Earthwitch

10. Wenyanga

The Judge lay naked on the bed, covered only in a thin veil. He was still breathing, but not deep enough to stir the mountain of a chest his hands rested on. A dim light shone just under the ribs on the right side, pure white against pink-red silk.

The same colour as the Kinosage's silk. 

Wenyanga didn't look up as they peeled the veil down to the Judge's waist. Salleh's gaze was burning a hole in the side of their face. It wasn't half as unnerving as the wound that stared up at them, and the soul shining through it.

A blow capable of exposing the soul would kill a lesser auric. Even if they survived the physical damage, a Crude or Refined soul reacted to raw aura like sulfur in water. A Perfect spirit, by definition, was pure enough to be stable in open air, and a Judge was two levels beyond that.

Well, five levels if you used the Ethereal scale, twelve if you followed the Orgonic chart. Most didn't. Wenyanga's only criticism of the Imperial scale was that it was simple and ascension was not. Any nuance to the fact had been sold for brevity, at a loss.

"How stable is it?" Thula asked from the other side of the bed.

Wenyanga cracked open their stoneiris and a solar flare purged every shadow from the room. They shut all three eyes immediately.

"It's not. Stage four."

"What's stage four?" Salleh asked.

"Freespin," Wenyanga said, blinking away the afterimage. "Near the end, the soul starts cycling under its own power, burning its reserves at peak efficiency."

"For a Perfect soul, the best thing to do is to let it burn all its fuel," Thula added. "Preferably somewhere remote. But with a Judge, an explosion doesn't define the impact zone."

"Radiation does." Wenyanga squinted at the ball of light glowing so gently in the dim room. "Stage six." 

Good thing Judges are hard to kill...

Tears welled in Salleh's eyes, polished by the gleam of a dying soul. "Mano, he would never..."

"Your husband held on for longer than anyone could ask," Thula said, opening a clay jar. "He bought us some time."

"How much ethercotta do you have?" Wenyanga asked, then winced.

"Shit."

Thula dipped a finger into the jar. It came out with a black smudge that reflected no light.

"I swear I had more," she said. "This isn't enough to hold a chicken's soul."

The Judge coughed. Salleh moved to his side in one seamless stride, and wiped flecks of blood from his lips with her sleeve. "We're running out of time."

No, we're running out of options. We ran out of time the moment he got gored by a Pettygod

"There's one other thing we can try," Wenyanga said. "But you'll have to leave the room for your own safety."

"What is it?" Salleh asked.

"Manual suppression."

She squinted at Wenyanga, honing a distrustful glare to a fine point. "Even if you knew how, no one here is powerful enough to contain a Judge-level explosion." 

"It's not a matter of power." Wenyanga flexed their fingers and all ten rings tremored. "It's a skill issue." 

Salleh turned to Thula. "What happens if I stay?"

"As a Sage... there might be some concussive effects."

"And what of you?"

Thula's emotions rarely got close to an operating station, but that anxious look returned. "I'll be fine."

"Then I'll be fine," Salleh said. "Have you done this before?"

Wenyanga heard Thula's response a breath early, which saved them from lying.

"No, but I trust the Seer with my life."

That invisible weight settled on Wenyanga's shoulders again.

"Do what you must then," Salleh said. "But Malo won't die without a witness."

Wenyanga adjusted one of their rings. "I suggest you stand by the window, for the nausea."

Deep breath. Focus. Centre. Wenyanga's body followed its orders as they were given. The heat of the desert disappeared, as did the niggling pain in their wrist, the smell of dust and sweat, and the cloud of fatigue hanging over every thought.

This time, when they opened their stoneiris, they held it open until the shock of the searing light faded.

Breathe, and their lungs strained to obey.

Wenyanga placed a hand over the Judge's soul. Its glow was cool on the palm, but their rings began to hiss.

A soul came in many shapes, and aura wasn't the only thing that bent its form. Some were so large they pushed up into the liver, others so small the stoneiris dilated to see them. They could have rings, or moons, or bands of Ether that flowed from one pole to the other.

As Wenyanga's spiritual sight adjusted, the light obscuring the Judge's soul faded, revealing its shape -- a black hammer turning on the axis of a silver ring. No, not a ring, a blur. Two tiny spheres raced within it, locked in a binary orbit. 

Symbols could be bound to souls artificially, like a badge from a mentor or a family heirloom...

...or a stake to mark one's property. 

I. Said. Breathe.

Wenyanga turned their focus within, at the ten rings orbiting their soul, each one tilted on a different plane. They followed elongated paths as if they were trying to tear themselves away, and sped up as they got closer to the symbol at the centre.

A book would have been more poetic, but Wenyanga hadn't had a say in the matter. A cruel sense of humour had chosen an onion on their behalf.

Carefully, Wenyanga peeled off a layer of their soul, imposing a weight on the room that made the floor creak. Despite its fading strength, the Judge's soul churned against the tidal pressure trying to smother it. The curtains began to pull inwards.

Wenyanga peeled a second layer, grinding their will against the Judge's.

Surgery of the body took precision, instruments entered the flesh like a temple of worship. Soul extraction, at some point, became a war of attrition, then an exorcism. 

A window cracked.

Wenyanga peeled a third layer.

Then a fourth.

And a fifth.