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News of the attack on the Waygate spread across the world in a ripple like the fur rising on the back of a startled cat. There had been some minor unrest and a small-scale migration as cautious people bought up tickets on starships leaving Byzantium but on the whole the incident was well handled by the system media. Inside the Ro'Xanshin manor there had been some unrest among the guests hen the news was finally announced, the envoys from Ka and Ui'Sashal had, rather impolitically, all but packed up and left on the spot, but a message brought on the next carrier-wave soon halted any flight from the Ro'Xanshin Houseworld. The envoy of the Imperial family was arriving.

Wei stood alone under the garden awning of the chamber that the Ro'Xanshin had set aside for him. It wasn't opulent, but then none of them were. In the fashion of Imperial design, simplicity and tasteful minimalism were the order of the day. While they were all different and all exceedingly comfortable no guest chamber was made to be any greater than any other so as not to risk causing offence or risk showing favouritism to any particular delegate. Such chambers were, in theory, suitable for anyone from an itinerant knight to... well, perhaps not the Emperor himself but anyone below that station.

Red, there was a lot of red. Unsurprising, he supposed, it was the colour of the Ro'Xanshin, the colour of their House and the colour of the art of war that they claimed so much puissance in. Still, it was oppressive after a while. Even the polished wooden boards of the floor seemed to have a redness to the grain, like the fossilied veins of a vast creature. Probably from some garishly-coloured Byzantine tree, the wilds of the planet were beautiful but the colours strained the eye after a while.

Beautiful, and inconceivably alien. His chamber was directly beside the manor gardens, a silk awning - red, of course - shielding the patio of ochre-stone tiles and beyond that the carefully tended and manicured lawn of iridescent grass, sand pools with their stone markers sitting amid swirls of sandy waves, flower bushes.

He stepped again a little way out from under the awning, holding tightly on to one of the iron struts that supported it, and glanced upwards, briefly, before darting back under, heart racing and almost heaving with nausea.

There was no ceiling! How could anything just... go on like that? Of course he knew, in theory, that almost everyone lived on the surface of their worlds, and he'd seen enough of what that was like from video books and geographical studies, but actually being there was something entirely different. It was almost too much to bare, knowing that there was that much above you, it didn't feel safe to walk exposed beneath the sky, everytime he tried he had to keep his eyes locked on the ground lest his vision angle just a bit too far up to see it... end. See the ground end and the sky begin, not as a smooth curve of a cavern-city wall but a sudden, shockingly sudden division like a cut, like some wayward god had taken a shiversword to the world.

It made him feel ill just knowing that there was such enormity above him, just seeming to go on forever and perhaps not even that, not seeming to, actually going on forever. How could anyone stand it? Well, they did somehow, and so would he, wherever he was going to live from now it was unlikely that it would be anything like the subterranean factorum of the Yusho. No-one ever considers their upbringing any different from anyone elses until they experience the divide themselves. He'd lived his entire life by the light of chemical photo-bulbs, breathing air that had been recycled uncountable times, riding groundcars through tunnels of hewn stone, setting up his deharmoniser every nightcycle so he could sleep through the noise of the quartz and piezoelectric crystals in the planet's crust singing under the pressure of the gravity waves. The sunlight hurt his eyes, made everything seem too bright, the air was too sharp and fresh, paining his lungs and irritating his throat, making his eyes weep, he still hadn't worked up the nerve to actually set foot on the grass, it looked like some horrible sea of grasping insect legs and it was everywhere.

And it was quiet.

Most of the time he had barely noticed the singing that gave the Sirens their name, now he couldn't help but keen for it and hear nothing. Even on the Dragonfly there was the humming of the engines, the creak of the hull and the subdued roar and occasional peal of something like thunder in Wayspace, but not here. There was the song of birds and even a whistle from small gust of wind but that was it, nothing constant.

The quiet was the worst part, it could make you feel alone even in a manor filled with dozens of noblemen, hundreds of assorted servants and a sizeable personal garrison. Eventually he gave up trying not to feel like he was about to be sucked up into the sky every time he stepped outside and went back inside.

So, Prince Kuraai's cruiser, the Edge of Empire would be arriving in the system within the day. No doubt the Prince would be busy with affairs of state in his capacity as his father's envoy, which meant the marriage ceremony was scheduled for the day after tommorow. By tommorow's end he would no longer be Wei Yusho but Wei Ro'Xanshin and his duty to his former House would be settled. Yusho would have the protection of the Ro'Xanshin, effective immunity from Lashani agression, Ro'Xanshin would have free use of one of the sectors' most lucrative Wayspace networks and the merchant guilds would be put in their place. Looking in the dressing mirror he raised une hand to his cheek and covered the blue flower of Yusho, yet another thing he barely noticed was there until it was on the verge of being gone, he'd have to take the twin red crescents of Xanshin in the ceremony, the final seal on the contract. Well, not the final seal, there was also another matter.

He felt rather guilty about having worried about what the Viscount Toroi would look like before their meeting, it seemed churlish to even consider such things for a moment after his heroism. But those worries had apparently been unfounded, the Viscount was almost unbearably handsome in that lean, slightly dangerous way that predator-evolveds sometimes had. His appearance was surely gene-fixed and nano-augmented, but it had been done expertly, his enhancements were artworks that only improved what was there naturally. Which made it all the more painful to discover that he had absolutely no interest in Wei whatsoever, his indiference had been chilling.

Wei considered whether some shiverblade practise would put him in higher spirits and resolved to inquire with Captain Yaroi whether it would be possible. There scarcely seemed like any point now that he was on one of the most well-protected worlds in the Empire, no assassin could touch him here. And it had just been a spur of the moment fancy, really, he'd never even looked at the shiversword he'd recieved through inheritance. Besides, the Viscount was a master shiverblade swordsman, perhaps it would be better in his possession, a sapphire really had no need of such a thing...

A potentially maudlin mood was cut down before it was born by a chime at the door to his apartments. He wondered briefly why the Ro'Xanshin bothered with such contrivances when the doors in the place consisted of sliding panels of paper and wood - discretely coated with a nearly indestructible nanoscale fullerene mesh, Captain Yaroi had informed him - surely there was little point when ones' voice could be heard through them quite easily?

Almost shuddering with relief at being back inside and not having to avert his eyes from that great yawning expanse above his head, Wei half-ran up the the door and released the lock.

He looked up to meet the face of the visitor as the door-screen slid aside, by now accustomed to almost everyone off-world being so tall. There was a split second of hesitation as his mind processed that face, the sleek vulpine muzzle, the predator gleam in the eye, the look of subtle refinement... his throat siezed up in terror, it was Rashar, the assassin from the Rabarii starport, the one he'd seen die beneath the Yansari's blades!

He drew in a breath reflexively to call for his guards, stumbling back, eyes going wide in fright, when Captain Yaroi's familliar features appeared alongside the apparition, pulling the screen open wider.

"Milord! No danger!" He shouted, holding up an empty hand, placatingly. "This is the real Lord Rashar, your Honour."

"You poor creature!" The fox-lord suddenly piped up, a stricken expression on his face. "You really thought I was... I'm so terribly sorry, it was unforgivably thoughtless of me, you must have had such a shock." A loud rattling punctuated his speech as he wrung his hands together, jostling bangle and bracelet-laden wrists.

"Lord Rashar has only just arrived on-world, your Honour." Yaroi explained slowly and softly like he was trying to talk someone down.

"I see," Wei said, covertly flashing Yaroi the Yusho battle-sign for Safe, sure? disguised as fiddling nervously with his sleeve. From out of Rashar's field of vision the Captain returned the signal for Checked, confirmed there was also a furtive rider of apology, Wei relaxed slightly.

"Then I apologise for my reaction, and hope that it can be forgiven," Wei said, assuming a more dignified stance and bowing shallowly to the fox-lord, who returned the gesture.

"There is nothing to forgive, it was I who was in error, I should have thought that yoou might still be... well, nevermind, I can't say I've been thinking very clearly over the past few days." A subtle undercurrent of anger and... relief?... eked through lord Rashar's voice.

"My Lord? Whatever do you mean?"

"I was on Rabarii station when your vessel docked, it just so happened that at the time I'd been drugged with some kind of aggressive tailored particle my metafuna couldn't easily overcome, probably a Maestro art, and then tied up and dumped in a closet." The look of affront on the fox-lord's face suddenly turned to a smirk, then a light chuckle. "Last time I ever let a nice looking fellow buy me a drink... for a while, anyway... not so much as a goodnight kiss, shameful."

"Ancestors... you were unharmed?" Wei said, a slight squeak highlighting his alarm.

"Yes, quite fine and in good health after a bit of time to sleep off whatever he spiked my drink with, not the typical roofie, I'll tell you that." Rashar said with a laugh, Wei wasn't quite sure what a 'roofie' was but nodded anyway. "It's just a good thing that the Whispered Death sect distain collateral casualties as the mark of an amateur, not that that's going to stop me from doing unmentionable things to whoever sent that death cultist if I ever find them. It was most embarrasing, some warrior-philosopher I am for getting duped like that." The fox-lord sighed regretfully at that and pushed a stray bit of headfur behind one tapered ear, causing another clatter of bangles. "Anyway, the important thing is that you're unharmed."

Wei's eyes went wide again, this time from amazement. "You're a warrior-philosopher? A real one?"

His question was only interrupted by a sudden hacking cough from Captain Yaroi, which seemed to annoy Rashar, the Captain excused himself and shut the door-screen behind him.

"As a matter of fact, I am." Said Rashar, proudly. "Travelling the Empire, patrolling the borders, defending the throne from barbarian spies, writing the occasional bit of poetry... usually when I've been dumped and feeling maudlin, admittedly, but it still counts... Yes I tick all the boxes for that particular title, I think."

"Really? How amazing! How many worlds have you been to?" We squeaked, trying and failing to control his excitement. Warrior-philosophers were the true heroes of the Empire, nearly two thirds of the Classics were either written by or about them. There wasn't a single imperial boy or girl - regardless of their class or station, history showed more than one among the warrior-philosophers who was lowborn - who hadn't at least once fantasised about being one. They journeyed from one end of the Empire to the next righting wrongs, rooting out corrupt beuraucrats and barbarian insurrectionists, seeking enlightenment between the stars, there was no more exciting life.

"Oh, a few dozen over the years, but really enough about me-" Rashar said, looking almost embaressed but honoured nonetheless.

"Nono, I'm interested, can you tell me about some of your quests, or are they classified?"

"Ah... well, the most recent ones are, yes, but some of the older ones... as you are a baronet, of course... I suppose there's no harm in relaying them." Said the fox-lord, looking increasingly bashful.

"And... there was one other thing I might inquire, if it is not to bold... a boon of sorts." Wei said, carefully.

"Oh, of course, anything for my honoured cousin's future husband!" Rashar replied, clearly on firmer ground.

"It's a silly thing, really, but I just wondered... do you know how to wield a shiversword?"

~~~*~~~

The Ro'Xanshin holo-dojo was surprisingly small and tucked off to one side of the building. But Wei realised that it was small in the same way that a House shrine was small; well kept, hallowed, reserved for the use of family. Fortunately, Rashar was family, even if he wasn't. Yet.

It felt almost illicit to be here, somehow seditious, but Rashar hadn't even blinked when Wei had asked him for tuition. Indeed, the flamboyant fox-lord had looked positively overjoyed at the thought, like it was an invitation to a party. He had even gasped appreciatively at the sight of the Yaarou blade and examined it with a connesuir's eye and made flattering remarks about Wei's duelling uniform.

"-and speaking of which, if you look in the hem you should find a thinswitch... no, the other side, just below your heart." He instructed, gesturing at the green steelsilk garment.

"Here?" Wei ran his fingers along the hem and found a smooth patch of plastic film, he folded it out and found that it had a drawing of a Yusho flower with each petal and the center having a high-imperial numeral on it running from one to six.

"That's it, see, you just run your finger along it like so-" Rashar placed the tip of one long finger against the 'one' and ran it to the other numerals in sequence, finishing at the 'six', immediately a sort of hum ran accross wei's body, like he was surrounded by a coat of bees, he squeaked in alarm. "Don't worry, it's just running a sonic vibration through the outer mesh, the inner layer is supposed to insulate most of it so it doesn't become too distracting."

"Why? What is it for?" Wei said, still trying to get used to the feeling of the cloth buzzing against his hide, if the insulation was meant to keep it from being distracting it was a failure.

"Ah, quite simple, duelling costumes use the same principles as shiverswords themselves. The vibration acts as a precision sonar system, you see, it detects when a strike is imminent and tunes in the vibration to the opposite frequency held by the incoming blade and intensifies it to match." Rashar explained in an erudite tone, holding one finger aloft and causing the plethora of bangles on that wrist to slide down his forearm. "In short, it makes a shiverblade strike merely as deadly than a normal blade. Of course, it only works on the lowest setting, one kilo-octave, but dueling on a higher setting than that is... well, not quite madness, per se', but not far off."

"I thought it was the steelsilk that provided the protection?"

Rashar tittered. "My dear boy, these are shiverswords not the long knives of a common soldier. The duelling costume has to be made of steelsilk just so it can survive the lessened impact. Even with the sonics nullified, a shiversword is still a bloody sharp length of orbital steel."

"Right, well how shall we begin?" Wei replied.

"First of all, tune down your blade to the lowest setting, that way it probably won't end up severing any limbs if something goes wrong, and considering my luck over the past few days..." Rashar trailed off with an impish grin.

Wei drew his shiversword from the lacquered scabbard at his hip and gripped the activation points, the blade hummed with restrained power and the '5' numeral glowed on the gem set in the hilt. He swiped his thumb down over it until the umeral changed to 'one' and the hum lowered in tone, the buzz felt through the grip barely perceptible.

"Splendid, and now we take our positions-" Rashar stepped back a few paces to widen the distance between them and then rose his own shiversword, already humming in his hand, in front of his face. "And salute, ein'ta shavros arou'tar, ta est uin'tovar en'avathra.'"

Wei held up his shiversword in front of his face as Rashar did but faltered when it came to the words. "Ah, my lord Rashar, that salute, what was it's meaning?"

"Oh, still new to swordtongue? Well, it's a crusty old language but translated as best I can into modern Catalos it means something along the lines of 'may my sword carry my fear, that it may quake and I shall not', or words to that effect." Noting the look of combined fascination and perplexment on Wei's face, Rashar continued. "In ancient times, before even the Eagle Empire, Eagle warriors believed that they could sort of... squirrel away the parts of themselves they disliked by putting them in their swords, which turned them into strengths when they used them to fight, you see. It's an odd notion, hardly anyone remembers it anymore, but that's why shiverswords became the symbol of our class. Place your weakness and your cowardice in the steel, let its shivers fell your enemies, turn failing into fame, vice into virtue." With that the fox-lord coughed into his fist and rolled his eyes, self-deprecatingly. "It's all a bit philosophical for me, just don't try thinking about it too long while using any particularly potent opiates, trust me darling, you have no idea."

"I see..." Wei said, and for a moment he thought he actually did, like glimpsing at something vast through a tiny crack in a wall. He raised the sword again. "'Ein'ta shavros arou'tar, ta est uin'tovar en'avathra.'"

"Clever boy, picked that up fast. Noetics, I assume?" Rashar said, nodding approvingly.

"Yes, my honoured father gave me an eidetic memory, I have no training in militant noetic techniques though." Wei replied with a nod.

"Ah, well I do, good thing you told me or this might have been over a little too quickly, just a moment while I turn them off." Rashar shut his eyes for a few seconds and gave a sudden, slight tilt to his head, then reopened them. "There, now no-one can accuse me of cheating. In a duel, anyway." He said in a tone that suggested he had just made a joke. Wei just smiled and nodded, even if the humour had passed him by.

"And what do we do now? Sorry, I've only ever practiced forms before, I don't know how a spar is meant to go, I'm afraid."

Rashar grinned. "All done, dear. Now we fight."

~~~*~~~

Toroi woke with a splitting garum-egg advocaat headache and a feeling of elation. As his augmentations flushed the hangover from his system with painful slowness he resolved that Veoni was far wiser than he usually let on. Granted, it was the sort of blurry wisdom you found at the bottom of a bottle but sometimes that was exactly what you needed. It was what he had needed; humour, an irreverent friend with an odd taste in drinks and a bracing dose of reality.

The whole week, all the preparations and all the pressure, coupled with a cram-course on the Lotus Path, had left him wound up like an antique watch, and even more prone to breakdown. And, Toroi had to admit, he was not exactly the best person in the Empire for remaining objective under pressure. Veoni might have been joking when suggesting that day in the gardens that he might run away to the mountains to become an anchorite, but it wasn't far from the truth. He liked as few complications in his life as possible, and while he wasn't quite pious enough to spend the rest of his days living an ascetic life of conetemplating the Scrolls of Sublime Mandate, it did have its' appeal. Appart from the whole 'abjuring of the flesh' business, there was only so much abjuring one could do before it got tedious and despite Venoi's oppinoins on the subject he wasn't quite that straight-laced.

But a few hours of mildly (and later, moderately) intoxicated discussion with his oldest friend seemed to make the load a lot lighter for a while, long enough for him to come to the realisation that he was to a large degree doing it to himself. Except for the fact that his betrothed was apparently the subject of multiple assassination attempts, that really did warant some consideration... by those who knew more about the procedures of investigation.

And... it was wrong for him to shun his betrothed based on a... a chance resemblance. He swallowed hard, feeling a lead bearing manifest in his throat. No, not wrong, inexcusable and unbecoming and... and... womanish! Damnable misty-eyed cattle-thought, the lot of it! He didn't usually allow such wooly illogical musings to get the better of him but... well, in any case it had to be the stress.

Still, he would be counting the days till year's end.

"Morning, tovarich!" Veoni said cheerfully, offering a glass of water. Once again demonstrating the superior toxin-filtration capabilities of his augmentations in how he was very clearly not suffering from the crushing hangover all logic dictated he deserved. Toroi occasionally wondered whether the nanomedics and retroimmune proteins in his bloodstream were the reason the wolf imbibed intoxicants with such fervor, it probably took more to get him sotted in the first place. "All ready to greet the day?"

"I feel like I've been flying a slamfighter without contra-inertials." Toroi replied, taking the glass from the wolf's hand and downing a gulp. "In spirit, though... could be worse." He added with a thin smile.

"Aha! In wine we find the truth, yes?" Veoni replied with a chuckle, donning a housecoat of crushed black velvet with the signiature gold frogging of his world's noble dress.

"I don't think that stuff was wine but yes, something like that." Toroi took another gulp of water, which turned out to be lightly falvoured with citrus and... basil? Some kind of herb he didn't recognise, anyway. The effect was remarkably soothing.

"Good, good, because there is going to be plenty more time for truth-seeking tonight!" The wolf clapped his hands together and rubbed them vigorously.

Oh, of course, the party Veoni had been planning, he had forgotten about that. On a handful of occasions in the past he had been priveledged enough to have experience of the bacchanals that Venoi could arrange when he actually went about applying himself. The sort of events that semed purposefully engineered to make elders sniff in disgust at the youth of today when they encountered it and curse in envy once it had passed them by. In truth, Toroi didn't feel entirely up to it, even though the last traces of his headache would soon be dispelled, but it would be deeply ingratious to refuse now, he knew how much effort Veoni put into his revels.

"Aha, yes, of course, you shall have to send ahead to the Nal'Galagar vatworks to grow me a new liver." Toroi replied, rising with a tentative stretch and touching a key set in a pad on the wall to summon the servants.

"That is the way!" Veoni plunged a hand deep into his coat pocket and retrieved his link, tapping at the screen a few times. "I will check with the others, usually there are a few who lack your stamina and bow out at the last minute, their loss." he said with a contemptuous sniff.

Servants arrived a moment later and Toroi ordered a bath drawn and clothes laid out, Veoni prudently left to run 'an errand' in the city, and make a few stops along the way, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Toroi didn't even try to supress the sigh of pleasure that slipping into the steaming waters coaxed out. The water was slightly opaqued by fragrant salts and the cloud of heady steam carried a relaxingly subtle scent. He tossed onto the ledge the gold ring and lacquered needles binding his headfur, having forgotten to take them out the night before, and dunked his head briefly beneath the surface. Somewhat more refreshed, though still with a throbbing head, he reclined agains the side of the faux-spring and brushed the mane out of his eyes.

He had to speak with the Baronet, that much was clear, like it or not they were going to have to speak sooner or later, and the earlier he finally dispelled the awkwardness he felt around the young mouse-lord the better.

Merciful ancestors, but he was a handsome creature... those eyes the shade of ice-blue, perpetually glistening as if on the verge of tears, alone were meltingly attractive. Combined with an understated firmness of frame and quietly dignified bearing, the Baronet was undeniably among the most comely beings he had ever encountered. It was strange thinking of another male like that, an idea he hadn't quite gotten used to yet, but there was no denying it. Not that he didn't want to deny it, still, even now, he still couldn't shake off the nagging thought that if he allowed himself to fall for this stranger, it would push the one he truly wanted further out of grasp.

And he wouldn't, as much as this Wei Yusho might resemble Uelo, they were not the same. He would be as honourable a husband as tradition dictated and no more, hopefully not as dismissive as Veoni but not close either. He would live his life, Wei would live his, they would share a home and lands and that would be the end of their familiarity. It would probably work out well, the Baronet was skilled in many of the fields of statecraft that he had neglected, together they could rule their lands quite to everyones' satisfaction.

He hummed a decisive note under his breath and quickly finished washing and dressed in a severe short-robe and trews of crimson-embroidered black silk and rebound his headfur in a braid with his usual silver ring. His shiversword was belted at his waist with a tripple-turn of red silk cord and fastened with a half-moon clasp at his hip. Glad at last to be out of those ridiculous and weighty presentation robes and once again looking more like a House Warmaster, he nodded in approval to the mirror and left his chambers in the direction of the guest wing.

So deep in thought was he that it was only his noetics that alerted him before he ended up walking straight into his brother, Seyocu, when turning the corner. Seyocu had always been the most erudite and bookish of the three of them and consequentially had little in the way of combat-enhancements, while Janai had been learning strategic fleet-deployment and Toroi tactical-level command Seyocu had been studying planetology at the university on Koranth. He jumped in surprise, accidentally dropping the data-slate he had been perusing. Toroi easily caught it out of the air before the fragile device hit the ground and handed it back to him in one smooth motion, grinning mischeviously.

"Oh! Toroi, thank you," Seyocu said, accepting the slate back, gingerly. "Oh, and congratulations, I'm afraid I missed the chance to say that, I meant to speak with you after the ceremony but I sort of lost track of where you went."

"I, uh... was somewhat engaged at the time... talking business and all that." Toroi replied quickly.

"Really? Well good for you, that marche of yours is worth an annual fortune to the House, more than mine, in fact." Seyocu seemed positively cheerful about the fact, which he shouldn't be; as second-son he traditionally should have gotten the best alotment of territory, even moreso than Janai who would in all likelihood be the next Archduke. "Friends of father, I suppose, I can't imagine the guilds are going to be too pleased once they discover that we won't be paying their premiums anymore."

"Um, yes, friends of father, that's right... and what's that?" Toroi said, indicating the data-slate and changing the subject with a limited degree of subtlety.

"Ah now..." Seyocu's tone suddenly became conspiritorial. "This contains the isolated matrix of the virus that crashed gate command during your little act of heroism. The cybernaughts just managed to extract it, nasty piece of work, contains semi-fluid noetic components."

"By which you mean... what?" Toroi replied, he had been expecting just another obscure work of astrophysics or geology, which Seyocu would happily talk just long enough about to forget any other train of thought, but this was something he had to know.

"Almost an AI, not quite sentient but capable of following detailed instructions and altering its own code in an ad hoc fashion, not just a scripted list of reactions. We've still got cybernaughts probing the system for any sign that it might have propogated itself, just in case."

"That sounds sophisticated, who has the capability to create something like that?" Toroi found himself absent-mindedly slipping into a mild extrapolatory trance as he tried to put a name to whoever had nearly caused the loss of the Byzantium gate and the death of his betrothed.

"Oh, plenty of people, you'd need a computer with a fractal cogitation bank, and those aren't cheap or easy to come by, but I should think that there's thousands of groups in the Empire who could create something like this." He tapped the face of the slate. "The thing which makes it special is that it seems to have been designed specifically for our command centre."

"Why would that be so unusual?"

"Every house in the Empire uses proprietary software designed with our own machine-language for important things like gate command, semi-sentient software like this is a necessity for data-warfare because it has to adapt to the environment in realtime, often corrupting itself in the process. But this one was inserted into our system already created with our own machine-language, that's why it wasn't detected. So that's already enough to confirm that we have a spy within the House, someone with access to our software specifications."

"Watchful ancestors..." Toroi swore under his breath.

"What's more, nobody even knew the Baronet Yusho was due to be here until it was announced, so whoever made this thing had to either already be planning an attack against us before the announcement and just decided that now would be a good time to strike, or... they programmed it in under a week."

"And how long would something like that normally take?" Toroi said, slightly impressed despite himself. Bookish scholar or not, Seyocu had a head for the movements of battle to match his own, even if it was an intellectual battle. He was a true Ro'Xanshin and no mistake.

"Under normal circumstances? Months." Seyocu replied, dismissively. "Much more likely that the attack has been planned for a long time, chances are it wasn't an assassination attempt on the Baronet at all, they just decided to add insult to injury."

"You said 'under normal circumstances', what about abnormal circumstances?" Toroi pushed, mind ablaze.

Seyocu took a deep breath and let it out slowly, from the disassociated look in his eyes Toroi guessed that he was trancing himself. "Given optimum cirumstances and the most up to date equipment, including neural interface technology, an S-class programmer could create something like this in perhaps three months. If they were also highly noetic, at a longshot they could maybe do it in three weeks, probably not one unless it was already mostly complete." he blinked hard and dropped out of the trance. "Like I said, just a coincidence that the Yusho happened to be on the way here, they must have decided to hold off the attack until that moment."

With a huff Toroi cut his own trance, having found no answer. "Well, thank you anyway, I hope you find more clues as to who created it."

"You'll be the first one I tell if I do." Seyocu replied, consolingly. "Are you going to...?" He added in a leading tone.

"Yes, I'm going to meet with Wei of the Yusho, if that's what you mean." Toroi's ears angled away slightly in a rather obvious attempt to hide their flush.

"Oh, splendid, with all the chaos around here it's a wonder you can find the time! There's still some time before the ceremony though, maybe you could take the Baronet Yusho out riding or something? Must be terribly claustrophobic living underground like they do, I'm sure he would jump at a bit of time outdoors."

"Ah, well, Veoni has already made arrangements... you're welcome to come, by the way." Toroi replied, sheepishly.

"Hmmm, I just might, I'll see if Janai is free, too."

Toroi winced involuntarily. "Yes, please do, the more the merrier." He said, not quite through gritted teeth but not far off either. He and Janai did not get along on best of terms, on account of the fact that Janai was an arrogant ass who seemed to believe that first-born equated to first at everything and (quite frustratingly) was effortlessly able to master every task placed before him. Seyocu seemed not to notice, but Toroi found his eldest brother's whole attitude grating.

They went their seperate ways after that, Seyocu once-again engrossed in reading the incomprehensible code from the slate. The actual Ro'Xanshin manor was relatively small, much of the bulk of its greater operations taken up in the caverns beneath it, so it was a quick walk to the guest wing. Toroi paused a moment at that thought; the caverns, they were the closest thing to the Yusho cities on the Sirens anywhere on the planet. Despite what Seyocu might think, he doubted that the change of scenery was anything other than disorienting for the cloistered Baronet, perhaps the caverns might provide something more familiar? It was a thought, anyway.

A pair of ferret guards from the Baronet's honour-guard were standing rigidly at attention outside the chambers, polychrome lasers resting on their shoulders and visors down over their eyes. The older ferret with the decorated uniform who had been leading the guard was not present, however.

"I am here to speak with your liege, introduce me if you must." He said, stiffly.

The two guards exchanged a momentary glance. "We would, your grace, but our lord is not present," One of them said.

"What? Well where is he?" Toroi frowned.

"With a kinsman of yours, your grace, they left together with the Captain of the guard."

Toroi sighed. "Who-? No, nevermind, it's not important, radio your captain, find where they are."

~~~*~~~

The thirteenth round ended with wei getting a stinging slap across the forearm from a well-timed leth on Rashar's part. He didn't cry out this time and kept hold of his sword, but it still hurt like lightning, despite the protection of the duelling costume.

"Point to me, methinks, had it been on a higher setting you'd be missing the best part of your arm." Rashar said, not gloating, merely matter-of-fact.

He was, Wei discovered, a crueller teacher than Yaroi was, but a good one nonetheless. He had learned a great deal from the fox-lord during their mock-battles. It wasn't real experience, they were both deliberately avoiding those areas the duelling costume didn't protect, but it wasn't just practicing forms either. Rashar was good, very good in fact, the thin, tapered shiversword he wielded moving like a darting viper in his grasp. And more than merely good, the fox-lord could pick out the flaws in his style and correct them with a painful lesson. The Captain had looked increasingly angry with each touch of the blade that made him yelp in shock until Wei prudently suggested that perhaps he could guard him from outside.

"I didn't expect that, I've never seen you move from a talsar to a leth before." Wei said, panting slightly from exertion.

"Nor are you ever likely too again, dear. A talsar is a long-defence, a leth is a short-counter, never the twain shall meet, in theory anyway." Rashar replied, whipping his humming blade through the air in a figure-8 flourish. "It's a highly unbalanced combination, no right-thinking swordsman would ever even consider using it."

"So why did you?"

The corners of Rashar's mouth turned up in a gleefull smile. "Because no right-thinking swordsman would consider it."

"Oh, I see, because it's a surprising move." Wei said, confidently.

"Goodness, no!" Rashar replied, chuckling. "If I tried to do that against a more experienced duellist they'd have my arm off and call me a damn fool."

"Then why-?"

"Because a fight, a real fight, is nothing at all like a duel. It's too fast, and too chaotic, most of the time you're just trying to stay alive and nobody involved really knows what's going on until it's over. At times like that you have to forget what you should do in a duel and just do what works. Forget the forms, forget the standard counters, just insert pointy end and repeat until dead." He released the activation-points on his shiversword and touched it on the ground until it stopped humming then rested the flat against his shoulder. "And I'm going to make a wild guess here, and correct me if I'm wrong, dear boy, but you don't strike me as the duelling type. Besides, very soon you'll have my dear cousin to rectify any slights against you and he really is rather good. No, I think you want to learn the blade for rather more practical reasons."

Wei was silent for a long moment, then he replied. "I am... very tired of being protected. Very tired indeed."

Rashar was equally silent, Wei could feel the fox-lord's eyes on him, considering, weighing.

"Yes, I imagine you are." He took a deep breath. "Wei, there is a tradition among the Ro'Xanshin, I wonder if you know of it; the Rekakai."

Wei shook his head. "No, I don't even recognise the word, swordtongue?"

"Ancient Clavicar Byzantine, actually. Well, it is a rather meaphorical term, quite poetic in its way, but in common usage it refers to the period of tutelage that a master gives to a student."

"What does it actually mean?"

"Hmmm? Oh, 'grinding the blade'. You being the blade, of course." The fox-lord said, offhandedly. "What I'm saying is, I can teach you what you really need and what you really want, your Captain is... very good I'm sure, but he's far too dedicated to preventing you from coming to harm. Pah, they're all the same, mi-"

"Military men?" Wei said, absent-mindedly finishing Rashar's sentence.

Rashar gave him a look of surprise. "Er, yes, actually... how did you-?"

"Oh, just a lucky guess, I suppose." Wei demurred.

"Well anyway," Rashar continued, waving the matter away like it was a fly. "I am offering you a term of Rekakai, consider it a wedding gift."

"But I will soon be leaving Byzantium-" Wei began to protest, Rashar merely held up a hand in dismissal.

"And I have no fixed abode, wandering warrior-philosopher, remember?" He said with an indulgent smile. "I'm sure Toroi will be happy to put me up."

"I don't know... maybe... I mean, I am honoured by your offer, and I want to accept, but... perhaps I should speak with the Viscount first, to ensure I have his approval," Wei replied, torn between how much he wanted to accept the offer and how much protocol dictated he not, it was bad enough just going this far.

"The Vi... you mean Toroi?" Rashar chuckled from behind his hand. "Oh come now, dear boy, you don't need his permission to-"

Rashar's words were cut immediately short when the screen to the chamber was slammed roughly open with a crash and in the doorway stood the imposing, black-clad and glowering figure of the Viscount, the hand on his sword-side resting on the hilt of his blade.

"Yes he damn-well does." He said, voice dripping with anger.