. We've all-but given up with the books in your library, in truth. They're more useful as reflective works, reinforcing what's already known than helping anyone discover anything.”

Chiona leaned back, eyes closed. “And do you not think that might have been the whole idea?” she asked lightly. “Ethics and finesse and all the other, softer skills we try and teach you at the Tower can't be learned very well from grimoires and tomes, you know.”

Alses gave this novel approach due consideration, letting Syna's rays hum a hymn of peace and contentment on her skin – and how richer and fuller they seemed, since Her incarnation! The thought of it, even now, put a brilliant smile on her face and set her soul to singing, chiming in harmony with the echo of power pouring down from on high.

“No, I don't,” she replied at length. “Point one, we know enough of the Tower's history to know House Dusk has always been a secretive family, present-day openness being something of a blip in the annals of this city. Point two, sorcerers the world over guard their secrets jealously, so we have to wonder how much of the current atmosphere of sharing is altruism and how much of it is making up for the Day of Discord and the atrocities then. This also explains all the puzzles and ciphers in the books, even the journals.” She kept her voice light – Chiona had to have been alive during the darker days of Lhavit, but as for what age she'd have been...Alses was no judge of such things, and anyway the city and indeed even the families who had perpetrated so much of what had gone wrong seemed to have shot back onto the right path – or at least, the path ordained by Talora and Aysel and Zintila – quickly.

“Point three, eminence breeds arrogance. The citizens see it in the Towers, to an extent and the Towers see it in the Ethaefal.” A faint grin. “You said it yourself, Chiona – the arrogance of the Ethaefal is such that we discard the provenance of any mortal, no matter how refined their pedigree.”

There was a deep frown on her mentor's face. “Are we really that bad?” she asked, voice quiet and serious for once.

“We're not really the best person to ask,” Alses demurred. “But the Houses are wealthy and successful – they built this city, after all. With help from Zintila, Syna and Leth, of course, but nonetheless they helped to found this place. Your roots go as deep as the skyglass, perhaps deeper.” A little smile. “If beauty breeds envy as people say it does, then surely wealth and success do the same. That said, people know you do a lot of good for Lhavit, and your money means a lot of people have jobs that otherwise might not. But I stand by my point that your ancestors were secretive sorcerers hoarding information as well as money.”

[Alses]

“Well, thank you for that...frank assessment of my family,” Chiona replied, slightly stiffly it had to be admitted. Her aura was unsettled, too, shifting and flashing between a multitude of different states almost too fast for reading – or at least, too fast to be read by the normal, passive Sight at any rate.

“I'm sorry. We've still not learned tact,” Alses admitted. “It seems to be such an elusive thing. Forgive us?”

“No matter, no matter.” That was Chiona's great skill, in a way, the ability to swing back to equilibrium very quickly from any peturbation and to continue on serenely, as though whatever had perturbed her smooth course through life didn't exist and therefore wasn't a worry. It was something Alses had tried to emulate, with an almost complete lack of success thus far.

“Now. Sensing in a crowd.” She made an obvious effort to get back to the subject matter in hand, speaking with an air of finality that meant business was the order of the day now. “If you go for a long dive right to the depths of your ability in the middle of a crowd, all but the greatest of masters lose themselves, you're quite right.” A smile. “So, how do us lesser mortals manage? Filters are all very well and good for tracking something specific, or for moving through a crowd without getting distracted, but sometimes that's not what you want to achieve; you want to see the full panoply of auras in a sea of people, perhaps to take a general reading of the mood.” A slightly impish grin touched Chiona's eyes for a moment. “That's what my father uses his power for quite a lot,” she said. “He'd not be half the speaker he is without it.”

The smile flamed and died on her face very quickly, returning its porcelain construction to neutrality once more. “The trick is rather like skimming a stone across a lake, only not exactly...it's rather difficult to explain. But. Imagine the crowd is like the water. Most of the time, you need to coast along the surface, surfing your power over the outer edges of the auras. Control is very important, since you've got to be the one controlling when you dive, not your power. The first few times, the djed will try to get away from you, so you'll need to be on top form. Every few ticks you need to dive into your power, as deep as you can go, and then just as quickly rise back to the surface, skip a little further across the surface of the water – the crowd – and dive again. There are so many split-tick samples it's like sensing the whole group of people. It's a more elegant way of doing things than simply blasting the world with djed, and it's less expensive mentally-” she tapped her temple, for emphasis “-too.”

Alses frowned. “It sounds complex,” she murmured at length. Chiona nodded in reply.

“It is. It's beyond all policy, subjecting someone who's been properly learning less than a year to this kind of advanced work, but you defy all convention.” A wondering shake of the head. “Are you going to stop at auristics?” she asked, quietly.

It wasn't something Alses truly had to think about; magic sang in her blood, after all. “Probably not,” she replied with a smile. “But we'll always think fondly of the Dusk Tower, and I'll still teach and learn all I can.”

“See you don't forget us, hmm? Not that it'd be easy, mind,” she said with a grin. It was true – the proud spire of the Dusk Tower soared high into the sky, easily visible even amongst the forest of smaller towers and minarets that filled the city of stars.

“Now. Turn your Sight on me, apprentice-mine, and watch how it's done. Manipulation is first internal, then external, after all. In your own time; signal me when you're focused.”

Thankfully, focus didn't need silence. The day was warm and clear, Syna's rays pouring down an endless rain of heat and light, and the hubbub of voices – traders and merchants hawking their wares, conducting sales, the fine art of the deal, the difference between triumphant profit and ignominious loss turning on each word, people chatting to friends and acquaintances or perhaps even strangers met in the milling crowd – was a comforting background hum. The more distant sounds of the city – the clang of hammers on metal rising from the smithies, the rumble of carts and the soft noises of Okomo and the like – melted and merged with the more immediate noises, a gentle swell of sound that was easy to draw in and ignore, becoming a barely-noticed backdrop – like the league upon league of clear blue sky that towered overhead.

Even so, hearing probably wouldn't be a good sense to rely on here; it would be too easy to dismiss an auristic impression as a mundane noise, especially in the centre of Lhavit.

In...out. In...out, the rush of air from the surroundings into the secret darkness inside her and back again. The dry whisper, tugging moisture from her mouth with every pass, served as a prelude, a lead-in to the thrumming beat of her heart that forced out all other considerations with its pounding rhythm.

The city had a rhythm all of its own, too, a pulsing beat to which it moved, cycling from peak to trough and back again. At the beginning of every work period, to those with the eyes to see it, the city was electric, a mortal magic detached from djed as it was normally manipulated speeding every pair of hurrying feet, each individual responding to the thoughts and desires of the greater whole whilst remaining free and unbound, chiming with the zeitgeist of the moment. The start of rest periods, by contrast, was a slow, long exhalation of life from the bustling markets and businesses in the centre of town...but, ah, wait just a few chimes and the parties and celebrations would begin, another section of Lhavit's population waking up, sending the city's heartbeat racing once more as they danced and sang and ate and drank and laughed and argued and fought and much else besides.

Lhavit truly was the city that never slept – the best the Diamond managed in that regard was a sort of half-somnolent doze that never really lasted very long; the result of her unique rhythms of time.

With a mental effort, Alses brought her mind back to the immediate concern, the task in hand, calmed and focused by her own efforts, by the steady rhythm of her heartbeat and the steady influence of Syna on high.

Next to her, she knew, perched elegantly on the skyglass and the very picture of a proper Lhavitian lady, Chiona was doing the same, preparing herself mentally for complex and demanding casting. Her aura was mostly rich purple – serenity and self-assurance, the confidence of the aristocrat - in a potent mix, but a sparkling and elusive weave skipped through the predominant colour, flashes of red and gold and a phantom, characteristic laugh that continually wove around Alses' mentor, sometimes subdued, often in ascendancy (especially when she needled or teased her student) but always, always there, that mischievous streak in proud Lady Dusk as fundamental a part of her nature as the love of the sun was for Alses.

The sinuous weave of purple and blue, in tune with Chiona's ever-changing state, began to slow as meditation took hold of her mind, the skipping dance of laughter and benign rebellion slowed to a quiescent curl about her soul.

“Ready, Chiona,” Alses murmured quietly, eager in the odd, distant sort of way that meditative focus imposed on all emotions, all deviations from a serene norm.

[Alses]

It was something of an education to watch Chiona casting, her physical body blasting into insubstantiality as the djed conduits that streamed through her, a light-filled matrix of surpassing complexity, formed over years of diligent work, leapt to warm fire.

Chiona was a powerful aurist, that much was a certainty, a fully-trained alumnus of the Tower and a skilled teacher to boot; Alses often found herself reflecting on some seemingly-throwaway remark or technique imparted with a casual grace she could only hope to aspire to. No time for admiration, though: focus and concentrated thought were the order of the day. Chiona's mental hands were drawing up large quantities – inasmuch as it could be measured, anyway – of djed from her reserves and letting the sparkling primal energy spill into the filigree network of a practicing sorceress, the djed-print of a magus that was so characteristic of a practitioner of the craft to any half-decent aurist.

As each filigree filament swelled and glowed more brightly with the magic pouring through it in ever-increasing quantities, Chiona's physical body receded ever further in Alses' sight until all that could be seen of her teacher was a brilliant star, an earthbound sun throbbing with djed.

This focused on her mentor, though, it wasn't a simple blaze of djed – Alses could see the rushing flow of magic as it surged up from her core and was twisted and ravelled and winnowed through narrower and narrower conduits up to her eyes where it split and split and split and spilt out into the world to drive the integrative synchrony that was the heart and soul of the discipline.

Bathed in the glow and wrapped in Chiona's expanded aura – blasted outwards by the massive djed expenditure – Alses watched in awe as her mentor's power flexed and moved with every tick, roaring at full spate through her and driving a long dive from the shallows of auristic endeavour to the very depths, where the secret meanings, the hopes and dreams and fears written on people's hearts and in the darkest reaches of their brains gave up their knowledge, writ large in sparkling filigree-work to be plucked like ripe fruit for the aurist's delight – always providing they could withstand the pressure, the weight of information pressing on them from all sides, clamouring for attention, for focus, whispering seductively of knowledge forbidden and forgotten, of power over others, of superiority and fame and all the other siren seductions of magic used without stint.

'Rise,' whispered Alses' mind, all unbidden, and a split-tick later, Chiona did, her power stretching, thinning without warning, most of it suddenly strangled, great masses of upwelling djed suddenly cut dead, calving off from a much-reduced flow and tumbling back into the reserves gathered close about her soul, the thick ropes of magic that sustained her long dive suddenly withered and fraying, unable to sustain her dive and dragging her back from the secret world of the aurist to the safer shallows.

Alses felt her mentor's focus moving – a slight change, an alteration in the coursing djed flowing up to and through her eyes, a twisting jink to direct her powers to another part of the crowd, and then before she had time to think on this, to consider it any further, Chiona's power bunched and roared at full flood down the conduits once more, exploding out into the world, driving her deep into the numinous flood of auristic impressions – but only for a tick or two, before the pulsing column that was Chiona to Alses' sight ruthlessly clamped back down on the power, forever rising and falling and her focus dancing amongst the crowd.

What was even more impressive than the actual casting itself was the information that her father actually spoke, in public, whilst doing this.

A change in Chiona's surging, rising and falling power brought Alses' attention back to her mentor and her state, now just coasting along the surface of the aurist's world, no longer focusing so ferociously.

Chiona's face – much more easily visible through the mantling coronae, now she wasn't using her full power – bore a light sheen of sweat, but nothing like the drenching Alses had expected from what had felt like heavy djed expenditure.

“Did you follow?” Chiona asked, gently dabbing at her forehead with a silken handkerchief magically produced from some unseen pocket.

“We think so,” Alses replied, brow furrowed in concentration as she replayed the timeline of events in her mind. “Depth and brevity.”

“And repetition,” Chiona added swiftly. “Repetition is key. It's forever a tradeoff between accurate information and getting lost in all the auras that present themselves for consideration. But,” she raised an admonishing, emphatic finger “-a very useful technique for anyone considering eminence and high position in any city, not just Lhavit.” Her eyes were assessing, a knowing smile danced on her lips.

“I'll watch you, apprentice-mine,” Chiona murmured reassuringly.

“You're just anxious not to miss a chance to slap me silly,” Alses replied absently, sparking off a low chuckle from her mentor.

“There is that,” came the wicked admission, and a shifting of silks as Chiona inched closer, to within easy striking range. “In your own time, Alses.”

Normally, that would mean 'as quickly as possible', just like the phrase 'no great rush', but here and now, it meant exactly that – when she was ready, and not before. Auristics was a delicate art – and it was an art, no doubt about it, supremely subjective, and to rush a practitioner was to invite failure in whatever task was being attempted. And as this was, by Chiona's own admission, something delicate and difficult, hurrying her apprentice along would only result in disaster.

So.

'Do as Chiona did,' Alses thought quietly, sinking back into deeper meditation, to the focus that she'd half-risen from when Chiona ceased her casting.

Calm and warm, the best of all states, heated from above by Syna's infinite energies and from below by the gentle caress of the skyglass, calmly raised slightly above the milling crowds of the main plaza by dint of their position on the stepped dais that surrounded Koten Temple itself, Alses' current position was, happily, beautifully conducive to focus.

The susurrus of conversation, blurred into humming white noise by distance, wind and cross-purposes chatter, washed against her ears in a gentle tide, easily ignored as she focused on the primal and immediate. Her heartbeat, calm and steady and regular, boomed in her head, thrumming up through the arteries, pulsing out across the veins, thrilling through the capillaries, the eternal pacemaker of her journey through Tanroa's river, and always the principal focus of her meditative efforts. The rhythm beat out all other concerns, leaving her floating, free and clear, in the warm, cradling blackness of her own body.

From that point, prepared and steadied, with a clear idea from watching Chiona of what had to happen, she stretched forth an imperious mental hand and commanded the gentle rise of djed from her soul's reserves. A sharp thrill of anticipation, the joy of a practising mage about to push the boundaries of what was possible, shot through her as the glowing golden snakes began to rise and twine through the Yggdrasil network of djed conduits that riddled her body, obedient to the merest touch, the very lightest breath of thought.

[Alses]

'Speed and finesse, Alse, speed and finesse,' she reminded herself, trimming with ephemeral fingers of stranded purpose the djed rising through her, using the mental control she had to make the conduits to her senses gape wide and hungry, to greedily suckle from the font of magic she'd unleashed from her reserves, the world bursting into kaleidoscopes of colour, her senses rushing out of her body in one joyous burst, blasting out to reveal everything and bringing it back, setting her synapses aflame with the flood of information pouring in from her personal filigree fantasia. Her sense of sight gorged itself on the commingling djed, the artist unseen forever refining his ever-changing picture with new and stranger washes of shade and hue, of pallor and rich darkness impossibly next to burning light and much else besides.

“Back, Alses!” the voice was distant, coming from far away, wavy and distorted with her own distraction – but it was enough to break the deepest of focuses; her hold on the very finest strands of auristic power, the ones which drove the absolute synchrony of a master aurist, frayed and broke and they whiplashed away from her with wild abandon, drawing on too much of her reserves, fracturing and buckling under the sudden, greedy strain before shattering entirely.

Swimming back to the shallow physicality, as the auras receded from her vision and normal sight began to reassert itself, she was met with Chiona Dusk's brilliant tawny eyes only a few inches from her own. Startled, she nearly toppled back off the bench before managing to regain her balance.

“Too slow, to slow,” Chiona trilled. “Speed, Alses, speed! You can't dally looking at all the pretty colours; this sort of work needs the fastest weave there is, the most complete synchrony you can muster in the quickest possible time. You hadn't even hit bottom when I brought you back, had you?”

“How on Mizahar do you know that?” Alses asked, voice still faraway, eyes glassy and focused on the shimmering world.

“Experience,” came the brief reply. “Now, don't bother about skipping through the crowd, just practice your diving, achieving deep synchrony from a standing start and back again. Your power's a lance, a needle, each time you touch it to the world it has to dart down and back up again in just a tick or two.”

“It's difficult,” Alses complained. “There's so much there to see!”

“Of course it is! You're long past tasting food on the other side of the room or identifying a magical item now! We're into the bones of the discipline, the complex interplay of emotion and expectation, hopes and fears and secrets and desires.” Chiona sobered. “For all its frivolity on the surface, for all the good it can do for medical endeavours and for truth in commerce, auristics has a dark heart. Secrets and lies, apprentice-mine, secrets and lies, that's the aurist's bread and butter when you get right down to it, and anyone who tells you otherwise has gone soft in the head.”

She paused, face serious for once, voice soft. “I wouldn't suggest you try this if I didn't think you capable,” she murmured. “You're my protégée, the Tower's prodigal apprentice; we wouldn't waste you on impossibilities. Now. Try again. Diving and rising, using the dregs of your power at the zenith of your synchrony to drive you up to the nadir again. You can't afford to get lost in the deeper synchrony – done right, the burst of full power brings in the impressions that you can sort through and interpret whilst you're skimming to the next plunge point, so it's not necessary. Your mind's a lot more versatile than you think; let the subconscious parts do a little work now and then, hmm?”

With a sigh, Alses turned back to the problem in hand, reaching inwards for the magic, feeling it thrum in answer to the call as it always did, rippling up through her body and dancing in her blood, twisting and tangling around her mental fingers, supremely responsive.

This time, though, Chiona's admonition ringing in her ears, she didn't waste any time admiring the opalescent shimmer of her djed, the bright golden light that filled her. The position of the djed conduits through her body she knew, as surely as she knew the position of the sun overhead or the name of her goddess; why did she need to see the djed surge down those pathways she herself had forged and grown?

Harsh and powerful, the roaring thump of djed booming up from her reserves and slamming without stint or slowing into the principal conduits which linked her senses to the enhancement of auristic endeavour had an almost physical force, the engines of synchrony which drowned the shallow physical world in the melting coronae driven to full under the lash of plentiful power directed to a singular, greater purpose.

Rather than unfurling flowers or bursting fireworks in the distance, this time the heady rush of auras opening up to display their secrets to her waiting brain were explosions, bursting bombs of impressions, a wailing, whirling charivari of information from her thundering senses smashed into her mind at high speed. Her brain rocked on its axis from the insult; gritting her teeth Alses took the shivering motion and the tumbling flood that was overwhelming the orderly shimmer of her power and made them her own, hurling lances of further djed to buoy her back to shallow physicality even as she throttled other conduits of energy, forcing them to die, to stem the tide of incoming auras as she catapulted herself back to safety.

A few blessed ticks in the shallows, a gentle shimmering curtain around most things rather than complex, fiery coronae that positively screamed their secrets into any mind receptive to their advances, and then Chiona's prompting sent her hurtling down into the hellish depths once more.

Alses felt nauseous, brain hot and aching and bursting at the seams from everything that was being funnelled mercilessly into it from all sides, all angles – white-fire devotion and stained-blue intrigue pouring into her from behind; Koten Temple not as serene as it seemed, perhaps, and from the front a barrage of a million different impressions – fear, concern, joy, triumph and loss and wonderment, the shivering feeling of indecision stood before a jeweller's window, an ur-thought on the hotness of the day and the welcome coolness of ice and shade and much else besides, so much and so immediate, so present Alses almost lost herself – and that was the trigger to soar up once more, free as a bird, mistress and not mastered by her own magic, a curious twisting and jinking cantrip, a last-tick inversion of stabilising and synchronising djed erupting to send her away from the dark and dangerous depths before she became lost in the darkest and oldest secrets, that was the trick of it.

Back in the purely physical plane that most in Mizahar thought was the 'real' – indeed, only world, Alses shook herself and bent almost double, golden hair hanging down in sweat-soaked rattails that had nothing to do with the heat of the day and a headache pounding meanly where divine crown-of-horns seamlessly fused with celestial flesh and more mundane bone.

Eyes closed, power held in a vice-like stranglehold, Alses never thought she'd meet a day where darkness, sweet, enveloping darkness, featureless and soft and yielding, was ever welcome, but here she was. Breathing hard in an effort to control her rebelling stomach and rising gorge, she nearly jumped out of her skin at a gentle touch on her back – Chiona Dusk, although Alses would never have believed it had anyone else told her, ever-so-gently, gingerly massaging her.

“Syna above,” Alses managed to gasp out after several chimes, “That has to be one of the most unpleasant things we've ever done.”

[Alses]

Chiona's hands vanished quickly at Alses' slightly hoarse pronouncement, their light and hesitant pressure suddenly missed from her back.

“How do you manage it?” she asked, still hunched over and trying to control her belly.

The sense of a wry smile, tinged with just a soupçon of concern. “Practice, Alses my dear, lots of practice. You're flirting around the edges of what you need to be doing, you've got the basic idea at least, but you still spend too much time down there, looking around like you've never achieved full synchrony before! It's got to be split-tick, especially when you first start doing this. Your mind and body can't take expenditure and impressions at that sort of magnitude for very long at first – as you get better, if you get better, apprentice-mine, it'll become easier and easier. The greatest masters can track an entire crowd whilst at full depth,” she confided. “This is the first step to getting to that lofty plateau, you know.”

The sharp sound of her hands coming together in a brisk clap battered Alses' tender brain and sent an expression that was decidedly not serene or accepting of her lot in life racing across her features.

“So, my prodigy dear, one more try.”

Alses scowled blackly. “Are you trying to kill me, Chiona Dusk?” she demanded. “Do we look in any state to try again?”

“So you're a little sweaty and your head's a little sore,” came the smart reply. “That doesn't mean you can retire to a fainting-couch for the rest of the day!”

“Did we mention a fainting-couch?” Alses snarled, patience eroding fast. “I just need a chime or two to collect my shattered brain and put it into some semblance of order!”

“Tough,” was the trilling reply. “You're perfectly capable of doing it and your reserves are still absolutely stuffed with magic. Nothing worthwhile is without pain or struggle, not even for the favoured children of Lhavit.”

Chiona's voice, that unwelcome chirping thing that it had become, took a turn for the sly, the speculative. “Unless you want to concede defeat to a mortal, of course,” she purred, voice silky and with a hint of childish mischief running through it once more. “Bet you can't do it.”

Alses cracked open one golden eye and glared balefully at her serenely composed teacher, not a hair out of place, not a crease or pleat of her shimmering robes anything less than perfect, a total contrast to Alses' own déshabillé state. Chiona had played her ace, however, a direct challenge to Alses' pride that sprang evergreen in her heart.

“How much?” she growled, hands curling into fists as she forced herself formidably upright once more. “How much does the laurelled Lady Dusk care to chance against her Ethaefal student?”

Chiona laughed, delighted as a little girl, and clapped her hands. “See? I knew you had plenty of fire left. Determination, that's your problem – you give up too easily with some things if they don't come-” she snapped her fingers for emphasis “-like that.”

“How much?” Alses growled, impatient. “This is revenge for me being tactless earlier, isn't it?” she groaned.

“Not at all,” came the prim reply – with an expert aurist's grasp on her own aura, there was no indication either way to be had there either. “That'd be most improper and an abuse of my position as your mentor to boot. I'll wager...yes, I'll wager a mirror for your commission that you can't do it. Commuted to a hundred kina if you can't get Elena to give you access to her lab.” An insulting pause – a deliberately insulting pause, Alses knew Chiona had done it on purpose, but that mattered not a jot to her touchy pride – and then: “Or for when you fail. Not that I'll have to pay, of course. Get to it, unless you want to owe me a hundred kina. No great rush.” Another one of those pauses, perfectly calculated to annoy. “Not for me, anyway.”

'Calm down, Alse, calm down,' her mind chanted – no purpose (save for Chiona's) was served by getting annoyed and making a mess of things. 'She's right about one thing, at least – we've plenty of magic left. Let's start by getting a good idea of our surroundings, no sense in getting too distracted by our passive Sight.'

Slowly, Alses' head tracked left and right, hunting for anything unusual, anything odd or surprising or anticipated but distracting that might disrupt her concentration or attract the attention of any part of her butterfly brain. Beside her, Chiona lounged elegantly, drinking up the sunshine and the very picture of a wealthy lady enjoying the day with a friend – the only thing marring the portrait was Alses herself, a dishevelled and sweat-soaked 'friend' having decidedly unfriendly thoughts about her companion.

Fortunately, Alses was well-used to Chiona's aura by now, and so it was the work of a moment to construct a filter for her particular impression on the world. A few further moments of logical thought – her saviour time and again - told her she didn't need the full orbit of her impressions, either; all she was interested in was the crowd in front of her, not the wedding-cake bulk of Koten Temple and its secrets behind her, after all. The sides were similarly unimportant, just expanses of skyglass dais that eventually melted into buildings and streets in the blue distance.

That was good – yet more she didn't need to worry about, further impressions she could cut out to preserve her mind from the tsunami-waves of information that would soon wash over it when she made her first dive. Feeling rather as a diver might on the highest board, gazing down to the pure blue far below with the wind whipping around her body, Alses paused, a last-minute instinctive burst of caution even managing to cut through her pride, at least for a little while.

A deep, mental breath, a gritting of her physical teeth, and she leapt, mental hands shaping the djed around her – personal and ambient both, channeling and winnowing the disparate streams until they were sleek and lean, so interleaved with one another that there was no untangling the one from the other, a gentle fusion that drove synchrony at full spate inside her brain as she dipped ever deeper into the shifting rainbowed melange – but no time to admire the shine, no time to feel the rough and smooth rush of a hundred different auras across her skin, the symphony they sung in her mind, none of that leisurely delight, she had to move and change, always different, dipping and rising, a needle working on the tapestry of Lhavit time and again, a thousand thousand split-tick deep impressions bursting in her brain every time she took a tiny break from the frenetic diving-dance to coast along the crowd. The coalescing impressions gleaned from these many, tiny trips began to gather in her shrieking brain – she dug her nails into her palm in the real world until crescent-moon wounds bled sluggish bronze that stank of sweetness on the point of turning – the big picture developing painfully out of the fading afterimages brought on by subconscious procession of fully-synchronised impressions.

The release of synchronising djed each time was an ordeal by fire, a blasting roar that hurled her into the star-scattered world of secrets, and the disjuncting fracture that threw her back to the shallows not much better, battering at her mental focus, her equilibrium, her mind. Her lips skinned back from her teeth, bared in a rictus snarl as her personal djed flexed and convulsed like a living thing, continually pulsing to an unheard beat as Alses danced grimly through the complex process and the crowd both, always on the brink of losing herself and recalling herself to the bet in hand, the insulting challenge she'd been issued, a material thing to cling to, an anchor to reality she could use as a lighthouse-point, shored up by her evergreen pride.

She'd not fail here, not now.