Ylo locks eyes with the figure, in a small tradition of his own. He holds them steady despite his nervousness, using his newly sharpened senses to delve into its oily pupils, watching them pulse, twitch, widen and shrink. The figure does the same to him, and an unspoken opening volley is begun. He has his doubts about this part. There are those, he knows, who’d count it as a waste of time, believing the only thing of any importance is tapping into one’s source of power as quickly and completely as possible, and as long as one did that, and entered combat at full strength, all this foreplay didn’t matter. But Ylo initiates it anyways. The struggle between the two is real, even if it’s purely mental, and an early victory, however small, might prove useful in the end. Besides, he thinks to himself, there are plenty of things a man can learn without relying on his Voices.

He delves into the figure’s eyes, searching them for strengths, weaknesses, motivations and desires, and senses the confidence they hold. It is strong. Stronger than he was expecting. Fresh adrenaline jolts through him, and he rests a hand against the pocket sown into the side of his tunic, and on the amajlija held within.

Strong enough, he thinks to himself, and he hold’s the figure’s gaze.

A stream flows past and around him. Not a stream of air, or light, or anything else his body could sense, but a stream nonetheless. His Voices, in their wildest form. It tiptoes around him, anchored to him in its way but not controlled by him, not yet. Like a gymnast’s ribbon, it seems to be a part of him but never touch him, not directly, always aloof, always behind. It swirls up one leg, then out and around the other, licking at his hips and waist. It dances up his abdomen, throwing itself wide around his arms, his shoulders, giving them an ample berth before closing back in and circling his neck and head. It fades as is streams up and away. How he knows this, indeed, how he can sense the stream at all, he still can’t fully explain, even after all this time. But somehow, some way, he does.

It is chaos at the moment. Disharmonious, directionless, uncoordinated chaos, as useless to him as a bolt of lightning, or a spore cloud on the wind. But, like the lightning, and the fire it can create, or the spore cloud, and the fungi they can spawn, it has potential.

He holds a hand out into it. Spreads his fingers as wide as they’ll go and curls them, forming a sort of five-pronged claw, which he thrusts fiercely into its flow. The stream splits. Each of the gaps between his fingers serves as a sluice for one of its motions, and each becomes a separate stream. A little of the chaos fades.

He rakes his hand back, struggling against the thrashing motions, forcing them back, to him, behind him, warring with them for control, an oarsman in a stormy sea. All the way to the edge of the circle, never allowing the sluicegates to slacken, never letting his claw deform. With a violent shove he slams it there, throwing it against the circle, forcing the split into its ether, keeping what dances around him pure. Chaos out, control in. Harmony, peace, cooper-

(practiced, perfect, automatic)

-ation…and one more thing, before he sets the thing affixed…a subtle curling of his thumb, and bending of his runted finger, just enough for them to graze each other at their tips, forming a fifth, forgotten gate, through which the barest trickle flows.

All this he does in a second heartbeat, with the echoes off the eastern mountains still cavorting towards the sea.

He breathes. The streams breathe with him, swelling, strengthening, brightening as he inhales. He senses them and takes comfort in their twisted embrace. They are his, and they are his alone, and yet, are also willful things, subject to their own caprices, burdened by their own desires. Like dogs of war, trained to serve with utmost loyalty…but what is trained can be untrained, and there is always fresher meat. He touches on them one by one, not counting, not taking inventory – they would never stand for that – but sensing, getting a feel for which are present, which are not yet, which are strong and which are logy, which are eager for a sprint and which will need to be held back. He selects some of his most reliable and shifts them ever so slightly, altering the direction of their flows, bringing them to here and now.

This he does with his third heartbeat, as the last of the echoes fade away, and the only sounds that can be heard are the whispers of the Southern winds and the crunching of the townsfolks’ feet as they shift their weight on the shell-and-pebble sand. He release the breath he has just taken, feels the tension dribble out of him, feels his body, his mind, his soul relax, allows himself to open up to the Voices he has just invoked, receives the knowledge they impart.

The dance begins.

His posture shifts. The ceremonial semi-kowtow becomes an active, athletic stance, full of entasis and strength. He scans the circle once again. His adversary is with him, he sees, readying himself for battle, drawing forth his Voices also, or whatever sources he will use. Behind, perhaps, by no more than the time it takes a fly to flap its wings…

Almost (but not quite!) automatically, he selects one of his stronger Voices, and attunes himself to it…