Lupi 06 - Blood Magic

meddle.
    "You would know." There was rebuke in Li Qin's voice.
    Lily looked back at her, surprised more by the tone of Li Qin's voice than the content of her words. "Sam meddles?"
    "Oh, yes." Li Qin looked as placid as always. "His meddling may be in service of a worthy goal. I believe he considered his goal with Li Lei worthy. He knew the Chimei would come to Li Lei's city, you see, and that great suffering and destruction would result. When he accepted her as apprentice, he did so with the hope that, when the time came, she would destroy the Chimei's grip on this realm."
    Grandmother had been Sam's apprentice? Lily could not resist asking, "Was she, um... was she a human apprentice? Or is that when... "
    "Oh, yes, she was human, and quite young to our way of thinking - only seventeen - when she ran off to Sam. I gather it was not unheard of for a dragon to accept a human apprentice, but it was most unusual."
    Rule spoke. "I'm curious about why Sam would leave it to hope and chance and a young human woman to defeat this Chimei. It seems he could have dealt with her himself."
    This time the puff of air smelled more of metal and ash than cinnamon. You know very little, man who is wolf.
    "Then tell me more. Tell us."
    Silence, both physical and mental. Then... You have stories, Rule Turner, that speak of the Great War. My people, too, fought in that war - and in its aftermath. The Chimei are like lupi in that they were created by an Old One involved in that conflict. Unlike lupi, they were not originally intended to be warriors. What do you know of the reasons for the Great War?
    "Very little," Rule admitted. "I know many players and peoples were involved. I don't know most of their names, natures, or goals. I do know why my Lady fought. She fought for the right of the younger races to determine their own destinies."
    You refer to the younger races as "they." Lupi are a very young race.
    Rule shrugged. "Lupi belong to the Lady. We were created to fight for her goals, and our destiny lies in her hands and ours, jointly. I suppose I see us as different from other races that way."
    Lily looked at Rule, taken aback. Didn't he think lupi deserved to determine their own fate?
    Sam, too, seemed to find his statement curious. You do not find a contradiction in this? Did not the nature of your creation rob you of the very choice your Lady cherishes?
    "The human part of me understands your question. The wolf considers it silly. The contradiction you see exists only in words. I could hunt more words in an attempt to explain, but they would be imprecise and, I suspect, unhelpful. Dragons are by nature supreme individualists. A dragon might have difficulty perceiving the truth of a race founded in both individuality and mutuality."
    Humans are such a race, also.
    "Humans are more conflicted about it."
    Lily tried to grasp what Rule meant. The conflict between the needs of the many and the needs of the one - that, she knew about. People had been searching for the right balance there since they came out of caves, and maybe before. But she sensed there was more to what he said.
    I am intrigued, Sam said after a brief pause. If you survive, I would speak more with you about this, but current troubles require the tabling of such digressions.
    Your Lady has conveyed to you the essence of the conflict. The Great War was fought by many peoples for many reasons, but it was the deep dispute among some Old Ones which sparked it and made it so terrible. They disagreed over... We might say, over the amount of meddling they would allow themselves. Some attempted to hasten the maturation of the younger races through judicious meddling. Some opposed any interference. And some vigorously strove to shape the younger races.
    The Chimei are the product of such reasoning. They were made by conjoining the patterns of multiple species, both sentient and nonsentient, physical and nonphysical. Their creator made them largely nonphysical so that if their physical portion was destroyed, they would not die, and could eventually reconstitute their physicality. He considered fear of death an evil force.
    Had he stopped there, his children might have persisted more or less as he intended them, but he went on to remove fear from them entirely, believing it lies at the root of warped and dangerous choices.
    He erred. Perhaps fear is an essential component of sentience, for the Chimei, unable to experience it themselves, crave fear. In the vast carnage of the Great