Salt Lotus/Twilight-2

By MunificentPerception Back to: /Zenith-2

In Great Forks…

“And you are Master Berdi's son.” Sesus Bera announced, his words coming from out of the empty night air behind me. With my hand on the bolt of the courtyard’s side entrance, I nearly leaped out of my sandals.

So much for escaping unseen.

I turned about to find the Dragon-Blooded lord and his daughter standing not far away, and I was suddenly aware of the smells of pine sap and cold mountain winds. I had assumed that like the others in his entourage, Lord Sesus would already be abed. The hastily arranged dinner that my father had given to properly welcome our visitors on the second day of their stay had included heavy foods and potent wines. The wood-aspected Dragon-Blood had indulged in his share, which included smoking a truly heroic quantity of opium from the elaborate glass water pipe that my father had insisted on personally tending. Instead of having retired for the evening, though, Sesus Bera was now dressed for leisure, barefoot in a silk jacket and soft brown leather breeches. His wide-bladed sword was sheathed across his back, and his full green hair hung loose, spread over his powerful shoulders. His daughter's blue-streaked hair was still pulled into a tail, and her figure clad in the uncomfortable jade plating of her armor. The long lance with its heavy blade of white jade steel hung loosely in her hand.

Her brow furrowed and her blue eyes blazed as she stared back at me, growing angrier by the second.

“Leda,” her father growled in warning, and now it was her turn to jump in surprise. He then continued in High Realm, reproaching her for an offense, the nature of which I could guess. Each time he finished a sentence she nodded sharply and uttered a soft sound of ascent. When he was done, she swallowed and stood her ground.

Lord Sesus turned to face me again.

"I was merely reminding my daughter that the customs of the Blessed Isle are not those of the River Province, and that you meant no disrespect by looking one of the Exalted in the eye.”

The River Province: the term for the Confederacy of Rivers when the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate had ruled it and the rest of Creation before the coming of the Great Contagion. Even after seven centuries of independence and three failed wars of conquest, the Dynasts of the Realm acknowledge the Scavenger Lands' autonomy in neither thought nor word.

If Fia, whom I had yet to meet, is blessed with the better qualities of her elemental heritage, then I can only wonder about my own ancestry. Was there among my forbearers some trickster fae or perhaps a malevolent spirit of sharp pranks? As I stood there, facing two Princes of the Earth, the Exalted of the Five Dragons, I could only bite back a comment that would have pointedly reminded the Dynasts of their ancestors’ failures in this region. Choosing discretion, but not entirely, I swallowed the remark, straightened my posture, and addressed Sesus Bera head on with a lopsided smile and easy attitude.

“And you have my abject apologies for any offense on my part. I was about to venture out for an evening's entertainment and wonder if you would care to join me.”

On rare occasion, my intuition does not land me in trouble, and this time it seemed to serve well. Sesus Leda gasped, not believing that I had spoken directly to her father, while Lord Bera's broad face split in an ivory grin.

“Passic, I would be in your debt. I am unacquainted with the hospitality of the city.”

Leda's grip tightened audibly around the ironwood shaft of her Dire Lance as her leather glove creaked under the strain. I most carefully did not look in her direction this time. Her father glanced towards her, said something melodic in High Realm, and she remained standing there as we opened the heavy side door to the courtyard and left.

The door’s bolt slammed home loudly as we walked away

My heart pounded in my throat as Bera and I proceeded into the Temple District. Nothing to be worried about, I reassured myself. This was just your average student of the House of Learning out for a night’s leisure with his drinking companion, a 150-year-old Dynast of the Scarlet Empire.

“I trust that I am not interrupting anything more serious than some midnight rendezvous with your age fellows?” Lord Sesus asked, his head swiveling as he took in the ordered flagstone streets and the lantern-lit skyline of temples, shrines, coliseums and playhouses. The alabaster dome of the Palace of the Three loomed above the Temple District, as well as the dozen rose-and-gold, domed astrological towers of the House of Learning. The avenue that we walked was illuminated at regular intervals by oil-fed flames screened by cylinders of parti-colored glass. As we crossed a set of arched bridges, the narrow canals below were ablaze with candle-bearing boats, each the size of an open hand. Underneath the glassy lens of star-filled blackness that was the sky, mortals and small gods mingled in the commerce of worship.

“No, nothing more important than a night out,” I answered, unable to keep unabashed curiosity from my voice. At least the terror I had lived with since the Dragon-Blooded’s arrival did not show, or I fervently hoped that it did not. Did they know? Would I have still lived if they had known that I had been exalted by the Sun only days earlier? Even if by improbably good fortune I remained undetected, mortal danger still awaited me in the future. I was now one of the afeared Anathema, not just in the eyes of the Dynasty’s Immaculate faith, but to many of the Scavenger Lands’ inhabitants as well.

Not that I felt anything like a possessed victim of demonkind. While legend and religious doctrine describe the Anathema as dark beings who had ground humanity beneath their boot heels at the dawn of time, the radiant memories that had accompanied my Second Breath contained visions of righteousness. These had revealed none of the wickedness ascribed to those once known as the Solar Exalted. Rather, it was we who had ruled Creation with the Mandate of Heaven. Nor did I recognize any inherent spiritual superiority in the Dragon-Blooded. It was they who had been our soldiers, handmaidens and engineer workmen. When I thought of the Terrestrial Exalted, I recalled not divine right, but treachery and slander.

I had been returning to Great Forks on one of Berdi’s errands when the Second Breath had come upon me. The Exaltation, in all its light and gravity, was of a magnitude of sensation that I had not experienced since my unknown mother had born me into this world. The trees in the forest around me, sun-bleached and faded as they had been from the sudden power that shone within me, had still contained greens and browns richer than any I had previously perceived. Even more wonderful, I had heard the forest’s breathing, felt and not merely understood that its great oaks were participants in the vast cycle of Essence. Both the part and the whole drew in and expelled out in accordance with the dictates of the seasons, and I knew that I had been made even more a part of that cycle. A shard of the Sun’s power was embedded within my lower soul and allowed me to channel Creation’ Essence through my skills and talents. Nor was it merely my immaterial self that had been changed by the doubled flow of the world’s lifeblood. If I had been light on my feet before, I was now nimble as a water spirit and later found myself comprehending with ease the texts that had baffled me only days earlier. I knew that mortal illnesses would be of little concern to me, and that I could recover from the most grievous of injuries short of death.

I shook off the memories of the Second Breath. In the here and now of Great Forks, mortals and the ethereal forms of lesser deities stepped to the left side of the street as a procession approached. Three dark-haired slave children led the way, casting rose petals on the ground before the inhumanly slender, silk-wrapped figure of Ribbons of Sorrow. The deity’s four concubines — two youths and two young women — were bound to Ribbons by the yards-long scarlet silk strips that made up the local god of slavery’s body suit. The slaves’ faces were encased in white ceramic masks that mimicked their owner’s sharp-featured visage. Behind Ribbons came the celebrants, around fifty in number — many no doubt paid professionals who were there to sing the god’s praises at the behest of the guildsmen and other traffickers of human flesh who employed them. As we passed, Ribbons of Sorrow’s posture became icily perfect and his eyes never came to rest on us as he ignored Sesus Bera to the best of his ability.

There was little love lost between the Dragon-Blooded of the Scarlet Dynasty and the terrestrial gods of the East.

“What is the most dangerous beings, Passic?” Lord Sesus asked me when the clamor of the celebration had had passed behind us. “Let us say, the most fearsome of warriors.”

“My friends and I are divided on this,” I answered carefully.

“How so?” He said looking down at me.

“There are those who say that the Dragon-Blooded of the Immaculate Order’s martial artists are the most dangerous fighters…” I said and trailed off as I tried to phrase my next thought in the politest way possible.

“But?” Sesus said, sounding amused.

“There are rumors,” I said cautiously. “Rumors that at the downfall of the city of Thorns there were…combatants…among the army of the dead who matched or overmatched the lord of Thorns’ Dragon-Blooded advisors.”

“You should not put much faith in gossip,” Lord Sesus rumbled. “I was thinking of the Solar Anathema as the most dangerous beings to walk Creation. In my experience, these are the most potent adversaries that one may face.”

I was now perfectly calm because I was sure that I was already dead. At any moment I would realize that Lord Sesus’s sword had been loosed, and my higher soul was walking forward even as my cloven body fell to the ground.

But, as it was, I still lived. Lord Sesus said nothing more for some minutes while we wandered through the District of Temples, breathing in the smells of incense and the fragrant smoke from the scented wood of burnt offerings. We were presented with sweets and garlands of flowers by different crowds of revelers, and Lord Sesus accepted a single saffron blossom, which he toyed with between his large hands as we continued onwards. Off the main avenue, in a large park of trees and streams, we stopped at the impressive, wood-lined, stone temple of the Mistress of the Eternal Hunt — the East’s patron goddess of hunters. Inside, Sesus Bera placed the saffron blossom on the green jade marble alter, dropped to his knees, clapped his hands three times loudly and filled the temple with his profound bass voice as he sung an homage in Old Realm. The gaunt, sharp-eyed priests looked on proudly, satisfied to see one of the Dragon-Blooded honoring their mistress, and I followed Sesus’s words as best I could. It soon became clear that not only was he declaring to the goddess that he was engaged in a hunt of the most dangerous kind, but that he was still searching the land for his fearsome prey. When he had finished, and we had departed the temple, I could no longer restrain my curiosity.

“Lord Sesus. I hope you will forgive me, but as I was charged by my father with making sure that this night’s dinner went without interruption, I never heard why you and your daughter have honored us with your company.”

“Passic, you do not need to be so formal. I have known your father for some time as a close friend, and though you and I have only recently met, I would offer you a similar friendship.”

“I…accept.”

Lord Sesus smiled his ivory smile again. “I owe your father much, are you aware of that?” he asked. That came as a true surprise — my father had always acted as though he was in debt to Sesus Bera. Then again, even if one has done a favor for a Dynast of the Realm, discretion is probably a healthy trait.

“There was a time when I found it necessary to leave the Blessed Isle for awhile. I had made a miscalculation in the game of house politics, and it was for the better that my enemies not be able to locate me after that particular mistake. For reasons too boring to discuss, I ended up here in Great Forks. Your father allowed me to join his scavenging expeditions, and I learned much that I would not have if I had passed those years in the Realm. In answer to your question, why I am here now, I am escorting my daughter on a tour of your Confederation of Rivers,” he explained, and he winked to acknowledge his use of the forbidden name by which the Scavenger Lands' inhabitants referred to their collective homelands. “Leda has recently graduated from the School of Bells, and more than anything she yearns to take a commission in the legions in pursuit of what she imagines to be martial glory. She has thoughts and aspirations on how she will ascend to the pinnacle of warfare with her clinical eyes and cool hands. Such dreams are well and fine…” Sesus Bera said, even though his heavy tone spoke of disapproval, “but as a father I can see that she lacks the perspective needed to implement them. She yearns to be away at arms already, and she can not believe that I have forced this tedious graduation present on her. But such is my prerogative as a household elder. And as an aside, one never knows what one will find here in River Province. I have found this to be a most excellent region in which the young can experience alien cultures and perspectives.”

Another prank-like thought stole upon me with a morbid gallows humor before I could stop my mouth. “Here, one never knows whether one walks with a ghost or god,” I said slyly.

Now he arched an eyebrow and I could tell that I had struck some nerve of annoyance.

“You have a brother in my household. Did you know that?” He asked, and I faltered in my pace. These were indeed the days in which my old life was ending. “Nearly 18 years ago your father saved me from an ancient trap in a forgotten jungle city, and afterwards, my wife traveled all the way from Lord’s Crossing to our encampment while I was recovering. She felt compelled to reward Berdi for his quick thinking and loyalty.” Lord Sesus said this in a tone of complete ease, as if pleased with the generosity of her wife.

I realized that I had come to a halt, and Lord Sesus was looking back at me, again amused. No doubt a patrician of the Realm or one of the Dynasts would naturally have seen the propriety of a Dragon-Blooded woman sleeping with the man who had saved her husband, but when I thought of Berdi together with Sesus Bera’s wife, my stomach turned sourly inwards. I felt a wretched curiosity about the nature of the Dynasts and their empire. Rumors and students’ stories told that the Elemental Dragons’ Chosen lived lives of utter opulence on the Blessed Isle. Even as the Realm began to totter towards civil war and the great houses armed themselves in the Empress’ absence, the Dynasts’ lusts knew little restraint. It was said that among the Scarlet Dynasty it was unremarkable for a mother to share a son’s bed, or a father a daughter’s. I had dismissed these claims as the product of my peers’ lurid imaginations and been shocked into near silence when Berdi had confirmed the truth behind the stories. Then he had told me of the Dragon-Blooded’s coming of age parties, where a male and female dancer ritualistically removed the veils that were each others’ only clothing, and the newly anointed graduate chose one or both of the dancers to take as a lover on the first night of his or her adulthood.

Lord Sesus had stated that Leda had recently completed her schooling. I wondered, with an unbidden jealousy that stunned me, whom she had chosen. And a brother? I had a brother who had been raised as a Dynast on the Blessed Isle.

Having thus disrupted my wits, Bera made his next play.

“Among your father’s frequent traveling companions was man named Silen He was a talented individual and aided Berdi in rescuing me. I am hoping that he is here in the city, and that it would be possible for me to meet with him.”

Still at a loss for words, I nodded. On other nights, I would have been able to dissemble with sufficient skill to convince Lord Sesus that I had no recollection of where to find the man. Or at least I like to think I could have fooled a 150-year-old Dynast who had survived decades of the Realm’s blood-soaked intrigues. At any rate, my father would have been furious to discover that I knew of Silen’s favorite haunt, and even angrier to know that I had on occasion visited that particular establishment. Did I mention that a scavenger lord is part tomb thief? It would be no mean exaggeration to say that if some of Berdi’s associates and hirelings were not criminals, they were not far from it either. Often the work of a scavenger lord involves getting into locations where others — perhaps long dead, perhaps still living — do not wish him to go. In his youth, Silen’s specialty had been breaching barriers and opening doors. While he was still an unmatched mortal expert in that area, he had since moved from working directly in his field to becoming something of an manager. He knew people who knew people, including many of the younger specialists within his chosen field. In short, he knew more than a little of Great Fork’s criminal underworld.

Soon it became clear that Sesus Bera needed eyes and ears for his hunt, and Silen was more than willing to supply them.

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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.