JWTS7
It's about a four hour trip around the Island of Blasphemous Prayer towards another spot on the horizon -- after noon by the time the yacht is within sight of a large, long island of lush jungles, dominated by a single high hill in its center. A column of smoke rises from one beach. Tarla, however, is struck not by the verdant jungle or the high hill or even the round, unnatural harbor, but by the ivory tower that isn't there.
Tarla is certain there should be an ivory tower atop the hill. And a long silver wharf extending out to the center of the bay. And a series of stone spikes, harder than granite, lining the channel and surrounding the island, so that you have to know the pattern to get to shore safely... which was really just a stylistic thing, since there was a Charm...
She pilots the yacht through the channel, noticing as she does that one of the stone spikes was knocked over long ago and not repaired. For just an instant, rage flashes through her -- how dare the servants fail to keep the island in perfect condition?! But then it's gone.
On the shore a number of ragged, shipwrecked looking poor bastards are stumbling out of the jungle, shouting hallooos and begging her to rescue them.
"You stay here," she tells Ashikanti, and jumps overboard, then swims to shore -- without the missing silver wharf, there's no way to safely dock the yacht.
The shipwrecked men and women cheer when Tarla reaches the shore. Their leader, a tall woman in a buff jacket, steps forward. She introduces herself as Damith, and begs Tarla to rescue them from this godsforsaken viper-infested hell-hole.
"Have you seen any pearl hags?" Tarla replies.
I should add that it's raining. Big buckets of rain, actually, and the island is damp and smells of rotting leaves. A light fog covers everything in mist.
Damith denies having seen any pearl hags, and instead expounds on the horrible viper-covered island. She again asks Tarla to rescue them, quickly, before the serpents find her and attack.
Tarla does a little math, and decides that there's no way she can take all of these castaways along. There are twenty-four of them, including Damith, and half are elderly or children, and the yacht can support two comfortably. She's reluctant to just abandon them there, though...
Tarla decides she can fit eight castaways on the yacht for a short trip -- to the Island of Blasphemous Prayer. She offers to transfer the castaways to another, much less inhospitable, island. Damith supports her plan, and suggests that she and her seven sturdy shipmates be the first group taken across, to ensure that it's safe.
Tarla, however, distrusts Damith (though she seems trustworthy...) and suggests instead that Damith guard the beach, in case the vipers attack. Damith tries to talk her out of this plan, but fails, and instead bides her time.
Tarla loads up the yacht with eight decrepit castaways (and puts up with some whining from Ashikanti, who can't stand any delays in the monumental task of discharging her agreement) and pilots back to the Island of Blasphemous Prayer, expertly navigating the extremely dangerous spike-lined channel.
"Wait here," she tells the unhappy sailors as they disembark, and returns to the Island of Verdant Ruin for the second load. It's getting late by this point, and Ashikanti is complaining that they've wasted an entire day. However, Tarla persists in moving past the rocks, picking up the second load, taking them back, and finally coming back for Damith and her crew.
Needless to say, Damith and her crew take their chance to assume control of the yacht by force -- Tarla is just a slip of a girl, right?
Tarla leaves Damith and three of her crew alive, treading water in the middle of the archipelago. The other four surrender, so she drops them off at the village, and goes to sleep.
Her dreams are full of the ivory tower and details about it. She used to go there to renew herself; it was her retreat from the bustle and excitement of the Blessed Isle. There was a well which supplied strawberry-scented water, and seven oricalcum-and-jade clockwork servants. There was a gallery of paintings -- landscapes -- which could be walked into and enjoyed, for a change of pace. She stored several things there, treasures and art objects and a weapon.
In the morning she sends the albatross out to scout the island. It returns after a few minutes, and reports that the thick jungle covers the whole land, except the central hill, which is bare fields. Halfway up the hill on one side is a recently-abandoned campground, and at the apex is a depression. At the bottom of the depression is a lake, from which a rough circle of shards of white granite protrude.
"Hmm," says Tarla, and with Ashikanti in tow sets out to find whatever local spirits can be found on the island.
A series of simple who-do-you-report-to? questions leads Tarla and Ashikanti through the jungle to Sliding Mirror, the serpent-and-egg earth elemental who rules the Island of Verdant Ruin. Ashikanti spends the entire trek whining about how this is detracting from the mission, and obviously the pearl hags aren't there, and so on and so on. Tarla isn't so sure, however -- her own tower would surely be a "least likely place," as Dancing Emptiness said.
Tarla introduces herself to Sliding Mirror, who treats her with utmost respect, as a represenative of the Sun. Sliding Mirror describes the monotony of her existence -- lounging around directing the vipers, harvesting the occasional human, and so on. She seems to be ignorant of the departure of the humans, and intimates that her vipers do not climb the central peak (where the castaways dwelled) for fear of the Killing Space.
"The Killing Space?" asks Tarla.
Yes, Sliding Mirror says. The Killing Space. All who venture too close to the lake in the center of the island are destroyed, instantly.
"All?"
All the spirits and elementals Sliding Mirror controls. The humans maybe can go there, Sliding Mirror doesn't know or care. She is in fact afflicted with a deep ennui, and begs Tarla for news.
While Ashikanti rolls her eyes, Tarla describes the war between Whisper-His-Name and Lookshy. Sliding Mirror interrupts and asks where Lookshy is. Tarla explains, and so on... it seems Sliding Mirror was exiled from Creation during the Great Contagion, and is somewhat peeved to learn that humanity wasn't wiped out wholesale after all.
Still and all, no help in finding the pearl hags or their hostage. Tarla departs quickly, for fear that Sliding Mirror will discover her plantation of humans is no longer on the island.
Tarla and Ashikanti return to the yacht and continue the voyage through the archipelago, searching for the three pearl hags and Amriel. By which I mean Tarla pilots the yacht and looks around, and Ashikanti naps on the bunk inside. Shortly before noon the yacht approachs a small volanic island, and a pair of flaming butterflies flutter up from it to the yacht.
One butterfly -- a big, beautiful thing four feet across -- lands on the deck next to Tarla and shapeshifts into a pretty Orlando Bloom type human form. This surprises Tarla, who didn't know fire elementals could do that.
The pretty boy drapes himself across Tarla and whispers sweet nothings in her ears. This also surprises Tarla, who didn't know fire elementals would do that.
Anyway. The other fire butterfly would attack Tarla for stealing his lover, but Tarla is an untouchable Eclipse and so instead it flutters about hurling insults. Meanwhile the elemental on deck starts lathering Tarla with compliments and extolling the passioniate flame with which he burns for her. His entire life was but prelude to this glorious moment.
Tarla realizes how flighty the elemental is, and that if she just waits around, he'll get bored and wander off. So instead she winds him up with carefully-selected words and phrases, toying with him and drawing it out. Every so often she sends him into a fit of romantic melancholy, then rescues him with a wink and a kind word. And things escalate...
This goes on for a while. I won't bore you with the details.
Eventually, though, Tarla gets around to asking the elemental about the pearl hags and their hostage. Ascending, kneeling at her feet and massaging them, recalls the hags well -- he and Descending exchanged words and blows with them. They took their hostage off to the Island of Broken Masks. How else can he serve her?
Tarla sets course for the Island of Broken Masks and toys with him some more during the trip, learning the layout of the island and its central law. Ascending pleads with her not to visit the Island -- for she is so, so beautiful, the most radiant thing in Creation, and the foul gods under Silver Robe would do terrible things to her. Their only law is the forbiddance of perfection -- all must be blighted or put to death.
Tarla parks the yacht in a hidden cove on the farthest side of the Island of Broken Masks, a strange island shaped like the letter C, with high cliffs all around the exterior and a large city on the interior facing the large natural harbor. She and Ashikanti decide to go into the city, first disguising themselves as maimed and/or disfigured people. Ashikanti pulls her teeth out and affixes them to her cheeks. Ascending begs Tarla again to reconsider, but (aware that she will heal quickly without danger of infection or scarring) Tarla uses a sharp knife to open her own face with a number of broad, shallow cuts. Ascending sobs and flees, unable to witness Hideous Tarla.
The two of them walk down the beach, leaving the albatross and Virtuous Raccoon on the yacht, and turn with the coast into the City of Broken Masks.
The City is a strange place, built by mad gods for mad gods. There are rows and rows of buildings six inches high on a table in the middle of a plaza perpetually flooded with three feet of standing, stinking water. There are streetlamps that glow in the UV spectrum, and piped, atonal muzak fills the air.
The inhabitants vary too widely to generalize about. They are all materialized gods or elementals, however, and they are all immortal, exiled, disfigured, and bored in their eternal Purgatory.
Tarla asks around after pearl hags and learns that there are a number of pearl hags in the city, aside from the three arrested yesterday.
"Arrested yesterday?"
Yes, yes, have you been under a rock? The hags broke the law!
"Which law?"
There's only one. They broke the law of imperfection.
"They were perfect?"
No, no, no, they were as blemished as anyone. Their property -- a mortal girl! As lovely as the day is long.
"I see. Where is the girl now?"
She's in the custody of Silver Robe, ruler of the City, whose castle is in its center.
"This Silver Robe -- who is she?"
He is the King of Broken Masks, and upholder of the law.
Right, Tarla thinks, there's who I need to talk to. With Ashikanti still in tow, she walks through the city to the tall castle of cracked rose quartz, with its four great towers, to the Hall of Promiscuous Justice, on the ground floor of the central tower.
She stopped at the gate by guards, who (not unreasonably) ask who she is and what she wants. Tarla explains that she and Ashikanti have come for Amrael, the mortal girl, that she is a Solar Exalt and therefore worthy of some respect, and finally that she is an envoy of Hezriel the Censor, so watch it.
The guards contact the interior of the castle, and court is quickly summoned.
In the Hall of Promiscuous Justice, Tarla presents herself to Silver Robe and his three ministers -- the Minister for Unforeseen Events, the Minister for Pardoned Sins, and the Minister for Understood Pains. Tarla explains the situation: if the City of Broken Masks damages Hezriel's consort or fails to return her, the City will be levelled. Having experienced a small fraction of the Censor's wrath in the past, she's quite persuasive.
Silver Robe and the Ministers huddle up. They respond, eventually, with a twofold objection to simply handing the girl over. First, she has broken the law of the island, which applies to everyone. The city wouldn't stand for an exception being made. Second, Hezriel's palace is a long ways off. His wrath may be great, but it surely diminishes with distance. They are, after all, at the furthest reach of Creation.
Tarla strenuously disagrees, and burns a lot of Personal Essence. Silver Robe reluctantly agrees to put off Amrael's execution for two days, no longer, while Tarla is free to contact Hezriel's court.
In the meantime, Tarla and her consort Ashikanti are welcomed in the rose-quartz Brokenmask Castle, and given a room.
It's a nice enough room, with a big bed and such. Ashikanti demands to know Tarla's next move. Tarla needs to think.
While she's thinking, there's a knock at the door. It's a froglike footman, with a message from the Minister for Unforeseen Events, requesting a meeting immediately.
The Minister for Unforeseen Events appears to be a middle-aged human woman, but her eyes have been gouged out and dangle from a chain about the Minister's neck. The Minister fills Tarla in, in a way that would be impolitic for the assembled Court of Promiscuous Justice to attempt. The day before Tarla's arrival in the yacht the Minister's agents have already discovered moored on the far side of the island, three pearl hags were found harboring a comatose human woman, a woman without a flaw. The pearl hags themselves were immediately put to death, of course, but the Minister recognized the woman as the favored consort of Hezriel, the Censor. She talked the other Ministers and Silver Robe into holding off on her execution, for the Minister for Unforeseen Events is well aware how much havoc an angry water dragon could wreak.
She's already invested a tremendous amount of political capital, and her influence is in danger of waning. Amrael needs to be removed from the Island immediately -- tonight if possible. The Minister is prepared to offer Tarla significant aid to accomplish this task, but she must maintain deniability.
Tarla nods, and asks where Amrael is held. The Minister explains that she is kept in Silver Robe's private torture chambers, a small room or set of rooms deep within the Brokenmask Castle dungeons. Her keys will allow Tarla access to these private chambers' anteroom, but no further -- the actual entryway is locked with a lock the key to which is held only by Silver Robe himself. Silver Robe visits the chamber every evening, at sunset.
(At this point Emily lamented that she did not yet have the Charm that made people do whatever she told them to do.)
Then tonight after dusk is when we'll make our move, Tarla says decisively. We'll need someone to get us through that door. This is a city of gods: is there a god of opening in it?
The Minister considers, and admits that there are several such little gods in the city. She gives Tarla an address.
Tarla (and Ashikanti) leave the Castle and go back into the city, hunting around for the address until they find it -- one of seven heptahedral towers three feet tall, arrayed in a heptagon on a raised platform. Tarla knocks, and the little door in front opens and a little red-faced man stick his little red face out.
Tarla tells the little man she wants to hire him, and the little man says he has company and can she come back in an hour or so? Tarla agrees.
She and Ashikanti spend the hour talking about Ashikanti's plans for corrupting the Immaculate Order and taking over the Blessed Isle... how much harder can it be than corrupting Seus Marahd and taking over the Island of Blasphemous Prayer?
Afterwards they knock on the little man's tower again. The little man first off asks how they plan to pay him. Tarla, rather than charm him using her honeyed tongue, instead offers him the jade tiger claws she took off Iron Rose's mangled corpse. The little man turns his nose up at them, however -- what use has he for tiger claws?
Then Ashikanti confuses him, and Tarla reaches down, picks him up, ties him up with twine, and puts him under her hat.
Back to the Brokenmask Castle they go, through the Hall of Promiscuous Justice, down the traditional flight of steps. The Minister for Unforeseen Events promised to stage a surprise inspection of the castle's defenders at dusk, which would pull away 90% of the guards Tarla could expect to see, off to the other side of the castle. The Minister also provided decent directions. All in all, Tarla and Ashikanti have no trouble reaching the door to Silver Robe's private chamber. They encounter several empty guard posts and one occupied, which Tarla has no difficulty talking her way past.
Once in the anteroom, Tarla pulls off her hat and tells the little man that he has a number of options. The first is to die noisily as a trespasser in Silver Robe's dungeons when she turns him in to the guards -- Tarla is certain they'll believe her over him. The second is to open the heavy titanium-alloy door before them, in which case Tarla will put him back under her hat and then release him once she's out of the dungeon. Agreed?
Tarla's holding the little man pretty tightly, so he reluctantly agrees. Flash the holy atomic fire.
(Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think Emily bothered to sanctify the agreement. But it's a better story this way, and I'm sure she would have if she'd thought of it. She was hell-bent.)
The little man uses a Charm and Silver Robe's door clicks open. Tarla scoops the little man up again and heads into the King of Broken Masks's private torture rooms.
Of course you were expecting this... it had to happen sooner or later.
The first thing Tarla sees are the butterflies. Hundreds and hundreds of butterflies, filling the air. There's a cool breeze from somewhere, and the air is heavy with perfume from the dozens of rosebushes that stud the garden. A soft light filters down from above. The grass carpet is lush and cool.
"Huh," says Ashikanti.
"There she is," says Tarla. "Help me get her into the sack."
In the center of the garden is a small plaza, on which Silver Robe has laid out some wicker furniture -- a table, a chair, and a lounge. Sprawled across the lounge is Amrael, still comatose, and dressed in rags. Her toenails are painted. \\
Tarla tries to rouse Amrael quickly, but is unsuprised when the girl fails to wake. The magic Hezriel told her about -- the enchanted necklace that protects her -- is still keeping Amrael undamaged, however. She and Ashikanti try to stuff the girl in the large sack they brought along for this purpose. Amrael won't bend, however, for reasons which are unclear -- either her head sticks out or her feet do.
Okay, new plan, Tarla says. She splits the sack open and lays it over Amrael diagonally. Tarla grabs the shoulders, Ashikanti the ankles, and they're off. Amrael is just a slip of a girl, after all.
Halfway out of the dungeon they're stopped by a fresh batch of guards just returned from inspection.
"Oi! What's all this, then?" one of them asks.
"Amrael is dead. I'm disposing of the body," Tarla says.
"What?" cries the guard. "But she's in the King's private dungeon! And she's scheduled to be disposed of in two days! And you're not a mortician -- you're her consort's declared agent!"
"And yet it's true," Tarla says, and starts to burn with holy atomic fire. It fails to damp down immediately -- she just ran out of personal Essence and has started spending Peripheral. "And you believe me completely, don't you?"
(Eleven successes.)
"Yes, we believe you completely," the guards say in unison.
"Great."
Tarla, Ashikanti, and their baggage continue to leave the castle. They make it out of the dungeons and all the way to the gate, where they're stopped by the gate-guards. Tarla doesn't mince words. "Let me through now." The holy atomic fire grows stronger, bleaching the rose-quartz Brokenmask Castle from pink to white. Beneath Tarla's hat, the little man goes from beet red to bleached bone. In fact, Tarla's anima banner flares up to its maximum, and the giant Proto Puma Prime made of light, not seen since Tarla's Exaltation, appears in the space between the towers of the castle. The light of the Solar Exalted burns on the Island of Broken Masks for the first time in three millennia.
In short, there's a riot.
Needless to say, the exiled gods of the city do not welcome the searing light of truth. They've all been here for a very long time, after all, and many of them remember the Solars, and just how angry they could get. Plus the entire city's been abuzz with rumor that the perfect woman captured yesterday with the executed pearl hags was some kind of advance scout.
So like I said, a riot.
One tremendous scene of chaos later, Tarla, Ashikanti, and Amrael are back on the yacht. The City of Broken Masks is in an uproar -- it will take a few hours for Silver Robe to mount any kind of chase.
Tarla sets course for the Island of Verdant Ruin, and sends the albatross up to scout for pursuit. She curses herself for failing to ask Hezriel for any kind of communications magic or a spirit-helper... she'd be happy to see Rolling Thunder, frankly.
As the yacht approaches the Island of Verdant Ruin, the albatross returns to the deck.
Bird-gods! his frantic squawking and fluttering convey. Coming fast!
"Right," says Tarla. "This is no time to stop being ruthless." She takes all her remaining manuera gum and splits it four ways -- a share for her, a share for Amrael, and two shares for Virtuous Raccoon. Virtuous Raccoon tries to spit it out, which is understandable, as the stuff tastes like kelp stored in an armpit. Tarla calms him, then pulls out her sai, goes below decks, and starts carving holes in the hull.
By the time the dozen steel-winged bird-godlings of chase and hunt are within range, the yacht is one of many on the ocean floor around the Island of Verdant Ruin, and its passengers are walking along the murky seafloor. Tarla, Ashikanti, and Virtuous Raccoon with Amrael on his back.
There should be, Tarla recalls, there should be a tunnel or passage connecting the seafloor out here somewhere to the basement of the Ivory Tower. She dimly remembers a long, wide, round tunnel with some kind of cart or tram inside, for when... some kind of underwater vehicle... came to the Island. Ashikanti protests, but underwater Tarla can't hear her. They search around and eventually find a wide cavemouth half-full of sand, sloping down.
This is it, Tarla's certain, and leads the others down a steep, slick, sandy slope of forty feet or so to the tunnel, which appears intact.
About ten hours of slow plodding along the floor of the water-filled tunnel later (Tarla is the only one of the group able to swim), Ashikanti suddenly disappears. Tarla searches around for her, but to no avail... there really isn't anywhere she could have gone. Eventually she realizes that the Killing Space to which Sliding Mirror referred -- the anti-spirit bubble protecting the ruins of the tower, which Tarla is planning on using to hide from Silver Robe's agents -- must extend down belowground as well, and it must have snared Ashikanti.
Tarla tries to feel sorry for Ashikanti, and fails... she was a demon, after all, albeit one coerced into helping her. She doesn't feel guilty, either, since she'd had no way of knowing Ashikanti would be affected.
So, alone with a coma victim and an increasingly high-strung horse, Tarla plods on and soon reaches the wide, rubble-filled cylinder which was once the basement of her Ivory Tower. She wastes no time searching for suriviving artifacts just yet, and instead surfaces in the lake -- which does indeed smell of strawberries -- and pulls Amrael to shore.
While Virtuous Raccoon wanders off in search of food, Tarla examines Amrael closely, hoping to determine the cause of her catatonia. Dress: rags. Underthings: rags. Shoes: none. Toenails: painted. Tattoos: none. Under the tongue: nothing. Throat: unblocked. Jewelry: pendant from Hezriel, protects her. In hair: plain silver comb.
"Well, duh," Tarla mutters, and pulls the comb out of Amrael's hair.
Amrael's eyes flutter open, and she sits up and stretches. "What? What happened?" she askes.
Tarla fills her in.
"Oh my. What do we do now?"
"This was as far as I'd planned, actually," Tarla tells her. "Hopefully when Hezriel gets the message I talked Silver Robe into sending before I started the riots, he'll guess what's happened and where we are and send aid." \\
"Do you think that's likely?"
"Not especially."
"Oh my."
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