Councils of War

 
Council Hall
The guild council meets in a white building, with a flat, black roof, that shines like a dark star in the center of Kirol city.
Once, before the energy war, there were buildings like this in many lands.

But this is the last of the council halls.
It stands square, except at the rounded corners, where four round pillars of clear crystal rise the full height of the building.

The sun is warm on my face as I run my hand along the smooth white surface.
Later today, I’ll return here with some of the sisters, and Chiwan, and meet with the council.

At the time of the energy war, Kirol was a small city.
The king, and the great council were the central authority, and sat far away, in the capital city, in the land of Tshuan.
Each land had its own council, which sent representatives to the great council.

The council hall is the oldest building in Kirol, one of the few buildings in the world that survived the energy of the spinning sword.

The material looks like stone, but it’s not.
It’s warm to the touch, instead of cool like stone.
It can’t be cut or shaped with any of the tools found in Kirol.
Lightning does nothing to it, except give it a brief, warm glow.

I don’t know why I’ve come here now, but something calls me.
This place has such a strange, sad energy!

I let my mind rest, and let my feelings take me where I must go.
High in the air I fly, above the council hall, and shape myself into a twin of the building.
Then I spread my healing body upon my twin to resonate with it, and see the long years that it has seen.

Other times, when I become the twin of a person or object, I can see and hear all that surrounds my twin.
But this is different.

The council hall has a unique energy, and gives me a different sight.
Each of the ancient halls was built exactly the same.
When I become a twin to one of them, I am twin to all.

My sight extends all across the world, to any city that held a council hall, including the ancient cities of Tshuan.
Someday, I must discover why only this council hall survived the destruction.

The years spin before me, until I see a council meeting, before the war.
Each council is filled with twelve people, men and women, young, and old.
The king appoints two members of each council, and the local people elect the other ten.

The guilds in these times are informal collections of self-declared masters.
Each craft, and minor energy practice calls itself a guild.

The population grows quickly, many grown in artificial wombs, and the new world is calm.
The war that brought them here, almost forgotten.

The sleek bodies of the Bizra glide through the skies of every city.
When three Bizra come to the palace to visit the king, people take little notice.

The visions of the Bizra are difficult to understand.
But this time, their message is clearer than usual.
Energy masters will fill the skies, and battle with each other.

It seems hard to believe this vision, in the midst of peace.
“What do we do?” asks the king, and his advisors.

The Bizra show with a vision of schools where children and adults see images of the war that drove the Jiku to this world.
And the Bizra show an image of people forming a circle, with the Jiku symbol for peace, shining in the middle.

The Bizra fly away, and the king and the great council discuss what to do.

“The people know the stories of the war all too well,” says one council member.”
“How will stories of war, and talk of peace, keep the war away from us?”

“There must be more to their message,” says the king.

“If there is,” says the council, “then we don’t understand it.”
“We must do more than start a school!”

“What else do you suggest?” asks the king.

“The next war will rise from the energy masters,” says the council.
“We must limit the power and influence of the masters.”
“And encourage people to rely more on technology.”

“Cut ourselves off from the energy web?” asks the king.
“Forget flow and weaving?

“No your majesty,” answers the council leader.
“We will not forget the ways of energy, but the masters are too unpredictable and powerful to be unregulated.”

“And they enjoy their title of master far too much.”
“The masters must remember that they are responsible to live among us, and serve others with their skills, like any other citizen.”

The debate continues for hours but in the end even the masters on the council agree.
The king and the great council pass laws limiting the number each year who can study the ways of energy.

And the council restricts the activities of the energy masters.
There will be permits for healing, flying, and flowing, and rules that limit all public use of energy skills.

In Tshuan, these laws are strictly enforced, and the people come to rely more on technology, and less on the masters.
In distant lands, the local councils are hesistant to enforce these laws.

 
Master B’tzel
Years later, in the reign of Botzar, a delegation of masters meets with the king and the great council.
Masters of every land except Tshuan join the delegation.

“Your highness,” they say, “please give us a greater voice in the local councils.”
“The masters are the strength of your kingdom.”

“Set aside two seats in the councils that will be filled by guild members, to match the two seats appointed by the king.”
“And let us practice our arts as we choose.”
“Hear our promise that no harm will come to any people or property.”

The king and the great council barely consider the request, before they refuse it.
“We have great respect for your abilities, and your service,” says Botzar.
“But a master is a citizen like any other, and should have no special role on the councils.”

“Progress in technology has stalled with our dependence on the masters.”
“The people must learn to act for themselves, and progress in technology must continue.”
“What will happen if our technology stands still, and our old enemies ever find us?”

The delegation meets briefly before returning to their own lands.
“The guilds must become stronger,” says one master, “to resist the power of the councils and the king.”
The others agree.

Kirol is the first, but in every land except Tshuan, the masters organize themselves into formal guilds.
Tests are established for the title of master.
Guilds set their own fees, and write the rules of practice for their guild, often in violation of existing law.

The smaller guilds combine together to gain the strength of numbers.

All the masters in Tshuan seem to support the king, except one.

His name is B’tzel, and he is the most powerful master who ever lived, more powerful than the king himself.
B’tzel believes that the laws are unjust.
And he has never been one to hide his feelings.

So now, he follows his heart, and not the law.
For the next month, he provides his services to all for free.
He takes nothing from anyone, except the joy he finds in practicing his craft.

But still, he breaks the law, often in plain sight of the palace and the great council.

B’tzel is well-known and loved.
And people love to talk.

“How long can we ignore this insult to the law, your majesty?” asks the council.
“We must act against him,” or we will lose all authority among the people.”
“And the world will be ruled by the masters!”

The next day, B’tzel comes to the palace.
The king meets with him alone.

“You asked to see me, your majesty?” asks B’tzel.

“We are alone here,” says the king.
“Call me Botzar, as you did long ago, when we were friends.”

“Please stop what you are doing!”
“You will destroy the kingdom if you continue to break the law.”

B’tzel laughs.
“I don’t mean any disrespect, Botzar, but if the harmless actions of one man can destroy a kingdom, what kind of a kingdom is it?”

“Should the masters rule the world, then?” asks the king.

“I agree that the masters are wrong to ask for their own seats on the council,” says B’tzel.
“And they are too fond of their own power.”

“But you are just as wrong, for trying to replace the masters with technology.”
“Why can’t we have both?”

“B’tzel,” says the king, “you’ve heard of the prophecy of war.”
“This is what we must do to prevent it!”

“Your laws will only drive us apart, and bring the world to war, Botzar.”

“I didn’t make the laws, B’tzel,” says the king.
“I only continue the path of the councils and kings before me.”

Botzar smiles at the king, as he prepares to leave.
“I wish you success in stopping the war, your majesty, but I trust my heart more than your laws.”

 
Masters of Tears
The king waits another month, but B’tzel continues to challenge the laws in public.
Finally, the king sends a dozen masters to capture B’tzel.
“Perhaps,” thinks the king, “they will drive him out of Tshuan into one of the distant lands, where we will no longer hear of him.”

But B’tzel will not leave, and is too powerful for any of the masters to overcome.

One morning, B’tzel rises early on the web to glide to Kirol City, and meet with one of the guilds.
He wants their advice on establishing the first formal guild in Tshuan.

While he is away, masters and soldiers came to his house.

“He’s gone,” say the soldiers.
“We’ll have to come back when he returns.”

“No,” says one of the masters.
“Let’s take his family.”
“Maybe then we can convince him to leave Tshuan for one of the distant lands.”

The masters sent to capture B’tzel are powerful.
And the soldiers carry the latest weapons.

But his young family resists.
His twelve-year-old son son fashions a powerful crystal barrior between the soldiers and the family.

A fearful and over-zealous soldier fires his weapon at the barrier.
The weapon is powerful enough to shatter the strong crystal, and B’tzel’s children are killed by pieces of the shattered barrior.
B’tzel’s bondmate is only wounded, and knocked out.

She awakes a few minutes later as they are carrying her away.
“Where are my children?” she asks.

“It was an accident,” says one soldier, sadly.
“I only meant to shatter the barrier.”

“Where are they?” she screams.

“I’m sorry,” says the soldier, “but they were killed by pieces of the barrier.”
“Your parents were messaged, and the children’s bodies are being prepared for the death ceremony.”

The mother cries out in grief.
Then she turns to the soldier and stares at him.
In a moment, she flows him into crystal, and then shatters that crystal into dust.

The other soldiers fear that they are next, and fire their weapons, killing the mother.

Word of the death ceremony reaches B’tzel and the guilds throughout the lands.
Thousands of masters attend the death rites for B’tzel’s family.

One hundred masters fly with B’tzel as he goes to his house.
B’tzelf removes a few things from the house, and then flows his house into air, and leaves a garden of flowers in its place.

The other masters carry B’tzel back to Kirol.
In his grief, he cannot glide on the energy web.

 
Councils of Death
The sky is full of Bizra, as they leave the people to return to their own land.
To anyone who asks why, they respond with an image of war.

B’tzel turns from a gentle, joyful man into one bitter, and obsessed.
The guilds meet in every land outside of Tshuan, and B’tzel speaks.

“Do you see what the king and the councils will do to us for our love of the energy web?” he asks.
“Will you do nothing?”
“Or will you wait until you come home one day to find your family dead at the hands of the king?”

The guilds take over the local councils.
It begins in Kirol, and spreads to most of the cities outside of Tshuan.
The new local councils send masters to Tshuan, as their new representatives to the grand council.

The new council members are turned away.
“You have not been elected to the councils!” says the grand council.
“You will never sit with us!”

The local councils form a new grand council, which sits in the council hall at Kirol.
The guild council, as they now call it, sends a message to the king, and his great council.

“Give us the guilty for trial.”

The king and the great council refuse.
“The one who killed the children by accident is already dead, at the bondmate’s hand.”
“The others were only defending themselves!”

Late at night, led by B’tzel, the guilds find and kidnap the soldiers and masters who came to B’tzel’s house.
The next day the guild council prepares to sit in judgement.
“Take your seat on the council, B’tzel,” say the others.
“It is your right to judge those who killed your family!”

B’tzelf refuses, and the trial begins.
He is inconsolable, and can barely speak at the trial.

The soldiers are sentenced to death.
The masters who attacked B’tzel’s family wear inhibitors that block their ability to flow.
Then, the masters are transformed into stone.

When the punishments are carried out against the masters and the soldiers, B’tzel grows even stranger.
The once calm master becomes erratic and irrational.

In a few days, masters from both sides fill the skies, and turns all their skills toward war.

Some masters, including the healers, refuse to take sides, and try instead to find a way of peace.
But the war escalates, until every place is touched with blood, from the city of Kirol, to the capital city of Tshuan.

“How did we come to this?” asks the king to his council.

“Your majesty,” says the council, “they are the ones who broke the law, and punished the innocent.”
“Will you turn over the world to such men and women?”

The king locks himself in a private chamber for two days, away from his advisors, and his family.

 
The Spinning Sword
“The war is as much our fault, as theirs,” he tells the grand council when he reappears.”
“I will stop it now.”

The king recalls all of his troops and loyal masters to Tshuan, and activates the spinning sword.
He hovers in the air over an empty field, and bathes the disk in a series of energy patterns, which I recognize as the mothers.
The disk turns from metal and crystal into a bundle of dark blue, sparkling energy, and the king draws the bundle into his heart center.

A large cobalt blue platform forms beneath him. The platform is round, about twenty-five feet across, and five feet high.
There’s an outer, flat ring, but the center curves in like a satellite dish.

Within the center hole, I see a short column of spinning flame form.
It begins as a gentle flame, and then rages, and rises all the way to the sky, in the shape of a sword.

When it begins to spread out, Botzar acts.
All say that the sword is wild, and cannot be tamed, but Botzar trusts in his own strength.

Botzar stops the sword from spreading out, and engulfing the whole world.
He shapes the energy of the sword into thousands of energy nets.
Those nets move in a moment throughout the world to imprison the rebel masters.

B’tzel is the first target.
The net surrounds him, and binds him.
He can not move, or use any of his energy abilities.

With the energy of the sword, Botzar transports B’tzel into the cargo area of an old starship, orbiting the world.
It’s one of the transport ships that brought the Jiku to this world.

The ship has been repaired, enough to maintain a stable orbit indefinitely.

The king’s plan is to bring all of the bound masters here.
The king will find a way to convince them to stop fighting, and then free them.

But something goes wrong with the other nets.
They shatter, and the energy from the many nets builds into a wave of energy that spreads throughout the world.

The king casts the energy cluster out of his heart, and it clatters to the ground, as a disk.
But it is too late.

For many years afterwards people wonder how the sword could kill so many, and destroy so much.
And yet, in the middle of the destruction, some people live, and some buildings stand.

Millions die that day, including the king’s family, and the great council.
Of all the cities in the world, only the capital city in the land of Tshuan is completely destroyed.

The king picks up the disk, and walks alone among the ruins of the capital, in tears.

The king disappears, and the Bizra return.
They choose old ones from those who did not fight, to be hidden away.

Some masters join together, and hide themselves away deep in the caverns of Tshuan, for a long sleep.

The Bizra encourage many of the masters to leave the world.
The Bizra teach them how to find other worlds, and travel through space on rivers of light.

Most masters are eager to leave, and escape their part in the destruction.
A few of the masters journey to the world of seven towers, a crossroads where energy masters of many worlds come together.

The king returns briefly to the ruins of Tshuan’s capital.
He is seen, silently wandering the ruins for a day, before disappearing forever.

B’tzel is forgotten, and remains in his prison, quietly circling the world, not aging, and alone with his dark thoughts.

The Bizra appoint three guardians to hide the way to the world of the seven towers, where the sword was built.

The guardians take the shape of Kishla.
If ever, a doorway opens to the seven towers, the guardians will feel it, and come.

The ways of energy are muted.
It will be hundreds of years before the weavers and flow masters are strong again, though never as strong as before.

But still, the world begins to rebuild.

I see only part of all that took place in hundreds of cities, over hundreds of years, but it is more than enough.

The closed city has no council hall, so it remains dark to me, through all my visions.
But I know that it was unharmed by the energy of the spinning sword.

I return to my own form, and break free of the images of the past.

I have seen the energy war.
And the actions of Botzar, my twin, who brought ruin to the world.
And though I did not seek it, I know how to activate the sword.