Salt Lotus/Eclipse-2
By MunificentPerception Back to: /Night-2
Some hours later not far away…
“Fia, this is a sad night,” said Ribbons of Sorrow as he sat kneeling across from the courtesan, surrounded by the austere beauty of the tearoom. Ribbon’s four slave-concubines knelt forming an X centered on their master, scarlet bands running from their throats to his body suit. Fia faced the regional deity of slavery on her knees, and a prepared futon waited behind her. She was dressed in a simple silk robe colored in the shade of Venus’ blue.
“A sad day, Lord Ribbons?”
“Yes, very much so. For you are no longer mine, are you?”
Fia heard wounded pride buried within the god’s voice, and saw anger sparkle in his eyes. She resisted the urge to open a paper fan and hide her lower face. Dissembling before even a minor deity required a sharpness of wit exercised with none of the tell-tale pauses of deception. She made her reply immediately and evenly, keeping her eyes fixed on his throat.
“I have never been yours, only a reluctant subject of the realm over which you have jurisdiction.”
“Your status as a bond woman meant that I could always have you for the price of a few coins paid to the house mistress,” Ribbons said, and a sharp smile played over his thin lips.
“Yes, that was your privilege and a condition of my unfortunate state,” Fia replied. It was Ribbons of Sorrows’ habit to travel in procession around the city for a full day, once each lunar month, and stop at each of the major teahouses to ravish selected slave-courtesans. For reasons unknown, Fia had attracted the god’s ire, and his two previous visits had been painful ones of endurance and humiliation as his concubines had looked on from behind their white masks.
“And you bore your servitude so gracefully,” Ribbons said mockingly, “your hurt with such sad beauty.”
Moved by the stirrings of anger, Fia met the divinity’s gaze for the first time. The corners of Ribbon’s lips twisted downwards as he absorbed the insult of eye contact from a mortal.
“I do not think you will be happy in your freedom, my love,” he said, his voice cold and iron like.
“Is that a foretelling, son of heaven, or is it merely your nature expressing itself?” Fia asked and tilted her head to one side, indicating scorn for the slave god’s character.
“It is an observation that for nearly two millennia, none of those gifted by the Sun, the mightiest of the Incarna, have long survived their Exaltation. He has turned his back on his Chosen, and his children reincarnate without purpose or protection.”
Fia felt her heart pause, missing a beat. Ribbons of Sorrow knew of her Exaltation, and not just of her having passed beyond his jurisdiction. Were the slave god’s other words also true? Then she recalled the day of the eclipse, when the Sun had turned his face towards the world. Her anger became a slow tide of inexorable emotion, and she smiled coldly. She detected a nearly imperceptible tremble that ran through the god’s delicate hands in response to her expression.
“The world is changing, is it not, Ribbons of Sorrow, and you are a being out of place. Is it proper for a Terrestrial deity to walk the face of Creation wearing material form, or to dwell in a Manse with mortal servants? Or, in the Celestial Order is your place that of an ethereal observer and silent servant of the Terrestrial Bureaucracy?”
“The Celestial hierarchy is corrupt, and Heaven’s magistrates care little about what transpires on earth,” the slave god hissed. “Merely because your patron glanced towards the world does not mean that you are somehow watched over, Crowned Sun!” As soon as those words had left his lips, Ribbons of Sorrow blanched and his four concubines moaned as the silk bands tightened around their throats. He had not meant to use Fia’s title, but recognition of her Caste and authority had been forced upon him by an ancient compulsion buried in his soul.
“Then pray to your superiors and request that I fall soon, before I come into the full powers of my office,” Fia said as Essence stirred within her, and the golden disk-within-a-circle Caste Mark appeared on her smooth forehead.
The god surged to his feet, stared with open fear and then left, dragging his gasping attendants behind him. Wooden screen doors slid open before him, offering Fia a glimpse of terrified bath attendants, musicians and the mistress of the teahouse as they fled the deity’s path. Then the doors slid shut again.
Fia knelt in silence as the mark of her Caste faded. She did not know how Ribbons of Sorrow had learned of her Exaltation, but that he could implied that others would do so as well. She was in danger so long as she remained in the city where she was well known. Fleeing would be difficult, but possible. Over the last five years Fia had hidden away enough jewelry and other gifts from her patrons to suffice for the necessary bribes. With her new-found conviction in destiny, she could be gone from this place in hours.
There was a single knock, and one of the doors slid open. A lithe woman, cloaked and hooded in grey stepped through, then another followed and closed the door behind her. The first moved with an impossible grace and sat down cross legged, facing Fia. The second — similarly attired — was somewhat less elegant in her motion as she knelt and drew back her hood.
Unearthly eyes of luminescent blue, burning with fury, confronted Fia. The courtesan shifted slightly, freeing her folded paper fans within her wide sleeves. Her Exaltation had conferred upon her a recalled proficiency in the Celestial martial art, Dreaming Pearl Courtesan Style. Among the style’s techniques was a Charm with which a practitioner could imbue her fans with the potency of swords and war axes.
Fia had cause to be cautious. Joyful Gift’s remarkable blue eyes had more than once promised additional suffering to the courtesans and slaves whom Ribbons of Sorrows had ravished, for the demon-blooded harlot was his jealous lover. Commonly, little was known about Joyful Gift’s origins, though Fia had heard it whispered among her divine patrons that the girl was the castoff daughter of the demon Mara. For reasons unknown, Gift had formed a devout attachment to Ribbons, and at least one slave-courtesan that he had favored had been found strangled to death within her own bedchamber. Mentally, Fia readied herself for desperate combat. She had seen and experienced first hand several times that wives and sweethearts were often a courtesan’s most implacable and unreasoning enemies. Often they cared not at all that a slave-courtesan would be punished for resisting the money-backed advances of other women’s husbands or lovers.
What came next surprised Fia.
“Demon Malwia,” Joyful Gift rasped, her voice raw with anger. “Execute your commissioned duty; escort this woman safely out of the city.”
The lithe woman drew back her hood. The smoldering sticks of incense on either side of the futon behind Fia snuffed out, and the candle flames within the room lost color, becoming transparent teardrops of heat haze. Malwia’s clear eyes were impossibly large, square-shaped, and misted with fine, dull drops of scarlet — as if spattered with blood on the inside. Her mask-like oval face was perfect, her chin delicate, and the full red lips of her mouth formed a pert bow shape, which Fia could imagine any full-blooded male desiring to kiss. Braided tresses of metallic silver hair fell below the demon’s shoulders.
Fia felt herself poised for battle and at a loss for words. The Wyld Hunt of the Scarlet Dynasty could not openly pursue Anathema here within the Scavenger Lands — the 7th Legion and many nations forbade it. However, it was spoken of in rumor that the Realm employed assassins, bound demons and fanatical members of its Immaculate Order to covertly strike down Solar and Lunar abominations in lands that lay beyond its jurisdiction. This, however, was nothing like Fia had expected. Nor was the chain of surprises yet complete.
“No,” the demon said, her sonorous voice sending shivers up Fia and Joyful Gift’s spines. “This is not the one I am summoned to defend.”
Joyful gift glanced furiously at Fia then back at Malwia. She opened her mouth as if to shout at the demon, but Malwia forestalled her with a raised finger.
“Say nothing, half breed. Leave us, and I will solve this mystery on my own.”
Joyful Gift again opened her mouth to speak, but faltered again under Malwia’s glare.
“Only respect for your mother stays my hand. Go.”
Suspicious, Fia channeled Essence into her scrutiny of the demon and half demon. This was an ancient magic, normally employed to allow a Solar diplomat to attune herself to the complex interactions of a court or other groups of assembled individuals, but it sufficed for smaller gatherings as well. It became immediately clear to Fia, reading the traces of Essence and the nuances of expression, that while Malwia was in fact motivated by a sorcerous compulsion, Joyful Gift was the subordinate of the two. Before Fia’s eyes, the tenuous bond of the relationship ended as the Demon-Blooded excused herself from the room.
“Are you truly one of the Sun’s Chosen?” the demon asked when they were alone. Only the discipline granted by years of slavery allowed Fia to maintain a calm demeanor under the gaze of the alien being that sat across form her.
In response to the creature’s question, Fia allowed Essence to shine through her anima. The gold Caste Mark again appeared upon her brow, and the flickering, gold-edged corona of white holy light enveloped her. The demon scowled.
“The stars above this city are confused. Some force obscures Creation’s strands of Destiny and Fate. I was sent to protect a scholar, and instead I find a diplomat of the Eclipse Caste. Clearly Joyful Gift failed to anticipate the presence of two Solars within the city when she agreed to aid me in my mission. Perhaps she was only too anxious to see you removed from the reach of her lover.”
“And perhaps I am the only Child of the Sun of whom she was aware,” Fia said wonderingly. “What will you do now, demon Malwia?”
“Wait,” the spawn of the Yozi said, and smiled. Her grim expression of delight revealed a mouth of silver needles behind her-perfect scarlet lips.
Next: Arrival in Great Forks. The Dragon-Blooded prepare to hunt.
Next: /Dawn-3 Back to: /Night-2
Back to: Salt Lotus
This is a work of fan fiction set in White Wolf’s Exalted fantasy setting and is no way meant to challenge White Wolf’s copy rights or trademarks. The characters Joyous Gift, Mirror Flag, Ribbons of Sorrow, Shield of a Different Day, Spinner of Glorious Tales and Weaver of Dreams of Victory, as well as the city Great Forks are trademarked White Wolf Property.
