The next couple of days passed with worrying speed. He spent his mornings and evenings meditating with the spirit stone. He felt that he was making progress with it but he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t managed to track Dariea down to ask her yet. Jano had been waking up early before downing some coffee and a simple breakfast before heading to the training yard to continue his training. He could reliably command a small arrow, the size of a pencil to the target around nine times out of ten.

He couldn’t help but celebrate, despite the confused teenagers watching him. It was a beginning step to them, and he wasn’t sure he could do it if he wasn’t in the settlement, but he didn’t care. It was progress. His stone spear technique was still improving too, even if switching between the two took a while.

He was often too excited to sleep properly.

“So today, we’re going to learn another fundamental lesson of utilising chaos, improving our defence. We will try to conjure a simple shield. Please observe.”

The chalkboard had the rune which from Jano’s limited understanding of the language described a giant armoured creature. Jano began committing it to memory.

“Jano, show me what you have learned from us the last few days. Throw an arrow at me.”

Jano flushed as he was singled out. But he gathered himself and walked slightly forward. The tall instructor smiled as he did so, but again it was not aggressive. Not as he imagined it might be when directed at a stranger to their land.

He did as he was told, closing his eyes and painting the rune in his mind and commanding the essence to obey. He focussed his will on Herat and opened his eyes to watch the arrow deflect from a dark circle which now curved around the front of the teacher and was as tall as she was.

“Good. Now, do the same thing as before but command the essence to protect you while picturing the runes.” She said as she stepped towards him. He panicked but did as she asked. He pictured the rune and commanded the essence in the same way as before, only this time with a little more urgency.

“Force it into a shield. Or this will hurt very much.” Jano heard her voice and started to panic a little. He forced his breathing to slow and inhaled deeply.

He heard something ping off a surface nearby. He opened his eyes and saw an arrow of essence fading away before his eyes, and a shield doing the same thing as his concentration lapsed. He looked at it again. Instead of a shield of dark purple like those of his instructor, a sturdy stone block had deflected the instructor's attack.

“I’m sorry. Do it again, I must have panicked.” He said, but the teenagers around him no longer looked at him with pitying glances. They looked amazed. The last of the stone essence disappeared without him focussing his will.

“Do not worry. You are new to our lands and your primary instincts still depend on stone essence. I forgot such a thing might happen, it has been a remarkably long time since I had to think about anything other than chaos.” She took up an attacking position once more. “Please, take a little more time.”

At this, Jano felt strangely proud. He hadn’t been meaning to use stone rather than chaos, but he wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. He pictured the rune once more and began the violent process of forcing the chaos essence which surrounded him to do his bidding. “Okay…” he mumbled without losing concentration.

He felt something take shape around him, like a small but tight blanket. He opened his eyes to see the shield surround him, like a living thing it writhed and wriggled. This unnerved him, as it was in contrast with the sturdiness of the stone. He watches as the bolts flung toward him and were swallowed up.

“Very good. For a stranger that is.” She smiled and cleared her throat. “Now practice a lot, so that I do not have to aim so well for your shield for it to work.” She gave him another soft smile and he fell back to where he had started. One by one the others did the same, conjuring small shadowy shields. Jano was shaking, he had gone from nothing to conjuring two shields of different types.

He scuttled to a small corner of space and allowed a training aid to hit him repeatedly as he conjured both the chaos and the stone shield. His cheeks hurt from all of the grinning.

___

As the ever longer day grew slowly more dark than usual, he knew he had trained for too long. Today was one of the only days that he didn’t have time to dawdle and he hurried back to the house to get ready for the spring festival. It was the Chaos-Shapers turn to host it but the streets were packed as all the other settlements would be joining. Dariea and Jano were guests of the King and so they had to look the part. He rushed and pushed through and found himself thankful that they were based in the Royal quarters.

No sooner had he gotten in the door, than Dariea pushed some clothes against his chest. “I know you’re keen to get stronger, but today of all days! Clean yourself up and put these on, they are very expensive so don’t mess them up.”

Jano was startled, but readily agreed. He headed through the main room and into his bedroom. It was quite large, with a large bed and a simple dresser in the corner. Clothing had been provided for him, but it largely consisted of a set of simple but smart black shirt and trousers.

He examined the clothes Dariea had given him, they were largely black, as befits the Chaos-Shapers, but with blue and white threaded through. He pulled on the dress shirt and to his surprise, it fit perfectly.

He put the rest of his clothes on and headed back downstairs, to find the Mage sitting and scoffing down some food. She pointed to a small bowl on the table. “That’s for you.” She said with a mouth full of food.

She finished her bite and gave him a quizzical look. “Still enjoying the training?”

“Absolutely. Today, I managed to create a small shield made of chaos. I know it’s basic but…”

“That’s brilliant!” She said somewhat over enthusiastically. “After only a week? Excellent. Who knows, by the end of our stay you might be a master of chaos essence.”

Jano could tell she was flattering him, but he couldn’t help but blush anyway. “Hardly.. it’s a little shield.” He muttered.

“I’m not exaggerating. You’re learning to use two types of essence at once. At your stage, it is extremely hard to do such a thing.”

“But won’t it delay my progress?” He had briefly had that thought in between training. It had bothered him, but only until he started practicing once more.

Dariea cleared her throat and wiped her mouth. He noticed her bowl was empty and that he needed to get on with his own steaming bowl. “Well yes, in the short term it will. But I think you should keep at it for now. I have seen people make much less progress. Though admittedly they were teenagers.”

“Take your time to learn the basics, singular runes which allow for basic attack and defence. Eventually, you then learn how to combine the runes into more advanced techniques and soon enough you can devise your own techniques by commanding the essence to do your bidding.”

Jano nodded. “Our teacher talked about that. Commanding the essence, it sounded… strange.”

Dariea finished her bowl and licked it clean. “Yes well it will, and I suppose it could be a bit confusing to a beginner. But the essence is so thick here, they can try to teach their children to command it very early. Also chaos needs to be told what to do. It’s quite peculiar. Though if it makes you feel better, people taught exclusively in environments like this often struggle a little more when they leave and they aren’t wrapped up in their chosen essence. Anyway — eat that, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Jano finished the food with astonishing speed. It had cooled just enough so that the food was enjoyable and could be wolfed down. As soon as he had finished it, she pushed him out of the door. Into a swarm of people climbing the hill.

There was a sea of colour. The crowd was full of elaborate deep red clothes representing Berserker Fire essence, bright blue dress shirts of the Shifters with embroidered monsters of the sea blazoned across them and a mix of white and grey robes thrown in for equal measure. Though they were walking in groups of the same clan, some larger groups were mingled together. Jano thought that there may be more animosity between the clans as Dariea had said that they had been at war years earlier, but apparently it didn’t matter. At least for the festival.

He felt a sharp prodding in his back, and he found Dariea pushing him on. Through the crowd which had gathered between their home and the palace. “Come on, we don’t have all day. We can’t be late as guests of the King.”

Jano was distracted by the colour and the essence being thrown playfully in the air just outside of the royal quarters. There were various groups in some form of a mini-competition of playful displays, to see who could produce the biggest spectacle. He watched a woman made of white fire dancing through the air, dodging enemies and launching a spear at an intricately carved enemy. When the spear crashed into the beast, the fire essence dissolved into thin air to roaring cheers from those dressed in red.

The groups of the Shadow Air settlement began preparing a luscious looking eden, with flowers and a jaw dropping waterfall in the centre. Jano couldn’t believe these weren’t real, and they were crafted out of essence. He didn’t know that anything like this could be done and here they were, crafting spectacles while they casually made their way to a spring festival.

He tore his eyes from the spectacular display. He knew he was losing Dariea in the crowd, but there was so much to see. He peeked into a smaller circle of spectators. Two giant women stood facing each other, hair pulled back into a thick ponytail which wound almost to their feet. They circled one another, hands raised and eyes focussed. The arena was a small circle, roped off from the spectators and seemed far too small to Jano. One woman lunged at the other as power seemed to explode out of every sinew. Her opponent shot her hips back and centred her weight over the attackers eager shoulders. She collapsed to the ground as the opponent circled around her back and drove the attackers weight forward, towards the rope of the arena.

The crowd hollered and cheered as the original attacker seemed to be on her way out. That must signal victory, Jano thought he was quickly learning the rules. Just as the crowd seemed to reach the peak of their screaming, the original attacker span onto her back. The crowd yelled in unison some word that Jano didn’t recognise and she brought her knees to her chest, catching her feet on the hips of her opponent. She pressed them out with all her might and Jano shuddered backwards as the mighty woman crashed past the rope and into several of the spectators, much to their delight.

He found himself on the outside of the spectators as an equally massive man stepped up to the arena. He wore the same bland clothing as the women, which must have meant he was another competitor.

“Winner stays on.” Someone shouted amongst the noise. “A new challenger steps to the rope!”

Jano wished he could stay to watch more but he had now totally lost Dariea and the crowd was so thick that he doubted he would ever find her again. He saw a platform in the distance which he immediately made for. If he could get some height, he might be able to see her.

He pushed through the ever smaller gaps of the crowd. It was almost a living thing, pulsing this way and that. He had almost made it to the platform when someone else ascended. They wore grand robes of purple and gold with a retinue of followers behind them. There was definitely no room to fit on the platform now. He noticed another platform across the way from the one he had been heading to. It was obvious now that it had some use for some sort of display, but he only needed it for a second. He’d be on and off again before anybody knew a thing. He managed to get to it, he saw a train of white expensive looking robes heading toward the platform but he had already started climbing the small ramp.

He started to look at the crowd and only now did he see how truly massive in scale it was. He had lost any hope of spotting Dariea as he watched the thousands of faces walking similar paths, each bumping into each other on streets which were not designed for this and had been hastily altered to fit.

He turned to walk back down only to come face to face with the leader of the white robed human snake which he had spotted earlier.

“And who are you then?” The man said.

“Ah nobody sir. I was simply here to test the….. stage. Sorry I’ll get out of your way.”

Jano didn’t wait to hear their response. He just started awkwardly bumping past those who were trying to look dignified on the platform. He noticed a crowd forming around the raised structures and sheepishly folded into one.

“Welcome to the Molinia Symposium.” A man stood in between the two platforms and projected his voice amongst those gathered before them.

“Tonight is a particularly interesting theme, that of governance and the state. How should we be governed? Is our Alliance up to modern challenges? In the face of heightened hostility across the continent, what is the appropriate response from our leaders? Here to discuss this with me today is…”

He felt a hand grab his shoulder and yank him backwards. His stomach dropped, had it been a crime to touch the platforms? He turned and saw his mentor behind him looking displeased.

“Do you enjoy annoying me? What part of following me did you find the most difficult? Come on, we’re guests of Zabar and we can’t be late.”

Dariea pulled him through the rest of the crowd as they reached the very top of the hill past the palace where a large arena had been set up. Seating had been arranged and though apparently the festival would last the next few days, Jano was a little concerned at whether there would be enough for everyone. Then he saw the Shadow Air clan forge a huge seating structure as they took their own place amongst their own kind. Each of their disciples seemingly hovering in the air.

They approached a large permanent structure, painted entirely black and which rose higher than the temporary seating. The masked guards recognised Dariea and let them through.

“Dariea, Jano. Welcome to our festival. Please relax.” The same attendant who had guided them to the King said as he handed them each a drink. “It is our local speciality.” He added, addressing Jano.

Jano took a sip and it was incredibly sweet, then an aftertaste of honey and something bitter swept over him. The attendant smiled and walked away to tend to something else.

“Be careful, these will catch up with you.” Dariea smiled and finished hers, grabbing two more from a servant walking by. Jano followed her lead and a small tingle crept through his body, as though he had just finished two large cups of wine.

The guests crowded into their seats and eventually quietened down a little as some large displays began. These were illusions similar in nature to the type which he had watched the various groups conjure just outside of the royal quarters. But on a much grander scale.

It showed four clans at war, fighting each other constantly. Fire exploded into hurricanes destroying small homes. Violent winds crashed onto the simulated hill and swept away an entire army. Then it started to shift, to show the settlements working together and rebuilding. It drew Jano in as the entire history of the four settlements was out on display.

The display ended and the King was suddenly in the centre of all the seating. Jano took another look at where the King had been sat just moments before. He remembered that Dariea said that her ability to Jump great distances was drawn from chaos essence. He desperately wanted to learn.

“Honoured guests! These coming days we will celebrate the unification of our settlements into one people. We have our own interests and specialities, but together we are one. Together we are stronger. We must not forget that our people together are better than when we are apart.”

the King hesitated and then he was joined by the other leaders. Cheers rose high from the stands, until they were quelled by a raised hand. “Over the next few days, please eat, drink and enjoy yourselves as one people. Enjoy yourselves and allow the gods to witness our gratitude.”

Large cheers raised once again. Great fires were lit and food began to be brought out on large, pre-arranged tables. Jano turned to Dariea, “did we really need to eat before coming here?”

“Apparently not.” She laughed and pointed back to the tables. There were huge queues already. The leaders of the settlements were transported back to the platform by the King.

Jano was handed a small amount of food from a nearby servant, with another drink. When the servant disappeared, Dareia leaned over. “We will be too busy in conversation to eat too much, drinking on the other hand…” she trailed off as she finished another drink.