That you loved me, you loved me still the same

I dreamt last night.

I am the most powerful man in the world.

When the time came for my apprenticeship, I was fifteen. My stepmother wanted a post for me in the crossbow regiments. My father would have none of it, and so I was thrown to the mercy of a distant member of the family that neither respected. He was Troaliss, and he was an heir of the Kumate Chorjish Iron Lion Legacy.

Troaliss tried to make me otherwise.

The first weapon I ever killed a man with was a rapier, delivered through the right ear. Since that time I've killed with many other weapons: daggers, bare hands, bows, tankards, words, spears, and shadows. Currently, I favor the naginata: unpretentious, and graceful in its use. But I still carry my rapier.

Cast adrift, an orphan of Kumate Chorjish, I've drifted through many styles of death. I fought with a buckler and a hatchet in blood-churned earth; I've fought in a fine mail shirt under the banner of various causes. I've flown my own banner - per pale sable and azure, a rose argent - and armies have marched under it.

There are more people trying to kill me than you'd imagine. My usual response is to shatter their weapon in their hand and offer them a chance to surrender. Some do.

I walk in the halls of power, like none of my kin before me. I speak in them, and the lords of this world listen to me. The echoes of my voice shake the world.

Osomo's Mistake, pt. 1

"I challenge you to a duel of honor."

I wanted to respond to that. Dueling is something I can do well - not as dangerously as a true Iron Lion, but as effectively anyways. This was my game.

Instead, I decided that trying not to suffocate underneath a thousand pounds of bricks and bystanders was a better idea.

As it turned out, it wasn't, because Osomo (Osomo!) decided to speak instead.

"I'll defend your honor for 250 in gold."

I wanted to respond to that. I decided that trying not to laugh instead was a better eidea.

A woman's voice, sounding not flustered enough to lose her haughty cool, answered him. "Does it look as if I carry that much in gold?"

(Osomo again. "Half?") "Fifty." ("Only fifty?")

Chitin pulled himself out of the pile, and I had a precious moment of sunlight and air before the pile caved in on me to fill his void.

It was enough time for the woman to finish speaking. I recognized the accent: Serpentine. "My bodyguard is-" (Osomo interrupted: "He's dying.") "You're a four-arm I know nothing about."

Osomo sighed. "Fifty now."

I heard leather slap and money jingle as a coinpurse got tossed. Then, with a hard push upwards, I mananged to pull myself up into a sitting position, with my head above the rubble. Just in time to see what happened next.

Osomo responded, as is his nature, in the usual fashion.

He stepped backwards and reached under his cloak, tossed his hooded head back, and pulled his arms back out with four of his custom-ordered crossbows.

Then he fired them all.

My eyes shifted, and for the first time I saw the circumstances. The woman was indeed lithene, and dressed well enough to be from Embassy City. Just in the background was Serpentine, lying face-down in a spreading pool of blood.

Most importantly was the challenger. His race was unimportant. What was important was his outfit:

Plate armor. At least six ribs on each side of the cuirass. Specialty work, in other words, and expensive enough that the owner inside was clearly Noblesse.

Nobody wears armor like that casually, not even in Cloudbirth. And nobody ever wears just plate armor. The plates are over full mail, and the mail goes over an inch-thick layer of felt. All of that is over a layer of silk.

The silk layer is for use after battles. When you have a spare moment, you grab the hems of the silk and padding and you yank them. This causes all the missiles that pincushion your armor to pop out.

Two of them hit ARMOR square in the chest - and harmlessly. One of them shattered on his armor.

The fourth bolt went wide, and I saw what was going to happen a split second before it hit a passer-by.

If it's any comfort, I don't think she felt any pain. It was a clean hit between the eyes, with one of the special quarrels that Osomo had gone to great pains to buy.

The shafts were filled with some chemical - naphtha resin, I think - that made them explode and burn on impact. Which it did, a split second before her corpse flew past me and knocked down what was left of the scaffolding.

Before I was buried under the rest of the scaffolding, I took a moment to sigh.

Prelude to Osomo's Mistake

Spring Eve, Water Eve

My companions and I had met up, cleaned up, and were departing to go our separate ways for the morning when abruptly the entire day turned into a disaster.

It actually was a disaster: a runaway cart came rampaging down the street, right towards a violently sick Chitin and myself. (He had made the mistake of drinking witch's brew, and for all his efforts couldn't keep his stomach down long enough to meld his soul.

(This probably won't be explained much more.

(These things usually aren't.)

I saw it coming and dodged into Chitin. Chitin saw me coming and dodged into the passers-by.

They saw several hundred pounds of muscle, meat, bone and spikes flying towards them and scattered, except for one. He was bodyslammed backwards by Chitin into what was behind him.

Unfortunately, that was a scaffolding, which promptly collapsed on all of us.

Amidst all the screaming, I heard somebody say the magic words:

"I challenge you to a duel of honor."

Learning my trade

There was an interlude during my apprenticeship that I will talk about another time, during which I did virtually nothing.

When it was over, I received what I remember as the first formal lesson of my apprenticeship. (Doubtless Troaliss would disagree, but we disagree on many things.)

Troaliss surprised me by waking up early. During this time, he had gone to the yard of a blacksmith, coming back with a large, quarter-inch-thick scrap of tempered steel.

He gave it to me with these words: "Fold it in half."

When I couldn't do it, he got pissed and called me a weakling.

He never did explain why he did that. Such is his nature; he usually didn't.

In hindsight, I understand.

The test was to see how quickly I could bend it, and thus how much he would have to catch me up with before the real training began. When I couldn't, he realized that what he was duty-bound as a master to do - instruct me as a student of the Kumate Chorjish Iron Lion Legacy - was never going to happen.

He could have sent me away then, judging me rightly unfit to be a Strong Studious Son of his Style, and continued looking for an apprentice.

He instead chose to teach me - as best he could - a style that could make me strong.

I did not carry on his Legacy. If I was ever asked my style, I would say that I was taught by a son of the Kumate Chorjish Iron Lion Legacy, but claim none as my own. I will never bend a quarter-inch plate of steel in half.

But I can defend myself. To some degree, this is the result of Troaliss teaching me.

It was the greatest act of kindness he ever did me.

It may also have been the only one.

But you really miss your mother

The Shadow-Shifting Style has only one teacher in Cloudbirth.

The clouds on the horizon bode ill for all of us. Not for him. Under these clear rskies, he has only one student.

The class starts at random hours, for such is the nature of both the teacher and the subject. To learn to control one's shadow, must learn to do so regardless of circumstances.

As such, the student's life is dominated by struggle with his own shadow, and has only so much time available between the start of the day, the waking of Cloudbirth, the start of the lesson, the end of the lesson, the closing of shops, and the end of the day.

This time, for the last ten days, the student has spent struggling, more or less in vain, to find something that has evaded him for his life and which he has a responsibility to find.

This day, the search has begun to end.

***

When I was a child, my mentor taught me what to do if I ever got lost, or found myself in a city alone: look for your cousins. Or, failing that, look for his cousins.

I know he has cousins in Cloudbirth.

But how are you supposed to find people you've never met, especially when you don't have the faintest idea of how to find them in a crowd of 300,000? If you don't know what they look like? If they don't have an appetite for fame?

It took four days before I could find my way around Cloudbirth, and another few before to get a gasp of what was where.

The ideas took a few days to express, but once they did, everything else fell into place.

The plan was relatively simple: start in the nicer parts of town. Begin with the tailors - not the posh ones; I'd stand out too much there, and that's reason enough to suspect that they would too. Work my way through them. If that didn't pan out, I would go to the Dyers' Guild, ask about the sales, and work my way up the chain from there.

I didn't know anything about my cousins looked, you see, but I do know some things about how they dressed.

That sort of thing is important.

These things usually are.

*****

The Shadow-Shifting Style class ended halfway through the third watch after high noon. With the shops still open, I visited the first tailor that I came across.

In a city of reptilians and siarrans, his sight was something of a relief: he was as human as I. Short, ordinary, and as forgettable as any human could be - maybe as forgettable as I am.

Which made it hard to begin asking questions.

"I'm... I have an unusual problem." He stared, and I stumbled.

"I'm looking for some cousins from out west. A friend of mine says that they live here, and I'm not sure what they look like-"

"Fuck me if I know," he said tersely.

"-but I think that they wear something like this" (pointing to my coat.)

He stared blankly.

"Like this, but the embroidery isn't actually blue like this."

I stopped. Not to hear him speak. To concentrate on not sweating.

He didn't interpret it that way. "Cornflower?"

"No, no, mine is cornflower. They wear" [and at that instant I realized why he asked, and saw his face loosen up a bit] "...I'm not sure. Theirs is red."

("Red?") "Some kind of red. Carmine or cinnabar, or something like that. I'm not-"

He interrupted me again.

"Crimson?"

We met eyes - his were small and beady, mine were big and liquid and blue - and I felt him read them. I tried to read his, but I stopped.

He was smiling.

So I answered: "I think so."

"And you're looking for cousins, you say?"

"Distant ones, and I thought you'd be able to help me find..."

I trailed off. The shop was empty, and in this stillness and quiet I could see everything I needed to know. Almost everything. "Did I just find them?"

His response was terse: "Probably."

It was all I needed to know.

My cousins aren't very decisive. Neither am I.

The letter to Chitin

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Not a word I heard could I relate

I was with Chitin when it happened.

I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned, and my face did not show shock. We met eyes, and my jaw did not drop.

We stared, Chitin and I, at him. He spoke first.

"I believe you killed me back in Bladibal."
"No." (On asking if he would accept my apologies)

He passed Chitin a piece of paper and disappeared into the crowd.

Chitin asked me to read it to him.

The Shadow-Shifting Style, part I

People cast shadows the way they breathe: naturally and unconsciously.

The Shadow-Shifting Style arose as a means of addressing that. Its belief that, with practice, one can learn to control one's shadow in the same way one can control one's breathing and pulse. More importantly, to me at least, it asserts that this ability can be gainfully employed.

Pursuing this possibility first requires that you gain conscious awareness of casting a shadow.

This is achieved by intensive practice of moving in a darkened room. At the center of the room, a spotter squats with a bullseye lantern, which follows you as you slowly walk around the perimeter of the room.

At the same pace, the teacher stands at the far side of the room, circling. At various points, the teacher will make a chalk mark on the wall.

When the student reaches that point on the wall, they are to move in such a way that their shadow exactly traces the mark on the wall - not going above, not falling below.

Initially, the student never manages to trace the mark. As the hours pass, however, the student slowly picks up on how standing at specific angles in relationship to the light, in various poses, best allows you to keep moving while tracing the marks. The instructors then show them variations on the poses, ways to move and stand without contortions, and so forth.

The second phase of the regimen begins the day after the student is reliably able to trace every mark.

I'm not there yet.

A sealed letter to a friend

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-Kredge

Unlearning my trade

I left my apprenticeship with a bad habit.

Troaliss was a vagrant, and I his only student. There were no journeymen and no classmates. When we sparred - or fought - it was the master against the apprentice.

I would always lose. The question was how long it took me to lose.

So I learned to duel: to forget the world, to ignore my surroundings, and to focus only on Troaliss. He was my only threat.

It served me well, and when Troaliss realized what he was doing he did what he always did.

He challenged me to a fight and beat me.

After rubbing salt in my wounds, getting drunk and sobering up the next afternoon, he told me that I was doing it wrong, and showed me how to do it better. He was trying to help.

It only made things worse.

And so, very confidently, I've repeatedly found myself walking into the jaws of death since last Midsummer. If I can find somebody to solo against, it fares better than usual.

If I can't, I usually find myself inches from the Void.

And so, with what little money I have, I have decided to learn a better way to stay alive.

The faith of armor

The first three months I spent under my master taught me one thing: I was born a bastard. He had to train for years and work hard to be one. (Remind me to talk about that winter, and him, later.)

The next nine months taught me another thing: armor. I learned its names, its shapes, its makes. I learned their histories, their makers, and their makers' stories. I learned their lands, the slight variations that distinguished one town's armor from the others, and the social status they carry relative to each other. I learned their merits, their qualities, and their strengths. Most of all, I learned their weaknesses.

I only wore a serious suit of armor once, on the first day of the tenth month. It was a full suit of butted mail: hauberk, camail, coif, leggings and mittens.

It was enough.

When my mentor sobered up to meet me outside the next day, he said that he'd decided I knew everything I'd ever need to know about armor.

It made noise when I wanted silence.

It glinted when I wanted obscurity.

And most important of all, while I struggled with it, I was deeply aware of every possible way somebody could kill me in it, even if I knew how to use it perfectly.

Some people have an unshakable faith in steel.

I'm not one of them. I know too much to be a believer.

Like a haystack needle III

The inns of Cloudbirth are five a night in gold, the most I've ever paid for a roof over my head. Aside from the times I've spent under the care of chirurgeons.

Dinner was spent asking about Cloudborn steel.

"Cloudborn steel" is distinct in the iron, the process and the blend. The iron is different from other types of iron; it's a hit-or-miss thing - either a vein has iron that's usable for Cloudborn steel or it doesn't. There were other deposits of iron like this, but most of them were exhausted centuries ago.

The process and the blend are trade secrets.

Cloudbirth has monopolized this kind of steel, and it's a seller's market.

Six hundred in platinum is, apparently, reasonable to ask for a cuirass of it - in fact, slightly low. Somebody asked where I'd found that price, and I gave him the name.

It wasn't true.

Lots of things aren't.

Cloudbirth is shockingly expensive. Assuming three meals a day and not moving to a more dangerous part of town, we have money to last us a few months - but it isn't enough.

Which means that it's time to find two things.

First, a real job.

Second, and more urgently, some distant relatives whose names I don't know and who could be any face in the crowds. Maybe they can help.

Like a haystack needle II

Chitin does not know armor. Nor does he understand money, beyond "coins are shiny," so when he decided that he wanted some armor he asked Draven and me to go with him.

This was a good choice on his part. While I wear very little out of personal preference, I understand armor. More importantly, I know it.

Chitin was already overwhelmed by Cloudbirth; when we began shopping, he became like a child locked in a confectioner's store overnight.

Trying to narrow things down didn't help at all. "Do you want bezainted? Jazerainted? Chain? What kind of chain? Striped, or banded? Would barred work? Doubled? Do you mind heavy, or would half-heavy do? Can we even find somebody who's willing to make half-heavy around here?"

Chitin had no words for what he was looking for, but at the very first armorer we visited, he found his heart's desire: he pointed at a polished steel cuirass and said, emphatically, "That." No need for the rest of the pieces in the suit, or for the chain under it, or the felt under that, or the silk under all of those; he wanted the big piece in the center.

Eventually, he found a cuirass that was big enough that it might conceivably fit on him. (It was fitted for somebody else, of course.) And so, out of curiosity, he asked to put it on.

He hated it.

It was too heavy; he was looking for something lighter. (As was I, incidentally.) So we went through a dozen neighborhoods, comparing quality and prices and asking about custom work and so forth.

Eventually, we found what we were looking for. The man dealt in Cloudborn steel and the quality is reliably good. And, most importantly for Chitin, the cuirass was light enough. Light enough that I could see myself buying armor made from it.

The price was six hundred down, in platinum.

I once saw a ship unloading a cargo of spices, and knowing what I know now that cargo was easily several dozen Cloudborn steel breastplates, all tailored to fit Chitin perfectly. But in coin? Nobody has that kind of money. That's a dog's weight in platinum coins.

The price was inflated.

It had to be. We came over as being completely clueless ("But what kind of Moonsilver blend are we talking here? You can't just ask for a Moonsilver blend, there's no standard ratio so they'll sell you normal steel marked up seventy times. Would you like oryargyr, then? How about half-heavy, with the light rings straight steel? Starmetal? What the hell is that? I don't deal in Starbone. You'd have to do that custom order and pay extra...") - and we were. So he marked us up for it.

Like a haystack needle I

We left the King's District with a bath, a haircut, a change of clothes, and a favor (unspecified, but presumably "a 10% cut of the next year's canelle revenues" would be too big) from the King.

It was, at this point, that we had to go shopping. For my part, I wanted a shirt that wasn't white.

A decent gray shirt was ten blacksides.

Nor lose the common touch

The king remembered my name, and if he remembered me being bigger, he had the tact not to say so to my face.

All others needed introduction. All, save one.

The king has five children. None of them are his by blood.

To the right of SWORDS stood SHUFFLES, who did so. His gaze was downcast, and he clearly had better things to do than be memorable here.

To the right of the King stood SWORDS. He carried two of them, one for each pair of arms. I've seen swords like his, but never so ornate - and never used in pairs, even by martial artists who had specialized in their use. This means one of two things: either the swords are for decorative purposes only and he has never used them, or he's mastered them more than anybody I've seen before.

That's probably not true.

Lots of things aren't.

To the King's left stood SKARN. A skarn. Polished, for such is their nature. Forgettably perfect, for such is their nature. With a shockingly clean and high-pitched female voice, for though crossdressing is not the nature of skarns, it is apparently the nature of her. Unless SKARN is a male with a perfect female voice.

At SKARN's left stood NEY. A rilkan. Scaled but not spiked, for such is the nature of rilkans. Ravishingly beautiful, for such is their nature. Visibly a woman, but rumor has it that NEY was a crossdresser too.

There are only two princesses; it would have been impolite to ask which was which. Especially since I had forgotten all of their names in the eleven years since we were last in the same room together.

All of us, that is, save one.

Before the king, flanked by the judging gaze of her four adopted siblings, was Anaphity (I'll explain her later.) When she had come to my hometown, Bladibal, she had come for the Summer Solstice Festival. That was her explanation.

It wasn't true.

Lots of things aren't.

And so she stood, having gone absent without leave, accepting judgment without apologies.

His Highness and Honor asked us of our concerns. I spoke mine.

"A four-way war is breaking out, and every side but ours has an advantage."

Arriving in Cloudbirth

It's been ten years since I've been in Cloudbirth. They've been very long years. And I'm not sure it's good to be back.

It was good for Chitin, though. I'll explain him later.

But first: a trip to the baths and the barbers. (Chitin had his beard shaved, probably for the first time in his life. Again, I'll explain him later.) After three weeks of hard travel through melting snow (and an ambush), it was very nice to make myself presentable.

Things went downhill from there, at least for awhile.

Some new clothing was bought for me during my bath, to replace the old - which I wouldn't mind, except that the shirt was white. Immaculately white.

And my coat was replaced. The fastenings are silver buttons instead of knots, and the coat's the heaviest and best velveteen I've ever seen (if it's not real velvet.) It's full and perfect where mine was threadbare and broken in over sixteen seasons, and badly patched where I was injured - but mine was a gift. And I'm not happy to see it gone.

I won't complain about the rest of my outfit. It still squeaks when I move, but the scarves are silk and the boots fit tightly and I'll be able to break my hat in sooner or later; it will serve. But I miss my coat.

Then, to top things off, it happened. They said it: "I remember you being taller." Horror of horrors.

There followed some awkwardness: except for Rael and myself, none of us had proper documentation as citizens. Kara, in particular, needed documentation to establish her freedom.

And then we were swept off for a royal audience.

What You See

I remember my first kiss. It was at the Cross-Quarter's Day Festival six years ago, with a village girl that rode in for the party. "You're cute," she said afterwards, and I thought she was being honest. (I still do.) So I was honest too:

"How so?"

(She smiled.) "You're blushing." That was instead of an answer.

I met her again at the Cross-Quarter's Day Festival last year. She's married now, with four children. She was carrying her youngest with her. "She's cute," I said honestly, and she asked me my name. She didn't remember me.

This happens a lot. I'm attractive enough to kiss, but not to remember. Somebody once said that I was blandly attractive; it seems about right.

So who am I?

Everybody agrees on a few details:

• That I'm male.
  
• That I stand somewhere between 5'2" and 6'7", definitely leaning towards the upper end of that range. Most people remember me being much taller than I am. (Since I left home, even my family has become like this; my mother always tells me to "stop slouching" at the table. In part this is because she simply dislikes me, but I think that she remembers me being taller.)
• That I wear pants and a shirt. (Which is true.)
  
• That I have two eyes, a nose and a mouth. (This is true too.)

Beyond that point, they usually forget the details, so I may as well go over them as I remember them.

In fact, I am male - but not a man. Yet. At least not according to the people who matter in my life. And I think they're right. People have told me many flattering lies about my appearance, but I've never been called "handsome." They ask my father about what his son is doing, and they ask me if I have a wife yet - but if they saw a portrait of me, I think they might hesitate for a moment or two before they guessed at the sex of the subject. Such is my nature.

I'm not sure how tall I actually am, but I think of myself as being small. Of my associates, I'm the shortest save one. I don't know why people expect me to be taller than I am, but I think it has something to do with my not being "a man."

There are a few people who don't remember me as being taller. I trust them, and I think that's why they've never said anything about my height. The rest of the world has to ask me about my height because they can't openly tell me that I'm less than what I could be.

Which is true, in more senses than you'd guess.

I'm not a weakling. I bruise easily and sunburn easier. All together, I've spent six weeks of my life under the constant care of the town's surgeons, and I don't like to swim because every time I spend a summer afternoon in the lake I catch a cold for the rest of the week. (My stepmother's uncle said that I caught colds better than I caught fish. It's true, but I don't go fishing much.)

I have weaknesses. But I'm not a weakling. I don't let the weaknesses stop me; I can grit my teeth. (And I still have all of them. Except for one. Or maybe two. And one that got cracked, which I'll probably need to have removed sooner or later.) The colds are getting shorter and rarer than they used to be.

And I'm a student of the martial sciences. (My mentor called it an art, but it's a science. The beauty just comes later.)

And yes, before you ask: I've used it. A few times. More than I'm happy about. I've beaten myself up before; I don't want to do it again. I've drawn blood. Heart's blood a few times. Weaklings don't do that.

I eat well, but people always seem to serve me more than I can eat. Maybe it's because they think I'm bigger than I am. Maybe it's because they think I'm weak and want me to get well soon. I try to oblige them, but even when I do clear my plate I don't seem to bulk up.

(People seem bent on forcing drinks on me, too. This I mind. I've seen drunks - messy, noisy and violent drunks. I don't want to become one. But I know that wine can be safer than water, especially hot and spiced - spiced especially. I should know. And mulled cider is good for colds.)

I do indeed wear pants and a shirt, but the only piece of clothing that I'm really attached to is my coat. It was given as a gift by some family members I've never met, and it's still a bit big on me. It's heavy and hot and velveteen, with blue embroidery and a few Turk's-head knots that serve as buttons. I wear it every day, and people seem to like it.

Underneath that I wear one of my shirts. None of them are white.

Four years ago, I had the misfortune of meeting the people who whitened the town's clothing (and flour) for a living. I cried after they left, and since then I've stopped using bleach. None of my old shirts are white any more; they've absorbed other dyes and faded to a bunch of interesting shades. Everybody else calls them "gray."

I wear scarves - several. One of them is around my neck during the summer; I sunburn painfully. Another is over my forehead.

My stepmother would cut my hair very short as a child (I'm not sure what color it is. People say that it's a very pale straw blond, but not quite.) To spite her, I was threatened with a beating if I ever had a lock of it cut during my education. I've gotten used to having hair below my shoulders, but the other scarf helps keep it out of my eyes.

It also helps me sleep at night. I sleep better with a blindfold.

I have a hat, widebrimmed and black, which I wear as the mood suits me. It's unmarked and unexceptional, except that if you fill it with gravel it makes a comfortable pillow.

I still have both eyes (no mean feat.) Nobody else in my family has eyes matching mine, which makes sense. We don't discuss it.

Nobody else does either. People who forget my name, but have no problems remembering me as being a foot too tall and eating for three, don't seem to find my eyes remarkable at all.

They're blue, incidentally; the same color as the embroidery on my coat. This is why I find it odd that my eyes go unmentioned.

Nobody else I know has eyes like cornflower.

And so it goes.

This will never, never, never be written down.

I was taught not to write it down. What gets written down, after all, can get read.

Which is a shame, because sometimes I like to write. I'm not very good at it; Rael is better. But I like to think that sometimes I have good things to say.

It's probably not true.

Lots of things aren't.

These are my thoughts. As far as I can tell, they're mine alone, and nobody will ever see them.