Chapter One: Shanti

Shanti

"Wooooo!" She whooped and laughed as the guards chased her through the streets. Shanti dove over a garbage can, rolling and regaining her feet in a swift movement. She launched herself forward, sprinting straight at an old woman with a cane.

Shanti laughed aloud and tossed her backpack into the air as she juked around the lady. She caught the bag on the other side and kept running.

"Young lady!" The woman shouted after her.

"Sorry, grandma!" Shanti called back. She slid under a large wooden door being carried by two men, and jumped over a barking dog.

Shanti sprinted and laughed, paying no mind to the spectacle she made of herself. She pulled in a deep breath of the cool morning air. She shook her head, causing her hair to fall loose and allow the breeze to cool her head.

Several people called her by name as she passed, but no one could catch her when she really wanted to move. These were her streets. Every face was familiar, every smell had a memory attached to it, and every sound was instantly recognizable. This was the great city of Kumbai. The city itself covered the entire planet, but her district was small and cozy. It was so familiar to her that she swore she could sleep right out on the street as comfortably as in her bed. Of course, she might get run over by one of the many gurney-carriages that chugged along the road, pouring steam from brass pipes and honking their bugle-horns. Still, it was times like this, when she was free to run at full speed and just feel the breeze on her skin, when she wondered why anyone ever bothered to live anywhere else.

The guards were starting to fall behind now, so she turned and stopped. The guards skidded to a halt as they suddenly caught up. They carefully stayed more than arm's reach away. Anyone that knew Shanti, knew to never touch her; not unless you wanted a few broken bones. Not that these guards were looking for a fight anyway.

"Miss Chevaller…" The Captain spoke as though he were talking to an ill-tempered dog. "We don't want any trouble. Just give back the…"

"Fight me for it!" Shanti said, holding out the backpack to taunt him. "Winner takes all. What do you say, Captain Anand?"

"Miss Chevaller, I can't fight you. Your brother would have my head."

"My brother will have your head if you don't fight me." She declared. "I'm certain that he would be very displeased if you refused to fight his fourteen year old sister to the death."

The guards only glared at her. The good Captain put his hands up and let them drop. "Miss Chevaller, please…"

Shanti rolled her eyes. "Fine." She tossed him the bag. "I was just messing around."

Shanti turned to leave, but a voice stopped her. It was high pitched, despite belonging to a man, and it oozed with pompous superiority. "Hold it, young Chevaller."

Shanti rolled her eyes again and turned. "Oh!" She said, with obviously feigned surprise. "Colonel Kumar, what a fantastic, lovely, wonderful, sweet, happy, intriguing…" The colonel sighed loudly as he approached behind the other city guards, but Shanti went on. "...inspiring, delightful, incredible, fortunate…"

"That is enough!" He said angrily.

"...super duper surprise." Shanti finished quickly.

He sighed again and snatched the bag from the captains hands. He rummaged around inside it for a moment, but found nothing but a fist-sized rock. The colonel turned to the captain with an eyebrow raised.

Captain Anand just shook his head and shrugged.

"Oh!" Shanti said. She stared at them as though something was just occurring to her. "Did you think I stole something from the Capitol Building? What gave you that idea?" She could not hold back a grin.

"How about the fact that you broke into the Capitol Building?" Colonel Kumar asked. His voice was so high that it could easily be mistaken for a woman's. Other men might have been mocked for that voice, but Colonel Kumar was one of the most accomplished swordsmen in the world, no one would be foolish enough to make fun of him. Well, almost no one.

"You sound like a little chipmunk." Shanti said in a squeaky voice. His eyes widened and then turned to slits. His face turned red, but Shanti went on before he could respond. "And the Capitol Building is open to the public, so why would I need to break in?"

"You went in through the second-story window. You prowled around the Shaasak offices. You took something." The Colonel was getting irritated, but Shanti was getting bored.

"Right, right, and wrong. I came in through the window, which is not a crime. I walked around the offices, which is also not a crime. I did not take anything, though. I picked up the Kaanoon Pustika, but I left it there." Shanti yawned, intentionally dramatizing it to make a point. "Can I go now?"

Colonel Kumar stepped closer and leaned down. "If that had been the real Kaanoon Pustika…" He shook his head. "It is forbidden for anyone to touch the Book of Law, and you'd be executed right here on the…"

"Colonel!" Captain Anand interrupted. Threatening to execute the daughter of a city official was going way too far. Kumar was right about the seriousness of touching that particular book, but saying it out loud to Shanti's face would be a good way to end up losing his own head. Fortunately for him, Shanti really had no interest in letting this situation get too serious.

Shanti feigned surprise and put her hand to her lips. "Oh dear, was that the real Kaanoon Putika?" She said in her best 'damsel in distress' voice.

The Colonel stood up and shook his head. "No, of course not. I just said that it wasn't."

"Then I'll see you later, Colonel Chipmunk." Shanti said smugly. However, she did not leave. Being mouthy and smug with a Colonel was certainly frowned upon, but someone of Shanti's social stature could get away with it, to an extent. She had not actually verbally assaulted him or anything. Walking away from a peace officer without permission was technically illegal, though. So far, she'd been a nuisance, but not enough for them to drag her brother into it. If she broke any actual laws, they would have to tell her father, and then her father would tell Daha. Shanti was always looking for trouble, but not that kind of trouble.

After a moment, Colonel Kumar stepped back and shook his head. He said, "Dismissed, but if..."

But Shanti was gone before she heard another word. She raced through the city, heading home.

The trip home was all uphill. Her father's mansion, along with the homes of the other six richest families in Kumbai, stood just below the base of the Sunflower Temple. The temple, which was only ten years old, was by far the tallest structure in Kumbai. It was not just the tallest man-made structure, but the tallest anything. With prodigious smokestacks of burnt bronze, and giant spinning gears of iron, it was a daunting sight to behold. When she looked at it, the first thing she always wondered was if the gears actually did anything, or if they were just for decoration.

Eleven years ago, Mount Aarav stood at the center of Kumbai. The mountain was the symbol of power and wealth. It was not a symbol of oppression, but only the seven families were allowed to live on the actual mountain. When King Rahul rose to power very suddenly, he used his magic to level the mountain, and replaced it with his tower.

Shanti was only four years old when King Rahul announced his intent to rule the city, but she had a few memories of the day that seemed to be burned into her brain.

She recalled an image of King Rahul, standing at the summit of Mount Aarav. He seemed larger than life, despite being so far away that she should not have been able to see him at all. He held a staff in his hand. It looked like a rather plain wooden stick, except that a bright yellow light radiated from it.. The impossibly powerful, and completely alien, feeling she'd felt when looking at the staff remained with her today. She could summon the feeling with ease, simply by thinking of the staff.

King Rahul had somehow amplified his voice so that the whole world could hear him. He announced that the goddess, Sunflower, was coming in ten years, and that he would prepare the way for her. He said that he would rule all of Kumbai, but that the people would not be his slaves or even his servants. She remembered that he sounded like he was talking to a group of scared children. She also remembered being one of those scared children.

The ten years had come and gone. This might have brought on scorn and ridicule from his subjects, if it weren't for the fact that the king had obliterated the entire mountain and raised his tower in its place. He'd done so without harming any of the other structures in the city, and without hurting a single person.

No one attempted to challenge his reign at the time, and few did now. Even when he insisted on building the massive Yellow Coliseum, and informed them that they would be holding a tournament in Sunflower's honor, no one challenged him. After seeing what he could do to a mountain, no one wanted to find out what he could do to a person.

The Tournament was scheduled to begin in seven days, and the guest of honor was apparently nothing more than the delusion of a very powerful old man. Shanti did not care. She wasn't much of a fighter anyway. Sure, she could collapse a building with a touch, but half the time she broke things by accident. She had never been in a real fight, and she did not intend to ever be in one if she could help it. For all her faux bravado in front of the guards, she never wanted to know what would happen to a human being if she hit them.