1. An agreement

Jacks stopped. He'd survived by following his senses, not his thoughts. But now. He was lost,in the spire of mages, as this part of the Inch had been named. Lost. Who knew what kind of future waited, to keep prying minds and fingers away from this deserted area. Dust covered the passage, contoured in dull light thrown by random glow bulbs. None came here. He stopped, his thoughts getting the better of him. He could die from a misstep here. Only a fool would be here. He started, urged on again. Not far, he thought. Not far at all. He had come this far. He knew the way back, for his sins, he always could remember the paths he had taken. Even from decades before. That clicked in his mind, he had come this way before. Long ago. Yet he knew he hadn't, he searched himself. Once he had walked here often. He stopped, looked at a Chute, he had come this way when the Chutes could not be trusted. Trapped in a little tubes travelling in Chutes fast between places you could easily be caught and perhaps killed. Many had risked them, who knew how long Chutes had been used to disappear their cargo. No one used them no, he wondered how they worked. He swiped dust and dirt from the Chute. It had High Valen written on it, the language of yore, forgotten now. Not far from this Chute, he thought and walked on. Left here. Jump, up into that hole in the roof, that's a trap. Yes. Don't use the power, the are foot holds. Up into another dark corridor. Ahead, the are no traps. Stop turn and up these stairs. Glow tubes flicked on, every other step. Stop. Press that stone and a the wall disappeared. There you go. We are here. Walk on. We? his own thoughts thought we?
'No I don't think so. I am here, tell me who you are. '
Go through the next door. This room, it will kill you if you do not, his mind replied.
'And the next?'
Go. Jacks did. He had come this far.
The was no door. Just a blank wall. This time he pressed his hand onto the wall and felt himself pulled through.
He stood in a large room, lowly lit, sleeping as it were. Other rooms laid through archways, he was in an apartment. It looked as if it had been lived in yesterday, it felt alive. He smelt the air, it smelt of a person. People. Food perhaps.
'Why am I here then?'
Nothing.
He stood for a while. Then longer, turning, looking around. He looked at the wall he had come through. Tapestries. He pressed against it, nothing but the hard touch of stone. Cold solid stone. Then he noticed an alcove. A statue on a small pedestal stood in it, facing a small pedestal with nothing upon it, one of a pair. He walked to it, the first time in months knowing that this is what he should do. He pulled out the statue he had brought, the one he had taken from the Undercity so many months before. He set it down on the empty pedestal. It had been what he had needed to do. He had found what he had been looking for, he thought. A weight lifted form his mind.
He browsed the room, re-looking at everything. Relaxed, unfettered able to see to the bone and judge calmly. Wandering from room to room till he had looked everywhere. Perhaps a mages quarters. It did not seem so, for the seemed little save one room that had anything that mages used. He took a seat.
'These are good quarters are they not? Everything is here.' Jacks looked round. Ahead on a plinth a shadow had begun to coalesce.
'Are they?'
'The seats are comfortable. Everything is to hand, a study with everything one could need. But perhaps you are not happy being here.'
'I would like to leave. Alive.'
'You can leave any time you like. Alive as you like, but I warn you, you will not live long. The are those who know what you are. They might not want to let you live free or alive.'
'Show me the way to leave.' He could feel the trace of a shadow turn, Valen of shape, and look at him.
'Fine' A door way appeared. He looked at his old rooms in the Tutheric house of his birth.' That is the way you can leave, but you cannot leave yet.'
'Will you stop me?'
'I will not harm you,' Jacks, standing, opened his own gateway now. It sat and waited for him, He stepped up to it and the air became treacle, and he failed to make headway. Stuck hanging in the air, his full strength only able to barely keep him moving.
'Wait a while. ' A shadow of a figure had formed around where the voice came from. Growing more solid.' Feel inside yourself. What do you find?'
'I feel that,' he gritted and pushed ahead', that I am weaker, What have you done?'
'You are not weaker. No, I would say you are beginning to delve the power you can use, feel it?' Jacks did, so much, not a river, no river came so large, it seemed he could call on what he wished. Yet, he couldn't, something had taken it before he could.
'What are you doing?'
'What any mage of old can do. Tap the power you use, you are a channel. An open channel, if I wished, you would not have any power to use yourself. You are fighting yourself. The more you pull the more you will have to fight to step ahead, let go.' Jacks looked at the figure, it had become solid. Watching and smiling. He placed in his mind the statue beside it, the two were twins. He let some of the power go, the figure faded.

Introduction.

Inch, a city. Inch, a cape of farms surrounding an ancient city. Inch the name of a long shear escarpment over which the city spanned. Inch had never been forgotten, instead the city had lost itself as century after century moved on, while wars shocked people into different lives. New dreams rose from the ashes of old, dreams that remembered the past differently, or held no place for the city. Inchs people are Valen. They build to last, the Valen live a long time, for even as they live to enjoy the moment they look ahead. Through the years they expect to live. Perhaps that's how Inch has survived. Even now, as a discarded shell of its former self, so much of it deserted. Still, a new verve had entered the city, those those born so long ago swept along as the change came to the city.
Valen, a race of people, that seem a mix of races. Perhaps they are. Perhaps they are not. They mainly appear part Elf, part Human. They have the mind set of neither Elf or Human. Their own. Perhaps they modelled themselves on other races. You could not put it past them. Valen are adept at pretending to be any other race. None of which has stopped their decline, one stretching back more than a thousand years. Living smong them are those that could remember the zenith of their race thousands of years before. Most Valen saw only three hundred years before the grave swallowed them. For the long lived the present seemed another interregnum, before greater and better things came. Or so few a thought, for never had a race fallen. The Valen had risen above all other races in their past, they had become gods to many. Now they stood small, fighting themselves, fleeing from history, destroying themselves and slowly degenerating.
Jacks Padoman. Adam Rassar Tutheric. Rives Dealt all one. Jacks, killer, mercenary has not managed to settle into Inch, the city he had grown up in and left six decades before. His plans were to build and grow the Sword and Federation, slow and sure. Typical Valen, steady building and planning. Jacks strived to stop the Valen disappear into a self made mire. Creating a Federation of Valen and others willing to stop Angand Empire mastering all the lands it can. He resurrected the old Valen border guards, the Sword to rally to. In part this had worked, providing a flag to rally to, though it left many lose ends. Jacks moved on, his plans changing. He ploughed a path, hidden away or in front of all, sometimes joined by many, somtimes following many, or sometimes alone. Alone he become this time, hiding in the background. He had begun to walk the Inch, trawling it, watching it, pulled along somehow. His old self lost to the discovery that he can use the power. Worse, he had become a channel. A rare freak that can use as much power as they like compared to anyone else. Able to draw on the power far and wide not just from within the environment nearby. One open for others to draw upon. He had no training, nor did he trust those around him to train him. He had spent his live not being tied to them, linked to them or part of what they represented. For once he felt lost, he had lost what he had been, lost who he is, becoming solitary and separate from the Federation he led.
In the wider world the Meiren have taken the chance that Jacks wrought when the Verrack and Sword forces to defeated Kantic and Angand armies in the Ore War. The Meiren had kindled war again with Angand, by re-securing the hill forts that have long marked the end of their lands. In return, Angand had turned its might west to deal with the Meiren nation. So once more the Valen have been left alone to bicker amongst themselves.

Flyer

Follow the Heart
(Book V of Turning Sun)

Overview/Flyer info
new version:
      Jacks। He had been in the time, the place and met the right people। Again and again। The first time, luck had played its part, the second, desperation had, the third he had shown willing। The fourth was the luck of the devil। Luck changes. It takes time for that to hit home. When it does, you lose a lot. More than you think, sometimes more than you think when all your life you have taught yourself, stood up for yourself and just gone out there. Especially when you had rejected where and what you were once. When, you had left that behind, never trusting. He could not trust anyone, but he had to learn, 

old version rehashed:
     Jacks Padoman। Adam Rassar Tutheric। Rives Dealt। Many names, the same person। Different stories. Jacks has brought to life his plans to build an army to give steel to his dreams of uniting the Valen peoples and letting them live free. Yet, for all the luck he has had, and even with that success luck has bought, he has to acknowledge that he cannot sit still . His dreams have a path. A path that evolves as his life has changed. Now able to use the power again, he looks to train himself, gain an understanding of what can be done with the power.
Others would have turned to their friends for help, trust them. Jacks distrusts those that could help. A distrust for those who have tutored in him the past. A distrust for the old Valen power structures. To learn the power, magic, for the Valen is to accept the culture of the Valen. Jacks has rejected more and more, his upbringing, his past, and the history of the Valen When, you had left that behind, never trusting anyone, where does that leave you? but he had to learn.
Notes:
' ' , quotes are used to represent speech vocally. > <, has been used to represent speech mentally,like telepathy but more an unvoiced conversation. It is explained in text and glossary as Mind talk.