The Gift of the Second Prime

Traes walked into the barn. There was a distinct smell here, strangely alluring and also strangely repulsive at the same time. Sweet, but also sour. In the gloom of the half light he could see the card table his Uncle and brother had been using on their watch. Why they could watch together and he had to watch alone had not been explained to him but, to save on the beatings any questions would raise, he settled at the table and pulled out his reader calling up the book from where he had left off.

He had been reading for no more than five minutes when a voice spoke to him out of the darkness at the back of the barn.

"What is it that you read so intently?" It asked.

It was a strange voice, lyrical, with a hint of music behind it as if several voices were speaking at once. It was not a male voice, but neither was it female. It was pitched differently to any human voice. He knew at once from where it came.

It was the Gift.

Traes stood and moved slowly into the shadows at the back of the barn where the remaining bales of hay from last year were stored. Still waiting to be cleared so the barn could receive this year's harvest in two weeks time. A cage had been set up here and within the cage the creature sat, perfectly still and perfectly upright staring at him with large eyes. Perfectly round and totally white apart from the black of the pupil at the centre of each eye.

It was not human, and that shocked him, but there was also something deeply human about it at the same time.

It was the Gift.

"I..." Traes began, then stopped again.

This creature fascinated him. His Uncle and brother had stolen it from the Warrior Graescin. They planned to use it as part of an elaborate ransom that would see the whole Clan come out of the deal much richer than they were at the moment. They would have monetary wealth but also strategic wealth, and in the Game of the Clans, that was an important commodity.

The warrior himself, the Master of the Gift, was currently employed as the main Protector of the provincial Prince. This region in particular was not the most lawful in the Prince's Province and he had sent the warrior here with his men to bring some order back to the place.

While the Warrior had been fighting some local militia, his camp had been raided by Traes' Uncle and brother and their men and the result of that raid sat before him now in its cage.

It was the Gift.

It was a tall creature, easily taller than his Uncle, the tallest person Traes knew. Its skin was pale, so white it was almost grey, but it glowed softly - the most beautiful thing Traes had ever seen. It sat before him cross legged, long slender legs and its arms were resting at its side, also long and slender, much longer than was normal for a human.

It was naked apart from an elaborate harness that seemed to contain and also support this fragile creature. A leather belt wrapped around its hips and this echoed a leather collar at its neck. Both were studded with gems and precious stones. His brother had joked that they should steal this harness, it would fetch them as much as six months working the land could earn! His Uncle had said that was always an option but that touching the Gift was not wise. There were rumours that, despite their fragile appearance, these creatures were possessed of hidden weapons.

If it had such weapons, Traes could not see them as he studied this creature before him. Its collar and belt were linked back and front by elaborately carved strips of gold. One was shaped to run down its back and one shaped to run down its chest. Chains of gold connected these bars side to side, gently wrapping themselves around the Gift's body, nestling against its white skin almost sensually.

The creature's sex rose up the front of the gold strip on its chest, held in place by hoops of silver that were fixed into the golden strip. The Gift's sex ran up this strip beyond where its belly button would have been, had it had one. Beneath the rigid sex, was a gilt cage lined with silk and fur, wrapped around the Nectaria.

Traes had never seen a Gift before, but he knew their anatomy. Everyone did.

Where human males had gonads, the Gifts had Nectaria. Large, much larger than those of the largest human. They produced the elixir that was purported to sustain the strength of their Master, the Warrior. It was rumoured that the nectar produced by the Gift not only gave great strength and agility to the Warrior, but also extended his life beyond the human norm.

Traes shook his head and pulled his eyes back to those of the Gift, still staring at him intently.

"I did not know you could speak." Traes finally managed to say, sitting on the floor in front of the creature. "You have not spoken until now."

"Of course I can talk!" The creature laughed, the strange musical voice swimming in the air around the cage. "Perhaps I had no reason to speak until now. What is it you read so avidly?"

"The Golden March." Traes said.

"Ah. You are interested in the journeys of the Warrior General, Ghen?"

"It is part of my studies." Traes explained. "I am learning about the foundation of the Second Realm."

"I met him once." The creature said, bowing its head and smiling.

"How could that be?" Traes laughed. "The Warrior Ghen lived almost four hundred years ago!"

"I am a Gift." The creature said, looking directly into his eyes. "I am not human like you. I do not die in the time that you will die. I knew him when I was still a young Gift."

"But that would mean your Warrior..."

"Graescin." The Gift said.

"Graescin." Traes agreed. "That would mean he was over four hundred years old! Even Warriors do not live that long!"

"No, you are right." The Gift smiled. "He is not my first Pahtron. Before him was the Warrior General, Scerael."

"But the Warrior Scerael fought with the Warrior General Ghen!" Traes said.

"And fought well." The Gift said. "The Western Marches became part of the Second Realm because of the great effort of Scerael."

"I did not know Gifts lived that long!"

"In human terms we are immortal."

"But you can die?"

"Oh, yes."

"I could kill you now."

"Indeed you could."

"And you are my prisoner."

"I am your prisoner." The Gift said and then smiled.

"You are very calm for one that is a prisoner." Traes noted.

"My Pahtron is coming." The Gift replied. "He will liberate me."

"How do you know?"

"Because I have him inside me." The Gift said. "His life is my life. My life is his."

"You can feel him even here?"

"Oh, yes."

"And he is coming?"

"Does that worry you?" The Gift laughed, its voice filling the barn with its music. "Are you afraid little human?"

"I am not part of this!" Traes said standing up. "My Uncle and brother planned this. You are their prisoner. I only watch over you!"

"And I am aware of that." The Gift said. "Sit. He will not be here for a while yet, my Pahtron. There is time still for us to talk."

"I should warn the others."

"Why?" The Gift asked. "It will not save them."

"You are very certain."

"You seek to fight a Warrior, Traes. Your people are not even trained in a tenth of his abilities. Do not know about most of his skills! I am sure!"

"How do you know my name?"

"I can taste your thoughts in the air. With the others this is not so easy, but with you I can feel them."

"What should we do?"

"Fate is determined once the decision is made." The Gift told him, quoting the page in the Golden March that Traes had read only a moment before. "All other options flee before the immediacy of the decision: the choice has been made. Now all that is left for us is to live or to die. Before the decision we are overwhelmed by the colours of our choices; after the decision everything is black and white."

"And we will die?" Traes asked.

"That path has not been chosen for you yet." The Gift told him. "For the others of this Clan it will be their fate. For you, though, there is still colour. How will you choose?"

"I would choose to live."

"A good choice, but how will that be possible? When my Pahtron comes, none shall be spared."

"I could run, hide from the Warrior."

"So you could. And this would save you from his wrath. But you will be left homeless, clan-free. You know what happens to those outside the clans?"

"They are sport."

"They are sport. Animals to be hunted, nothing more. You wish this life?"

"No." Traes replied.

"So what do you want? There is not much time left before the choices coalesce around you, Traes. You must make the decision soon."

"I choose to live."

"And how will you achieve this?"

"I will help you."

"I do not need your help. Your uncle and brother cage me here, but I am not bound by such chains as these. I am a Gift."

"But you must eat, drink. I can help you and thus show your Pahtron, the Warrior, that I am not complicit in this crime."

"And you believe this is a crime?"

"I believe. The Gifts are beyond the law." Traes said. "You belong to your Warrior and to the Prince of Princes. No mere human can contain you."

"And when my Pahtron comes and exacts his vengeance on this place, as he will, you wish me to save you?"

"I wish to earn your gratitude." Traes said. "I do not want to die."

"No." The Gift smiled. "I believe you do not wish to die."

"Then how can I help you?"

"I need little, but water is important."

"I can bring you water."

"It must be pure."

"There is a spring next to the barn. I will pull the water myself."

"Do that." The Gift smiled.

Traes stood to fetch the water.

"Leave me the reader." The Gift added.

Traes slipped the reader through the bars and the creature reached forward with its tail and delicately wrapped it around the device. Its skin brushed his own and Traes found himself blushing in sympathy with the warmth of this creature. Its skin felt like the finest doush.

The tail moved inside the cage and deposited the reader into hands that delicately moved the screen to a random page before it began reading. The creature was lost to him, and Traes backed away from it, eyes always on the Gift. These creatures were the stuff of legend, and here was one that claimed to know the Warrior Ghen himself! Could that be true?

He knew so little about the Gifts. Every Warrior had one, it was part of their final ritual. Only Warriors who won their final fight, the Silver March, ever left the Palace of Sunsets in Troubian. And every Warrior that left the Palace of Sunsets left with a Gift. The Gift belonged to its Warrior Pahtron and they were connected, joined in a way that was beyond any joining two humans could achieve.

The Gifts were devoted, with every atom of their being, to their Pahtrons and the Warriors themselves, it was rumoured, would die if they were ever separated for too long from their Gifts. Their interdependency was at a cellular level. They were mated, the Warrior and the Gift, mated for life at every level of their physical, sentient and spiritual beings. They were the true Master of the First Prime.

But this knowledge did not explain what the Gifts were. Just their purpose. That they were creatures not of this world, was clear. Even more evident now that he had seen and... and touched one.

He shivered at the memory of that touch. Skin that was warm despite its nakedness and the chill of the evening. Skin that was softer than the that of the newest born babe. And skin that glowed with a luminescence that came from within the creature itself.

Rumour had it that the Gifts were the original native sentience of this world. A sentience that had realised that there was no point fighting the voracious, rapacious humans that had invaded their planet. Instead they had sought a way to make themselves necessary to humanity. These rumours also said that the Gifts had engineered themselves to be appealing to the Warrior Class. Traes could believe this. They were humanoid in shape and even he, a lowly member of a lowly clan knew that humans had only, could only, develop on The One World.

This world was not The One World, just one of many, many worlds that formed part of the Great Allegiance. So, if they were humanoid they must have made themselves into this form, yet their alien qualities remained beneath the thin veneer of humanity they had covered themselves in. Warm despite the weather, glowing skin, eyes large with two eye lids, like a reptile, a prehensile tail and a physiology that was clearly not human.

And then again, what did he know? His life would not be one of understanding, it would be one of work. Work on the land, work for his Clan. Work to provide a living. His life would be one of service. Service to Prince, then Clan, then Self, as it should be. There was no room within that life for speculation on the origins of the Gifts.

He sighed and pulled the icy water from the well, pouring the cold liquid into a pale.

And yet...

And yet the creature fascinated him, filled his head with its awe and presence. Warriors were to be feared, but Gifts, Gifts were seen so seldom that there was very little mythology around them. They existed, that much was true. Every Warrior had a Gift, and maybe they were two parts of the same man?

Maybe...

But was a Warrior a man? This was also the question. Men, males, mated with females, created new life, took the Second Realm, the culture of the Clans, forward. Warriors were mated to their Gifts, beyond the rules that bound the Clans. They were law incarnate. And the relationship between a warrior and his Gift seemed to exist purely for the fortification of the Warrior.

A Warrior was a human male, but one gifted. And, as a result of his Gift, he was no longer completely human. He was super human. The Gifts created supermen.

Traes did not doubt that the Warrior Graescin was on his way here now. His Uncle expected it. His brother was waiting for it. There would be bloodshed here before this decision tree was ended. Even he could see that. But where did he sit? Where would his decisions take him in all of this?

The pale was heavy with water now and he carried it back into the barn, placing it in front of the cage. Once again the long, sensuous tail snaked forward and lifted the pale gently inside the cage, settling it in a corner.

"Thank you." The gift smiled, then returned to the reader. "Why do you sleep?" It suddenly asked, beginning the cycle of questions known as the First Decision.

This Cycle was a litany that all people learned. A mantra that took them to their beds and brought them out of it again at the start of each day.

"To be ready for the battle." Traes replied.

"And why do you wake?"

"To escape from the demons."

"So why should you fight?"

"To defend the life human." Traes answered.

The Gift smiled and put the reader down. It reached back with an arm and brought the pale to its mouth, delicately sipping some of the water.

"Thank you." It said, placing the pale back in its corner.

It put its head to one side, then asked:

"And is the life human worth defending?"

"Human is strong. Human is energy." Traes replied, co-opting a phrase from a time much later than the Golden March to defend his position.

"And yet humans are but one of the many lives spun out of the fury that is this galaxy." The Gift smiled. "Is your life worth more than that of a Mnemorian or a Grandiash?"

"The life human is integral to the life Galaxial." Traes replied, quoting the beginning of the last paragraph of the Human Concorde.

"And yet an individual human life is as insignificant as a leaf falling from a tree." The Gift sighed. "You will die, Traes. Do you understand this?"

"All things die."

"Yes, clearly. But do you understand what that means?" The Gift asked. "My Warrior, my human, my Pahtron, he will bring death to your Clan. Those that do not die will be taken into slavery - or worse. I will spare you, but I can spare no other. Do you understand that?"

"I have no ties here." Traes said. "At least you can see the bars of your cage. They are only made of iron. My cage has bars made of fists and feet. They can never be broken."

"I can break them."

"And I would be a slave for your Warrior? Is that not another cage? Still made of fists?"

"No. There is another way, Traes."

"And what way is that?"

"Do you believe in love, Traes?"

"I understand sex. I know the need between a man and a woman. I understand the ties of family, of the Clan. This is love."

"It is but two aspects of love." The Gift laughed. "We call the love of the family Soldarna and the love of the clan Soldasha. There are others. Would you, could you love with your heart? Do you know what it is to love with your soul? To make love to the soul of another? To experience Soldevna?"

"You speak only in the words of the poet." Traes said. "This love is for verse. Words to woo a woman. Words to create a family. There is no such thing as that of which you speak in this world."

"And you believe this?"

"No." Traes admitted. "I would wish to love like a Warrior. I would die for the love of a willing princess. For the love of my mother."

"Yet your mother is dead?"

"She died with my youngest brother. My family is now my brother and my uncle."

"And soon they will die too."

"Can I warn them?"

"If you wish." the Gift smiled. "Would they believe you? Or would they believe that you are falling under the spell of the Gift?"

"They believe they are stronger than the Warrior Graescin because they have more numbers than him."

"He comes here alone."

"Then he is weakened by his lack of men."

"Or he is strengthened by his agility. Warriors are trained first to be assassins. You know that term?"

"I have heard it."

"Graescin is an assassin first, Warrior second." The Gift warned. "He could be here now and you would not know."

"Hah!" Traes laughed. "And you could say this just to scare me. Fear is the killer of thought." He added, quoting from the Golden March.

"You speak truth. But fear is also the guardian of democracy. Because of our fears we choose the truth."

"Is this to be a game of quotes?" Traes asked. "I do not know all the tomes yet, but I wager I can play against you."

"And what do you have that I would require?" The Gift smiled. "What do you wager?"

"If I lose, I will open the doors of your cage and you will be free of us."

"An acceptable bargain." The Gift replied. "And what should I wager should I lose?"

"If you lose, you must promise to protect me and my Clan from your Warrior."

"That is something I cannot do, Traes, you know this. You, yes, the others, no."

"Then I have no choice but to accept your protection."

"Two worthy wagers." The Gift laughed. "Yet you know my age." It added, beginning the game. "The life of your life is but nothing compared to the life of my planet."

"Or the age of my sun." Traes completed.

"Hah!" The Gift laughed. "And so I concede you the first point! I did not expect this level of sport this far from Troubian."

"Civilisation spreads further than the borders of comfort or the realms of necessity."

"My, my." The Gift laughed, its voice wrapping around Traes. "Two points already to you. We play the rules of Salamon?"

"Salamon." Traes agreed.

"Then by default I have a point also. Your response must be a quote!"

"Salamon, the Gorgon of Naurrin." Traes said. "Just the mention of his name invokes the quote, no?"

"My, my!" The Gift laughed. "Such a challenger, such nerve! Three points to you, then. And none to me. I wait lonely whilst you gather your energy and then, you speak with the fire of angels."

"Concession." Traes laughed. "I was unsure how you would respond to that. Three to me, one to you. Do you wish to keep the reader?"

"Supplicants at the stream of understanding have no need of words. Emotive conscience is all that is required."

"Oh." Traes laughed. "I did not expect that."

"You do not know the words of the Triple Condimium here?"

"Yes, but I had assumed they were forbidden."

"Only in the court. The current Prince of Princes does not accept the decree of the Triumvirate. For her Soul is sentience and sentience is body. Duality is the core of awareness."

"And yet nature is Prime." Traes quoted. "I am one, we are three. Spirit, sentience and physicality."

"Very good!" The Gift laughed. "I had not expected this much fun here! You give me more reason to save you."

"Can I play for others?"

"I sense that there are no others." The Gift said. "Your mother has moved beyond the boundaries of this existence. Your brother is your father. You know this truth?"

"I know."

"And yet you live like this."

"We live as we die. Fettered and chained by the morality of our parents."

"My, you are good." The Gift smiled. "Five points to you, yes?"

"And two for you."

"Duality is the core of our essence. Male and female. Warrior and Gift. Prince and Regent. We are one outside. Two in strength but three in desire."

"I do not know that quote." Traes said.

"Jalcomm's 'Thoughts on Human Nature'." The Gift replied. "I would show it to you, but there are no means here."

"No." Traes agreed. "But I have heard of the text and by the rules of Salamon it stands. Five for me, three to you."

"And we have exhausted that line of discussion." The Gift sighed. "If you do not know Jalcomm, you will not know Seravin or Debarsai?"

"Names I have heard." Traes smiled. "My life is that of a serf. 'The Golden March'. 'Words to Wise'. 'Human or Human Est'. Beyond these..."

"Yet we are here and you have read them." The Gift replied. "Your life is greater because you are aware that it is to be formed from the tree of ultimate decision. And Decision is the sea before us, even though it would be as a God."

"Wow. I would not have chosen that." Traes laughed.

"Concede?"

"Five to four." Traes said. "How will we know when this game is complete?"

"The rules of Salamon state we must end on a Prime. Currently we have nine points between us. We shall end on eleven, yes?"

"Eleven is the number of pillars that support the gates of death." Traes replied.

"And the number of stars that swarm at the heart of the Galaxial Accord. Around which the fury of the galaxy spins."

"That would be a truce?" Traes asked.

"No points scored." The Gift smiled. "And from the tense compromise of Truce comes the relaxed freedoms of Accord. We move from fear into the half-light of Truce, into the full-light of Truth. This is the Golden March."

"I was phrasing that in my head." Traes laughed, "But you beat me. A Point to you, Five points all."

"And the balance in our hearts, between left and right, between good and bad, is served up in the ten Warriors who Guard the Two Palaces at the heart of Troubian. The centre of the Second Realm. Five Warriors for the Palace of Sunrise where lives the Prince of Princes and five for the Palace of Sunset where the Warriors await their Gifts."

"I concede." Traes sighed. "You win."

He reached forward to unlock the cage, but a hand, softer than any he had ever felt, and also stronger than any that had ever touched him, wrapped around his wrist.

"No." The Gift said. "I accepted your Wager, Traes, but I do not choose to be free at this time."

"Why? You could leave here, return to the Warrior Graescin. He would have no need to come here then..."

"He would still come." The Gift smiled. "For rescue or for vengeance, he will still come. That decision has been made. You cannot change it now."

"Then you have had your sport with me." Traes sighed. "I was fighting to save my Clan."

"And I knew that. Yet do you love this Clan? You do not wish to be part of it, I can feel that in your thoughts. My Pahtron will end it soon. I offer you another choice. You can be part of something bigger than this place, Traes."

"I do not understand."

"Traes." The Gift said, coming to the bars of the cage and holding his arm with its hands and with its tail. "What do you desire?"

"Life. The life of a man."

"And is that life human?"

"It is the life lived. All of Galaxia is my life."

"And you believe this?" The Gift asked.

"Yes, although I do not think I understand it."

"The greatest barrier to knowledge is understanding." The Gift smiled. "Do you know why I am a Gift?"

"You were gifted to your Warrior when he bested his opponent at a Silver March." Traes said.

"Would you believe that once I was human?"

"You are a Gift. Gifts are the compliment to Human as the Chassan are the compliment to the Mnemorian."

"There is a beginning to all things, Traes. A man was once a boy, was once a baby, was once not born. I am the product of human life. Yet I am Gifted."

"I do not understand what you are saying."

"There is only one way I can save you Traes. Do you desire love beyond the love of life?"

"Would I love despite my life?"

"You know the litany, Traes. Do you understand the words?"

"Would you die for your Warrior?"

"I would die today if I knew he would live tomorrow."

"I desire a love such as that."

"Then I will save you." The Gift said, settling back into the cage. "You must be here tomorrow at noon, exactly. Come to me and settle behind my cage."

"My Uncle will suspect something."

"Yet you know ways into this barn that elude him."

"I have chores..."

"And you wish to live." The Gift snorted. "You will have to choose Traes. For you there are no more colours beyond tomorrow. Live or die. I give you the choice. Live with me or die with your Uncle."

"I choose you."

"Then show me. Live the words, Traes. You have learned them, now you must breathe them. Go now!" It added, thrusting the reader back through the bars of the cage. "My Warrior comes. My Pahtron will avenge me. There will be blood, Traes. In the heat of the moment yours will be the same colour as those that imprison me here. My Warrior will not be able to see the difference."

"How will I survive?"

"Come to me at noon. There is no other way. Go! Your Uncle approaches!"

Just before the sun reached its zenith, Traes slipped away from the Jidendry he had been tending. Without anyone seeing him he crept around the back of the barn and crawled under the space beneath the floorboards that had been laid at one end of the barn when they had used it as a workshop as well as a barn. There was not much space under here, but he knew this dusty hole well. He often came here to escape the beatings or to sleep when his brother or uncle threw him from their shared house.

The place smelt damp, even now at the height of summer he could smell the moisture seeping from the timbers above him. There was some light here, it fell in beams around him and within those beams swam motes of dust. In gentler times he would lay here and just watch and dream as these small motes drifted within the light beams. They were like the drifting planets of the galaxy and he often wondered what it would be like to live on one of these small imaginary worlds.

Now, as he slid quietly under the floor, he prayed they would not make him sneeze and thus reveal his presence to his Uncle and brother. He breathed shallowly to keep the dust away from him. When he reached the end of the small tunnel, he rolled onto his back and gently lifted the broken floor board that would allow him egress to the barn above.

Silently he pulled himself out onto the floor, using the sturdy joists to support his weight rather than the creaky floor boards. When he was clear he replaced the board and slipped around so his feet were on the dirt floor of the barn. He stood quietly. This was the back of the long barn and, despite the sporadic beams of sunlight piercing the space from the broken roof high above, it was still darker down here than at the front of the barn where the midday sunshine spilled into the barn through the large open doors.

He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust to the low light, then stepped slowly forward. From here he could see his Uncle and brother seated at the card table just inside the open doors of the barn. They were drinking from the pale of water he had pulled for them earlier. Mixing it with milk and the blood of the beef-tie they had killed yesterday for the celebratory feast tonight.

He knew that they would not be able to see him in the gloom back here, but it still scared him to be so exposed. To his left a single row of dry and musty hay, three bales high. He pushed himself gently against this, careful to ensure he did not knock the wall over, and used it to guide him to the cage that he could see coalescing out of the gloom before him.

Within it, glowing faintly, was the Gift. If he looked directly at it he could see only the dim outline of its shape. But when he looked from the corner of his eyes, he could see its skin softly pulsing with colour. It sat with its back to him. The row of hay ran behind the cage and he settled down here, behind the Gift, pressed between the hay and the bars of the cage.

The Gift breathed gently but did nothing to acknowledge his presence. Then suddenly the tail appeared through the bars and ran across his face gently, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake, before it slipped back into the cage. A moment later and the tail lifted the pale of water through the bars and deposited it in his lap. Traes drank gratefully of the water before the Gift lifted the pale back into the corner of the cage.

It was silent in here. Apart from the gruff voices of his uncle and brother up at the front of the barn there were no other sounds. Traes found himself holding his breath lest he break that silence, and in his head he began chanting the Soldier's Rejoice. The litany the Warriors themselves used to calm themselves before the battle:

I am become strength The Master of self. I am become calm The Master of sense. I am become steel The Master of death.

Over and over he repeated the words and slowly he felt peace descend on him.

"Where is the Gift!" A voice demanded.

Traes jumped at the sound and goose bumps rose up along his arms and neck. The voice was deep and filled with steel and controlled anger. It rang clearly through the barn and seemed to come from all places at once. In front of him the Gift began a low keening. Traes was surprised that he could hear the melody in his ears as well as his head.

Up front, where his Uncle and brother were sitting, he heard a shout but, for the moment, nothing else. In front of him the Gift rocked slowly, its skin burning brighter and brighter at the sound of its Warrior's voice.

"I asked a question. You will answer me!" The voice called again.

Traes held his breath and then froze as he saw the shapes of his uncle and brother come to stand in front of the cage.

"Have you come to bargain with us?" His uncle called out as his brother drew his sword.

There was a laugh then, before the Warrior spoke again.

"With what would you bargain, you have nothing I require!"

"We have your Gift."

"Possession is such a subjective concept." The Warrior whispered.

It seemed to come from over Traes' shoulder and he froze, expecting at any moment to taste the glory that was physical death. For a moment nothing happened and he opened his eyes just as a shape swooped out of the rafters at speeds that defied logic. His brother fell to the floor in a heap, sword falling to the floor before it could even be raised against this foe. The door to the cage swung open and the shape, the Warrior, was hidden again before his Uncle had even reacted to his brother's fall.

Before Traes had even allowed his heart to take another beat.

"Show yourself!" His Uncle called, then pulled the disur he always carried in his trouser pocket into his hands. "Jeric!" He shouted into the device, holding it in the palm of his hand. "Attend me!"

There was no response.

A shape coalesced out of the shadows in front of his Uncle, and Traes saw the Warrior Graescin for the first time. He moved as if in slow motion. From great speed to solid, steady man.

He was tall, easily seven feet in height, maybe more. His body was huge. Massive chest and arms atop a lithe waist and supported by legs that were easily as wide as Traes himself! He stood before his Uncle now unarmed, giant arms with muscles tensing, crossed over his chest. His deep red skin gleamed in the light of the sun and the sweat of his exertions made his skin look as if it had been rubbed with delicate oils. Traes could see his breath pushing the motes in the air away from him.

He was naked, as were all Warriors when they went into battle. His manhood stood now to attention, pressed against the Warrior's belly muscles. The body was unadorned apart from a golden filigree that wrapped around the base of the Warrior's quill, wrapping itself along the shaft as if it were a tendril from a golden vine. And beneath the shaft, wrapped in soft dark hair were the Warrior's taught balls.

"There will be no answer." The Warrior said. "There are no humans conscious in this village. I have subsumed them all."

"Jeric!" His uncle called and there was panic in his voice.

"Jeric is dead. Your Clan is lost, Devran." The Warrior said, invoking his Uncle's private name, the name that only he and members of the immediate family ever used.

"Then kill me!" His Uncle said, drawing in his chest and pulling himself up to his full height.

Impressive as this was, he still only came up to the shoulders of the Warrior. And his body, once maybe as toned as that of the Warrior had long given in to the more gentle requirements of the farmer's life.

"That decision was made when you thought you could steal my Gift." The Warrior whispered, not moving from where he stood. "But it is a fate that will be belayed for you and your offspring here."

In a flash the Gift's tail flicked out of the cage. It caught Traes' uncle on the back of his neck. Before he could even get his hand to the spot, he fell to the floor in front of the cage. The disur falling lifeless at his side. In one move, the Warrior swooped forward and pulled the Gift out of the cage and into his arms. The creature was equal in height to the Warrior, but not in size and was dwarfed against the bulk of his Pahtron.

"Did they touch you?" The Warrior whispered gently, cradling the creature against his chest.

"I have been safe." The Gift smiled, and its voice was filled with music. "I knew you were coming to rescue me. Is the rage gone from you now?" It asked, hands wiping sweat and dust from Graescin's forehead.

"The rage is gone. But the fury remains. I will deal with these two later."

The Gift reached out with its tail and picked up the disur, passing it to his Pahtron. The Warrior took it and barked out a command.

"Sector cleared. Send in the squad we need to raze the village to the ground so that all know the Fury of the Warrior Graescin has been visited on this place."

"We move, my Pahtron." A voice answered.

"And this one?" The Warrior asked looking straight at Traes. "Why will you not let me kill him?"

"I offered him my protection." The Gift laughed, hands stroking his Pahtron's face. "He was kind to me, let me read the Golden March. Brought me water when I was thirsty. Opened my cage and bade me flee."

"Come forward." The Warrior said, more gently, and Traes stepped out from behind the cage.

He came around and stood next to his fallen uncle. He was beyond fear now and looked down at the ground. Expecting the worse. How could the Gift protect him from this mountain of a man? Traes knew now he would die. He prayed it would come swiftly. At his feet he saw his Uncle's chest rise and fall. Not dead, then. Drugged, but alive.

There was still hope!

"Look at me!" The Warrior commanded, and Traes raised his head.

Now that he was close he could smell this man. There was a musk about him that drowned out even the sweet/acrid smell of the Gift. The smell of this Warrior, this man, threatened to overwhelm Traes. It was all he could do to stand before him. The Warrior said nothing. One hand still clutched the disur but the other was wrapped tightly around the waist of the Gift, holding it close to him, pressed into his nakedness.

"He is not strong." The Warrior said looking into the eyes of the Gift and smiling. "I do not need another Boy-tie and he will not fetch a good price on the open market. Nor will the law allow his meat to be sold. What is your desire, my Gift?"

From a voice of power and authority, the Warrior was now speaking as if to a lover. And he bowed his head, resting it on the shoulder of the Gift as the creature replied to him.

"I would have him gifted, my Pahtron."

"You think he would survive such a process?"

"He has a strong soul." The Gift whispered, brushing its lips across the Warrior's cheek.

Its hand reached down and stroked the Warrior's throbbing sex, wrapping long delicate fingers around his heavy balls.

"I will never refuse you anything." Graescin smiled, his own hands running over the chest of the Gift. "Drug him. We will bring him back to the palace with the other two."

Traes saw the tail flick at him and fell to the floor, head filled with visions of the Warrior pulling the Gift into a kiss.

Then the darkness overwhelmed him.

"How would you have us deal with them, Pahtron?" A voice asked.

Traes could not open his eyes, but he could smell the stench of burning in the air. He was lying in a rough cart, other bodies lay around him, but he could not tell who and none of them were making any sounds.

"These three we will take to the palace." The voice of Graescin said, not far from Traes by the sound of it. "Of the others, send all the men to the meat market. The women and children can be sold to the slavers."

Traes tried to move, but his body was strangely immobile. He wanted to stop his ears, to banish the words he was hearing from his head! The meat market! He may not have liked these people, but he had known them for all of his life! They did not deserve a fate such as that! To be butchered at once and sold as food! Or, worse, to be kept as a beef-tie, fed and fattened like a Jidendry and then slaughtered for a festival.

That was not right!

He wanted to shout, but his body was still under the control of the drug the Gift had given him. He was blind and immobile. He could do nothing else.

"As you wish, my Pahtron. What of the Jidendry herd and the three beef-ties?"

"Add them to our own stocks." Graescin replied. "Have this land cleared and added to my parcel as well. I will delve it out at the feast tomorrow."

"Yes, my Pahtron."

The carriage lurched then, and Traes felt it move forward as unseen hands directed it to the Palace of The Green Forest, the place that the Warrior Graescin had been given as a base while he worked for the provincial Prince. As he moved with the motion of the cart, so his eyes slowly returned to him. He blinked then and took in his surroundings.

He was laying on a small cart, one they used to move goods around the village or to take tools and supplies out to the fields. Next to him was his Uncle. Still unconscious, hands and feet bound tightly with heavy rope. Behind him he could feel the equally unconscious form of his brother. Knees pressed into Traes' back.

Of himself, his hands were not bound, but were held in a metal clasp across his chest. A brace had been wrapped around his neck and his feet were similarly bound with an iron bar and two chains holding his legs rigidly apart. What did that signify? That he was tied differently to his uncle and, he assumed, his brother? Was he a prisoner while they were something else?

Graescin had said that his Uncle had chosen to die when he had stolen the Gift and that the Warrior would belay that fate, but only for a short while. Would they be executed at the Palace of the Green Forest? Maybe at the feast the Warrior had mentioned when they had been at the village.

It was too much. His mouth was dry and he was scared and frightened.

From his position in the cart he knew they were moving up the east track that would eventually pass through the Green Forest that gave this region its name. A forest of fronds that rose in single stalks twelve feet into the air. The fronds were the main building material around here and the roots and young shoots were one of the main food crops as well...

But there was no-one to eat or harvest them now. The Warrior had taken them all for ties and meat. The Clan was ended. Gone.

Lost.

The cart hit a bump in the track and Traes hit his head against the floor. He groaned and a hand grabbed him and pulled him into an upright position.

"So you are awake, little one." The man said. "You may call me Damask."

He was a soldier. Dressed in the uniform of the Warrior, Traes assumed.

"Thirsty." Traes muttered, head lolling forward.

"Hah!" Damask laughed. "The talon of the Gift does that. Here."

He held a flask to Traes' lips and water flowed into his mouth, down his throat, bringing his body to life.

"What... what will happen to us?" Traes asked as the soldier took the flask away.

"Only the Pahtron knows that." He said, hauling Traes over the front of the cart and onto the seat with him. "All I know is that you are different to the others. The Gift wishes to protect you and, with protection such as that, I for one will not argue!" "And my Uncle and brother?" Traes asked. "I heard the Warrior say the others were to be sold for meat or slaves..."

"Shame that." Damask said. "But the Warrior has his Fury on him. When he is in that place then his commands are the most harsh. Their fate was sealed when the Gift was stolen. Your Uncle, he led this Clan?"

"Yes."

"Then his choices are the choices of all. His crime is the crime of all and the punishment for that crime is meted equally to them all."

Traes bowed his head and tears came to his eyes then.

"I wish he had killed us all, then." He said. "The protection of the Gift is as nothing if it cannot protect these people. They are all I have. All I have known!"

"The law is above retribution." Damask told him. "The words of the Warrior are what make him great. There will be no parley for the lives of your clansmen. The decision has been made and meted."

Traes bowed his head and let the tears flow. Around him the light changed as the track entered the Green Forest.

Everything he knew was gone.

Everyone he knew was, if not dead, then as good as dead.

And he was alone, a plaything for this tyrant Warrior and his Gift. What would they do with him? The Gift had said that he wanted Traes to be gifted. What did that mean?

"What will they do with me?" Traes asked. "The Warrior and the Gift?"

"You will not die, if that is what worries you." The soldier told him. "The protection the Gift extends to you has saved your life."

"But what happens next?"

"Who knows. Perhaps you could train as a soldier?" He laughed.

"That could happen?"

"No. You will not be a soldier. A Warrior is above the law because he is the law. What he decides he will decide. I can give you no more help than that."

"Has this ever happened before? Has the Gift saved others?"

"Yes, once there was another. I was not working for the Warrior Graescin then, but I have heard tell of it."

"What happened?"

"The man, a petty thief, broke into the Gift's suite in the palace. Not this palace, but another in the Western Marches. The thief planned to steal some jewels, but was surprised by the Gift. They sat then and played the Game of Quotes."

"I played that with the Gift too." Trace said.

"The Gift uses this game as a way of seeing into your soul, apparently." Damask said. "He saw something in the thief's soul and, when the Warrior returned and found him, the Gift had him saved."

"What became of him?"

"I have heard that he was sent to Troubian, to the Palace of Sunset. Another that he was sold as a concubine to a local Prince."

"Why would someone be sent to the Palace of Sunset?"

"Who knows. He was an intelligent man, this thief. Maybe he was sent there to learn, or to teach? I have never spoken with the Gift, so I cannot ask it. Maybe you should. You seem to have its ear."

"And what good has it done me? It tricked and beguiled me and now I am a prisoner. My family, my Clan are all dead or gone!"

"Why do you fight this?" Damask asked him. "Once your fate is decided there are no choices but those that require you to support the fate." He added, quoting from the Golden March.

"It does not feel fair!"

"Yet it is just." Damask replied. "Come on, little one! You alone will survive. You will live. Is not your life the most precious thing you have?"

"The life of a man is a life lived." Traes replied. "I live. I am a man."

"Exactly!" The soldier next to him laughed. "The Warrior Graescin is a kind and gentle man. Remember that. Your uncle here tried to steal his Gift! I cannot even comprehend what that would be like. Worse even, I would think, than the death of my wife and children! He has his Fury at the moment. We will all have to live in the shadow of that for the next few days."

"He could still kill me?"

"No! His Gift protects you. He would die if the Gift asked it of him."

"The Gift told me it would die for him if it needed."

"They are above human. Warriors and their Gifts." Damask said. "It is not for us mere mortals to understand the bond that exists between them. It is said they are two sides of the same mind, a mind that lives at the same time in two bodies."

"I remember the Warrior holding the Gift when he rescued it as if it were the only thing in his life worth holding. There was a lust in his eyes too."

"They love." The man said. "I work for a Warrior but I do not understand all that happens between my Pahtron and his Gift. They love, they make love. The Warrior's seed feeds the Gift and the nectar the Gift produces feeds the Warrior. They are not men like you and me, they are Warriors and Gifts."

"I saw him take down my brother at such speed!" Traes whispered.

"He took out everyone in your Clan without them knowing in less than half an hour." Damask told him. "Two hundred and fifty people and children, dead or drugged."

"So why does he employ soldiers?"

"Someone has to clean up after him!" Damask laughed.

They were silent for a moment as the Green Forest passed by around them. The impenetrable fronds lined the track, opening occasionally to reveal a clearing or a stream. Apart from that it looked as if they were moving down a corridor in a long palace.

"I am scared." Traes admitted after a moment.

"Fear has such energy!" The soldier said, quoting a line that started a paragraph Traes had only recently learned from the tome 'Human or Human Est'. "It gives us the power to flee into the dark night or it has a magnetism that pulls us ever closer as the God at the centre of the galaxy pulls all life into it."

"Do not conquer your fears." Traes interrupted, carrying on with the quote. "Learn to love your fear. If you love fear, you take its energy. Fear makes you strong. Fear is truth. Fear is the guardian of democracy, because of our fears we choose the truth."

"I know only the basic quotes!" The man smiled. "I can see why the Gift enjoyed playing the Game of Quotes with you."

"It has not saved me, though."

"It keeps you alive."

"Is that what I need?" Traes asked.

And horror was layered upon horror.

Damask had been right when he said that the Fury of the Warrior would overshadow them all for the next few days. He may have the protection of the Gift, but that protection did not spare him the horror!

They were in the palace now. In the depths of the palace.

His Uncle and brother had been stripped naked and were currently bound by their feet and hands. A rope extended from their feet to a pulley in the ceiling. The room they were in smelt of death. Carcasses of the Jidendry, the only animal that humans could eat on this planet, were hung on one side of the room. On the other side were other carcasses. Human carcasses, or at least the bodies of beef-ties that had been cleaned and prepared for the kitchen.

Each wall supported a great fireplace, each ablaze and each boiling large vats of water. There was no doubt where they were or what would happen here.

This was the butchery for the palace kitchen.

Horror layered upon horror.

Traes was also naked, although he had been stripped and washed on his arrival at the palace. His skin had been scented and massaged. None of the ties that had prepared him would speak to him and none of them would speak even among themselves of his fate. Now his neck brace was locked into a metal plate on the wall behind him. His hands were still bound with the metal chain, but his feet were free. He could not move and could stare only forward.

His uncle and brother were conscious, but the beatings they had endured on their arrival here, their treatment as the orchestrators of the theft of the Gift, left them now both battered and bruised, silent and exhausted. they awaited their fate with resign, if not dignity.

They had been like this for half an hour now.

Horror layered upon horror.

At length a man came into the room. He wore a heavy apron. He was the butcher, it was clear. He went to a stone wheel and began sharpening blades and knives, ignoring the three of them as if they were not there. Traes felt the tears come to his eyes. He knew what would happen here. Knew he would witness it.

His brother/father, he noted had lost control of his bowels, such was his fear and Traes understood this. Only the fact that he was protected made him keep control over his own body.

At the block, the butcher finished his sharpening and laid the tools of his trade on the table at the centre of the room. As he stepped back, so the door to the room, to the left of Traes, opened, and the Warrior Graescin came into the room flanked by two of his soldiers. Traes was not sure if it was a good thing that one of them was Damask. The soldier did not acknowledge him.

"You are ready?" The Warrior asked the Butcher.

"I am ready, Pahtron."

The Warrior walked over to where Traes' Uncle and brother were tied.

"You two sought to steal my Gift." He told them. "You did not know then, but understand now, that I will move heaven and earth for my Gift. Its life is my life. I told you, you would die and now that will come to pass."

Horror layered upon horror.

He paused for a moment and walked around the two of them. Then he pulled on the rope that held Traes' Uncle, hauling the man into the air so he was hanging from his feet. The butcher came over with a large bucket and placed it under his head. When it was in place the Warrior did the same for Traes' brother. When that bucket was in place, the Warrior stepped back.

"We have a creed we Warriors." He told them. "Those that threaten the life of the Prince of Princes or our Gifts, those we need to obliterate. The ritual that will begin with your butchery in this place today will end with a Cantaka. By enacting the Cantaka over your remains at the festival tonight, we will ensure your lives are taken out of the Wheel of Life. Your souls will be destroyed today. For you there will be no rebirth."

He paused again and walked over to the butchery table, picking up two blades which he tested in his hands for weight before he walked back over to the two hanging men.

"There is a dish you may know. It is popular in the Jaskin Mountain region, where I was born. When we kill a Jidendry calf or a beef-tie, we create a dish called Vischy La Doran. It is a blood porridge supplemented with the boiled gonads of the Jidendry. To eat the blood and gonads of the animal is to give you strength. As a Warrior when we prepare this dish from the bodies of our enemies, we name it Vischy La Doren. I will eat your blood and your gonads tonight. Later your souls will be destroyed and my fury will be assuaged."

Horror layered upon horror.

He was silent then. With the blades he was carrying crossed before him, he stood in front of Traes' uncle. There was a flash of metal and the blades cut through the tendons of Traes' Uncle's neck. Blood flowed and the body jerked for a moment before it was still. In seconds the same manoeuvre was repeated on Traes' brother/father.

The blood flowed from their wounds into the buckets beneath them.

The Warrior handed the blades back to the butcher who placed them reverently on the table, then he turned to the two soldiers in his escort.

"Remain here while the butchery is done. Make sure this one here." He said indicating Traes, "Make sure he witnesses the entire process. When there is nothing left, bring him to my chamber." "As you command, my Pahtron." Damask said, bowing low.

The Warrior left the room.

Traes was trapped. He could close his eyes, but the horror was still there. His Uncle and brother were being bled as they had done to the beef-tie they had butchered only yesterday. That was a normal thing, Traes had seen ties killed for their meat all his life, but this was different. His uncle and brother were not ties, they were his family! And he had no choice but to watch their deaths, and watch he did.

Horror layered upon horror.

Even while the bleeding was happening, hands and feet were removed by the butcher and thrown into a bucket. Blades were sharpened again, and when the bleeding had stopped, both heads were removed and placed on the table, facing Traes. The butcher called through a door at the back of the room and two men came into the room. They were also dressed in the heavy aprons of their work. Together then they turned to their work. One held Traes' uncle, while another opened the belly and the third collected intestines and organs into another bucket. When these were removed other organs, lungs, liver, kidneys and heart, were cut out of the belly and chest cavities and placed into buckets and bowls on the table. Gonads were carefully removed and placed into a bowl that was placed at the end of the table with the two buckets of blood.

With his Uncle prepared, the three of them repeated the process on Traes' brother/father. And when he was done, one of the men left the room with the bowl of gonads and returned a moment later with another to take the buckets of blood. The remaining two butchers began work on the carcasses now. Both bodies were cut in half just above the waist and these were placed on the table where the Master Butcher cut them in half longwise then jointed legs. Cutting them in half once more at the knee. Bones in the lower legs were removed by the assistant butcher and thrown into the same bucket as the hands and feet. The meat was rolled and placed with the other joints along the back of the table, nearest to Traes. Horror layered upon horror.

Next upper bodies were laid on the block. With a great cleaver, arms were severed then cut into two. these were boned and placed with the other prepared joints. Other assistants appeared at intervals now and began removing the prepared meats. Each torso was halved and ribs were exposed, then prepared for cooking later. Excess meat, from the waist, from upper legs and arms, from the necks, these were cut into finer and finer pieces until finally they were passed through a mincer and placed into a large bucket which was again removed to another kitchen for preparation.

And then the heads. Eyes, tongues, all removed and placed in bowls. Ears removed and cheeks. Ears were minced, but the cheeks were set aside and the butcher took these himself out of a door on the other side of the room. When he returned he removed both brains and these were placed into bowls and taken into the main kitchen.

Horror layered upon horror.

The empty heads along with other waste bits of bone and skin were thrown into two large bins that were eventually removed and taken away. The butcher then began a long ritual of cleaning. Tools, blades, saws, axes, all were cleaned meticulously. Metal was oiled and when it gleamed it was hung back above the fireplaces around the room.

The table was then cleaned and scrubbed. The surface treated with potions and lotions that smelt, to Traes, acrid and then sweet. When all was clean, the butcher bowed to the room as a whole and left by his own personal door. Horror layered upon horror.

Through the whole process Traes could do nothing but watch. His family was butchered before his eyes, offered up as different cuts of meat for a feast he would not, could not attend. Even a Warrior could not make him partake of food such as this!

He had eaten human meat before, everyone had. On a planet so poor in animal and plant life as this one, beef-ties were a major source of protein and vitamins. Eating the flesh of your Clan, of any freeman though, this was forbidden. With the butcher gone, Damask and the other soldier came over and released Traes from the neck lock that had held him in place.

"Take me somewhere where I can be sick." Traes told him, and Damask complied.

He was sick then. Everything he had ever eaten, in all of his life, came out of his stomach; burning its way up his throat and out of his mouth. He wanted the bile to dissolve his throat, burn through his teeth, kill him so that the memory of what he had seen here would be purged and die with him.

Horror layered upon horror.

And when all was gone, when all that remained was bile and stomach acid, he still heaved. His stomach had no choice but to expunge the memory of what he had seen.

Horror layered upon horrors.

"How much more?" Traes had asked Damask as he had washed him and then locked his neck brace into a wall tie in the heart of the Warrior's suite within the Palace of the Green Forest.

"As much as is required." Damask told him. "The Pahtron is law. You must understand that."

"And if his law tips into the realms of the despot?" Traes asked, quoting from the 'Words to Wise'.

"When and if that happens his Gift will kill him." Damask replied. "Your Clan committed a crime against him that is a crime against the Second Realm. My Pahtron, the Warrior Graescin, is more than lenient with you. If I were Warrior, you would all be sold for meat."

There was no answer to that. Damask was right. His Uncle had committed the crime beyond crime. Traes was lucky he had only watched the butchery.

How long he was tied there he did not know, but eventually soldiers he did not know came and released him, then took him further into the suite. He was attached to a wall bracket in a sumptuous room. He could see the Gift. It lay on a bed of beds! Huge and voluptuous. The bed filled one end of a large room.

The Gift itself lay in the centre of the bed. Its hands were locked by golden cuffs to the leather band at its waist. Apart from the cuffs, the waist band and the collar, the Gift was naked. All the finery that he remembered from the barn was gone. The creature appeared to be in a deep sleep, but every now and then the Gift's back would arch and it would cry out something in a language Traes did not know.

The bed was to his left, in front of him was a table, laid out for a meal for one. It was beautiful and delicate. A white cloth was laid across the table and a large candle stood in the centre of the table burning brightly. Silver cutlery was laid on the table. A knife, a fork, a spoon. And a charger, of finest bone china waited to receive the food that was to come.

Even knowing what to expect did not prepare him for the reality.

A bowl was placed on the charger by a Shen-tie, and, when she was gone, Traes could see that the bowl contained a kind of porridge. This had to be the Vischy La Doren that the Warrior had described in the butchery. A meal of blood and grain and gonads. The consummation of your enemy. The beginning of the ritual that would see the destruction of the soul. In this bowl the blood and bodies of his Uncle and brother/father would be consumed.

Horror layered upon horror.

A noise behind him and the Warrior Graescin came into the room.

"Your family sought to destroy my Gift." He said, looking over to the Gift as it lay enthralled by its passion on the bed. "I made a vow that I would protect my Gift above even my own life." Graescin added. "Do you understand me?"

"I understand." Traes admitted. "I cannot accept, but I understand."

"What else would you have me do?" Graescin asked him. "You would have me hide behind the words of Shantilla or Devrett?"

"I do not know these philosophers." Traes admitted.

"The Life human is the life sacred." The Warrior said, pacing the room. "Sacred life is not for consumption. Eating another man makes you no more than the Gzhandra."

"I understand the sentiment." Traes replied. "You have made me watch my family die tonight. Does that justify their obviously flawed scheme to steal your Gift?"

"The Fury takes me." Graescin replied. "You would not understand. You are not tied soul to soul, cell to cell, with your love, will never be joined in such a manner as I am with my Gift."

The Warrior turned to the table and lifted the bowl and a spoon. He fished out a gonad and swallowed it whole.

Horror layered upon horror.

"I had preferred this dish to be made with six gonads." Graescin told him. "If not for my Gift protecting you, you would be butchered as well today."

"But my Clan did not agree to this task. My Uncle forced this upon us."

"You could have stopped him." Graescin laughed. "He is but one. Kill him, move on. You let him raid my camp. You let him steal my Gift. I would eat you all, be thankful that this is not physically possible!"

Traes was silent for a moment. Before him Graescin carried the bowl to the bed and sat on the edge looking down at his gift with a look that compressed the love of the ages in his eyes.

"What is wrong with the Gift?" Traes asked, more to break the silence than to know the reason.

"It is in ecstasy." Graescin replied. "When I mate with it, its body is consumed with the desire to create nectar. In a short while it will be ready for me."

"I played the Game of Quotes with your Gift." Traes said as Graescin swallowed another gonad. "How can this creature that glows so brightly be reduced to such physicality as this."

"My need from the Gift is lust." Graescin replied. "I mate, it provides nectar. I need nectar to live, it needs my seed to create the nectar. Its life supports my life."

"Yet you are free, it is a slave."

"I think the Gift would disagree with you."

"It is a slave to your lust. Even I can see that!"

"You are angry with me." Graescin smiled. "You have your own fury. But understand this, Traes. The Gift is more than its Warrior. It will live beyond my time and has already done so once. It will love beyond me, its Warrior. I am here for a few years; it is here forever. Through the Gifts our society stands strong in this Galaxy. Do not forget this."

"And what would you do to me?"

"Me? If I had a choice I would have killed you back in the barn."

"You are Warrior. The Fury is yours."

"No." Graescin replied. "You fail to understand the importance of the Gift to me. It asks, I give. There is no question. You assume I am the master here, that is not true. I am a slave to the will of my Gift."

"And it approves of your butchery of my Clan, my family?"

"It approves." Graescin laughed. "Why would you think otherwise? It balances my soul. If it is peace, then I define its peace with violence. If it is humour, then I allow this humour through my anger. A Gift cannot love if there is no blood. I bring my Gift the blood it desires."

"I do not understand."

"Yet you will." Graescin told him, finishing the bowl and placing it on the table once more. "My Gift believes you should be gifted."

"What does that mean?"

"Gifts were all human once." Graescin told him. "In the Tower of Gifting, within the Palace of Sunsets, my Gift believes that you too can become a Gift for a Warrior."

"How?" Traes asked. "How is this possible? Gifts are not human!"

"How could I mate so completely with a creature that was not human?" Graescin asked.

He moved over to the bed where the Gift was beginning to writhe in its ecstasy. He climbed onto the bed and pulled it into a hug.

"This one will give me its nectar soon." Graescin said. "Without this liquid, I will die. I feed it my seed, but it can live without that gift. Who is the slave here? It is the Gift that drives this relationship, do you understand? I am its tie, the Gift is my Pahtron."

"Yet you treat it as if it were an animal..."

"I treat it with respect and love. Yes, it provides me with life, so I protect that. But believe me, Traes, I would die for this Gift. I would have let your Uncle and your brother kill me to free the Gift. Do you understand that?" "But you dominate everything!"

"I am Warrior!" Graescin laughed as if that explained everything; he pulled his Gift tightly against his body. "In a moment I will release this Gift from its chains and I will drink its nectar. Then you will see who is in control and who controls." Next to him the Gift began to moan slightly and writhed on the large bed. Next to it, Graescin pulled it into a kiss, then reached down and removed his trousers. He lay now, sex erect, balls taught, body tensed and ready for his love. And next to him the Gift opened its eyes.

"You are love." It whispered.

"I belong to your love." The Warrior repeated and as he ran his hands down the Gift's body, releasing hands from the cuffs that had restrained them. And the released hands stroked the Warrior's body, reached down and pulled at his sex, cupped and then began massaging balls.

The Warrior rolled on top of the Gift and began kissing his way down its body. Fingers stoked and then gently removed the waist band that had only moments before held the Gift's hands in check. Beyond this the Warrior moved his hands down to the Gift's Nectaria at the base of its now fully erect quill. These were held gently in the Warrior's hands and Traes could see them rolling and pulsing as they created the nectar to feed Graescin. And Graescin's hands moved away from the freed Nectaria and ran along the erect quill, stroking and pulling the Gift deeper into its ecstasy.

The Warrior pulled the Gift into a kiss and the Gifts hands played along the Warrior's body. Tweaking nipples, playing with his growing quill, caressing his tight balls. And then the Warrior moved. He kissed mouth, neck, chest, belly, until finally he took the creature's sex into his mouth. With one hand massaging the round and tight Nectaria below and the other running up and down the shaft of the Gift's sex, the Warrior began to pull the nectar from the Gift.

It did not take long. As soon as his mouth was clamped on the erect quill of the Gift, the nectar began to flow and the Gift arched its back as the pleasure of release coursed through its body. It fed its Pahtron. Fed its Warrior. Fed its slave to sex and love.

And when the feeding was complete, the Warrior was almost comatose. The Gift pulled him up its body, then rested his head against his chest.

"He will sleep now." The Gift said after a moment. "When he wakens he will be refreshed and the Fury will have left him."

"What do you want from me?" Traes asked the Gift. "You said you would save me, but I would rather have died in the barn this morning than see the things I have seen today!"

"But all of what you have seen is a lesson in the Life Human." The Gift told him.

Its arms were wrapped around the Warrior and he pulled the man closer into him. The Warrior was erect now, more so than he had been in the barn when he had bested Traes' Uncle and brother. The Gift lifted the Warrior onto himself and then guided the Warrior so his erect quill pushed into its waiting Prostatae.

"Ah!" The Gift said as the Warrior entered him and it wrapped its legs around the Warrior's waist. "I asked you once if you desired a love such as this." It said. "Now you have seen it, is this the love you desire?"

"I do not understand!" Traes protested, tears once again flowing down his cheeks. "What do you want from me? Am I to be Warrior or Gift or voyeur to your love?"

"I offered to save you, Traes." The Gift said as it settled its man onto its body. "Many, many years ago, I was the last of my Clan also. I was offered this same choice. You can die with the sunrise Traes, or you can become a Gift. Be gifted to a Warrior as I am now."

"How can I become a Gift?" Traes laughed. "You are not human!"

"All will be revealed to you, Traes. In the Tower of Gifting in the Palace of Sunsets, there is a way. You can become a creature like me. Is this your desire?"

"And if I refuse?"

"You will die with the rising of the sun and my Pahtron will consume you as he has consumed your Uncle and your father."

"I said in the barn that I would choose life. Nothing that has happened has changed that. I choose to be a Gift."

"Good." The Gift laughed.

Its tail reached out and pressed a button high on the wall.

"Men will come now and send you to Troubian. To the Palace of Sunsets. There you will meet the Professor of Gifting. He will explain everything."

"And then will I understand?" Traes asked.

"Then you will understand." The Gift promised.

Horror layered upon horror.

Toreau-ties had come soon after the Gift had called them. They had taken Traes then and tied his arms and legs with heavy rope such that he could not move even if he had wanted to. He had been packed then, into the top of a shipping crate which was sealed over him. Beneath him and around him were the other goods being shipped from the Palace of the Green Forest to the Palace of Sunsets in Troubian.

His family, his Clan, were nothing but animals now for these people, and he, he was nothing but cargo. The crate jerked and he felt it lifted into the carrier. It was a drone, pre-programmed to fly from here to its destination without the need for anyone to guide it. Every night they could be seen taking off from the palaces across the province, and every morning new ones would return, carrying the goods and accoutrements that were needed to run the provinces.

He slept for a while as other crates were loaded around his. His dreams were full of blood and the Warrior Graescin. He bathed in blood, danced in blood, and when he looked, Traes could see pipes in his arms and legs that were pumping his blood out of his body so the Warrior could have his sport.

He awoke screaming.

It was dark.

He was alone.

He cried then, knowing that no-one would come to comfort him. No-one would come even to shout at him into completing his current chore.

There was no-one left.

The drone must have taken to the skies while he had been asleep. He could hear it purring around him as it shot through the upper atmosphere, passing over the single continent that girded the equator of this world. A strip of land that, apart from a small isthmus fifty or so kilometres across, ringed the planet.

To the north were the island chains of the Princes. Pleasure palaces that only the wealthy could enjoy. To the south the island nations of Hadran and Emjelt. Nations that were yet not part of the Second Realm. The planet was called Tare du Maretch which, in the 'common' language of the people, meant 'Place of Metal'.

This planet was richer in metals than all of the worlds in the neighbouring three star systems. And from Tare du Maretch, all the other metal bearing planets in this system could also be mined and controlled.

That was the real business of this planet.

That was why humans had come here in the first place almost a thousand years ago.

His clan was not fortunate enough to own a stake, and so they were farmers. Grubbing a harsh existence out of the sparse metal poisoned soils of the planet. Crops were small, even with their genes manipulated to survive the harsh conditions. And life was hard.

It had been his life, though!

And now the Warrior Graescin had destroyed it all.

When he had been in the barn with the Gift, the decisions he had been forced to take had seemed simple and clear cut. Of course he wanted to live! Who would not? The price of those decisions, though, he had not realised the cost he would have to pay. With all of his clan sold either as meat or ties, he was the last of them now, another lost clan to be added to the histories kept in the Vault of Tellings in Troubian.

And it was to Troubian he was heading now, to the Palace of Sunsets. To the home of the Warrior Cult that supported the Princes in their quest to control this planet and its wealth. Troubian, the central city of the Second Realm. The largest city on the planet. The centre of all power in this system.

He had heard stories of the place but even his Uncle had never been to this city. The region of the Green Forest was as far from Troubian as it was possible to be without actually leaving the planet itself. He had lived literally on the opposite side of the world to the great city. And now he was being sent there. A gift for the Professor of Gifting.

A gift that would become a Gift.

He did not understand what that meant, although as he thought about it now he could begin to work out what fate lay in store for him. Humans had engineered themselves for millennia to survive the worlds they discovered in the galaxy when they left The One World. And while the human form common on this planet was the norm here, Traes knew it was not the same on other worlds.

Humanity was now three thousand different species scattered across half the planets in the western galaxy. Three thousand forms of mankind. Life a plenty had been discovered when humanity had first looked beyond The One World, but intelligent life, that was rare. To date only five intelligent races were known to exist in this galaxy. Humanity, Mnemorian, Grandiash, Sheventa and the illusive, nomadic, Angels.

Although he had seen images of all the races, he had never seen any of them in the flesh. That was why, he supposed, he wanted so much to believe that the Gifts were alien too. It made them so much more interesting than to be simply another species of engineered human. But it was clear now that that is what they were. Humans engineered to provide the nectar that kept the Warriors strong. Everything else about them, the love, the ritual, the desire, everything else was just layers of culture that attempted to normalise and justify the slave-master relationship between the Warriors and the Gifts.

In the end he was not saved at all. He too was being sold into slavery like the rest of his clan. The only difference was that his slavery would cause him to be changed into something different.

A Gift.

The Gift in the palace had told him that once it too had been the last of its clan. And he knew it had lived for over four hundred years. Was any of that recompense for a life of enforced slavery? He doubted it. And this slavery would be worse than any his Clan would suffer. For them death would be their release. He was denied even that most basic of human realities.

He would be immortal. That was what the Gift had said. He would live so long that humans would regard him as immortal. He would suffer the memories of the what the Warrior Graescin had done to his Uncle and brother/father forever. He would never be released from that pain.

Very well. If he could remember forever, then he would hate forever as well. Regardless of what his Uncle had done, it was clear now that it would never have come to fruition. The Gift and the Warrior were separated for less than two days. Would never have been separated for any longer. If there was a crime here it was that this had never been explained to his Uncle.

And that did not justify the destruction of the entire Clan. His Uncle, brother and the others of his inner sanctum maybe, but not the whole Clan. There was vengeance to be had here. Traes could feel it forming in his gut, rising and settling around his heart like a fist.

He would avenge the destruction of his Clan.

Traes did not know how this would happen, but that was not a problem. He would have the rest of eternity to work it out.

He would hate, and he would hate forever.

And now?

Another prison.

He was locked into a small whitewashed room. A bed ran down one side of the room and a toilet and sink sat against the other wall. No windows, nothing else in the room not even a door.

Traes had been brought here directly from the Drone Landing Field. Tossed into the back of a metal cart with the other deliveries that were scheduled to be sent to the Tower of Gifting at the heart of Palace of Sunset. It had been dark when he had been taken out of the shipping crate, and, although he could hear the sounds of Troubian around him, he could not see anything.

Denied even a chance to look out on the City of Cities. The capital of the Second Realm and the First Place. The Palace of Sunsets was built over the top of the original settlement when men had first come to this planet a millennia ago. Another rebuff, another snub, and one he kept close to his heart, with all the others.

No-one would talk to him, and in the end he wanted nothing to do with them. He stood passively while they untied him and now he lay on the bed in this room, staring at the ceiling. The lights had come on only a few minutes ago. Up until then he had been in darkness.

He did not mind though. The darkness allowed him to gather the hate around him. Allowed him to keep the thoughts and memories of his hatred alive, his anger kindled.

"My, but you have a fury!" A voice laughed.

It came from all around the room, and Traes chose to ignore it. He had no choice in what was happening to him now, so he would let it happen. He would not add to the sport of his captors by pleading with them.

"And what would you plead for?" The voice asked him. "Come, Traes, you know the words of truth, I can read them in your mind. Your life is greater because you are aware that it is to be formed from the tree of ultimate decision. And Decision is the sea before us, even though it would be as a God." The voice quoted. "You know this, do you know what comes next?"

"And once the decision is formed it cannot be unformed. All life will sway to the destiny that is carried forth from this small seed into the mighty forest of choice. Of reality." Traes muttered.

"There!" The voice laughed. "You can talk after all."

There was no visible change in the room, but Traes knew, even without opening his eyes, that something had changed. He opened his eyes and sat up on the bed. The back wall of the room was gone and he looked out into a room that was larger now.

A table had been set up and food was laid across it. But it was what lay beyond the table that drew him. A large picture window that looked out across the Palace of Sunsets, out across into the City of Cities, into Troubian.

It was not long past sunrise and the Palace of Sunsets was mostly in darkness, but the city, the City was alive! Drones scuttled through the skies around the towers of corporation or government that dominated this end of the city. Other vehicles sped through the streets of this city, and there were people here, more people than he had ever seen in once place before.

"Eat." A voice said from inside the room and now Traes could see an elegant man sat at the table, helping himself to a cup of steaming Clah.

"Who... who are you?" Traes asked as he settled at the table, eyes glued to the vista beyond the window.

There was more life in this one city than he had seen in his entire life. From horizon to horizon it appeared that there was nothing but this city.

"It is a beautiful sight, I must admit." The man said as he took a bite from some bread.

"How do you do that?" Traes asked. "How do you see into my head?"

"It is a gift." He laughed. "All humans have the potential to read thoughts, but only a few of us are naturally born with the gift. I am one of them. I am the Professor, by the way."

"The Gift of the Warrior Graescin told me I would meet you." Traes said.

"It is properly known as the Gift of the Sidian Deserts." The Professor corrected him. "Gifts serve their Warriors, but they are not named for them. Besides, the Gift you met is an old one. That its Warrior is currently Graescin is neither here nor there."

"You dismiss the Warrior so easily." Traes noted, helping himself to some of the food before him.

"I sense that you would do much worse with him!" The Professor laughed. "Warriors are law, Traes. That is the law. It is just that some Warriors are more able to carry that precious burden than others."

"And the Warrior Graescin cannot carry it?"

"Oh, he can carry it, he just gets carried away by it every now and then. Would it make you feel better if I apologise on behalf of the Palace of Sunsets for the loss of your Clan, Traes?"

"It will not bring them back."

"No, it will not do that."

They were silent for a moment, then Traes looked at the Professor and asked,

"What is wrong with you?"

"What do you mean?" The Professor asked.

"You are different." Traes replied. "Tall, slender, your skin is too dark, your head is large! Are you also engineered?"

The professor laughed.

"I can see from your thoughts that you have spent some time thinking about this." He smiled. "No, Traes, I am what is known as a Reference Human."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I am original. My genes are those designed by Galaxia, not by man."

"You have been to The One World?"

"I have been to the system." The Professor said. "It is very rare that anyone is allowed onto The One World now. All our genetic heritage is stored there, nothing can threaten that."

"To be human and yet be denied that which makes us human..." Traes whispered, quoting from 'Human or Human Est'."

"Indeed!" The Professor laughed. "The Gift of the Sidian Deserts said in its message to me that you have a remarkable brain, Traes. Having sat with you now I can see that it was correct."

Traes was silent, when he looked up at the Professor there were tears in his eyes.

"And even that could not save my Clan." He whispered.

"Traes." The professor said. "I can see from your thoughts what the Warrior Graescin did to your Clan, what he forced you to witness. It is his way. He is a good Warrior, Traes, but is prone to moments of extreme Fury. It is all the Gift of the Sidian Deserts can do to control him sometimes."

"Graescin said that the Gift was complicit. That it needed the blood of my family to live."

"The Gift requires blood, yes. It is one of the things it must ingest each week. It does not have to be the blood of your Clan, or even the blood of another human." The professor said. "I think the Warrior Graescin was justifying his position in the presence of his Gift."

"And this is what I will become, a Gift?"

"It is the culmination of the decision tree you spawned in the barn, Traes. When you chose to live. This was the only way the Gift of the Sidian Deserts could save you."

"It does not have to happen!" Traes protested, leaving the table and going over to the window. "You could release me now, let me lose myself in this city..."

"And how long do you think you would survive out there, Traes?" The professor asked, coming over to him and putting his hand around his shoulders. "You would be sold for your meat before you were ten metres from the Palace gates and no-one would be there to save you! Troubian is a harsh mistress, Traes, and she does not suffer innocence gladly."

"Then there is no choice?"

"You are in the middle of a choice-frame, Traes. There is no room for any other choices here. Even you know that."

"There is always a chance." Traes replied. "Every decision has within it the seeds of its creation, its sustainment, its fulfilment and its destruction." He quoted. "If I could I would destroy this frame."

"You know the works of the great philosophers well." The professor said. "A skill I think you will find in great demand when you are Gifted."

"I will be a tie for a Warrior." Traes said. "You do not need to make the reality anything that it is not. I know the truth of the Gift."

"Do you?" The professor asked. "I think you would like to paint the relationship of the Gift and the Warrior in colours that you prefer rather than the colours of truth."

"Then what is the truth?" Traes asked, whirling around to face the Professor.

"The truth is balance, Traes. Nature needs balance."

"But the Gift does not balance the Warrior!" Traes said. "It could not stop what the Warrior did to my Clan, to my family! It interceded with me, but refused to do so with anyone else, when it could so easily have turned the warrior's hand! That is not balance!"

"From where you stand I can see why you feel like that." The Professor sighed.

He came around to where Traes was now sitting and pulled him from his chair, pulled him into a hug.

"Cry." He ordered.

And Traes cried. Each tear a member of his Clan, each sob in response the horrors he had seen.

As he cried, so the professor carried him back to his bed and lay there with him, holding him while he sobbed.

Eventually there was silence.

"Do you know the Order of the Primes?" The professor asked after a while.

"Yes." Traes whispered.

"Tell me what you know."

"The First Prime is me, self and selfless, within the spinning fury of Galaxia. The second prime is the human extant: body, sentience and soul. The Third Prime is the races of Galaxia: Human, Mnemorian, Grandiash, Sheventa and Irin...sha, the Angels. The Fourth Prime is the points of the Wheel of Life: Wandering, Existence, Sufferance, Persecution, Endeavour, Enlightenment and Glory." He paused for a moment, then added: "I have only just learned this. My brother was teaching me the order of the first ten primes. I will not learn that now."

"You will." The Professor smiled, rocking Traes as he hugged him. "I feel that you will become one of the most knowledgeable of all the Gifts. You learn, remember and understand at a rate that is quite astonishing. The Fifth Prime, Traes, is balance. Birth and death. Male and female. Fire and Water. Sound and Silence. Love and hate."

"But that is only ten." Traes said looking up at the Professor. "The fifth prime is eleven."

"And the eleventh axiom of this prime is fate. It sits alone. It holds its balance within itself. The Gift of the Sidian Deserts knew this Traes. It knew that what its Warrior did to your Clan had to happen to allow your fate to bring you here."

"They did not have to die."

"Perhaps, but in the heat of the moment the Gift recognised in you what I also see now. It needed to protect that from the Fury that had taken its Pahtron. Now, maybe now, it wishes it had saved more, but at the time you were what was most important."

"Why? I am nothing."

"In this form, yes, that is true." The professor laughed. "But I will give you a form that will allow you to reach a potential you had never dreamed, Traes."

"You would make me a Gift?"

"Yes."

"And I will be tied to a Warrior like Graescin?"

"The Gift is not the weak partner in that relationship, Traes."

"Yet they are treated like nothing more than their sex, collared like rampant Jidendry!"

"Convention demands that we see Warriors as the Guardians of the Law, Traes. Would you trust someone to protect the state if you knew that he would die if he did not receive his Gift of nectar every day? That his body and mind would crumble if the Gift he possesses did not hold his mind in its own?"

"No." Traes replied.

"The Gift is the ultimate incarnation of humanity, Traes. The highest form of life we have yet been able to engineer."

"Yet why link it to such a thing as a Warrior?"

"The Fifth Prime, Traes. Balance. Without the Warrior to channel its own fury, the Second Realm, this planet, the Great Allegiance, all would be swept aside by the Gifts as they strive to control and dominate all humanity, and maybe even Galaxia herself."

"They could do that?"

"Without the Warriors, yes."

"Why do we create such flawed life?" Traes asked.

"Because we ourselves are flawed." The Professor told him. "We are inside the very life we need to create, and so we create it using ourselves as the model. Only Galaxia is outside life. Only she can create something new."

"What must I do?" Traes asked.

"Come." The professor said.

They stood from the bed and the walls of the room vanished, then the room itself was gone. The bed, table, great window, all were gone as if they had never been there. Instead they were standing in a long corridor. Six tanks lined the wall in front of him and six on the wall behind. And within the tanks on the wall facing him, suspended in a thick liquid, was a Gift, one per tank.

"These first three tanks are almost ready." The Professor told him. "Each year, at the Sunset of the Evian Equinox, we release the Gifts from these tanks. The Silver March, when the Warriors face their final challenges, takes place at the Sunset of the Andrian Equinox half a year later. This year three Warriors will pass out of that ceremony, and each one will have one of these Gifts."

"What happens to the Warriors that lose?" Traes asked.

"They fight again in the next Silver March. If they lose three times, then they themselves will be Gifted."

"And that happens?"

"Occasionally, yes." The Professor said. "The training to become a Warrior is harsh, Traes, do not forget that. There are six competing in the next Silver March, forty two began this journey ten years ago."

"What happened to the others?"

"They were killed by the training, or killed because they were not worthy to go forward to the Silver March."

"That is a harsh lesson." Traes noted.

"And one to be remembered." The Professor replied. "In Graescin's year, there were ninety-seven who came to be Warriors. When he came to his Silver March there were only four."

"Wow!"

"Indeed. His was the hardest training cycle the Palace of Sunsets has ever witnessed. Since then the Master Warrior has attempted to make the process less gruelling but it is still as intense."

Traes turned.

"Why are these tanks in darkness?" He asked looking at the six tanks set into the wall behind him.

"In order to metamorphose, we need light and darkness at certain times. Currently these tanks require darkness."

Traes nodded his head, then looked down the corridor, walking forward to the last three bright tanks on his right. They were empty.

"One of these is for me?"

"Yes." The Professor said. "It takes nineteen months to create a Gift from a human reference. When you are finally released, it takes another six months to become aware of what being a Gift really means."

"What must I do?"

"The process has already started." The Professor told him. "The meal that you eat earlier contained certain drugs and enzymes that are already working on your internal structure. The Matrix into which we will lower you contains the others."

"And you just put me in one of these things?"

"In a sense. You are drugged into unconsciousness first. The process of metamorphosis is often harsh, it would not do for you to be aware of the changes."

"It can kill me?"

"That is always an option." The professor said. "Or we will abort the process if it fails. This will also result in your death."

"But at the end?"

"At the end you will be a Gift. No longer Traes, no longer human in the sense that any other human can be called human."

"Prepare me then. I wish to be Gifted."

"Cough!" A voice commanded into his head, and he felt himself pulled from the liquid that had been his home for so long. "There is matrix in your lungs and stomach. You must get it out. Cough!"

It coughed. The liquid poured through nose, mouth and it breathed, the first breath of its new life. And then something else, a retching in its stomach as the last of the matrix was ejected by this new body. It retched then, supported by arms on either side.

"The lights in here have been dimmed." The voice told him. "You can open your eyes now."

The light was intense. Bright beyond brightness and it took a while for its eyes and brain to understand what it could see. And then resolution.

"Wow." It whispered, a lyrical voice that seemed to be comprised of many voices speaking at once. "I see so many colours!"

"You will find it fascinating." The voice said.

It turned its head to look at the owner of the voice.

"Professor." It smiled.

"And how should we name you?" The professor asked.

"I am the Gift of the Lost Clan."

"A worthy name. Come, you cannot walk yet, but you will soon be used to the effects of gravity again. Sit in this chair. We must get you to the clinic. See that you are whole."

"I feel wonderful."

"I know. That will never change."

"Thank you." The Gift of the Lost Clan said. "I am beginning to understand."