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This is a story written by request of user frostofthecwsw; he asked to be in a story of mine and I had quite the "in." Thanks to him for giving me a reason to actually get it typed up. This is, as the title indicates, the first of two parts; the next will be up whenever it gets finished. t3h p05t, 4 j00.

Nero is ©frostofthecwsw

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The forests of Vidyaranya are famous worldwide for the monks that have entered them and returned with the knowledge of the universe in them. Few know what happens to those who traverse the threshold from civilization to wilderness enshrouded by bark and leaf. Women and children weep with tears of sorrow and joy to see husbands and fathers leave this world, knowing that upon their return, they will be changed men â€" changed for the better, and changed for eternity, never to bestow upon those they once knew the same love they once had.

It is said that the forest strips one of the capacity for earthly love, but this is not true. Life in the forest yields the ability to love the earth so fully and so equally that all become family; the special attention that used to indicate to family and friends that each member was one of a select few vanishes in the universal love of all things, never to be seen again.

Some do not come back changed. Some find that the path of renunciation is too harsh, return to families, and continue their lives not as selfish as before, but still able to love and be loved in a human fashion. Some return changed, but not as expected. Those who are proud and guided by hearts like volcanoes may enter the forest angry for one reason and return equally angry for all reasons. These are those who have failed the training set out for them and who were blinded by their pride. Those whose hearts' fires are but kindled by the forest are a danger to the world, but those whose hearts have been tamed and made peaceful have no strength nor desire to resist them.

That is where the creature Rutajit comes in. I am the anomaly. I am the one who has seen beyond and chosen to return not out of love for mankind, but hate for those who intentionally misguide it from its ultimate goal. That is why he is called "he who knows the light, but lives without it" - Jñanajñaviankshetra. He is an executioner, but it has not always been this way. He knows of the many times in his life. He knows when he has had the capacity to kill, and the will, and not done it. He knows when he has had neither. He remembers learning to kill, learning why to kill. He remembers preserving life. He remembers delivering a life that should have been snuffed out to those who love it.

Rutajit, or Ruta, or Rut, or Ajit, or Jñan, or Kshetra, however he has been called or wished to be called, remembers everything he has done, because he has conquered himself. But this is not the story of that conquest. This is the story of when he tore down a kingdom of glory, wisdom, and peace, simply because he believed it was the wrong peace. Rewind three thousand years, to the world of Vidyaranya before the fall.

"Ajit! Get your head out of that book and get to class."

The blue-furred fox looked up from the old tome and rolled his eyes. "Mom. I'm twenty-two, and Ishan is a physicist. I'll get there on time."

"And I'm telling you that you'll need a phys_ician_ if I find out you've been missing classes for that God-awful pseudo-science you read about. Now get out of here."

Ajit harrumphed indignantly, closed the volume, and gently pushed it into his satchel, then stood with an irritated flick of his tail and hefted the pack over his slim shoulders. Light from the open windows and door flooded the place and glanced off the sheen of his coat, where it wasn't covered by the silk, emerald shirt he wore. The pale, brown wood made this entire family of foxes stand out starkly from their abode, but somehow, the softness of the fleshy paneling also complemented the liquid curves of the race.

It was a spacious place that was domed in structure, with the dining room being the central area and having a high ceiling, which kept it cool in the more-than-balmy summers. Unfortunately, it made it frigid during the winter months, so they, like most families, had a chamber under the floor for heated water. The fires in the palace that kept it heated were off in early autumn, as it was at this time, to save energy and money.

"Alright, I'm going. I'll be home for dinner."

"Ruta..." she cooed apologetically, walking over from the kitchen and wiping her hands off on an apron. Her lightly wrinkled features creased in a motherly smile as she lifted her hand to his cheek. He glanced at the deep hue of the jewel set on her forehead on a jet-black circlet. A symbol of seeking a Divine life. It offset the blue sheen over her red fur and pronounced both, giving her the grace of age so many women failed to capture.

He didn't meet her eyes, but this was a ritualistic thing. "You know I love you, Ruta."

He did meet her gaze then, with a sardonic roll of his brown eyes. "Twenty-two, Mom." But he smiled.

Her face fell into a wry look from under her eyebrows. "I know. So get gone, you slacker." She had to reach up to ruffle his head fur as he said goodbye and walked out the door. Vajra sighed as she watched him go. He was so talented, if only he would get his mind out of the clouds.

"I heard that!" he called, and she giggled. A good child. Less focused than his brother, but somehow... easier to live with.

Rutajit waited patiently while Ishan sketched out the equations to get them to class. Ishan was a white wolf with a perky demeanor and a mind sharp as a knife, and as dangerous. He was a brilliant physicist, probably one of the best in the business. He stood an inch or two over Ajit, but that was nothing special. Most people stood an inch or two over Ajit.

The fox watched his friend's hand move the chalk with practiced ease across a slate, the necessary numbers mostly down to memory with only a cosine or sine to hesitate for, and then it was even a practiced hesitation. He was never wrong; just worried. He had made a lot of mistakes as a kid, messing around in open fields, almost getting himself and Ajit killed more than a few times. They had survived, though, and now stood as seniors in their respective colors - pink on the wolf for physics, and green on the fox for biology.

In the Society, there were seven major branches of science. Logic and mathematics, as the purest sciences, were grouped together and garbed in white. Physics, solidly derived from mathematics, was a pale shade of pink. Quantum physics was bright red, then, and related immediately to chemistry, in orange, because all chemical interaction is caused by quantum intermolecular and intramolecular reactions. Chemistry gives way to biochemistry in polished gold, which transitions into the deep, emerald hue of the many forms of biology. Finally, the science of ecology emerges in midnight blue, so far removed from mathematics that the two are hardly relatable by those who do not pursue the sciences.

In general, those from the higher orders held contempt for those in the lower, but it was almost an obligatory contempt. Years of successful research and analysis had made it inescapably clear that to better society, all seven orders were required. The mathematicians and logicians came up with equations and new methods of manipulating them so that the physicists could put them to use, even as the physicists produced engineers who found new ways of applying them. The quantum physicists rarely used anything from the physics department anymore, instead relying on their own progress while the chemists borrowed from what they learned to better understand interactions on the molecular level, even while they operated independently to produce drugs and synthetic substances. Biochemists tested the drugs alongside biologists, most of whom dabbled in ecology, anyway, for the purposes of finally applying the drugs in nature, and so even though there was a flow from one end of the "spectrum" to the other, it was acknowledged that all were necessary for a whole, productive Society and any could operate independently as an individual Science. It was a time of harmony.

"There we go," Ishan said in his rumbling bass, tapping decisively on the edge of the slate.

Ajit, vaguely schooled in physics, jumped. "You have got to stop scaring me with that!" If the chalk tossed a decimal in the equation, they could end up crushing themselves.

Ishan laughed like a rockslide. "Ha! You silly little biologist. Always worrying."

Ajit rolled his eyes. He knew why his friend tapped like that. It was to give him a reason to stare at the board one last time and double-check for errors. The fox was not the worried one, here. "Well, give it some life. Don't wanna be late; my mom's getting on me."

"Ah, she's been talking to Professor Sabarundi again, has she?" Ishan rubbed his thumb across the reading line a logician had programmed into the board. Immediately, it glowed white, indicating that the equations were legitimate. The wolf rubbed it again, and the two friends lifted two inches off the ground before hurtling at eye-watering speeds through the streets on the way to the Library.

Ajit struggled to speak over the wind, clutching his satchel tightly to his chest. "It's more that I don't try to hide that stupid book Rishi gave me." The city whirled by them, ochre streets and clay, domed houses and shops like eggs in a nest, surrounded by lush vegetation with orange, red, and yellow fruits still hanging on a few trees even though the main crops had been harvested. Some people, most of them older and shooting withering looks at the young pair, were also flying through the air with slates or notebooks, but most were walking either in the colorful robes of the sciences or the softer, gray and brown shades of the artisans, artists, and menials. Smiles were abundant. It was a good time to be alive.

Ishan gave him an odd look, perfectly at ease in his muscular frame despite the wind. "You're still reading that thing? You'll make people nervous, reading it in public." They stopped an inch in front of another pair of flying students, the slate flashed white, and their course redirected itself to avoid a collision.

The fox shrugged, keeping his eyes forward as he shouted against the air. "Well, it's interesting. I know it's not a science, but it's fun to learn about, even as stupid as it sounds."

"Yeah, I know. Just keep it under wraps, okay? The last thing you want is one of the professors to get wind and think they've been wasting their time on you. Besides, people think you're weird enough as it is." He smirked and chucked his friend's arm.

Ajit laughed. "Ah, don't be such a DOUCHE!" Normally, the word would have come out sounding like it was being spoken normally, but Ajit didn't have time to adjust his volume when they came to an abrupt halt in front of the main hall and the word bounced around the open air while everyone around snickered and laughed at his reddening ears.

Ishan was doubled over his chalkboard, laughing. "This is exactly what I'm talking about."

"Man, this is exactly what I'm talking about. Thanks for the ride." He shook his head, put his satchel on his back, and walked off, then turned. "I forget - what time do you get out of class today?"

"Around fifteen. You?"

"Fourteen. Would you mind giving me a ride home?"

"Can do."

"See ya."

"Bye." The two walked off in different directions towards the towering complex before them. It was like a cross between a wigwam and a Gothic cathedral. Earthy colors predominated, gaudily overlaid with the seven colors of the sciences to denote the entrances to the different sections of the campus. On-campus dorms looked like loaves of bread to the sides of the main building and the soft curves of the academic buildings peaked out from behind it.

Students in the colors of their specialties talked and laughed in packs, gaggles, and droves as they climbed the shallow, inviting steps up to the tremendous entrance hall. Ajit greeted a few, but noticed, as usual, that he was mostly talking to kids dressed in black - freshmen who had yet to choose a major. He had never really gotten along with those his age. Not really. Like everyone else, he had a circle of friends, but he primarily associated with those whose minds were most open and easiest to bend. The youngest.

He navigated his way through the hive-like halls and tunnels until he reached his first class, Advanced Animal Physiology. In the front of the class, a wizened old mouse had a frog cut open and was holding its heart out of its chest and zapping it with occasional bolts of biological energy. This was individualized life force; not like the broad-range, landscaping ability of ecology.

"This frog is dead," Professor Treffenger announced once the class was settled. "Its heart is beating because I'm making it beat. Would anyone like to remind me of the six basic principles of life before we get started? All you seniors need to remember not to slack off this year; check back up on your basics before final exams. Anyone?"

Ajit glanced around the room surreptitiously, checking to see if anyone felt confident enough to actually put forth an answer while at the same time keeping on eye on Jñan to make sure the little brown-noser didn't get to the right place in his notes before Ajit could give the answer he had known for the past four years. Some people...

Just as he saw the glimmer of recognition flash through the fennec's features, he nonchalantly tossed his hand in the air. The mouse up front nodded sagely at him, and he rattled off the principles with only a short hesitation. Jñan glared briefly at him. The rest of the class was either asleep or staring into space.

"I'm glad at least one of you has managed to retain some information over the years. Today, we will cover a theory described a few hundred years ago by Dr. Jacobi Toller. He theorized that either one person with impossibly complete biological knowledge or multiple people, perfectly coordinated, could reanimate the dead. It has been tried many times before with varying degrees of gruesome failure, all of which, you'll be pleased to note, we will cover in the next two lectures." That got some people's attention. Mentioning blood and guts will do that.

A voice with a thinly veiled combative tone rose up. "But Doctor Treffenger, don't the holy scriptures teach that the various forces of a living creature disperse at the moment of death? If you brought something back to life with other forces, it's still not the same as it was before. It's pretty much just a golem."

"Krishma, religion has no part in this discussion. If you want to talk religion, you can go put on a gray robe and tell people how to live their lives."

The short, nonplussed panthress was not about to be quieted. "With all due respect, Sir, it has everything to do with religion. People have sought a fusion between science and spirituality for centuries and this..."

"Krishma, that is blasphemy, and I simply will not have it spoken of in my class or at this university. You are dismissed to the dean's office." His voice was calm without being cold, but fighting him would have been as useless as fighting a stone giant. This was not the first time he had experienced problems with this girl. He had left off the frog heart, which slowed quickly and stopped.

The girl shivered momentarily and Ajit felt a chill sweep through the room. No one else seemed to feel it, except for a momentary horror at the forbidden word - blasphemy. Then, they snickered behind their hands and told ugly jokes to one another about her flat chest, thick glasses, and short stature. Krishma took a few moments to breathe in the stillness she was sharing with Ajit and looked at him significantly. He looked back, not sure what to think. He sympathized with her cause, but he would never have had the courage to stand up to a professor. And there was something else going on.

Ajit watched her walk to the door to the classroom. The professor, eyes like granite, began carefully starting the frog's heart again. The girl turned to them all and quietly intoned, "I will be dead in a week." Facing the professor, she said, "Salaam."

Everyone else in the classroom continued their mocking and their jabbering, but that last word rocked Ajit's soul. The way she said it, the pain, indignity, and ominous clarity with which she projected it into his life, made the air in the room thicker and colder. When she left, a part of him felt like it had been ripped off.

She wasn't a particularly special person, to Ajit. She was pretty when she wanted to be, but for the most part, she didn't want to be. Her glasses made her eyes seem to bulge out of her face and her attitude was prickly, if starkly academic. It was she who had encouraged him to read the book he had now, and it was she who routinely interrupted classes to ask about the moral significance of any given experiment or scientific investigation. She talked about wars and politics. Ajit had argued with her from time to time about ethical dilemmas and religious conflicts and she always, beyond a doubt, came out on top. More often, they discussed things and while he contributed his massive store of knowledge to a topic, she was able to imbue it with meaning due to her extensive readings of non-scientific articles.

So he had asked Rishi, a sketchy rat about his age, to retrieve a particular text for him: A History of Religious Artwork in the Sciences. There were two heretical words and a nearly blasphemous suggestion in the title itself. Artwork? Religion? In the sciences? Unheard of. In the reading of it, Ajit learned that people had been making sense of this strange world in context of spirituality in the divine sciences for generations. How the books had gotten published was a mystery; they should have been restricted to children's literature and tabloids. But it was fascinating and best of all, it made sense.

So he got another one. Mysticism: of Gods and Men. His parents thought it was the same one because he had kept a book cover. They only let him read it because they thought it was for a class, to understand the nature of the non-scientific mind. Mathematical Melody: An Investigation Into the Application of the Divine Sciences for Artistic Splendor. Book after book, he increased his chances of being caught and he enhanced the depth of his conversations with Krishma. Eventually, he started to call Rishi his friend, though only rarely. The rat knew how to read Tarot cards, which had gotten people thrown out of the university before. He was an ecologist.

God's Debris. The Confucian Analects. Dao De Jing. The Psychotherapist's Handbook.. It was not long before he had to censor himself around the people he knew and loved and even so, it frustrated him to know that people could go on living without considering this other side to life. How could they believe in the intangible forces of gravity and electromagnetism without believing in the equally invisible hand of God or psychological trends of the human mind?

So when Krishma left that room that day, even though he didn't like her and sometimes could not stand her pugnacious attitude, her scathing remarks on other human beings, or her idiosyncratic snorts of irritation, he knew that this wasn't just a student being sent to the dean's office for expulsion. Her reaction was real, wavering fear. Maybe she was being overdramatic; it wouldn't have been unexpected from her. But he had a feeling that somehow... she was going to die.

Ajit tried to enjoy the rest of his classes, but it was difficult after that oppressive air had been injected into him. It was all so strange; as disrespective as he was of upper-level government and as suspicious as he was of any organization that one had to pay huge quantities of money to just to suffer through, he had never felt anything truly sinister about his surroundings. It was all just a little hard to swallow, that so many people could bow to such a massive corporation when there were so many obvious problems. That suspicion had mostly been instilled by Krishma and really had no solid foundation, especially because he couldn't really name any specific governmental or even curricular inadequacies, but when she had talked about it, not only had it all made sense, but it had made the dream of the individual seem more and more real with every word she spoke.

When he got out of classes, he was wandering the darker passages between buildings when a black paw gripped him from behind. He spun and stared at Rishi, nearly dropping his satchel. The rat was gnawing at his wrist nervously and seemed scared to death. "One divine, Rishi, what is wrong with you?" he whispered angrily.

"They're gonna kill her, Rut."

Ajit's heart froze. "What do you mean?"

Rishi sighed and looked up at him. "How can you not know by now? Has she not let you in that circle yet? Dude, listen." He put his twitching head close to the fox's. "Krishma's mother is a member of the board of executioners. I heard what happened, and any time some kid is sent to the dean's office with any mention of blasphemy, they put the kid on trial and they don't hesitate to kill ‘em."

Rut let a disgusted look pass across his features. "Even you should know that's a load of paranoid BS."

"Is it? Meet me tonight at the prisons. At twenty-one. I'll show you where she is. This is serious shit, dude. She won't talk, but if she did, I'd be dead, and you'd be a slave of the legal system until ten years after you kicked it." He had moved his teeth from his wrist to his fingernails as he spoke. It was troublesome to watch, but he clearly believed what he was saying.

"All right, fine. But you're suggesting that in a time where there is no war and no hunger, the government is still killing people."

"Yes, I am. It's not all right, dude." Rishi backed away, slowly. "She's dead. She's... she's dead, dude."

Ajit walked away, thoroughly creeped out by the encounter. First of all, Rishi was not an easy creature to deal with. His habit of gnawing, his oily fur, and his unkempt manner of dress were all just generally repulsive. Second, he had sounded convinced. Something was definitely odd about the situation as a whole. But why wouldn't Krishma have told him something like that? It seemed like something she should have let him know.

He spent the next hour cloistered in a study room in the library, trying to focus on the book he was currently reading - Philosophy: the Science of Death. The higher-order thought required to understand the concepts in such a book usually left him dumbfounded. It was true that Ajit was a brilliant academic, but that did not mean he was the smartest student out there. He had to struggle to maintain his position and when he had started talking to Krishma for the first time, she had been eons ahead of him in the realm of creating and synthesizing ideas about society and the universe. It had been liberating.

And now she apparently had a death sentence. Which was impossible. Plenty of kids had been sent to the dean's office. Some were never seen at the university again, but that didn't mean they were dead. It just meant they had to either move away and go to another university, of which there were very few, or find themselves a non-scientific job and training within the Society, which would naturally be very rare because they would be ashamed to live in a place where they had been forced to give up their aspirations to the divine sciences. Besides, no one had ever mentioned it before.

And how could it have been hidden? If you have executions, you have bodies. If you have bodies, you have to bury them somewhere, and someone would notice freshly-dug dirt in the graveyards. Because you have to bury bodies; it's blasphemous to do anything else with them. Right?

He backed away from the thoughts as he started imagining ways of getting around even that stipulation. The government was full of idiots, not murderers. This was going one step too far.

As he waited, a murder of Balancers walked between the rows of books, visible from the window in his room. Their black, color-embroidered cloaks wafted behind their naked bodies. Ajit's breath caught in his throat. The Balance. The women's colors were in teardrop shapes, while the men's were like fangs. Yin and Yang. Man and woman. Never allowed in public in those ceremonial colors in odd numbers greater than one, and solo Balancers were rare. Never allowed with an imbalance of men and women. Often referred to in groups as murders because of their purpose.

Balancers were keepers of the combat magics; the seven divine sciences turned to war. Any of the seven Balanced disciplines could be deadly, even though this was a time of peace; for that reason, they were not allowed the luxury or privacy of clothing. The places they lived had only ceilings; no walls. They had not been needed in decades and it was said they would never be needed again. They were kept for psychological security and the biannual Games; nothing more.

Despite their impressive musculature and ostensibly brazen nakedness, they were not feared. In the public eye they represented a readiness and a pacificity not always seen in the surrounding lands. They were a reassurance; rather than imposing power, they were calm strength.

Ajit admired them immensly. He had lusted after their talents for years. It wasn't that he wanted to hurt things, necessarily; it was more that the movements they made in practice and the power required to wield their weapons were so awe-inspiring that he wanted to be a part of it. However, his pursuits lay elsewhere, so he forewent their military training and bent his head to his books. One day, he swore, he'd be friends with one and learn their arts; for now, he was far too intimidated by them despite the public consensus to approach them. He had never been one for interrupting cliques.

About an hour later, he met Ishan to go home. As they rode the wind, Ajit related his unsettling encounter with Rishi. "He just seemed so convinced... and I know he's not the brightest candle in the chandelier, but he has a sort of... I dunno, sub-understanding of the way things work."

"Dude, Rishi's a creeper."

"Well, yeah. That's a given. And I'd never suspect the government of murder, but... do you think I should check it out, anyway?"

"I can't imagine you not checking it out. I don't see why you shouldn't; it's guarded by what, two-pair Balances? If Rishi tried anything funny, they'd be on him in a second."

Ajit nodded thoughtfully. "That's true. It's not like I'm doing anything illegal. I just want to see. And they're usually nice people, right?"

"Usually. That doesn't mean they'll just let you wander through their prison, but you might convince one to give you a tour."

"Huh. Thanks for that."

"Just don't be dumb."

"Small chance of that." Ajit promptly tripped off the moving pad of air when they came to a halt. "Jerk," he smirked as Ishan laughingly gave him an arm up.

"Couldn't resist."

Some hours later, Ajit made his way through the dim streets (lit by Physics-imbued glass, with a watchman to ensure they didn't fail) to the city prison. Usually, this was an unpopulated place. Thieves were rare, debtors were uncommon, and anything worse happened so infrequently that it usually reached the ears of everyone in town and there was a rush to witness the execution, followed by a period of mourning. Tonight, it was silent.

Ajit nodded respectfully to the two Balancers on duty. The female seemed familiar. Both wore orange and had bandoliers full of tiny, glass vials; they were Chemists. In general, only Physicists, Chemists, Biochemists, and Biologists became Balancers. Those were the only sciences able to operate in close combat.

They nodded back before the girl smiled and said, "Hey, Ajit! What're you doing around here so late?"

"Christi? Dang, Christi, when did they finally let you out of training?" A Balancer he knew! Finally.

She laughed pleasantly and stepped towards him. She wasn't too much shorter than Ajit. She was a lioness, and a gorgeous one at that, so it was difficult for the fox to stay focused on her face. "It was a few weeks ago; I just haven't been out much." She noticed his tense expression and rolled her emerald eyes. "Oh, Ajit, go ahead and look. It must have taken me months, but I'm finally used to wandering around like this."

Ajit blushed and let his eyes scan quickly up and down her body, just to satisfy his temptation, then took a deep breath and relaxed. "Sorry," he said quietly and scratched his head.

"It's fine, really. There are guys who are downright ugly about it; at least you try. And it's not just the women who suffer. The women who go after Krish here are evil." She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the panther she was paired with.

"Except that I enjoy it," he called over with a smirk. A forgiving perk of being a Balancer; given that most of them were employed shortly after puberty, arousal was not considered as gauche as it was in other citizens. Taking advantage of a Balancer's nudity and spontaneity could get someone blinded for a day, sick with the flu, or used as a volleyball. A Balancer taking advantage of his or her own nakedness in any way would have them stripped of their cloak and leashed to a post in the city circle for anywhere between a day and a week.

"So anyway, why are you out here?" she asked. "Most people have better things to do than hang around an empty prison."

"Eh, you know Rishi? The rat?"

She thought for a moment. "Yeah, I remember him. Short, kind of creepy?"

Ajit nodded and grinned. "That's him. He seems to think this place isn't empty. Wanted to check it out and see if there was someone he knew here."

She frowned in thought. "I didn't see anyone when I got on duty, but I wasn't exactly looking hard. There's never anyone here. You see anyone, Krish?"

He shook his head. "Nope."

A small, quick voice darted out of the night. "There's someone there, Christi. But she won't be there for long, you take my word for it." Big, bright eyes shone out of the darkness by the corner of the prison and started moving towards them. Krish gave a start and put a hand to his bandolier. "I can make your stomach acid eat through your heart before you can even uncap that."

Everyone stared at the slight figure emerging into the light as they perceived the small glow of energy that gathered, faster than Ajit had ever believed Rishi capable of. It wasn't visible to laypeople, but the Scientists saw it, and Ajit saw its nature. "Rishi?" he said. "Why didn't you say you were here?"

"We didn't even hear him come up..." Christi whispered.

He glared at them all, then twitched and scratched his ear nervously. Ajit started sending himself pulses to regulate his own heartbeat, which had shot up when Rishi appeared. "Wanted to hear how you would approach this, Ajit. I can assume you were insulting me to keep the true nature of this hidden?"

"Duh. I'm not stupid." They weren't even close to what he could have said. What was wrong with this kid?

"Never said you were. I should have. But I didn't. The two of you want to take us to see Krishma? We can go alone."

Christi opened her mouth angrily. "I thought I said there was no one..."

Krish's reaction was less passive. He tossed a vial in the air and blasted it open with a burst of chemical energy. The reaction should have been blinding; Ajit had seen that science used before. However, a thin dagger of energy penetrated the vial first, so the liquid just dropped out, splashing on Krish and hissing. He screamed, but the sound didn't even reach Ajit's ears. Abruptly, he fell over, deeply asleep, while a thin, healing magic crawled over his burns.

Ajit and Christi's jaws dropped as they stared at Rishi. Neither had really known him, it seemed. He had just used Logic, Physics, and Biology in blindingly quick succession, and he was an Ecologist. The rat stared at his prey until he had converted the chemical into saltwater and the burns were totally healed. He then looked ghostily at Ajit. "When there can be no trust in the government, we have to learn to fend for ourselves. Christi, will you please show us to Krishma?"

She put her hands up placatingly. "I honestly don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see anyone." There was an element of fear in her voice, but Ajit knew her better. They had been friends all through primary school; she wasn't afraid, yet.

"Ajit. Stop readying that bio-shield; I can break it like wood breaks water." It was an appropriate analogy. The seven sciences were divided much like the four phases of matter; in most cases, air parts to make way for water and water parts for solids, and then plasma and logic are mysterious forces not fully understood.

However, sufficiently dense and massive water can smash even granite. "I don't know that you can."

In the next instant, Ajit was suspended by his feet in the air. "I thought you were with me, Ajit."

The fox tried to ignore his predicament and spoke calmly. "I'll be honest. You're scaring me, Rishi. That wasn't part of this." He folded his arms.

"You should be afraid. No one is afraid anymore. They should be." He twisted Ajit in the air and let him fall to his knees. "Christi?"

She snarled at him. "Fine."

Ajit gained his feet and the three walked in silence to the entrance. Ajit finally got a good look at the place. Like other buildings, it was composed entirely of varying shapes of domes. It had an oblong first story, with egg-like structures jutting out at regular intervals along its walls. Those were the cells. On top were larger domes, for less dangerous criminals or, in times of war, for civilian prisoners. The Society was well-renowned for its respectful treatment of outsiders.

"Where's the other pair?" Ajit asked suddenly. Rishi didn't answer. "Rishi?"

"Asleep," he said curtly.

They reached the ovular entrance. "Christi, lead. Ajit, behind me." They lined up accordingly before Christi opened the large, wooden door and started in. Ajit stared calculatingly at the back of Rishi's head. He wanted to hurt the boy, but he was both too afraid of what might happen to him and too curious about Krishma's whereabouts to do anything.

"Where, exactly, do you want me to lead you?" she asked irritably. "I told you I don't know where anyone would be kept."

"The Solitary Abyss."

Christi stopped in her tracks. She whispered, "How do you know about that?"

Rishi was gnawing on a knuckle and shooting glances from side to side. "Let me put it this way. If Krishma hasn't prepared a spell to unlock the wards on it by now, I will be very surprised. We've known. Your superiors are probably taking shifts keeping her restrained." The level of adulation and condescension in his voice was enough to start a low, menacing growl in Chriti's throat.

The inside of the prison looked much like the city streets, except for the lighting. This was natural lighting; that of burnt pitch and torches. No one would be expected to keep these lower cells well-lit. They were not damp or musty, though; only dark. Everything was the same earthy, yellowish color as homes above the ground. The floor was even, if dusty. It was not an altogether unpleasant place to be.

For a full minute, Ajit watched Rishi for foul play and Christi for stupid play. Bright and brave she may have been, but he had never seen her in a situation like this and most people, when threatened, stop thinking clearly. The rat maintained a tiny ball of acidic energy at the ready for if she tried to stop him.

Eventually, they reached a circular opening no longer than Ajit was tall. The floor was bare, with no indication of difference, but Christi walked to the side opposite Ajit while Rishi waited in the center. The lioness tossed a thin strand of biochemical energy over her shoulder to Rishi, who manipulated it and applied it to his eyes. He knelt, examined the blank floor, and then closed his eyelids, which on a rat looked more like he was squinting far too hard. Abruptly, a ball of logical energy formed in his hands and he pressed it carefully into the center of the room, then dropped through the floor. Christi looked back at Ajit, who was staring slack-jawed at the place the rat had been. "I'm being played with by a rodent. This is wrong on too many levels."

"What is that?"

"Come on through," came Rishi's voice from beneath them.

Christi took her time to answer. "It's a manipulation of the light encoded by an algorithm. A biochemical retinal shield makes it impossible for an unaided eye to see the symbols. Unless you really want to see them, I'd rather conserve my energy. Not that it'll do much good, if he solved it that quickly."

Ajit shook his head. "No, I'm good."

"There's hay underneath. Go ahead and jump."

He took a deep breath, jumped, and cast a density spell on his bones. One of the pills he kept in his pocket dissolved into his body as the minerals infused his skeleton with extra strength. He was soon glad he had prepared when his feet landed on bare, unyielding earth. All that was left of the hay was ash. He would never trust Rishi again.

It was no darker, but he didn't have time to look around. He looked up to find Christi's nude body falling on top of him. He caught her in his arms, stumbled from the force of her body - she had gained muscle weight and he had never had much to speak of - and let her roll to her feet, trying not to think about what parts of her he had touched. She looked around while he undid the spell on his bones and coughed the minerals back into his hand, then used the little physics he knew to compact them into a pill size and shape and pocket it. All the while, he was fighting a deep flush.

"At first, I thought, ‘Oh come on, Ajit, I may be female, but I'm not fragile.' Now, I'm glad you did that. Thank you. Although you did almost drop me." She looked at him with a wry grin.

"Sorry," he said shyly, blushing even more.

"I'm kidding, idiot." She giggled. "Your ears are on fire. Where's Rishi? I've never been down here."

"Ah, didn't see him."

"This way," came a sibilant hiss. A moment of observation told Ajit that they were in a tiny alcove, almost like an entryway, that opened into a tremendous, rectangular room that could have fit the King's palace, if necessary. It was totally empty, save for the incredible light source on the ceiling. Ajit didn't want to know how much energy it took to sustain that, especially because the ceiling was also rectangular. It was easier to do things in spheres and circles. He also didn't' understand how they had seemed to fall such a short distance, what with how high the ceiling was.

There were no doors.

On the wall just outside of the harshly-angled room stood Rishi, scratching at his arm. The other two walked out and met him. He bid them keep to the side. "There's another illusion up. I didn't expect this one; it has everything. It would take me weeks to get through."

Ajit grinned secretively as he saw a chance to finally apply something of what he had learned from his "heathen" books. Less complicated magic was actually harder to handle the way he wanted to do this because it was so simple. His idea took advantage of complexity. "Does either one of you have a pencil and paper?"

Christi just looked at him. Rishi, though, produced the needed stationery from his pocket. "I wondered if you might be useful."

"What are you two talking about?" Christi asked. "I can see this barrier; this will take more than a physics equation to get out of."

"Artistry opens doors most people never see," Ajit said with a smile. He sketched a picture of the room. It took him all of thirty seconds, given how barren the place was. Mostly dust and empty space. Then, he felt out where the shield was in the room. It was dome-shaped, despite the corners and lines of the chamber. With perfect accuracy, he replicated the curvature of the shield with a circle that faced the three of them, then drew another circle. Christi took a moment to recognize it as a doorknob.

"You're an Artist?" she whispered. "You could be executed for that!"

"Just like Krishma's going to be executed for Religion?" Rishi snapped. "Yes, the answer is yes. Open the door, Ajit. I don't even know why this is here; they could just put a dozen Balancers; it's not like they do anything, otherwise." Christi bristled at the remark, but held her tongue.

Ajit was just as reluctant to follow Rishi's orders as he was eager to see if this had worked. After a moment's hesitation, he pressed his palm to the picture, infusing it with an energy he had never used before, but had learned from his books on the subject. It was the energy of the Artistic soul; something that specialized in ignoring the physical complexities offered by a scientific perspective. He then reached into the thin air, grabbed the doorknob he had drawn with a swiftly-beating heart, and pulled the air away from itself to reveal a scene none of them expected.

In the relatively small circle he had opened, the room was almost totally without light. Despite that, they could all smell blood by this point in their lives and had no trouble identifying the glistening splashes all along the floor. Bodies littered the scene, all of them wearing cloaks and nothing else. Only two forms were still standing and moving, and move they did.

The first was small and female. It darted about like a flea, moving impossibly quickly to avoid the earth-shattering blows the larger figure directed towards it. "Krishma," Rishi whispered. "Who is she fighting?"

The stench of death was in the air, but the two combatants showed no signs of noticing. The girl's enemy appeared to be humanoid, with a canid head. In the darkness, it was difficult to discern color, but contrasted against Krishma's black fur, Ajit guessed he was black, with splashes of red fur here and there. There were strange markings on his body as he moved, and he also seemed to be totally nude, although his hunched, feral stance made that seem more natural than it would have, otherwise. His eyes glowed red, and a marking of some kind on his shoulder, of a different tone than the rest, shone with the same animal intensity.

"Krishma, I'm coming!" Rishi shouted, and ran into the center of the room. Neither Ajit nor Christi made any move to stop him. They could see the huge quantities of magic he was preparing and it suddenly reminded Ajit what was so strange about this, even more so than all the dead bodies of Balancers:

"She's not using the divine Sciences," he said under his breath. "Niether is that thing she's fighting." And yet, even as they watched, the panthress took a knee and let the offender's gargantuan hand continue on its path towards her. A white light flashed into the room and the blow stopped a foot away from her panting form.

"It's Religion," Christi whispered breathlessly.

"It must be a non-antagonistic one; she isn't hitting him. So far, she's been entirely on the defensive. Probably Buddhism."

Christi flinched at his apparent knowledge of the non-scientific skill, but nodded understandingly. About that time, Rishi unleashed a flood of power towards the enemy, clearly believing he needed to use brute force on this thing. In a moment, Ajit understood why. He wanted to impress Krishma. The little rat, however ignoble his methods had been, was infatuated with her. If he could beat this thing with raw strength, it would be far more emotional than just shutting down his heart, like he should have. Perhaps this was why artistic expression was kept out of the sciences; the emotional imbalances it engendered were dangerous in critical situations.

The wolf monster teleported behind the rat while already in the middle of a crushing blow. With a sickening crunch, Rishi was reduced to a splatter of blood on the creature's hand and a tatter of blue fabric. With a gleaming smile, the enemy licked his paw while Krishma fought the urge to scream. She used what little time she had and made a sprint for the exit. "Get out of here!" she shouted at them. "I don't know what it is! Just get out, for the sake of whatever you think is holy!"

The panthress managed to get by them while the monster was feeding. It had to be almost nine feet tall. Finally, it noticed the two who were still standing in awe of its incredible appearance and turned towards them, reaching its hands out as though it could grab them from there. Then, it was gone. In the next instant, the two of them were clamped against its tremendous chest in a crushing bear hug and it was looking at them with bloodthirsty eyes. Ajit fearfully poured mineral strength into Christi's body. She didn't object, especially because she was herself busy imbuing her vials with extra durability; if they broke over her, they would dissolve her.

When the pressure failed to increase, Ajit began wondering what it was doing. He had the strongest shield he could think of ready to cast, but didn't set it. He was afraid to do anything until it made a move, but so far, he could still breathe. "What are you?" he asked it. It was the only thing he could think of, and the monster wasn't speaking. It was intrigued b the new additions to the combat zone and was staring at the entrance Ajit had created.

The thing's hot, pungent breath poured down on him as it turned to him. "I am as much a man as you," a voice rumbled out of its chest like an avalanche. It shuddered through their bodies. "My name is Nero. I come from Sparta."

Ajit looked to Christi with a helpless expression, even as hard as that motion was while his shoulder was pressed up against hers. "I was never good at geography."

The lioness rolled her eyes through her discomfort. "It's a warrior state that never accepted the Society. One of the Greek city-states. Not to insult you, Nero, but we're taught that they're warriors because they're too savage to form a real civilization. I didn't know they were this big." She tensed up and waited to be attacked, but Nero was being reasonable. "Also, they're located a few thousand miles north and east of us."

Ajit looked suspiciously up into the red eyes. They were slowly fading to a more normal color. "Are you sure you're from Sparta?"

"As certain as I am that I will crush the life out of you if you insult my honor a second time."

Ajit licked his lips and gave his captor a calculating look. "If you're from Sparta, you worship the Greek gods, correct?" Nero nodded. "So you weren't teleporting; that requires impressive physics knowledge that I don't think anyone has perfected yet. You were shadow-stepping. Application of the elemental magics, rather than the divine sciences." It was blasphemy to suggest an intangible power besides the divine sciences. Christi looked at him as though he was insane.

The pressure on them was suddenly gone. The two dropped to the ground. Krishma was looking on from outside of the hole in the domed shield. "You are scientists?" he asked somewhat interestedly. "We have few of those in Sparta."

"Can we get something straight first?" Christi asked. "How are we speaking the same language, fluently? I never learned Greek, that's for sure, and you don't have a trace of an accent."

Behind them, Krishma cleared her throat. "That was... ah... a patch I used on his throat and ears. Translation, it's... new technology co-developed by physics and neuro-science." She couldn't bear not to be recognized.

As she spoke, unbeknownst to the two regular-sized people, Nero's eyes began glowing again. They focused directly on the panthress, whom he had ignored fot the past few moments. He was not pleased with her, for one reason or another, and he was easily inflamed. "You!" he barked. "You brought me here to kill! Why?"

She started rattling off words like a gatling gun. "There is an intellectual and moral deficit in the workings of the world today and..."

Ajit's ears perked as she spoke. He knew that quote. "Twisting the texts!" he shouted at her, unconcerned by the feral snorting above him. "You know that was a treatise on human psychology, not a reason to start a war!" The reason for Nero's presence had crashed over him like a cloudburst. For all he knew, Krishma had intended to be captured and just hadn't told Rishi everything.

She looked at him, horrified and betrayed, as Nero vanished again. Thinking quickly, Ajit snatched the pad he had from the ground and ripped the front page in two. The tips of Krishma's fingers were cut off as the portal closed, as was her shriek. They hit the ground as Nero's hand beat against the shield. He wrenched his head around to Christi and Ajit, glaring at them in the darkness. "You let her escape me!"

"Murder is never the answer?" Ajit offered nervously. He backed into a defensive stance, even knowing he didn't stand a chance. As much as he wanted to know how to fight, he didn't have the first ideas on the matter. Christi readied two of her vials between her fingers. She moved in front of the fox protectively.

"Don't make us fight you, Nero. I'm sure we can figure out how to settle this." Behind her compromising words, Ajit heard a trace of the same tone that always accompanied her lack of fear. She was anticipating this; she almost wanted it to happen. He, however, did not.

"Be careful, Christi," he whispered. "You know he's not stable. He just looks that way."

"You and your psychology," she whispered back. "Get your head out of those nonsense books."

"Nonsense?" he said through clenched teeth. They watched Nero carefully as they spoke. Would he charge? "You know he's using the elements."

"I'm kidding, Ajit. Learn to take a joke."

Nero suddenly roared and came flying at them, his tremendous weight making the earth shake as he ran. His form lit on fire as he came, and Christi's eyes widened. She snatched a different vial from her bandolier and, with a graceful flourish of movement, tossed all three at the charging monster. The first detonated in a cloud of foam that stuck to his skin and doused most of the flames. The other two exploded with a pop and a flash. Christi and Ajit turned away from the blinding light as they were thrown to the ground and shards of glass shot across their skin.

Nero staggered, but didn't fall. He renewed his charge while Christi rolled to her feet. She recovered far more quickly than Ajit, who was still on the ground. "Don't make me do something wicked!" she shouted at the attacker. Ajit tried to clear his mind. "Wicked" was a keyword as much as "blasphemy" was. What with the newfound ability to bypass a human being's protective skin with magic, which had until recently been considered an impossibility, there had been a profusion in science-related cultures of different attacks involving sinister, but simple, methods of killing a person. Stopping the heart, shutting down the brain, boiling the blood; any number of things. Why she thought Nero would know that was beyond him.

The difficulty with bypassing the skin was that it required an intimate knowledge of what lay beneath and a total blanking of one's own mind prior to the invasion, at least from a distance. Otherwise, visual perception interfered, or at least, that was the prevailing theory at the time. It was incredibly frowned upon because blanking the mind was associated with psychological and religious practices. Ajit was impressed that Christi knew how to do it.

Not that it mattered. Nero shadow-stepped to her side and swung his arm in a huge arc that slammed her through the air and into the wall of the prison. She fell to the ground, limp. Ajit was thankful he had had the forethought to fortify her skeleton. He couldn't help her now; he had only able to do that because he did have an intimate knowledge of human anatomy and had been pressed against her, so it had been easy. He would have to find a way to be pressed against her some time later, too...

The wolf monster turned to Ajit. He tried to light himself on fire again, but the chemical was still preventing that, so instead, he summoned a ball of flame in one hand and prepared to shoot it at the small fox. Ajit reacted reflexively, although it was not something he had done before. In an instant, he felt his mind go empty. One thought remained, and it was hardly even a thought.

Clot.

The wolf halted in his tracks and the flame stopped growing. A look of confusion spread over his features and one hand found its way to his heart. The fire dissipated and the other hand moved to his skull, as though he had a headache. He went down to his knees, his eyes wide and his breathing harsh.

Ajit knew he had to act fast. He threw himself to his feet and ran to the wolf, but stopped a decent distance from him. "You're having a heart attack and a stroke at the same time. As we speak, blood clots are cutting off oxygen to huge portions of your body." Veins could be seen bloated with blood at the surface of his skin.

Nero just looked at him, at this tiny fox who should have been dead twenty minutes ago. "What?" He didn't know those terms. Strokes and heart attacks were not recognized in his culture. Most of his kinsman would never live to be old enough to have them.

"I can stop them before you have brain damage, but you have to tell me now - if I touch you, will you try to kill me?" He knew he couldn't intentionally act from a distance a second time. He needed to be touching the creature.

Christi was awakening from her blow and gasped when she saw the juxtaposition of the two combatants. Nero looked as though he was submitting to Ajit, whose nervous features betrayed how scared he still was, regardless of whatever he had done to the beast. How had the little scientist done that? "Ajit!" Christi called. "Don't touch him! A Spartan would never surrender; he'll kill you!"

With a growl, Nero tried to lunge at him. Unfortunately, the stroke had deprived part of his brain of oxygen. Half of his musculature stopped working, and he crashed to the dirt, one side of his body writhing while the other lay pathetically still. The wolf was helpless on the ground. He panted with his eyes wide open until, all at once, he stopped breathing. At that moment, Ajit carefully got to his knees and laid a hand on the creature's shoulder, then sent a powerful gust of magic through him to find and dissolve the clots. It wasn't long before he was breathing normally, but deeply asleep.

Christi came up behind him, her long cloak almost invisible in the odd lack of light under the shield. "You know that was wicked, right? That the only reason I haven't knocked you out is because you just saved our lives?"

Ajit looked up at her with a smirk. "Nothing to do with having known me since elementary school?"

Her smile was tense. "Not really, no. I am bound to be patriotic."

He laughed easily. "No, I understand. You agreed to live by a set of rules; you have to obey them or suffer the consequences. We need to get someone who knows more about inducing comas to him."

Suddenly, the shield flickered and died. Krishma was standing outside its boundaries, weakly holding her wounded hand. When the other two gave her an odd look, she tried to smile proudly. "It was my shield. I wanted to keep him contained, but... he... tired me..." She fell into a faint. Christi and Ajit looked at one another.

"We need a Physicist," Christi sighed.

Ajit licked his dry lips. "I don't have any communication skills."

"I know. And that's also a joke."

"Got that one."

"Good. I hope the contacts I was given aren't all lying here." They surveyed again the carnage around them. It was nothing short of a miracle the three of them had survived. "We need to keep her down, too. I want answers."

Ajit just nodded, slowly. A little knowledge...