I was floating in a void, feeling nothing, slowly waking up. For just a moment I wondered if I had been sucked back into a virtual space and deprived of a body again, but then I shifted just a little bit and felt the sheets against my skin. With a long grumble, I slowly opened my eyes to see the rays of morning sun peeking in through the curtains of Vaozey’s guest room and sighed. This is the most comfortable bed I have ever slept in, I thought, not that I’ve slept in many beds, but it’s shocking how nice this one is. The memories of the dream I had been having washed away, and a few minutes of relaxation later I finally rolled out and got to my feet.

There were chamber pots in the room with the bath, and the water was still fairly clean since I had washed before bed in the barracks, so I wiped myself down one more time for good measure before stepping back out into the bedroom. Someone had laid out some clothing for me by the door, and when I examined it I saw that it was sized so that it could fit me comfortably. Even the shoes fit, I thought as I slipped them on last, testing their flexibility. The entire outfit was simple but high quality, with a few bits of flair around the arm cuffs and neck that marked it as expensive.

“Sir, may I enter?” a woman asked from outside, and once again I felt odd having to give permission.

“Yes,” I grunted, and the servant woman opened the door. She was wearing a black and white uniform with a long dress and large buttoned shoulder straps but otherwise looked like any other Uwrish woman.

“It’s good that you’re finally awake,” she said, and I frowned.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Late morning,” she replied. “Miss Svaaloyweyl asked us to let you sleep and only come up once we heard you rise.” I guess it’s probably fine then, I thought.

“I need to talk to her,” I said. “Is she still here?”

“She is most likely over at the eytaajheyyao at the moment,” the servant replied, using a word that I had never heard before. I tried to work out what its roots might be, but I wasn’t sure. The servant noticed my confusion and clarified. “The large estate building,” she said. “There are currently some lessons being given and she left to attend an hour ago.”

“I see,” I muttered. “So that building is a school?”

“It is an eytaajheyyao,” the servant replied unhelpfully. “I must ask, are you really who she told us you were this morning? Yuwniht Lihyveyz?”

“Yes, but I should get going,” I said, wanting to avoid another incident.

“My apologies, it’s just that you were different from what I expected,” the servant said, bowing her head. A slew of memories came to mind, and I chuckled quietly to myself.

“You thought I’d be taller, right?” I asked.

“No, I thought you would be more frightening,” the servant woman replied, looking up. “From the way Miss Svaaloyweyl described you, not to mention the stories, I didn’t expect you to be… nevermind.” She trailed off, apparently not wanting to let me know what she was thinking.

“No, tell me,” I prompted. “What do they say about me?” The servant woman pursed her lips, looking away in discomfort for a moment before looking back.

“They say you created ethereal fire and taught your companions to use it,” the servant said. “That your highest pleasure is battle, that you feel no fear or pain, that you have killed more Rehvites than any single warrior in history except Miss Svaaloyweyl, and that you have a mind blessed by the gods with a gift for violence and magic. How much is true, of course I do not know, but you do not seem to be fearsome or barbaric sort. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“I see,” I mumbled. Well, that’s quite the set of rumors, I thought, I can see why that priestess reacted to me the way she did. “Thank you. I’ll go find Vaozey now,” I said. The servant bowed again, deeply, and said nothing as I navigated away towards the exit of the house.

The man at the front of the large estate house told me that I could wait inside, but that if I wanted to talk to Vaozey right away I would be better off going around to the back of the place. With nothing better to do, I decided to walk around the outside of the building, looking over the grounds it was built on as well as the architecture. The garden and lawn turned into a sparse and groomed forest just before I passed by the building, which itself was mostly square and made of bricks. The trees provided adequate shade from the noon sun, keeping it from my eyes while I walked around towards the sound of talking I had picked out from the chattering of birds above me.

It wasn’t long before I found a group of humans sitting in a small circular roundabout that branched off from the path around the estate. Most of them were children, maybe nine or ten years old, and seated on the ground, but two adults also stood nearby. One was Vaozey, who was leaning against a tree and watching, wearing a shirt and pants. The other was a man in formal clothes who was observing the children more closely. Since nobody had spotted me yet, I decided to watch as well, looking at the objects the children had resting in front of them. Each child appeared to have been given a translucent glass cup that was turned upside down to cover a candle.

“Zhihyb, good,” the man said as one of the cups flickered with fire. “Voyl, your hands need to be closer, you won’t burn yourself, don’t worry. Sheylmay, you’re burning the dirt around the cup, you need to focus on heating the interior.” A magic lesson, I thought, leaning against the nearest tree and relaxing.

“This is stupid!” one of the boys shouted, slapping his cup and candle away in a rage. Neither of them broke because the strike was weak, but his outburst drew the teacher’s attention.

“Jhawl, pick up your practice equipment,” the man said firmly. “If you do that again you’ll be cleaning the dormitory.”

“I’d rather clean than waste my time on this ngiyvdoym!” the boy, Jhawl, snapped back. A few of the other children gasped. “Who even needs to know the ethereal fire technique anyway!? I’m going to be a kehpveht, I should be learning to fight with a sword, or learning powerful combat magic like the killing touch! Who can kill a Rehvite with a candle?”

“That is quite enough,” the man growled at the same time Vaozey started to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Jhawl snarled.

“Some way to speak to your benefactor, kid,” Vaozey snorted.

“I was fine on the street,” Jhawl retorted.

“No you weren’t,” Vaozey said. “So you want to be a kehpveht then? Really?” Jhawl looked like he wanted to say something, but the words seemed to catch in his throat. “Oh, you think I’m going to tell them not to take you?” Vaozey chuckled. “No, I’d never do that.”

“You just think I can’t do it,” Jhawl grumbled.

“How many of you want to be a kehpveht?” Vaozey asked, directing the question to the whole class of children. Over half of them raised a hand to head level. “Right, keep the hands up, how many want to be a yihzhae?” Every other hand except one went into the same position. The only outlier, a girl with brown hair, looked like she was about to cry. “What about you, Saoerley?” Vaozey asked. “What do you want to be?”

“…” the girl, Saoerley, mumbled something too quiet to hear.

“Speak up,” Vaozey said. “I’ll beat anyone who laughs at you.” She didn’t sound serious, but the children all looked uncertain.

“An architect,” Saoerley said quietly.

“That’s a more useful job than a kehpveht at least,” Vaozey remarked. “Assuming we survive the next few years, that is. You might end up having a few of your friends working for you in peacetime.”

“If we survive,” Jhawl repeated, getting his nerve back. “And if we don’t learn to fight, we won’t. We need to be stronger!”

“First, you won’t be fighting for five years at least,” Vaozey said, turning back to him and raising a finger imperiously. “If you’re lucky, Jhawl, the war will be over by then. Second, kehpveht or not, you’ll need to learn to make ethereal fire to use rifles.”

“You don’t use rifles,” Jhawl countered. “You have the killing touch, we’ve all heard the stories.”

“I’ve used rifles,” Vaozey corrected. “I just don’t carry them around because I can throw steel balls almost as hard as they shoot bullets. As for the ‘killing touch’, it’s not anything special. I’d hazard a guess that they’re teaching it to conscripts these days if they can. I think you’ve been listening to a few too many stories for your own good.”

“If it’s so easy, why aren’t we learning it then?” Jhawl asked. A few whispers passed between the children as Vaozey prepared to respond.

“You want to learn it?” she asked, and a bunch of the children’s faces brightened up. “Pick up the cup and put the candle under it,” she instructed.

“Okay,” Jhawl replied, doing as she said.

“Now light the candle,” Vaozey said, and Jhawl sighed.

“I knew you were playing a trick with me,” he muttered, looking dejected.

“What do you think ethereal fire is?” Vaozey asked. “Explain it in your own words.” Jhawl once again looked nervous, but then he steeled himself and looked Vaozey right in the eyes.

“You use it to burn up stuff you can’t see with magic,” he said.

“Good, now, can you see my brain?” Vaozey asked, the intensity of her gaze increasing. Jhawl’s brow furrowed and his mouth opened up partway, but he said nothing. “Tell me, Jhawl, what’s the difference between burning something inside a steel tube, and burning something inside a skull?” The eyes of all of the children were on Vaozey now, and their teacher was trying to get her attention.

“I don’t think this is appropriate to tell the children,” he said.

“Respectfully, I disagree,” Vaozey said, looking back at him. “These kids are tough, they can hear it.” She turned to address the class again, looking them all over. “The Ethereal Fire Technique, or ‘Interior Heat Magic’ as its creator called it, was originally a magic technique made for killing people by boiling their brains inside their skulls. It’s one of the most simple and effective lethal magic techniques in the world, limited only by the fact that it takes a few seconds to fully kill someone and is tricky to use in battle because of that.” I grunted quietly in amusement, and Vaozey finally noticed me.

“Who’s that?” the children asked, immediately picking up on the direction of her eyes and looking at me.

“Never mind him,” Vaozey said. “The point of this, kids, is to illustrate a point about combat magic since most of you seem to want to make it your line of work: Focusing on how strong you think a technique is, or how powerful you think you are, is not a good way to think about fighting. The latter, especially, is something you need to avoid. Never, ever think that power is the decisive factor in a real fight.”

“Why?” one of the other boys asked.

“Ask all the Rehvites I’ve killed,” Vaozey scoffed. “They all thought they were more powerful than me and had better magic techniques than me, some were even right. Yet, I’m here and they’re not, because I understood something they didn’t. Having an abundance of magical power is useful, and complex techniques are impressive, but neither of those remove your human weaknesses. All it takes is one little screwup to lose your head or have your heart blown out of your chest, and you’re done. A well-placed dagger could kill any Rehvite in the world, no magic required if you do it right. The trick is getting the dagger in the right spot, magic can make that easier.”

“Like knocking out the supports in a building,” Saoerley mumbled to herself. The other children looked at her strangely.

“Very much so,” Vaozey agreed, making her jump. “The foundations of Uwrish combat magic are straightforward techniques that can be performed with variable amounts of power, with a few more advanced forms for specialty work like ranged combat or enemy capture. People like me learned how to fight in unconventional ways because of how we lived, but if you join the military once you’re done here and are selected to be a kephveht or yihzhae, you’ll be taught those techniques and how to use them as tools, just like your weapons. In the end, all combat boils down to landing decisive blows or wearing your opponents down until they can’t fight. So long as you win, nobody cares how flashy it was, and using less power is actually a good thing.”

“…okay,” Jhawl mumbled.

“So just do the seytoydh exercise, alright?” Vaozey said to him. “If you’re still having trouble, ask your teacher. If he can’t help you, he’ll ask me. Trust me, there’s no way you’re a more hopeless student than I was.”

“Yes, thank you Miss Svaaloyweyl, but I think you should attend to your guest now,” the teacher interjected in a strained tone, glaring at Vaozey. She laughed, as did a few of the students, then left the circle to meet up with me.

“There’s a spot over there we can go to chat,” she said, pointing a little bit further into the estate’s backyard.

“You got the name wrong,” I told her.

“What?” she grunted.

“I called it a ‘volumetric technique’, not ‘interior heat magic’,” I said, using the word rawvgowy for “measured volume”, instead of ngaapaoay which could mean anything from a designated circle to the inside of a container. While the latter could be translated as “volume”, I had used rawvgowy for a reason.

“The history books will disagree with you on that one,” Vaozey laughed quietly. “Sorry, my memory isn’t perfect. Come on, let’s get out of here before that teacher I hired quits in protest. It’s getting harder to find good replacements.”

The conversation spot was a pair of benches that were just across from a small pond, under a pair of trees with orange flower blossoms. Vaozey sat in one, I sat across from her, and we both tried not to be the first one to speak. In the pond, a small group of waterbirds swam about, making the occasional honking noise or reaching up to snap an insect out of the air with their flat beaks. If it weren’t for the fact that I could see one of the walls at the edge of the estate’s borders, I could have believed I was actually sitting in the middle of a forest.

“This must all be a bit strange to you,” Vaozey said, looking out at the pond. “Maybe more than a bit if I’m right about where you’ve been this whole time.”

“No stranger than arriving in a new city,” I replied. Vaozey snorted in amusement, then chuckled.

“I’m just thinking, I’m probably like a different person to you now,” she said. “When I think about back then… I don’t know how you didn’t kill me. I would have killed me if I were in your position, probably before Kahvahrniydah. You have patience I could only dream of. It’s a wonder the temples never mention it.”

“I wouldn’t say you’re that different,” I shrugged. “More stable, but fundamentally the same.” For just a moment, I saw indignation on Vaozey’s face, but then it gave way to agreement and calm, and she looked back at me.

“That’s a good way to put it, actually,” she said. “Fighting a war has a way of tempering the soul over time. The highs, and the lows, they all get muted out after a while into something easier, but maybe a bit less passionate.” Though I hadn’t ever experienced exactly what she was talking about, I felt as though I understood it quite well. The difference between me and most humans, emotionally speaking, was that my reactions were usually less extreme than theirs.

“So what does eytaajheyyao mean?” I asked. “Your servant described that building as one, but I don’t know the root word.”

“A place of learning, where the students also live and are cared for,” Vaozey said. So, some kind of academic institute, I decided, maybe I’ll just shorthand it to “academy”. “This is going to be a weird talk no matter what, so I think you should go first,” Vaozey suggested. “I have a feeling your story is shorter than mine, or at least will have less important parts.”

And so, I began to explain what happened to me after I fell into the noypeyyoyjh. I had to make up a few terms for things like computers because Vaozey had no reference for them, but I explained them away as machines that helped to sort libraries of information. Describing the strange, non-euclidean space was difficult, in no small part due to the fact that I didn’t remember it very well and was trying to piece together the truth of its structure from the altered sensory experience I had, but Vaozey didn’t try to stop me. She listened intently, taking in every word, and only spoke once I began talking about my communication with the operator.

“You spoke to a god?” she asked.

“I did,” I confirmed.

“Which god?” Vaozey asked. I grunted unintentionally as a side effect of the two potential courses of action colliding in my mind. On the one hand, I wanted to be as honest as I could with her because it was an opportunity to glean more information about the operator. Whatever he, or it, was, he was involved in Uwrish society enough that they might know something. On the other hand, the absolute truth of the experience had a high potential of causing me problems due to how poorly it meshed with the Uwrish theology. With a frown, I made my choice, opting to adjust my story to fit it.

“He never said, but I suspect it was Roydlow,” I lied, hoping that she wouldn’t see through me. From her reaction, it appeared that she believed me, and I felt a twinge of relief.

“What did you talk about?” Vaozey asked. “Did he say why he was inside the noypeyyoyjh? That doesn’t really make sense, according to our myths at least.”

“We weren’t really ‘inside’ it exactly,” I tried to explain. “I suppose the physical space my body was in was ‘inside’, but the place my… soul was in was not. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Some kind of divine realm?” Vaozey suggested. “What did it look like?” Nothing, I thought, there was no visual information.

“Like a vast, open space with nothing in it,” I lied. “Just infinite nothing, gray as far as I could see.”

“What did he look like?” Vaozey asked, leaning in.

“It’s hard to explain,” I continued to lie. “I could say he looked like an Uwrish man, with blonde hair, red eyes, and pale skin, but I don’t think that was actually what he looked like, I think that was just an image he was showing me so that I would have something to look at. Sometimes, when my attention would shift, pieces of his clothing would change subtly, or his features would shift.”

“So then, why Roydlow?” Vaozey asked. “I would almost suspect Yaytgayao from that, except you say he appeared male to you.”

“I think it was Roydlow because of what he asked me to do,” I explained, switching back to truth seamlessly. “He wants me to kill the leaders of the Rehvites on Mehtsiyah Island to end the civil war. Actually, he didn’t say anything about a civil war, he said that killing them would cause a conflict, but that you would win if I did it.” As I said the words, I paused and remembered exactly what the operator had said, then raised my eyebrows in surprise. “No, come to think of it, he said to kill them and take actions to help you win the ‘ensuing conflict’.”

“The god you spoke to wants us to win?” Vaozey asked. “Think about it, be sure before you answer.”

“That god had no love for Rehv,” I replied. “He explicitly said to me that allowing Rehv to win would be the same as destroying humanity, in his eyes at least.” Vaozey closed her eyes for a moment, leaning back against the bench, then exhaled slowly. Contrary to what I expected, she cracked a smile and then looked up at the sky.

“Grave as that is, it’s a relief,” she said. “We have a god on our side, explicitly. Before that whole business with R’vaajh I still wasn’t totally sure if you were a true ihlzheyv, but now there’s no doubt what you are and who you serve.” Her smile grew wider, and she relaxed even further. “This is the best outcome I could have hoped for, short of you coming back here to tell me you killed Rehv with your own hands.”

“I got the impression that killing a god was impossible,” I said, admitting something to myself that annoyed me. “I don’t think Roydlow could have done it, even, but killing all of a god’s followers and obstructing their plans, that’s within the realm of possibility.” Vaozey just laughed a bit and nodded, leaning forward again. “I still wonder why he can’t just do it himself though,” I shrugged.

“He’s a god, who knows,” Vaozey shrugged back. “That’s what faith is all about. We’re just mortals, we can’t fathom their world, only trust them to keep their word. Gods always speak true, even if they don’t always speak precisely, thus we can have faith in your god. So, then what?”

I explained the rest of the story quickly, and Vaozey confirmed that it was mostly what she expected. The fact that I didn’t experience more than an hour of subjective time over the entire gap was surprising to her, but she accepted it quickly, considering it was the result of godly meddling. She also demanded to know the name of the officer whom I had spoken to in the prison, but I never got her name. I got the impression that it was probably better for everyone if Vaozey didn’t know anyway, as her expression told me she wanted to punish her.

Then, Vaozey began explaining her side of the story. The events at the noypeyyoyjh were similar to what the old woman had told me: waves of light and a whirlwind that consumed everything, but Vaozey and Koyl had seen the whirlwind from a distance and hadn’t fallen unconscious. According to Vaozey, the noypeyyoyjh continued to flash light for almost half an hour, and every time it did the debris that the whirlwind had picked up broke down into smaller and smaller pieces, eventually turning so fine that it was like dust. She and Koyl had fled once the effect began expanding again, and went back to Awrehrehzha, claiming to be survivors of the battle to get inside the walls.

Koyl had waited fifteen days for me to come back. Both he and Vaozey were convinced that I wasn’t dead, mainly because they had seen me fall into the noypeyyoyjh and then vanish, but Koyl’s nerve was weaker than Vaozey’s. Koyl eventually left to return to Kahvahrniydah, telling Vaozey that she should leave as well because of the increasing scrutiny of the guards and leaving her a bit of money. Vaozey ended up staying for three months, only leaving because she was found out by the guards. She fled to Kuhtehsh after, since it was the only path away from town that she knew.

Mawyeyz had managed to take Kuhtehsh in the meantime, despite the setback of having been attacked by a wild ant colony. Vaozey told him all about what had happened at the noypeyyoyjh, and he agreed to allow her to stay until she found somewhere else to go, since she wouldn’t be able to go back to Owsahlk and didn’t want to settle in Kahvahrniydah. It was only a month or so into her stay that the civil war began, and that prevented her from leaving altogether.

The Rehvites had been planning to attack the mainland for some time, at least that was what Vaozey suspected, because the first move they made was to send nearly a thousand warriors to the city of Duwbkaav. Every single one of them was a kehpveht or better in terms of magical power, so even if the city hadn’t already been Rehvite-aligned it would have been taken within hours. Once they secured their forward base, they sent a ship to Awrehrehzha with a quarter of their number to garrison the city and began spreading their forces out to secure Towrkah, Muhryehv, and Kuhtehsh. The first two went easily, but the third not so much.

Though they had only sent twenty warriors to Kuhtehsh due to its small size, the military might those twenty commanded was equal to well over a hundred soldiers. Mawyeyz managed to keep them satisfied with lies about his allegiance, but eventually, the truth came out and the warriors tried to take the town. Surprisingly, the people of the town had helped Mawyeyz fight back, losing around a third of their number but successfully ambushing the invaders. Five of the warriors were captured alive, and Mawyeyz used them to send messages back to their main force in Muhryehv telling them the mission was successful.

The peace didn’t even last a year, but it was long enough for Mawyeyz to send for help from the non-Rehvites in the northern city of Bowpahraan, a place I had never heard of, who arrived just a few weeks before the prisoners escaped. Four of them were killed, but the fifth managed to get back to Muhryehv, and that was when everything blew up. Up until that point, the war wasn’t a hot one since the Rehvites hadn’t attacked anyone openly, but with the news that some of their number had actually been killed and imprisoned, they had the political justification to engage in war without allowing Pehrihnk to immediately mobilize an army.

Even with a few hundred soldiers from the north, there was no chance that Kuhtehsh would survive, so the city was abandoned and Mawyeyz went north with them, bringing everyone who was willing to leave the town. The journey took almost two months, but the survivors eventually arrived in Bowpahraan to much scorn. The attacks by the Rehvites stationed in Muhryehv came not much later, turning into a siege once the mainland Rehvite forces arrived. Though they weren’t as powerful as the warriors, they were still a cut above most soldiers and nearly as numerous, so even with its considerable defenses the city of Bowpahraan was slowly ground down. It was here that Vaozey officially joined up with the Uwrish military and fought in her first proper battles.

Try as I might, I couldn’t manage to memorize every battle Vaozey recounted. They all bled into each other, dozens of small skirmishes and exchanges punctuated by the occasional breach of the walls and slaughter of civilians or nighttime strike against a section of the Rehvite camp. The siege went on for years, and were it not for the fact that Bowpahraan was a fishing city everyone would have starved. At the same time, the nobles of Bowpahraan were trying every possible tactic to get the word out to Pehrihnk, and they eventually succeeded, getting back a reply that angered Vaozey so much that she couldn’t even bear to speak it aloud without spitting: Help wasn’t coming because three western provinces were trying to secede and none of the hostile actions had been taken across provincial borders.

Vaozey skipped ahead a bit after that, clearly trying not to get worked up over something that had happened long ago. She said the gist of what happened next was that while Bowpahraan was secretly sending for aid from the northeast frontier province of Kownohk, Kahvahrniydah was creating rifles, and at some point the first battle of Kahvahrniydah happened. She wasn’t present of course, but the official accounts said that the Rehvites lost nearly a quarter of their high-class warriors in the battle, an absolutely crushing defeat. Once they had seen that the Rehvites could be beaten in a conventional battle, Pehrihnk agreed to send official aid and declared a state of inter-provincial war. Nobody in Bowpahraan knew that though, because messengers had mostly been cut off.

At the same time as the battle of Kahvahrniydah was happening, help from Kownohk arrived and the siege was broken. Then there was another series of battles as Mawyeyz’s forces fought their way south, culminating in a siege of Awrehrehzha where Vaozey had played a critical role by infiltrating and killing the Rehvite leadership. The Uwrish navy, having been informed of the siege, coordinated their attacks with Mawyeyz’s army to blockade the docks and prevent the enemy from leaving, allowing them to deal with another large section of the Rhevite army and secure the city once again. Mawyeyz had been named temporary governor, Rehvites were rounded up and jailed in the nahloymahlthayao, which was the name for the walled site around the noypeyyoyjh, and barring some scattered battles around small nearby villages there hadn’t been much more fighting.

“To be honest with you, it was exhausting,” Vaozey finished with a sigh. “I thought war would be a bit more exciting, but most of it was just sitting around and training. It almost made me relish the fights where I had to crawl back to base missing a leg or try not to breathe because of all the metal and bone fragments in my chest. At least those got my heart pumping.”

“I’m not sure I’d prefer that kind of excitement to boredom,” I said.

“Actually, there was this one where I lost an arm early on, only to find it later while we were pulling our lines,” Vaozey recalled with a snort. “I think the enemy soldiers nearly shit their pants when I stuck it back on. Damned thing wouldn’t even move for days after, but the looks on their faces were worth the trouble.” She pulled up her right sleeve to show me a jagged scar around her bicep.

“I noticed that all the burns are gone,” I said.

“Not all of them, I still have a few under my clothes,” she replied. “Anyway, you let me get too distracted telling you war stories. We’re not even at the important bits you need to know before tonight.”

“Tonight?” I echoed.

“I’ve barely even touched on the politics,” Vaozey sighed, gesturing back to the estate. “You didn’t think they gave me this just because I’m good at killing, did you? Oh, you did? Really?” Vaozey’s exhaustion turned into amusement as she read my expression. “No, sorry, not sure how it works in your homeland but that isn’t how it is here. No, they threw this place at me five years ago because of our new allies and biggest seytoydh problem yet: Dahmpiyah.”