The next morning in an room in the tallest spire of the academy there were a group of women who were, to put it nicely heatedly discussing what had happened to Endrian.

“How in all the gods and goddesses could you let him escape Chiyo!” Isahalane yelled.

“Let him escape?!?! He is not our prisoner! He is a student and a child in need of nurturing and instruction! And who gave you the right to decide the fate of anyone in My school?!!” she fire back.

“My goddess Azmera gave me the right. Without him we are all doomed!” she retorted.

“And where are we Now!! Are you trying to destroy any chance we have of getting him to Want to save us?!” Chiyo roared.

Gisvae stepped between the two women “You two need to take a step back as this will not solve the problem. We need to find where Endrian has gone.”

Amelee nodded in agreement with Gisvae and said “We have already questioned the guards that were stationed outside the room he was supposed to stay in. They never saw or heard anything after he entered the room. He came in after his training had completed for the day. No one entered or left at any time after that. We are currently getting the gate guards that were on duty last night. Once we have a chance to ask them what they saw if anything then we should know what to do. We also asked Kuuthyia what happened but she said that after they were one with their training for the day she had sent him to his room with an assistant. We even tracked down the assistant and verified what she had said to Endrian when she guided him back to his room.”

Chiyo turned around, she was still incredibly angry with them for what they had attempted to do. “It serves you right that he ran. He already showed that he was more than capable of disappearing from right under our noses and that was before you had tried to take control of him. Did you honestly expect that it would be different when you gave the appearance of exerting control over him? That was incredibly stupid.” sighing she was still worried about him though, if she lost such a prodigy, she couldn’t even imagine how much damage that would cause the reputation of her school. Not to mention having a male with his level of talent able to compete in the tournaments that happened every spring. She could just imagine the support that they could get in a year or two from the royal house if Endrian was able to suppress the other schools in individual events. She just hoped her sister would be able to find him.

“Excuse me.” A melodic and tender voice spoke up. The voice wasn’t loud but the timber caught everyone’s attention. “What we are doing does not sound right to me. I feel there are chords of dissent and fear mixed in these actions.” Aanys looked at the other women in question.

“Of course I am afraid.” Isahalane said. “The entire fate of the world rests on the shoulders of a little boy. We do not know when he will be needed. We only know that if he is lost our world and everyone on it will be lost.” Others murmured their agreement in various forms as well.

“While I understand what you are saying I do not agree. To put it in terms that I can identify with, when there is fear in a song this can either add or detract from a melody. When fear controls the melody I have found that it causes discord in the notes this leads to the melody being less than what it could be.” Saying this she started plucking the strings of the instrument that she had in her hands. “Music needs to flow naturally. It needs to express the feelings and let the story be told not be controlled by those feelings which destroys the melody.” Saying this the chords that she played were fast and sharp and became discordant and painful to the ears. The music stopped and she continued “We need to work together and when we share and uphold each other the music will become more than the individual.” As she finished saying this she started to play again. This time a woodwind pipe started playing in harmony with the stringed instrument she was playing and the melody calmed and focused the women in the room.

When the melody stopped the women had calmed down. As they come to the realization that there were two instruments play they looked over at Aanys and found that a pan pipes was attached to her arm. It was situated some 5 cm off her arm with a piece of wood wrapped around her bicep and attached to the pan pipes. As they watched the pan pipes shifted and returned to the form of a thick wooden bangle that could be found on both of her arms.

“Aanys, thank you. You maybe one of the youngest here but your perception brings clarity.” Isahalane said. “I apologize. My actions were clouded by fear of what is to come. I will endeavor to not make this mistake again.”

Gisvae spoke up at this time “This is good to hear, but I want to ask; why do you seem so much more affected by the prophecy than the rest of us?”

Isahalane gave a sad smile and said “It was my direct mentor and teacher that had the divine vision. I saw the fear first hand.” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears as she remembered those times helping her teach to recover. “It took many lunar conjunctions for my teacher to recover and for the first portion of the first lunar conjunction everyone thought that she had gone insane. The pain, the fear, the lack of support I remember them all vividly. Later when it was found out that it was more than a horrible dream or temporary insanity given as punishment by the goddess everything changed. When she recovered she constantly reminded me and told me the vision in great detail so that I could pass it on to my fostered initiate if it was needed. Even when she finally died and went to Azmera’s home 5 winters past she had strongly reminded me about the divine vision.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Up in the heavens the various gods and goddesses who were watching focused their attention on Azmera. Kyarus even said “I think you might have gone a little heavy on the end of the world and inducing fear in the dream.”

Azmera responded “I just showed her exactly what happened to a planet converted by these chaos realm people. I just changed the people in the dream to the people here and her mind added those that she cared about to it. I did not expect it to have this much of an impact. Especially in my order where they are taught to constantly guard against emotions taking control.” She had a somewhat embarrassed look when she said this.

Phunagiox said “Is there a reason we haven’t given him a dream yet? I know we get to give the champion a dream so that they are prepared.”

Ordises responded to this “We would and now would be an ideal time. The keynote problem that we have is that he has not accepted any of us as a god in his life. With his solo performance we cannot share the melody of information.”

“Look I understand you are the god of music but can you please, PLEASE, stop with the musical term references. It is so ridiculous.” Phunagiox said.

“Yes we all know that without a person’s conscious acceptance of a god or goddess in their life no transcended being may contact them through dreams.” Mophina paused and then looked at Phunagiox. “Well, maybe you wouldn’t….”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Back in the home of Endrian, in the workout room. Endrian is going through the different forms that his mother had taught him and then adding in the forms that he had learned yesterday from Kuuthyia. He was about halfway through his forms when Elva showed up.

“What brings you here Ender I thought you would be back at school already.” she stated.

Without stopping his forms he responded “There were some complications so I decided to stay home for now.”

“What do you mean ‘you decided’ you can’t do that! That would be such a waste of your talent not to mention I thought this was what you wanted.” she said with some confusion.

“Oh I want to go to the school, they have information that I feel I desperately need. However, I will not allow them to treat me as a stupid child.” he said as he continued to step through his form.

“But you are an ignorant child. Aren’t you just throwing a tantrum because they are making the decisions?” she asked.

Sighing Endrian put away his swords that he was currently practicing with and then looked at Elva. “No I’m not throwing a tantrum. That would imply an emotional response that is not guided by logic. I may be an ignorant child but I am not a stupid one. These two words have different meanings. Ignorant means a lack of knowledge. Stupid means an inability to understand knowledge. Since I am not stupid I should have the right to make decisions about my future and it does not mean that I feel others should make decisions for me. Instead of removing my ability to make pertinent decisions, they should allow me to understand the information and make the decisions. I may well come to the same conclusions that they have, but by removing my ability to even have a say in how things progress, they are treating me as being stupid. At the very least it would mean that they don’t expect me to be able to make good decisions. These actions are not acceptable to me and will not be conducive to me learning in a manner that I am comfortable with. More than anything what I want them to understand is that they cannot control me, if nothing else I have the ability to destroy my talent by doing nothing.”

“Isn’t that just proving that you don’t have the ability to make proper or good decisions?” she asked with a little irritation.

“No, it’s not the same. I am not trying to destroy my talent. I am still practicing my forms, and if things go well I will finally be able to start cultivating again. I have been holding off because I want to see other cultivation techniques that are available. If I am correct it won’t take a long time for me to break through to the condensing stage and I want to check other techniques before getting to the Earth stage. That being said I don’t plan on stopping or even slowing down unless I am forced to do so. But a statement needs to be made that everyone understands so that my teachers and instructors will converse with me about the meaning behind the things they are teaching.” ‘That and I need those priestesses to understand and treat my like an equal otherwise we will never make any progress, or at the very least not try to dictate my every move.’ He thought after he finished explaining himself to Elva.

“Just be careful Ender. We all are proud of you and your talent is amazing. So make sure you keep moving forward so our family can have a better life.” She said.

“You know we aren’t living poorly now.” He said with incredulity.

“Oh I know there are plenty of people that are worse off than us. But your talent and inventions have allowed us to take a step into a larger world. My dream has always been to try and get into the royal army and to earn my way through the strength of my arms. I thought I would never be more than a village guard until we moved here. Now I feel like I have the chance, so don’t screw this up for me!” she said while giving him a fierce look.

“You know that reminds me I never did get all of my questions answered from when we moved here, or rather fled Landow village. So how did you know-” before she got a chance to finish a squeal of “Big brother” sounded out and Endrian was tackled by a flying 6 year old.

Smiling and catching Ethese, Endrian said “Aren’t you the lazy one when I’m not here.”

“It’s no fun when big brother isn’t here.” she complained.

Before he had a chance to say anything they heard Allyce speaking from the stairs to the training room “Ender, why is the city guard at our house asking if you are here?”

Endrian couldn’t help but get a huge grin on his face, but it was more predatory than amused. When he started to walk towards the stairs without looking at his mom. She said “Don’t you walk away and you better wipe that look off your face.” she glared at Endrian to make sure he complied she wasn’t going to play around when the city guards were looking for him. When he looked at her and his grin became more of a smile she continued “Now, tell me what’s going on.”

“To put it bluntly they decided I was their prisoner at school.” He dropped that bomb and just waited for her to process. He could see surprise, then confusion, and finally anger.

“Explain it clearly Ender.” She said and so he told her about his day yesterday and how they had reserved the floors and his room as well as the guards at the end of the hallway.

“Did you bother to find out if they were keeping you there?” Allyce asked after hearing the whole story.

“No. Why would I? That just gives them a heads up I’m looking to leave and makes escaping more difficult.” he replied.

His mom stepped over to him, hugged him and then flicked his head. “Silly child there is no need to be so antagonistic. Ask about these things don’t make assumptions about what someone is doing.”

“But this is what always happens in these types of situations.” he said with a hint of doubt in his voice.

“Who told you that?” Allyce asked while his sisters watched in confusion and interest.

“Uh…..” ‘Crap I can’t tell her about stories I read from my previous life that showed this situation and what always happens.’ “No one told me, I just felt like that’s what it was about.” ‘Hmm, maybe I was just over reacting?’

“Okay well let’s go talk to Rantak and see if we can work this out.” she said as she started walking towards the stairs with Endrian in her embrace. Ethese and Elva both tagging along.

“Rantak?? What’s she doing here?” he asked with surprise as they walked towards the entry room.

“Obviously she’s here to check on you.” Allyce said while rolling her eyes.

Chuckling Endrian always did appreciate his mom’s humor it very much reminded him of his dad’s from his previous world. “Yes I know, Mrs. Obvious. But why her? Isn’t she someone high up in the city government?”

“I’m not sure I was a little more concerned about the guards looking for my son rather than why someone that we have met is the one looking for him.” Allyce said and at this time they had arrived at the room where Rantak was and where there were four more city guards. This wasn’t the first time he had seen her not in her combat form but it was the first time he paid attention.

She was still a tall woman. Easily standing a head taller than the others in the room. She had blonde hair similar colored to when she was in her combat form but it was shoulder length with a braid in the front to keep her hair out of her eyes. Her eyes were a ruby red color that contrasted with her blonde hair. She was still not very feminine at least to Endrian’s eyes. She had a strong jaw and her body was covered in bulging muscles. These muscles were partially hidden because of her guard armor. However, this actually made them stand out even more.

While endrian was looking her over she smile and said to him “Well it’s good to see you are in good health. My sister was quite worried about you.”

Endrian had a vague idea of who her sister was so he asked to confirm “Your sister is academy head Chiyo, right?”

“Yes she is. She has been very interested in you since I told her about you. You disappearing from school has them all concerned. Speaking of which I better let her know you are fine.” She said while pulling out a communication crystal. “Chiyo, yes we found him. He is at his home safe and sound.”

Chiyo’s voice came over the crystal “Would you please escort him back to the academy, and let him know that I am sorry for any confusion or problems that have happened, and that I hope we can work through this.”

Rantak glanced at Endrian who nodded in response before she said “He’s got it. We’ll be back shortly.” After which she put away the crystal.

“Just so you know, I do not appreciate being escorted anywhere without an understanding of why I need to be escorted or given a choice in the matter.” Endrian told whoever was willing to listen.

“You know a good little soldier follows orders without question.” She said while giving him an amused smile.

“What part of me is a little soldier? Well, little I will give you but I’m pretty sure everyone is little compared to you.” He said while returning a playful smile back at her and winking.

Both her eyebrows shot up. “Did you just flirt with me?”

“Nope.” putting a look on his face as if this was an obvious statement. ‘While I’m not really attracted to her her personality just clicks with me. I almost can’t help myself from teasing and flirting with her.’ He thought to himself.

At this point one of the other guards cleared their throat and when Endrian and Rantak looked around they could see everyone else in the room had rather awkward looks on their faces. Rantak was not one to be worried about these things but she did straighten up and say “Yes. Well, I think there may have been a misunderstanding and my sister would like you to come back so everyone can talk things out.”

“Fair enough, but I will state for the record, that if they try to control or manipulate me there will be consequences.” He said.

Rantak looked at him funny, “What record are you talking about?” she asked.

“Ah, you know what, nevermind. If problems then consequences, lots of consequences.” he said frustrated.

Allyce moved next to Rantak and said “He has lots of nonsensical sayings, we usually just let him say what he wants and pick up the essence of his statement without questioning the details.” She gave Rantak a knowing look when she said that.

“Can we just go.” Endrian complained.

Elva standing next to Ethese said “You’re such a weirdo Ender. Can’t you be more normal.”

Endrian rolled his eyes and Ethese got upset “Big brother is not a weirdo, you’re the weirdo.” She said and then stormed off.

“Look you’ve even corrupted Ethese.” Elva said with a sour look.

“You know she doesn’t get your sense of humor Elva. Just go after her and let her know you were just playing around.” Endrian said to her.

“Who said I was playing around.” she grumbled but she did turn and head after Ethese.

After dealing with the family and letting them know that he wasn’t in trouble Rantak and the guards escorted Endrian back to the academy. Even though it was a short walk from Endrian’s new home to the academy, having a senior government official in uniform with four guards surrounding Endrian did tend to draw attention. With many people discussing what happened for the guards to capture a young boy and why it would require a high level official. Fortunately other than mutterings and gossip most people kept to themselves.

After arriving back at the academy Rantak didn’t stop at the gate to drop him off, though the other guards left and headed back to wherever they belonged. Rantak guided him to Chiyo’s office which was irritatingly located in the highest room of one of the biggest spires on campus. No elevators makes for an irritating and time consuming climb, at least as far as Endrian was concerned. As they were climbing Rantak noticed the look on his face and asked “What are the stairs too much for you? I could always carry you.” She said with a wink.

“No it’s not that, it’s just this is such a waste of time.” he said conveying his irritation.

“What would you have us do. Not everyone can be so blessed to be able to fly wherever they want you know.” She said back to him.

“No that wouldn’t work for everyone, but we have flying ships right. They can hover and adjust their height without going moving forwards or back right. So why not hollow out the center of the spire and place whatever it is that allows the ship to go up and down in that center hole? Then it’s a straight shot to wherever you need to go.” he said this as if it was the most natural thing while thinking about a good express elevator in a high rise.

Rantak paused, and then stopped altogether. Endrian only realized Rantak wasn’t with him when he was a good ten steps ahead of her. When he stopped he looked at her to see her just staring at him, open mouthed in shock.

“What it’s not that far of a stretch, you should even have similar versions on the ships instead of having people climb rope ladders. It would be more efficient and allows the ship captain better control of the people when boarding or disembarking.” he said while waiting for her to catch up mentally. Not seeing her move except for her to look even more astounded he clapped his hands at her. “I didn’t break her did I?” he muttered to himself.

Rushing up and picking him up in a hug she said “You beautiful genius boy. Do you have any idea what you are talking about. What this could mean for troop deployment and just… everything.” She kissed him on his head and almost crushed him with her hug.

“Can’t…… breath…. Rantak!!!” he squeezed out when she was crushing him in her embrace.

“Ah sorry. I was just too excited. Come let’s hurry I need to report back as soon as possible to get people working on this.” She said this as she took off sprinting up the stairs without putting Endrian down.

When she arrived she didn’t slow down at all charging past the female sitting and working outside a set of doors. The poor lady didn’t even have a chance to protest before Rantak had barged through the doors. Inside Chiyo and the priestesses were sitting and enjoying a drink when Rantak and Endrian showed up. All had various looks of surprise and a few had even jumped up in response to the abrupt intrusion.

“Chiyo you better take care of this amazing kid. I have to go talk to an array master!” she said before turning around and running back out of the room. Her speed several times faster than when she was carrying Endrian.

“Ran-” Chiyo started to say before realizing that her sister was already gone. Looking at Endrian she couldn’t help ask “What was that about?”

“It was about a new concept for troop deployment and possible defenses for important buildings.” He replied and when he saw the strange look on Chiyo’s face he went ahead and elaborated. “I was complaining about having to run up all the stairs as it’s a huge waste of time. I thought since we have flying ships that can move up and down easily why not just hollow out a column and put whatever makes the ships go up and down in there allowing many people to travel up and down with less work required on their part. From a defensive standpoint of critical buildings this would allow much better control and security during attacks as there would be no direct way for them to climb up. Second I said that they could use this for their ships as well since it would give them more control for who boards the ship and who leaves it. In a combat ship if you had multiple of these devices then you could deploy everyone from a ship in seconds instead of jumping or climbing down a rope ladder. She seemed very excited about the possibilities.”

The women were stunned. The implications of troop deployment, building security, smaller deployable ships carried by larger ships, high level deployment of troops that could launch from above the clouds without having to slow down or put the larger ship at risk, and these were just what people came up with off the top of their heads.

“I’m curious what does this have to do with an array master?” Endrian asked.

“The ability for a ship to hover is created by an array master on the ships. So she wants to talk to one as soon as possible to see the feasibility of your proposal.” Isahalane said.

“Well, I suppose we should focus on the main topic, which is why I am here.” Endrian decided to refocus the discussion.

Isahalane recovered quickly and started talking first. “You are right, so let me start off by apologizing to you Endrian. My intent when we reserved those rooms was to keep you safe and make sure that we knew where you were at all times so that nothing happened to you. I realize that this came off as controlling or as imprisoning you and that was not what I wanted. Though the effect at the time would have been the same.”

“That’s good to know and thank you for your apology. There is one point that I would like to clarify on this. You no longer intend to rent the building, have me stay there, and then use the cost of this ‘nurturing’ provided as an excuse to make me do what you want?” Endrian asked with a pointed gaze at Isahalane.

She had a surprised look on her face for a second and then said “Well I didn’t expect you to see through all my plans.” Giving a wry smile she continued “No. I will no longer pursue controlling you through any means, and I apologize for trying.”

“Excellent. As long as we can work within this framework I think we can have a good working relationship.” Endrian smiled. “That being said I will apologize myself for not discussing things with everyone or talking to the others before making a decision without a full understanding of what’s going on.”

At this point Esalana could no longer contain herself and asked “So you have to tell me how did you get out of the room without anyone seeing you leave?”

“I jumped off the balcony.” he said without holding anything back.

The looked on stunned once again. Amelee said “You jumped?! That’s 7 floors! That’s like 21 meters or more! How the hell did you survive? Why would you do that?!?”

“Well I do have wings you know.” He replied.

“Can you fly already?” Amelee asked once more surprised.

“Nope.” he said.

Everyone was starting to become numb to all the shocks they were receiving from this little boy. Amelee couldn’t contain her curiosity any more and asked “Can you please explain it so I can understand what happened this is driving me crazy.”

“We it’s pretty simple I transformed and spread my wings to what I felt was a locked position. Then I held onto them with my arms to reinforce them. Since I wasn’t sure if they were strong enough to support me by themselves. Then I jumped and went into a controlled dive.” he said.

Chiyo spoke up saying “You mean you were falling, right?”

“Nope. It was a controlled dive. Well up until the end.” He said with a big grin. “That was... yeah that part was falling.” he said with a chuckle.

Esalana interjected saying “Kid you are my kind of crazy.”

“Okay so now that we know that you are willing to risk death to escape, let’s not do that again shall we?” Isahalane said with a pained smile.

“Fair enough.” he said. Then continued on with “About my training schedule. While I enjoy working with weapons this is not what I want to focus on right now. The two areas that interest me most are cultivation techniques and arrays. So if we could spend some focus on them I would appreciate it.”

“Why would you need to worry about cultivation techniques already?” asked Aanys. “The initial techniques should carry you until the peak of gathering before we need to worry about this, yes?”

“I have been at the peak of gathering for many lunar conjunctions already.” he responded. “If my cultivation continues at this speed I will be locked in to this technique and it is of my own creation so that could be a problem.”

Chiyo said “I will have one of cultivation instructors bring over the manuals we have here and give you some pointers. The churches I don’t think have had a chance to get their cultivation techniques here for you to look over yet.”

“That sounds fine.” he replied. They spent a good portion of the day discussing things back and forth about what they wanted and what he felt he was capable of. After eating lunch with everyone Endrian went back to his training. He met with Kuuthyia, who was none too happy about having her schedule changed. She had narrowed his weapons down to various swords, long spears, short spears, and daggers. They worked on the various forms for the rest of the day before he headed home with the promise that first thing tomorrow he would get to start looking over different cultivation techniques.