The power of that single word staggers through the chosen instance, sparking in Ylo the ghost of emotions he’d been sure had left him years ago. It rolls across the northern grass, riffles through the southern desert, reverberates off the mountains to the east, and casts itself west on the Depthless sea. It drowns out the crunch of his feet as he shifts his weight against its force, bracing himself on the sun-scorched soil, making sure he holds his balance while the force of it moves past. It ripples through the crowd of townsfolk that have gathered in the shade of Marking Church – the old one, unattended now, whose crumbling walls and fallen alter serve only as the edge of Atthe, the last village this far south that clings to the fringe of the Gaslight Plains. It shivers the panicles of the Sućuraj trees, what few still manage to dot this land, highlighting the oblative yearn many sense within their branches, for which the wretched things are named. It dances amongst the Judean huts that huddle together to form the town…the inn, where Ylo arrived last night, accreted over generations in near impossible slopes and angles, its rooms added wherever they could be, whenever its coin was greater than nil…the market, open now but empty, the only place Ylo has seen that still entices with hints of green…the Hold, where racks of oozing, filthy knuckles grip at even filthier bars, and grins of rotted, tombstone teeth jostle at windows for a view. It tickles at the widow’s chimes that dangle in front of each of those windows, adding their tinkling to its milieu. It sears like steam as it fills Ylo 's ears, equal parts compulsion, invitation, foreboding, and acceptance. And, in a way only one as cursed as Ylo could understand, an underlying hint of pain.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps it is only Ylo that hears and feels that last, because it is only Ylo who cares. Because it’s Ylo e who needs it to be true, because it’s only Ylo who has

(wasted?)

the ages of his life reading every scroll he could manage, hunting down every possible lead. Listening to every rumor on every corner of every road, from every merchant, soldier, minstrel, or sun-crazed, hook-handed lambic-sodden waif of the world that claimed to know anything about anything that had to do with the thing that spoke it. Impoverished himself to buy (or steal, if buying wasn’t an option) every artifact they mentioned.

Because it’s Ylo who, if that imagined pain proves to be, in fact, imagined, and all of what he’s learned is wrong, will soon be so much worse than dead.

He takes a small step forward, into the circle, head down and palms together in the tradition of this thing that speaks, this thing of which he is now a part, for better, worse, or absolute hell, and lets the blocks come crashing down. Lets the Voices he has kept at bay flood through him with their crush of soul, opens himself to every secret they promise, every tactic they argue, every desperate plea they scream. He feels their chaos coursing through him, filling him with their idiot power, lets them use him as their conduit between this world and the next, and in so doing siphons off as much of it as he is able. He drinks until it fills him fully, feels his breathing slow, his mind race, his arteries swell, his tendons tremble with the force of it, until he knows he can hold no more. His senses heighten. The tiniest twitch at part of his skin, the palest ray of refracted light, the softest whisper of the wind is as a torch, a gale, a smithy’s hammer in his head. He begins to feel the currents of air that rise from heat baking the soil, the shudder of the crash of waves half a league down the rocky beach. He hears the caw of the crows and vultures that circle the dead in the arid south, and now can smell the Gaslight burps that light the northern plains each night. He senses his opponent doing the same from the opposite side of the circle, and then…

Then he is forced to tone them down, lest the inputs overload him and drive his fragile mind insane. He analyzes the stream of inputs and selects the ones he did not need: the searing heat of the midday sun, the sizzle of the sweat on his brow, the rank smell of unwashed bodies radiating from the crowd…none of that will help him here. He mutes them all. He doesn’t shut them off, exactly, but turns his mind away from them. Pulls them on a lower level of his consciousness, and twists that part of it sideways, parallel to the direction of their flow, so they’ll strike with only glancing blows.

All this he does automatically, unconsciously, and perfectly, the result of ages of study and practice. It is the foundation of everything to come, the kettleballer taking his stance, the chef selecting her delights, the artist making up their pallet, assembling just the tools they’ll need for the masterpiece to be created. One cannot win it here, in this pregnant phase of preparation, but if one is slow, careless, or just plain off, it can certainly be lost.

And all this he does in the space of a heartbeat, with the timbre of the commensurate word still ringing in his ears (practiced…perfect…automatic…the mantra he adopted for himself all those centuries ago, when he’d first explored the art, which he still chanted every morning as he exercised his skills). A sense of calm comes over him, like it always has before, once the background noise is dulled, and he can focus on the task.

He opens his eyes.

Light assaults his heightened senses, bouncing off the bleached formations, the harsh white stone of the huts, the bones of animals picked clean, the budding fruits of the Sućuraj trees. It pierces through his open retinas, blinding him for a half a breath, until he tones these down as well (pulling, turning, glancing blows…practiced, perfect, automatic). His vision clears, revealing through the eyes in his face what the one in his mind has already seen: the earth, the town, the people, the sea. The circle, stretching out behind him, around him, and forward, towards his opposition, who is standing on the other side. It shimmers with a boreal light, which, despite the gravitas it represents, extends no more than a finger or two above and beneath the soil. A barrier which none can pass, not until this thing is done. If he looks closely, he knows what it will show to him…script etched in its formless mass, repeating itself over and over all along its hundred-span circumference. Script to represent the edict under which it has been called:

Et debitum redditur…et debitum redditur

A debt repaid.

As nervous as he is, Ylo almost smiles at that. Indeed, he thinks to himself, as he eyes the thing across from him, but not the one you think it is…