TKC 255 and 256
A rustle in the low foliage has me swivelling my eyes
without moving my body. If someone is there, it will not do to warn of my
awareness.
I realise Damn is entirely focused on Iniri, while my sister
has bent her full will and being to Damin. They hear nothing. I hope they at
least hear each other.
Removing their words and presence from my conscious
thoughts, I send questing tendrils out.
Someone is definitely hiding in the undergrowth, and that
someone is listening carefully.
Unmoving, I wait for the action that will herald mine, and give
thought to how it is the Warrior gene I was born with enabling this kind of
focus. Truthfully, though, the overriding impetus comes at the behest of the
orb.
How is a green orb given to me by my father under a blue
dome in a place far away not only in space, but time also, able to confer such
abilities? How has it been with me since? Most pertinently, however, how is
Iniri the embodiment of an orb?
Here is the story, strange as it is.
On the day my father placed the glowing item into my palm,
was also the day Iniri Makar received the Greater Talents.
Know this; Ilfin are born original and each receives a ‘gift’
in that originality. This is true to this day. Any Ilfin born on Makaran is
original in body and soul. The concept
of souls being born new is beyond my ability to explain, and yet it is. It happens
all the time, although with less frequency as time marches on. There may be
other races out there that also receive original souls for born bodies, but I know
only of the Ilfin. We are the reason
the Glonu seek to enslave us. They desire by conquer to have what we receive
naturally.
Thus, on that day under the dome, Iniri and I kneeled before
my father as new souls seeking destiny, the path into the long future. We understood
we were on the cusp of a different kind of longevity. Every moment of our
childhood had brought us to that point. Every day we were prepared for the
event. It is the Ilfin way.
It is about binding. Souls need support. They do not need it
to live; they require it in order to act. Act.
Without a binding, a soul may become complacent, happily inhabiting a vessel
without ever making itself known. In a binding, a pull and push is engendered,
and thus the souls need to do
something … or a soul is subjugated. One can say a complacent soul is by nature
subjugate, and yet that is a choice and therefore it is not subservience. A linked
soul, on the other hand, will be a servant to the other unless it chooses to
act.
My father is a master of links. It is the reason he has
ruled Makaran long. Few Ilfin are able to link souls for the purpose of action,
and thus they come to my father. The reasons, though, for the need to link are
complicated and perhaps a tale for another time.
We kneeled and my father bade us clasp hands. Placing his
around ours, he held us together and whispered words over us. Lightning bolts
raced through our veins.
I admit, I was in awe of my father that day.
He withdrew a part of Iniri’s essence and joined it to mine,
thereby creating a tangible object. The Orb. The orb is our link. The reason he
did so was to free us onto separate paths. Iniri could thus go her way and I mine;
we did not require proximity to maintain the need to act or be as less.
We went our separate ways thereafter, but understood, on the
day our mission becomes action to exactly
the same end, the orb would be absorbed. We would be together. She is again the
orb.
Iniri, after all, has all the Greater Talents … and only now
do I understand the gift was our father’s. He possesses the Greater Talents
also and, on that day under the dome, he linked not only Iniri and Enris Makar;
he linked us to him.
Closing my eyes, I understand, far away, on Makaran, our
father is aware of exactly what
transpires here on Massin.
The Greater Talents …
… I hurtle up, sword drawn, lips pulled back.
Our hidden assailant has decided it is time to act.
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