Power of Power

Wind snaps at the homespun tunic and trousers draped over Akyris's lanky frame like a banner over battlements. At his feet, the son of the town cretin crouches over a pit filled with twigs and cattail fluff. My grandson is clean enough but the younger boy is all filth and bones. Akyris is trying to teach him how to build a fire. The lesson is going poorly. The younger boy complains. Akyris’s rebukes follow. “You have to keep trying! Listen, I don’t want to be here either. Do you know Sima? Yeah, well, she’s the most beautiful girl in all of Namarr. I was going to kiss her in the stables today but my mother forced me to help you, instead.” Sniffling, the cretin’s boy tries again. Cattail fluff stirs before a swirl of wind, as does a lock of my grandson’s dark hair. Yet again, the younger boy fails. A tickle of power laps against my Locus. A subtle wave of energy begging attention. Magomedes reaches out to me through the River of conscious reality, her voice a whisper in my mind. “You're certain you can do this?” My peers know the time for deciding any other course of action has long passed. For years we’ve quarreled over our agreed-upon gambit to avert apocalypse. For years we’ve returned to our only choice. If the Arrow of Light is to be stopped, I must train Akyris to be an Awakened. And then he must die. The time for doubt is gone. I must be a jutting stone that turns the rushing tide. Anvil-strong. An uncompromising hag with the certainty of an empress. And sometimes, I must season truth with a pinch of baseless self-assurance. I send a dart of confidence eddying through time and space at Magomedes. “Of course I can. You think I would wager my grandson’s life without certainty?” A different voice responds, deep and resonant. Darkhorn. “One boy wagered against all others is no gamble. You must remain detached. Like us, he is a tool of fate, nothing more.” “For all our sakes, you better hope he’s something more, Darkhorn.” My condescending tone echoes in the boundless distances between us. “Far more.” Darkhorn and Magomedes fall silent, the touch of their consciousness dissipating like fog before the warming sun. I turn my attention back to the boys. “I don’t care if this is your one-thousandth time,” Akyris says. In some ways, he reminds me of myself. There were times I once said a similar thing to his mother when she was young. Nothing ever took a thousand times to get right, however, the cretin’s boy is working hard to make it so. Feeble hands shake as they move together in the way of those on the verge of giving up. He moans, knuckles dropping to the dirt. “If you were a grown man with a family, you’d have to watch them starve.” Akyris snorts in disgust. The harshness surprises me. Perhaps more like me than I thought. Who are you, Akyris? Are you vile? Are you sweet? Left-handed? Foolish? Has my daughter raised you so hard that you have defenses to be broken down, or too soft such that I must whip you into order? Are you a righteous brat with a streak of contempt for the world for not providing you a father? I shake away the worries. My daughter could raise no weakling. Nor does she suffer fools or arrogant pigs. I’ve avoided my daughter and grandson for over a decade. When I first set eyes on the boy, my heart fluttered at the loss of having never held him as a babe, made worse by the knowledge that I’d never see him fully grown. But Siddaia, the Arrow of Light, comes. Doom follows. There’s no other choice. Time tightens like a noose from all angles at once. I must train Akyris. But to do that, I must first know him. As daylight fades, Akyris glances toward the horizon. Bright green eyes look down at the younger boy then back at the horizon. Something in him seems to shift. He crouches and lays a hand on the younger boy’s shoulder. “I could be matching lips with a goddess right now, so if anyone has something to cry about, it’s me.” His tone softens, soothes like warm honey. “Sometimes it takes a hundred attempts. And that’s okay. But I won’t let you quit. So…imagine this is the first time. Imagine you’ve never tried before. Start from the beginning. Focus on your hands, not your thoughts. Remember, it only takes one spark.” How right you are, my boy. Akyris leans in, making sure his student meets his eyes. “If you do this, you’ll be proud of yourself, right?” The younger boy sucks in a shaking breath and nods. A dozen times, Akyris watches the boy fail. After each, he says, “You’re doing it.” Pain is not the only pathway to learning but it is the fastest. Having failed the fast way with harshness, my grandson has pivoted to a new tactic, one I believe aligns with who he truly is. As much as I wanted to cuff him for his earlier cruelty, I’m pleased to discover he’s clever enough to alter course. It pays off. The younger boy looks focused. “You’re doing it,” Akyris says. “Only a matter of time.” As the sun spreads over the horizon like a pierced egg yolk, flame spits to life. A thin tendril of smoke winds its way toward sun-pinked clouds. Pride rises with it. The younger boy smiles. My grandson claps him on the back and gives a single word of praise that comes out sounding like a question. “See.” I do, Akyris. Both of you are more capable than you know. After Akyris shows his mentee how to douse the flame with a clay pitcher, the younger boy runs home to his cretin father. To my surprise, a tear speeds down my grandson’s cheek as he watches him go. Though we’re at the edge of town, far from prying eyes, Akyris brushes it away quickly as he searches for witnesses. Just a boy brimming with ready embarrassment. He starts home, but a dozen steps in, he freezes. Lizard-slow, his face cranes around to the boughs of the elm tree where I sit, cloaked in shadow. He squints. “Hello?” His tongue flickers over dry lips. This is not the way I’ll introduce myself. “Is—is someone there?” I’ll give him something to worry over. A spectacle he’ll not soon forget. A seed planted for what comes later tonight. I turn inward to my Locus and draw forth the power of a master Awakened. Vaporous gray light pours from my necklace. Dawning terror stretches his eyes wide as he sees it. Nearby, the wind blows a barrel slat to the ground with a bang. Akyris bolts, sprinting the rest of the way home. Best for him to become familiar with a quickened heartbeat. His agitation is essential for what I must do and how I must train him. I take a seat on an upthrust root to enjoy the amber-soaked twilight. Toads sing me the worst of lullabies as I ease my ancient back against the bark to wait for Akyris to sleep. Time rushes past. Night bleeds across my awareness. Stars wink to life in the abyssal sky. My old lungs labor to breathe life into my decrepit vessel. But my mind moves with power unencumbered to wheel across the infinite. With a flash of smoky light, my projected Locus unites with the River. I enter its depths and find Akyris asleep a moment later. He's having a nightmare about a stranger watching him from under a tree. I chuckle and strike it from his thoughts. Next, the face of a homely blonde girl resting on a bed of straw manifests in his mind’s eye. Sima, I assume. Far from a goddess. If you ask me, she’s plain as a canvas sack. This too I dash to nothingness. I must send him something dire to focus on. Something disturbing. When I present myself, I wish for him to be on edge, not love-struck. Time has narrowed as I’ve aged, become more specific in its revealings of what I’m called to do. There’s little room for error now. I must handle my grandson with precision. If Akyris truly knew what pain awaited him... Sadness fills my stomach, churns it sour. A part of me still struggles against the inevitable cost. The fact of it kills a sacred part of me. I sense my own death too. Decades ago, I saw it. But anymore, it only brings a minor pang of regret. To deny inevitabilities such as death and destiny is to deny one’s true Path and to deny that is to live no life at all. Denial’s web no longer holds me. I passed through it when I ascended Unturrus a century ago to become Awakened. For those who journey up the Mountain of Power and forget themselves—who fail to strike the web moving in concert with