OVERSEER: The Duel

Meron settled into the deep shadow of a dusty stairwell overhang. A faint scent of urine dominated the place, and she wrinkled her nose at the unpleasant odor. The dim moon shone overheard, providing enough light to notice the shadowy form creeping along the opposite edge of the dark alleyway. Meron settled further into the shadow, steeling herself for the unavoidable battle. She could say he was invisible, but it was not. At least not to Meron.

Meron had mastered perceiving reality. The crouching figure skulking near her cloaked himself, sending out compulsions to look away, to not notice the telltale signs he was present. But that wasn’t reality.

Meron perceived him. Her Mind-Presence, the core of her being, soaked into the surrounding area. She knew every stone and blade of grass, every insect and person in the surrounding area. Even the man approaching her who considered himself invisible.

Meron shrugged the hood off her head, freeing her vision for any unexpected surprises. Thin and wiry, she looked much younger than her 19 years suggested. Compared to her mother and father, she was short, although she was of average height. Her mother, Terok, was one of the most beautiful women in the City of Ly, and among the most influential. She was the richest, as well. Meron had inherited her eyes, just not her height.

The city respected her father, Pasil. He was the Judge of Ly, a man of principle. He wielded powers beyond any citizen, skills that made him a powerful force in the city. Powers he had taught her. Powers that she would use now, in this hunt.

In her mind’s eye, Meron imagined a dense cloud surrounding herself, drawn in around her. She saw flashes of color, swirls of thought, and an inner core of strength that contained both her ability and her knowledge. Her Mind-Presence. Meron was an Arbitrator, a powerful one. She had spent her entire life mastering her Mind-Presence and sworn herself to protecting the people. She would uphold the Strictures of the Most High to her dying breath.

Meron reveled in the crisp night air. During the day, she could not walk down the street without someone approaching her, asking for healing or judgment over some paltry offense. She didn’t begrudge the citizenry, but sometimes she wanted to get out and experience freedom. She found their attention distracting and often bothersome.

Meron rubbed her scalp. She had shaved her head earlier that day, but already she felt stubble growing. Meron had mastered her lessons early in childhood and had never poisoned herself with magic the way most Arbitrators had. Arbitrators lost their hair during training because magic, while useful, poisoned their bodies. Meron shaved her head in deference to Arbitrator traditions, but she drew the line at her eyebrows. She flat-out refused to shave her eyebrows. It was a point of contention between Meron and the Arbitrator Council.

Meron took a deep, silent breath, steadying herself before she pounced. The shadowy figure drew close, falling into her trap. She flared her Mind-Presence, reaching out and gripping the approaching shadow with invisible force. The shadow froze, then a ferocious stab in her Mind-Presence made her draw in a quick gasp of pain. The shadow leapt high into the air, shooting towards the tenement rooftop three stories above.

Meron shunted the mind-stab aside, reaching out with her mind again, attaching herself to the dark shadow above, and jerked. Meron pulled forward, but she braced herself against the stairwell, expecting it. The figure stopped in mid-air, crashing into the tenement and catching a windows slit with one hand before he fell. With her Mind-Presence, Meron saw invisible bands of power stretching between the figure and the ground, supporting him. Meron struggled with the figure above, a tug-of-war attempting to pull him down from his perch two stories above.

Some invisible force pushed Meron backwards. She crashed into the alcove she had just hidden in, banging her head against the wall and drawing blood. She lost her grip on her opponent. Her quarry slipped away, shooting sideways away from her, then turned upwards towards the roof again. Meron scrambled to her feet, launching herself to the roof of the tenement above to follow him.

Meron cleared the lip of the building, exposing a rooftop garden with many foam-stone basins containing various flowers, grasses, and vegetables. As soon as she cleared the edge, something solid and blocky soared towards her. Meron let it pass through her, absorbing it into her Mind-Presence. She cast it back in the direction it came. The pot shattered close to her attacker, missing him by a hair. He leaped to one side.

The shadowy man shot into the air, invisible in the moonlight. Meron latched on to his Mind-Presence, allowing herself to be pulled along. She would not lose him again!

Meron crashed into the lip at the edge of the roof, digging her heals in and holding on for all she was worth with her Mind-Presence, like someone lassoing a horse. The man slammed to a stop in mid-air, and Meron gave a mighty pull with her mind while flaring her Mana. The man reeled backwards in a tumble, sailing over Meron’s head and crashed into the raised foams-stone planter behind her.

Meron fell backward hard on the stone roof, rolling behind a raised garden container in one fluid motion. She concentrated hard, searching for the Mind-Presence of her opponent. It wasn’t hard to find. Her opponent’s Mind-Presence blazed like a thunderstorm, controlling power and knowledge she could only dream of having. He leaped over the planter, landing like a trained acrobat. Once again stabbing at her mind. She expected it, absorbing the blow, channeling it into nothingness.

Flipping over a container herself, Meron somersaulted in the air, a thick wooden staff materializing out of nowhere in her hands. With her added momentum, she swung down hard, her staff passing through her opponent’s head as if made of mist. The staff struck the planter behind him with a loud crack, splintering in two. Without missing a beat, Meron switched tactics and began using both pieces of the staff as weapons. Meron not only fought with weapons, but she fought the man in his Mind-Presence, overwhelming with multiple attacks so he couldn’t retaliate in kind.

Something flickered behind her, and Meron dodged a ghostly, disembodied staff, crackling with black lightning. Concentrating, Meron imagined a shield around her left arm, blocking a second attack from the staff, a huge shower of black sparks lighting up the roof. Her attacker had time to launch another mind-stab at her, and Meron gasped in pain. She darted forward, dropping the broken pieces of her staff, and attacked the robed man before her with her bare hands. His hands blurred, and he blocked her devastating, open-handed attacks. Meron beat at his Mind-Presence, not allowing any more attacks on her mind. Meron created a ghostly staff of her own from her mind, and launched a coordinated disembodied attack on the man, forcing him backward. Step by step, he gave ground until he stood at the very lip of the roof.

 With a mighty shove from his own Mind-Presence, Meron fell backward and landed on her heels and elbows several feet away. Meron flipped up to her feet. But the man had time to create another ethereal staff, and he marched towards her, ready to strike. His Mind-Presence launched a counter-strike at Meron, and she moaned in pain and exhaustion.

Meron concentrated hard, and a dark whip, crackling with black lightning, appeared in her hand. She flicked it, and the corded lightning snapped out, grabbing the man’s ankles in an angry spray of dark sparks. Meron yanked hard, pulling the man’s legs out from underneath him. He crashed hard to the ground, his head making a dull thud on the foam-stone. Meron jumped on top of him, her hand raised above his face for the final blow.

The man broke into a wide grin. “Enough!”

Meron grinned as well, then climbed off of him. She stood, letting her ethereal shield and whip evaporate into the moonlit night.

“I don’t think I can teach you anything else. You know all my tricks. By the creator, I think you’re even better than your mother!” This was high praise indeed, coming from the Judge of Ly himself. “What gave me away?”

Meron’s grin widened, and she offered Pasil a hand. “You’re easy to find, Father. You’re too powerful to hide yourself from anyone that is looking for you.”

Pasil nodded, his bald head bobbing in the moonlight. He reached behind his head, checking his scalp for blood. “I’m getting old, and I’ve got to get better control of my Mind-Presence.” He winced a little, finding a cut where his head had collided with the foam-stone roof.

“I don’t think there is anyone better at controlling their Mind-Presence!” Meron grinned. “Let me look at that.” Pasil turned, presenting his split scalp for Meron’s inspection. She concentrated for a moment, brushing her finger over the wound. A fine spray of sparks covered the area, and the cut sealed itself.

Pasil grinned. “We better get home. Your mother has a big dinner planned for your last night in the City.”

Meron glanced at her father and grunted.

Arbitrators were powerful sorcerers. While all people used magic, Arbitrators trained in combat, ethics, and justice. This made them ferocious and also feared. Many powerful sorcerers existed, but none as dangerous as Arbitrators.

Meron’s mentor, Tanly, was far below her own abilities. Meron often wondered why her father, Pasil, had not taken her as his own apprentice, but he asserted it wasn’t proper for a father to take his own daughter as an Arbitrator apprentice.

Pasil let Tanly train Meron as she saw fit. He even let Tanly punish Meron when required. Once, he had allowed Tanly to punish Meron with mental and manual rehabilitation when she was a teenager and became rebellious and arrogant. That had been an eye-opening experience!

Three months of lighting street crystals at night, serving meals at the common area, cleaning trash off the street and every other demeaning task they could find. Not to mention lack of sleep! Worse yet were the Mental Rehabilitation sessions. The Elder Council rummaged through her mind, examining every thought, every action, and dissecting her motives. It was the worst experience she had ever endured. She shuddered just thinking about it.

Her father had said nothing, just offering sympathy. She later learned she had been in rehabilitation much longer than required, at her father’s own request! She was so mad at him she didn’t speak to him for a month. Later, after she reflected on it, she realized her father thought he was doing her a favor by teaching her the consequences of her actions before she did anything so bad there was no recovering from it.

“But why?” Meron asked several months later, when they were on speaking terms again.

“Because you are powerful, and your skills aren’t your own. They belong to the people you protect. Power breeds arrogance. I love you too much to let you fall into that trap. If the Emissary gets involved…” Pasil shook his head. The thought stopped her short.

Meron studied her father, looking up and taking in his shiny bald head, his wide-set shoulders, and brawny arms. Even his milky eyes, which others found frightening, were dear to her. He seemed young, even though he was over 50. Meron had always viewed him as a gentle giant.

Meron shared a special bond with her father. She knew all the war stories of his youth, of his power and brutal punishments. However, she had never seen that side of him. He was always gentle with her and preferred finding fair solutions to his judgements instead of just punishing the guilty. It was one reason people respected him so much.

Meron stood for a moment, studying her father. She gathered her courage and ask the most important questions he had ever asked him. “Everyone says you are ready to ascend to the next level of intelligence. Why haven’t you done it yet?”

Pasil stopped and considered her question for a moment. He stared into Meron’s eyes. “I don’t want to leave your mother.”

Meron nodded as the two turned and walked toward a narrow stairwell. Meron contemplated her father. He could become a king with a flick of thought. However, he seemed happy here with her mother, Terok. Meron couldn’t understand how something like love, no matter how strong, would hold him back.

Minon wasn’t close to her mother. They fought as Meron grew older, and it was the main reason Meron had moved into the Justice Complex when she was fourteen. Both were passionate and stubborn, although Terok was more stubborn than she. Meron controlled her emotions better and gathered her temper when needed. She loved her mother, of course. She just didn’t always like her.

Meron enjoyed these nighttime training sessions. Her father was the only person in the city who matched her abilities. She suspected her father could defeat her, but she never mentioned that to him. She appreciated this last bit of time together before she left to become the Emissary’s apprentice.

Meron had a tough time gathering Arbitrators to train in combat with her. She required several opponents at once, but they never provided a challenge. Pasil told her she had too much of her mother in her. Indeed, her mother had taught her combat from the time she could stand. The last time she had spared with her mother, she had landed several blows, and it had sparked the very argument that forced her to go live at the Justice Complex. Meron knew she could defeat her mother every time. However, they never spared again after that incident.

Her mentor, twenty years her senior, was far below Meron’s level of control. However, Tanly was a competent Arbitrator. One of the better ones, in fact. Pasil made sure of it.

 Meron was a prodigy. She mastered concepts and skills in days that took months, sometimes years, for others to master. Even using the direct-thought training methods that Arbitrators used, Meron went far beyond ordinary skill. While the council assigned Tanly as her mentor, her actual teacher was her father. He had taught her skills that no one else in the city could master.

 Tanly had taught her other skills, though. Tanly understood the citizenry, and she taught Meron these skills. How to draw out a fair solution during an arbitration session. How to relate to people. The type of lessons one only learned from experience.

The two entered the street and walked down the dim thoroughfare. Metallic light fixtures hung over the narrow roadway, their crystals providing just enough light to see by. Sometimes, rust ran down the wall, and Meron made a note they needed painting when a work crew was in this area.

They reached the end of the deserted street and crossed into a wider roadway. This street had many people roaming around. The atmosphere had a festive quality, and groups of colorful people intermingled. Minon loosed a silent sigh and steeled herself for the inevitable inane encounters with the citizenry.

Minon breathed easier when she noticed a few discrete Arbitrators, their presence enough to prevent any unfortunate altercations. They neared the city’s small entertainment district. A few more streets, and they would cross into the business district and reach their home. No townsfolk accosted them.

They passed a deserted block, walking between more warehouses. Terok, Minon’s mother, owned every warehouse in the next few blocks.

They arrived at a small warehouse. This warehouse stood out, in that it was smaller and scragglier than the ones surrounding it. It was the first warehouse Terok had bought, and Meron’s former home sat atop its roof. Meron often wondered why they never moved to a mansion like other rich people. Her mother always said, “I don’t want to forget where I came from.”

They reach a small door built inside a much larger door, and Pasil reached for a key tied to a lanyard around his neck. He bent, the key poised just before the lock, then he turned and smiled towards Meron and winked.

“Want to go over the roof, instead?” Pasil straightened, his grin spreading wider.

Meron’s eyes narrowed, and she watched at her father. “You know Mother hates that. She hears the bell above the door, so she knows someone is coming in. If we do this, it’s you that has to deal with the fallout.”

Pasil, grinning now, looked upward at the shear wall in front of them. He glanced at Minon, then winked again.

Meron studied him. “Before we go, I want you to know I love you. I don’t know when I will return, but thank you for everything.”

Pasil studied her for a moment, then reached one burly arm around her, giving Meron a great hug. “I love you too, sweetheart. I promise you, we will see each other before I ascend.”

“So you are thinking about it? I wasn’t sure.”

Pasil looked up at the roof. “Of course I’m thinking about. It is… hard… for me to stay this way. But I can’t leave your mother. I love her too much.”

Pasil glanced at Meron, then grinned. “For now, lets celebrate your last night in the city.”

Pasil leapt into the air, pushing against the Ether with his mind, and scaled the wall. With a last look, Meron signed, then followed her father to the roof.

The End