TheT/TaleGoldenFortune
Golden Fortune felt a new clarity, a new purpose in his life. It seemed to him like every time he was broken by life, he only arose to become stronger. This time, that someone was the woman walking silently next to him.
He glance at her, this confident and powerful woman of whom he knew so little. She didn’t look like much – just a spoiled and lost patrician brat in dusty and worn finery. Which was generally what she was, by her own confession. Fortune knew at least that much about her. That priestess of abominations in the shadowland a week behind them had forced Fortune’s companion to speak her real name – Anjis Maret. Fortune wouldn’t be surprised Anjis wasn’t the name of a Dragon-Blooded House, or that the woman who now called herself Nil, rather than Maret, wasn’t the target of a rather focused Wyld Hunt. The Dragon-Blooded were particularly unhappy when the Anathema was spawned from one of their own.
Nil may have been forced to give her real name, but Golden Fortune had been forced into much worse. The temple to the dark powers in the Desert of Plague’s Triumph had broken him as surely as had the betrayal by his own mother or the sordid circumstances of his birth in the first place. Death after ritualized death had made him burst into uncontrollable and shameful weeping. A black fog choked his senses and he knew little more until he woke in a cave three nights later, far from that accursed place.
Golden Fortune had been saved by his companion, guided by her fierce tenacity and unwavering will. She would probably never know how much he admired her – how he was willing to die on her behalf. Then again, with her keen way of seeing to the heart of things, maybe she did. He relied upon her, an admission that was difficult to make, even if it was only in his own heart.
“Nil,” he began nervously, out of the blue, “you really think this Tinch is going to be able to help us?”
She looked at him, one fine eyebrow lifted. She was a small woman, and a pretty one, even if the days of walking had left her somewhat unkempt. Black hair, tilted brown eyes, fair skin, a bold nose, and full lips characterized her – a Blessed Isle patrician’s face if there ever was one.
“Of course. But I’d still look for him even if he was just a Solar. We need to stick together.” Just as Fortune was focused on finding his lost sister, so was Nil focused on finding others of their kind. “Even if he doesn’t know anything about the cask, its on our way. Harborhead’s a good place to start looking for your sister.”
“My sister.” Fortune chuckled without much humor. ”My friends, my so-called ‘gang’ was scared of me, there at the end, even though I was their way out of Talt. I hope she’s not, when we find her. I’m Anathema, you know. She might prefer the people keeping her over me.”
“Maybe,” Nil said, smiling at him in that way she had. He felt better before she even said anything. “Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give it a try, right?”
Fortune smiled back, reassured. “No, I guess not. It’s just that, sometimes, I miss not being something like a god, even though back before I was Exalted, I wished I could live almost any other life.”
Nil listened, giving Fortune her full attention. She was good at that, so good that the rest of his story came tumbling out.
This, then, was the tale of Golden Fortune.
My mother was the lowest of the low in Varang – the outcast, and I guess she was set on passing that distinction on to her children. She was so charming and so beautiful, forced by an accident of birth and timing into becoming a drug-addled low-class whore. I’m not making up excuses for her, but there are only three professions for an outcast in a Varang city: whore, criminal, or laborer. At least as a whore she could afford the drugs that kept her going on from day to day.
She never really looked after me, though I looked after her when I was older. The various outcasts had kids of their own, and there were orphans, too, and we sort of raised each other. They took me in, then my sister when she was born a year after me. My little group was composed of pickpockets and shoplifters, and I was one of them almost as soon as I could walk. And I was good at it. I was like a mascot to my pack. I don’t know what my mother named me, or if it was ever anything more than “Boy”, but it was my packmates that named me Golden Fortune.
I had a knack. No stall or pocket was safe from my wandering hands. Every evening I’d bring handfuls of things to share and still have some to give a little to my mother, who I still cared for back then. It wasn’t really much, but to our little family of outcasts, it was like rare treasure. When I got older, I formed my own little group, which you met – I could have been leader of my own pack, but I didn’t want that. Bigger groups were too easy for the guards to find.
You’ve met my gang, Nil, such as it was, all except my sister. My old pack named her Joyous Orchid, because she was always so bright and happy, however bad things got. She was the one who lifted our spirits and kept us from just giving up and dying. Orchid was so beautiful, too. I could see in her what my mother had been before the drugs had ruined her mind and her soul. She never had to steal a thing. Just a smile would get her what she wanted. I’ll bet anything that her beauty, and her sweet, trusting nature was her downfall.
My closest friends, the ones I left behind in Talt, they were like siblings, too. Fiery Deia with the flame-red hair was good at keeping the guards off our backs. She was fierce as a lion and twice as mean. More suspicious than the guards could ever hope to be, she kept us one step ahead. Verchey was the oldest, big and broad. He liked to keep his head bald as an egg. He kept the bigger thugs away from us. And there was Kallest. He was the quick and agile one. He wasn’t very brave, really, but he was easily the smartest of us.
You met them all when you were chasing me through Talt. Kallest was the one who told you everything, naturally, and Deia was the one who wouldn’t talk. But it was Orchid who was the heart of us. That’s who this is all about. Just about half a year ago, she vanished. I came back to the latest safehouse to find her gone, and none of us knew where she went. We all loved Orchid and were frantic to find her.
Kallest, the quickest thinker, was the one who suggested that she might have gone to see our mother. I went to see her alone, which was a mistake. She was so glad to see me, and assured me that Orchid was with her, and everything was fine. And when she was leading me to where my sister was, someone hit me from behind and I blacked out.
I woke up in chains and in darkness. I couldn’t move, and without my tools, I couldn’t pick the lock I could just touch with my fingertips. I was cramped in some kind of chest, which was moving somewhere. I could tell by the bouncing. I’m not ashamed to say I started to panic – I had no idea what was going on. Just when I started to struggle, though, light filled the tiny space I was in, and a voice filled my soul.
“You who have known only injustice will now be my justice. Cast off your chains and in my name strike off the bonds of the oppressed, bring hope to the downtrodden, and cast down tyranny. I am the Unconquered Sun, and I Exalt you.”
The voice faded, but the light was still there. And my chains went slack as the lock opened at my touch. I rapped the inside of the chest’s lock and it came open as well, and I burst out, ablaze with golden fire.
Cries of “Anathema” went up, even as I hit the ground with a splash. I was in a sewer, not far from the secret exit from the city I planned to use when I made my own attempt at escape later. There were three men in the wide tunnel, two big ones bearing the chest, and a smaller one, clearly the leader. He had a knife at his side and I rolled through the shallow muck, stood next to him and snatched his weapon from his belt.
The braver of the two bearers came at me and I threw the knife through his knee. He fell over onto his face. I was unarmed and the two left turned on me, then. Even as I backed away, the knife came back into my empty hand. That’s when the two left standing tried to run. The second bearer I had to kill – I couldn’t let anyone get away. The knife hit him in the skull. I called the weapon back in enough time to hit the knee of the leading kidnapper, and then he was at my mercy.
It was from this man, this slaver that did work for the Guild, that I found out the nature of the deal they’d made with my mother. They were to sell us both, ‘beautiful, young, and unspoiled’ on the slave market, in exchange for a rather large sum, which my mother then used to flee the city. The authorities of Talt would have frowned highly on such a transaction were they to find out.
I let him go, and I doubt that slaver ever came back to Talt again. I guess he could have reported me, but then he’d have to admit to buying slaves illegally, too. I wish I’d followed him, now, but my thoughts were on finding my mother. But the time I emerged from the sewers, the light around me had faded, but my mother was already long gone.
I never told the others the full details about what had happened, only that we were going to get out of Talt and find Orchid. With my new skills, I started building up a small fortune so I could chase the slavers down. We were the best fed group of thieves in Talt for several weeks, but my dreams kept pushing me to move on. I remembered what the Night Caste was in the First Age, and I was ashamed to be a petty thief instead of a bringer of justice.
Despite my shame, I felt the need to wait. Another thing was in my dreams – a hazy vision at first, but it became clearer over time. It was the cask, all black wood and shining orichalcum. The Unconquered Sun wanted me to have it. When word came to me of the arrival of the cask, I had to have it.
I was able to steal your note from the messenger, then change my appearance to match yours, with my gang acting as my retinue. I used my entire stolen fortune to buy that cask, then stole my money back. The use of so much Essence wore me out, so I rested a little before leaving the city – which is how you found me.
“I’ve never felt more full of hope that everything will turn out alright since you swore to help me find my sister. I feel like the Unconquered Sun is guiding me to Orchid, through you, and to free my friends – I trust you now, just like I trusted them.”
Nil smiled, not in the usual devil-may-care way, but in what Fortune felt was honest fondness. “I feel the same way about you. I never had a gang or a pack, except my Dragon-Blooded friends. Then, I was just a mortal. And now, I’m Anathema.” The smile dropped away. “You’re my family now. I may not have the visions you do, but I feel the path we’re on will lead us into a fellowship closer than brothers – into a bond unseen since the First Age.”
She spoke with such conviction that Fortune could only agree. He looked forward now to meeting this Solar sorcerer, this Tinch.
Onward they rode, to the Tower of the Descending Suns.
