Hi readers. So, things are pretty difficult here. My wife has just been diagnosed with lymphoma (cancer of the lymph system), prognosis as yet unclear, and our second baby is due at the end of December. I am terrified and not doing so well. SOTJ is my outlet though-I read it to my wife too. And fortunately for the story (and you, if you're reading), I just came off a big writing binge that started in the Summer and I've now basically finished the first draft of Book Two (The Earth Emerald). There is about one more chapter to write but it will just be tidying up and setting up for Book Three (title TBC). This means at the moment I will have enough material to continue editing and posting one chapter a month of SOTJ until at least the end of 2023 if I continue at my current posting rate, which I probably will, rather than trying to increase it again, given that I am probably about to take a second job to help cover increased childcare costs. Anyway, if you're reading, do please leave a review or drop me a PM as it's always lovely to hear from you and the feedback means a lot to me. I know people are reading because I can see the numbers in my Traffic Stats! I will carrying on posting regardless, though. Oh, and as ever if you want to read ahead do sign up to the website listed in my profile, as some of you do.
On with the Saga.
Six days until the Tournament.
Nuthea surveyed the garden area of the little manse they had been given to lodge in. A wooden boundary-fence marked off an area about twenty metres wide and long. A patio floor of cream-coloured stone reflected the heat of the Farrian Summer morning sunshine. Aside from that it was bare except for a little ornamental pond and some potted plants off in the far corner.
This will have to do, she thought.
She regarded her troops, as she was coming to think of them. Ryn, Sagar, Elrann, Cid and Vish all stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a line facing her. She hadn't even asked them to do that; they had just done it naturally when she had called them outside. She would make a fighting squad of them yet.
"Okay, team," she said. "The Governor has said that we can enter four people into the tournament, without us even having to go through the qualifying heats. So the first thing we need to do is choose which four of us will enter."
"Well obviously I'm the first choice," said Sagar, putting his hands on his hips and sticking out his chest a little.
Nuthea saw Ryn open his mouth but she jumped in first. "May I just remind you, Captain Sagar, that the Governor has told us that this will be a tournament of unarmed combat?"
The pirate deflated ever so slightly, then frowned. "So what? I'm still the best fighter among us. Well, maybe joint best. I suppose the scumsucker is alright at fighting too…"
"I have a question," said Ryn, ignoring Sagar and putting up his hand like a school pupil. "Will we be allowed to use our elemental projection powers?"
"I…" Nuthea hesitated. "I'm not sure. I didn't ask about that."
"Of course we will," said Sagar. "Now that they've got the Emerald, you can bet your ass that the Farrians will be using theirs. Hells, I wouldn't be surprised if they enter Baldy into the tournament. Didn't the Governor guy say that he was their strongest monk? And now he's got earth powers, there's no doubt he'll use them…"
Sagar's voice trailed off. He was seeming less and less confident by the moment.
"Well if that's the case," spoke up Elrann, "then I think it's pretty obvious who we're going to enter, isn't it, princess girl? I mean, I can handle myself in a fight, sure, but I much prefer to have my pistols and whip with me. I'm not so sure that I could take on a trained fighter like monk-man, especially when he's got earth powers now. The logical choice for who we enter is: you, farmboy and pirate-man, because of all your Jewel-thingamy-powers, and the bountyhunter because of his badass fighting skills."
Yes, thought Nuthea, that is the logical choice, except what you don't know is that I'm blocked.
"How does everyone feel about that?" she said out loud.
Sagar folded his arms and nodded, clearly still trying to communicate an air of nonchalance.
"I'll fight," said Ryn.
"Shadowfinger Vish?" Nuthea said.
Vish shrugged. "You know what I want. As long as you give it to me, I will fight for you. I have fought in 'tournaments' before, and won them."
"You have?!"
"Yes. Both before I became a slave to the Empire, and since."
"Well," said Elrann, "that settles it then, doesn't it?"
"Hold on," said Nuthea, "let us give everyone a chance to speak. Grandfather, do you wish to fight?"
Cid's bushy eyebrows rose. He looked surprised to even be asked. "Oh goodness, no, Granddaughter, I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. I am happy to sit this one out."
"Even though you are more experienced than the rest of us and might not have to face the same obstacles in preparing for the tournament?" Nuthea tried to convey extra meaning through a tight-lipped tip of her head to one side.
Cid's eyes glittered, and she knew he had understood her. "Ah. Yes, even so. Do not worry. We have a week–I'm sure that is plenty of time for you to improve and to overcome any obstacles you might be facing in the way of your peak performance."
Nuthea nodded, taking his meaning in turn. "Then it is settled. Unless a better idea presents itself for whatever reason, myself, Ryn, Sagar and Vish will enter the tournament to compete for, and win, the Earth Emerald." She turned to Vish. "Shadowfinger Vish, you are clearly the b…'' She paused, not wanting to set off Sagar again. "You are clearly highly proficient at hand to hand combat, especially when elemental projection is taken out of the calculations. Will you train us in what you know of unarmed combat?"
Vish's eyes were blank and unreadable above his face scarf as the rest of them awaited his response.
"Will you give me poppy?" he said.
"You know you are meant to be coming off it," said Cid, "which is what you really want, remember? But yes, as part of withdrawing slowly, you can have some poppy in a week and a half. After the tournament."
The Shadowfinger was silent again, his eyes still blank.
"I will train you," he said at last.
"Thank you," said Nuthea.
"Poodoo to that!" said Sagar, throwing up his hands. "I don't need no fighting lessons, especially from an ex-Imperial scumsucker like him. I'm off to go and find myself a drink." He began to stalk towards the manse, then stopped. "You coming, woman?"
Elrann's brows knotted. "Why would I be?"
"Cause you agreed to go for a drink with me the other night?"
Elrann scratched her chin. "Oh right. Yeah, but not now. We said we would go in five days, on our day off from training before the tournament starts. I want to train with the others, and see what the bountyhunter has to teach us."
"Whatever," said Sagar, "suit yourself."
The door slammed behind him as he left the garden-courtyard. He was beginning to irk Nuthea somewhat.
She refocused on the task at hand. "Here we go then," she said, "Vish, you swap with me."
She traded places with the Shadowfinger so that she joined the end of the lineup next to Cid and Vish took the place in front of them all, facing them.
The rest of them awaited Vish's first instruction.
Vish sighed deeply, a sound like the last breath going out of a corpse.
"Alright, listen," he said in his foreign-accented, guttural tones. "I am good at fighting, but not for the reasons you think. When the…untrained think about schooling in the fighting arts, they imagine it is all about learning special routines and practicing certain steps, like learning to dance. And there is some of that. But a fight, a real fight, is not like a dance. In a real fight, any routines you might have learned, any special techniques with grand names like the monk performed, any semblance of control or poise you might have, go out the window, and you just become another animal trying to kill all the other animals to stay alive. And the fastest, most brutal, most vicious animal is the one that kills first, and so the one who gets to stay alive a little longer. Do you understand?"
Nuthea blinked at the Shadowfinger. It was the most words she had ever heard him say. He clearly knew, and thought, a lot about this subject.
None of the others said anything either. They must be as surprised as she was.
"I will assume that you do understand," said Vish, giving them all a withering look. "All that said, there is some advantage to be had by rehearsing certain routines and steps, not because in an actual fight it will be possible to replicate them exactly, but because by rehearsing them strength is built, and because the memory of your muscles might mean that small elements of the routines are reproduced in combat in potentially effective ways. All of you, stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and bend your knees slightly."
They did so.
"Now bend your arms at the elbow and make fists with your hands, with your thumbnails pointing up, like this."
They did so.
"Good. This will be your first rudimentary practice exercise: punching. Now, with me, twist your fist round and punch the air in front of you, alternating right and left hands. Right! Left! Right! Left!"
Nuthea punched the air along with the others, falling into the rhythm of following Vish's commands easily enough. She had done something similar to this with Evisca, her swordmistress, when she had been taught the sword as a teenager, before she had been allowed to handle the blade. It seemed like a fairly basic exercise, but presumably Vish would work up to more advanced techniques.
Just then a bright blazing ball of fire shot past Vish and crashed into the fence several feet behind him, burning a hole in it and setting it on fire.
"Oops," said Ryn.
"What in all the hells of all the gods are you doing?" Vish snapped at him, shouting through his face covering. He hadn't moved an inch in response to the fireball, but he was furious nonetheless.
"Sorry…" stammered Ryn. "I just suddenly thought 'Hey, what if I combined this punch with a fire projection?', and then I accidentally did it…"
Nuthea put a hand over her face.
It seems this is going to be even more difficult than I had anticipated… she thought.
Five days before the Tournament.
In a training room in his monastery near to the Government Building, Huld was training.
He worked his way carefully through the forms of The Circumference Of The Earth, as he had done thousands of times before, only this time whenever he came to an expulsion of energy, he combined it with some variety of manipulation of the earthen floor below him.
He stamped down hard with his right foot now, completing 'Re-Planting The Tree', and as vibration rippled through his foot and the floor he willed a square block of earth to rise up out of it in front of him. Improvising, he stepped forwards with his other foot and delivered 'Rooted Strike' to the earthen block with his left fist. As he connected with the block, he willed it forwards and it shot pleasingly along the training room floor before exploding against its stone wall in a shower of dirt.
Huld remained still in his battle pose, breathing heavily. Sweat clung to him. It was quite an exertion adding earth manipulation to his normal battle forms, he had discovered. Though it was worth it. And he had discovered he was very good at it. Who else was there better suited to incorporating the powers granted by the Farrian Emerald into his fighting manoeuvres? He had always been first in his class growing up at the monastery, even if that was because he had something to prove which the other novices did not. He had been selected to be the Emperor's personal bodyguard, not anyone else. It was entirely appropriate that he be the first in Farr in two generations to be granted earth manipulation abilities and to train with them, and that he should be highly skilled at doing so.
He should be happy.
And yet, he couldn't quite relax into it.
Something was bothering him, throwing off his focus.
What?
The foreigners.
He came out of his stance from the last part of Rooted Strike and sat on the floor for a moment to catch his breath, wiping the sweat from his brow.
The thought of the foreigners had been throwing him off his focus slightly, lingering at the back of his mind like a fly buzzing just on the edge of his hearing.
It wasn't that he was afraid of losing to them in this tournament the Governor had organised, he thought as he looked at the scuff marks his earth-block had left on the far wall and the pile of brown dirt and dust it had disintegrated into from the force of its impact. He wasn't. He knew he could beat every one of them in single hand to hand combat, even the 'ex'-Imperial Vish. Even the fireboy with his flame projection abilities, which were apparently super effective against creatures of earth and so probably also against people who were 'earth-aligned' as Huld now was. He had watched each of them carefully during their time in the Shrine, and studied their fighting styles closely. The Imperial was highly trained, ruthless and dangerous, to be sure, but he was still no match for Huld. And the boy was almost completely untrained. He appeared to have very little hand-to-hand fighting prowess at all, if any. If Huld stayed out of the way of his fire attacks, which he was confident he would be able to do more than easily, then defeating the boy would be a walk in a peace garden.
No, it wasn't that that was bothering him. It was something else about the foreigners, he saw now.
What, then?
He blinked with surprise at the realisation.
It was that, after spending the better part of two days with the foreigners, after being stuck inside the Shrine to Eto with them and having to work together with them to make their way to the top of it, solve its puzzles, escape from its traps and defeat the Earth Elemental, he had found that in the end they were actually not that bad after all.
Blessed Eto, he thought, I almost even liked them by the end…
It was a difficult revelation to stomach. Raised in the monastery in the second-but uppermost level of Shun Pei, Huld had always been kept away from the filthy foreigners who travelled and traded in the lower levels, whom he viewed as a barely necessary evil that the Governor only allowed into the city for economic reasons. His ambition, insofar as he had been allowed to nurture one, had always been to move up, not down, in Shun Pei, and until recently he had been entirely successful in it.
But now that he had actually spent some time with some 'filthy foreigners', they didn't seem that bad after all. They were still 'filthy', to be sure, with their vulgar expressions and their crude attempts at fighting and their strange customs and gods. But, he had found, they had also turned out also to be people just like him. Of course they were. How could he have not seen that before?
And if they were people just like him, maybe what they were proposing to do wasn't so stupid and wrong after all? Maybe it would be the most sensible course of action to give them the Emerald so that they could hide it from Morekemia and join it together with the others in order to stop the Emperor?
"Impressive," said a voice from the entry doorway to the training room.
Huld jolted, recognising the voice, then immediately shifted himself into a kneeling bow, touching his forehead to the floor.
"My Lord Governor!" he said, cheeks heating at the knowledge that the Governor had taken him unawares while he had been lost in such ridiculous thoughts. How long had he been watching?
"Up," the Governor commanded.
Huld got to his feet and stood straight as the Governor walked onto the floor of the training room, hands held behind his back. He wasn't wearing his hat, and his shaved head shone slightly in the light from the candles that stood in their sconces at the four corners of the room.
The Governor stood a few feet away from him. "So, you have started combining your forms with your new earth-manipulation gift."
He's been watching me for a while, then. "Yes, Lord Governor. Did…did I do wrongly?"
"No," the Governor said calmly. "Show me."
Huld masked his surprise. "Yes, Lord Governor." He spread his feet and dropped into Horse stance, took a deep breath, then began the first movement of The Circumference of the Earth, bringing his left hand up and into a descending arc–
"Not like that!" barked the Governor impatiently. "Show me properly! Try and hit me, you fool!"
Unable to hide his surprise this time, Huld's serene mask broke into a puzzled frown. "My Lord?"
"Am I speaking some language other than commonspeech?" the Governor said, frowning above his formidable jowls. "Try. And. Hit. Me."
Huld gulped. He had heard rumours that the Governor had trained in the fighting arts, but his Lord had never commanded him to do anything like this before. Still, he could do nothing but obey.
Better to make it a reasonably gentle strike. Nothing too impactful. Huld had been first in his class, after all, he reminded himself again, and was Farr's best soldier, by the Governor's own boast.
Hoping to get this embarrassing exercise over with, Huld crossed the floor that lay between him and the Governor in four quick steps and aimed a simple close-fisted punch at the Governor's chest with his right hand.
The Governor's left hand whipped out to block the punch, pushing Huld's forearm away with an open palm, then before Huld knew what was happening the Governor had brought his hand around and back to himself in a circle, then thrust it out again at Huld's chest.
The floor hit Huld hard in the back.
He coughed a couple of times, chest aching where the Governor had struck him.
He floored me, Huld thought as he inspected the muddy brown of the training room ceiling, which he had never seen from this angle before. He actually floored me. With one punch!
"I meant that I wanted you to try and hit me with an earth attack," the Governor said.
Huld got up and brushed himself down. The rumours were true, then! More than true. Huld hadn't ever been floored like that before, not even in his early years of training at the monastery. The Governor was an incredibly skilled and strong fighter. He had humiliated Huld in a single blow while barely batting an eyelid. Huld had better do what he was being asked.
No longer pulling his punch, he performed the same move as he had improvised at the end of The Circumference of the Earth, stamping the ground to raise up a large square block of earth from it, then punching it.
The earthen block shot towards where the Governor stood a few paces away…
…then stopped dead in its tracks in front of him.
"That is more like it," said the Governor from behind the block.
What?
Huld had expected the Governor to leap out of the way, or to hit the block and explode it with a blow. Not stop it.
The block shot back along the ground towards Huld.
"Catch it!" yelled the Governor.
Huld almost didn't react in time, but just before the block of earth made impact with him he got his hand up and reached out with his mind, willing for the earthen block to stop. It came to rest about an inch from his face.
"Good," said the Governor from somewhere behind it. "Dear me, Huld, one little surprise and all your training almost goes out of the window. Return the block to the ground."
Huld hadn't done anything like that before, but now that he thought about it he supposed he should be able to. He willed the block downwards, back into the floor, and it moved at his mental command, rejoining the earth that they stood on, sinking down to become a part of it again.
Across the floor, the green-robed, stocky form of the Governor still stood, hands behind his back. His master favoured him with a half-smile from one side of his mouth.
"That's it," he said. "Don't be so surprised that I have earth manipulation abilities too. I've had them since before you retrieved the Emerald."
I'm more than capable of defending myself, Huld suddenly remembered the Governor saying back in his chambers when the foreigners had been there last. He had wondered what that comment had meant, but he had never imagined the full extent of its implications.
"But how, Lord Governor?" Huld asked.
"Who do you think it was that put the Emerald in the Shrine to Eto in the first place?" the Governor snapped irritably. He began to pace slowly back and forth across the training room floor as he spoke. "I did, as a young man. I was a monk like you once, Huld. I swore the vows of service. But one's service to Farr can take you in many different directions. After I hid the Emerald in the Shrine, I was ordered to change my name and begin a political career. By the time Governor Tuun's term of office finished, he had so manoeuvred me that I was the obvious successor to him, so the High Council voted to put me in charge."
"If I may be so bold, Lord Governor…" Huld said, "...why?"
"Because the knowledge of the Emerald's whereabouts and how to obtain it was too important to entrust to anyone but the Governor of Farr. I grew too old to be able to retrieve it myself, though I do still retain, ahem, some fighting skill."
Huld's back twinged. The Governor certainly did retain some fighting skill.
"However," the Governor continued, "I knew I could count on you to retrieve it for me."
Huld thought of telling him how much the foreigners had helped, but he held his tongue. He continued to listen like an obedient soldier, though he wasn't sure where this was going.
"Governor Tuun thought to hide the Emerald away," said the Governor, "because he thought that would keep Farr safe from those from elsewhere who would seek to use it, and because he thought its power was too dangerous to be used. Do you understand?"
Huld nodded. "Yes, Lord Governor."
"But he was wrong," said the Governor.
Huld held his jaw shut tight to hide his puzzlement.
"The previous Governor thought that it would benefit us to hide the Jewel away, where nobody could get to it, not even us! I too once thought as he did, and as you clearly do too now."
Huld opened his mouth.
"Do not deny it!" the Governor barked, cutting him off. "As I say, I once thought as you do, but I see now that Governor Tuun was foolish and misguided. We hid the Emerald away, and filthy foreigners came asking for it anyway. And not just any regular old filthy foreigners, but foreigners with their own elemental manipulation abilities!" The Governor spat loudly onto the floor in front of him, as if it had made a foul taste in his mouth just to speak of them. His spit landed in a little puddle and began to seep into the earthen floor. "And they tell us that the Emperor of Morekemia has learned of the Jewels too, and is looking for them! What is the correct response to this, I ask you?"
Silence held the training room. Huld thought that the Governor's question had been rhetorical, but then he realised he expected a response.
"Ah," he said. He weighed his options carefully. "To fight, Lord Governor?"
"To fight!" said the Governor. He had stopped pacing and stood looking at Huld now, his green eyes verdant and wild as he raised his chin. "Thank you, Huld! There is hope for you yet! Yes, 'to fight'! Why should we sit by with our nation's Primeval Jewel hidden away in a temple while the rest of the world runs around after the others, squabbling with themselves for who gets the most territory? If we had continued to do that, it would only have been a matter of time before some foreigners found and retrieved it for themselves, or grew strong enough to conquer us with their own Jewel-powers! The Jewels are not to be hidden, Huld, they are to be used! If we make use of the Emerald, there will be no nation that can overthrow us!"
Huld's jaw was starting to ache from how hard he was holding it tight. Discomfort churned in his stomach. The Governor had grown increasingly animated as he had been speaking, working himself up into a most un-Farrian passion. He knew that the Governor was a hot-tempered and impatient man, but he had never seen him like this.
He had to do it. He had to voice his objection.
"But Lord Governor," Huld said carefully, "it seems to me from my experience with the foreigners that certain Jewel-elements are vulnerable to attack from others–"
"Nonsense!" erupted the Governor, almost shouting now. Huld should not have questioned him. "You only think that because you are young in your earth-gift. Properly trained, a Farrian earth-wielder is unbeatable. We are the greatest fighters in the whole of Mid! Fighting is part of our very way of life! It is arrogant of any other nation to even think to hope that they could challenge us, let alone Morekemia! This is what you must demonstrate at the tournament in five days' time. When you defeat all of those foreigners in combat, you will show not only our citizens but the whole of Mid that Farr is supreme and that we will not be bested in combat. News of your victory and your abilities will spread to the other nations, and nobody, not even Morekemia, will think to challenge us militarily. And even if they do, we will be waiting for them, and we will crush them with our earth manipulation. Our army will be more than ready to do so once they have all been touched with the Emerald and trained by you as their Military Commander!"
Huld bowed his head. "Yes, Lord Governor," he said. Huld could see no other appropriate response. He knew of no other. Military Commander, he thought. That was a step up even from 'Personal Bodyguard to the Governor'.
"Good," said the Governor. "Now come. You have clearly taken to earth-manipulation quickly, just as I did. You have the basics well enough, but I have had the advantage in training in fighting with earth for much longer. There are a number of advanced techniques to show you. And you will no doubt invent your own. That manipulation you performed on the foreigners in my chamber, for example–hardening the earth around their feet–was clever, but I have long since moved far beyond things like that. Let me show you. Take Dragon stance."
Huld did so, positioning himself side-on to the Governor, pulling one first back for the 'tail', and holding the other one up with his arm at a right-angle, with two bent fingers jutting up out of his fist, 'horns' of the dragon.
"Good," said the Governor. "Now, watch."
The Governor began to demonstrate his advanced techniques, training him, and Huld followed obediently, making the movements that his master prescribed and holding back from showing his astonishment at the techniques, participating wholeheartedly.
Well, almost wholeheartedly.
In the soil of his heart, a tiny seed of doubt had been planted.