Maybe the guildmaster had adopted it from this very man.
“Enough pleasantries,” he said. “Your journey is but the first leg of a much longer walk upon a Path beyond your understanding. We must see to it that you are properly educated.”
The monk nodded, and the two men from the door appeared from the wings of the hallway. They drew level to my friends before they both gestured to the left and right. I glanced back at their faces. Faryn smiled encouragingly at me. Mahrai looked uneasy, but Vesma, Kegohr, and Kumi simply looked relieved that we had arrived here in one piece.
“You, young Swordslinger, will stay. The others will be shown to their cells.”
“Go on,” I encouraged them. “You’ve earned a rest. I’ll see you soon.”
They followed the monks into the wings of the hallway. The monastic brothers closed the doors quietly behind themselves, leaving me alone with the ancient monk. I met his eye and waited for him to say something. My time in the Seven Realms had taught me the value of patience when it came to powerful Augmenters. They liked to make people wait to test their mettle.
“Sit,” he finally said.
I took up a meditative posture without complaint and used the opportunity to study the man more closely. The stole around his neck marked him as a person of authority, and the sheer power in the air around him told me that he was the Hierophant that Xilarion had mentioned.
“He wields extraordinary power,” Nydarth whispered.
“Like the crashing waves of a tsunami,” Yono agreed.
“You both sound afraid,” Choshi replied.
“Only those who have never held power do not understand what it is to lose it,” Nydarth said. “Be quiet, little one. The Master needs his focus.”
I smiled as their voices retreated into the back of my mind.
“You have learned to hide your true power from others,” the Hierophant observed. “An admirable quality in a leader. But it is only the beginning, and you have much to learn. And time works against us.”
“I’m ready,” I said firmly.
The Hierophant prowled around me in a small circle, studying me with a brusque gaze. I kept my eyes forward, examining the sparkling mosaic above the altar and settling my breathing to replenish my Vigor.
“Then cast aside your Immense Blades, Swordslinger,” he said, “and let us begin your first lesson in Physical Augmentation.”
Chapter Nine
Physical Augmentation? I wasn’t sure what the Hierophant meant by that, but he had asked me to put away my Immense Blades, so I obeyed.
Seated on the floor of the Dying Sun Monastery’s inner hall, I unclasped the harness from my chest and gently placed the Demure Rebirth and the Depthless Dream down by my side. Nydarth hummed as I unbuckled the Sundered Heart from my belt and positioned it by the other weapons. I kept my meditative posture, opened my channels, and smiled as my Vigor leapt to my will. Even after the fights against the spinedrakes and a long trek over the mountains, I knew I could still tap into my reserves and blast my way through a trial.
It wouldn’t be easy, but I hadn’t come this far by playing it safe.
“What’s Physical Augmentation?” I asked the Hierophant.
He kept up his prowling stride around me. “The use of Vigor to fortify your physical body. Basic Augmentation is taught to all initiates and disciples, but it is an unsubtle and explosive art that bends the body and mind to its limits. You’ve relied on it too heavily in your travels, Swordslinger.”
“It’s served me well,” I answered.
“Perhaps so, but it is only the surface of the arcane arts. Cheap, raw power ripped from the creatures of the Seven Realms to protect the guilds and clans. As time has gone by, more and more guilds insist on turning their initiates into soldiers rather than students.”
The Hierophant was obviously a traditionalist, but it was hard to argue with his observations. Every guild was armed and prepared for trouble at a moment’s notice.
“So, tell me,” I said, “how does Physical Augmentation work?”
“Feel the energy flowing through you,” the monk said. “Find your channels. But rather than projecting power into a technique, allow it to strengthen your physical form. Take the element you are most familiar with, Center Disciple, and begin.”
The Hierophant’s words echoed sharply through the hall. I took a deep breath and found the channels of fire within. They began in the center of my chest and twisted through my body into my hands and feet, warming me with their internal heat. I inserted a small amount of Vigor into the pathways and instinctively opened my hands. Untamed Torch hissed free in a small plume of flame, but I closed my hands immediately.
That wasn’t my task. I had to do something far more difficult.
“You’re calling upon technique,” the Hierophant snapped. “Do better.”
I could do this. I simply needed to focus.
I ignored the Hierophant’s stinging words and narrowed my focus on the pathways themselves. The channels were strong from almost a year of instinctive use. They were designed to project a variety of techniques into the world outside my body.
I adjusted my focus to the edges of the pathways and pulled at them with my thoughts. Heat continued to warm my body as I meditated, twisted the rigid channels, and tried to push them into a different shape.
The Hierophant didn’t seem to be in a hurry, and time passed as I attempted to reforge the shape of the channels into something else. I had done it before, over a matter of weeks, but I knew the sensation and the feeling of my internal magic highways almost as well as I knew my own body.
The edges of the vein-like structures inside me changed shape. Rather than smooth channels to carry my Vigor directly to my hands, they took on a thorned feeling. Small branches
