SaltLotus/SaltLotus4
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.
In the time before history, the mightiest of the gods, the Celestial Incarna of the sky, had granted rule over humanity to the Solar Exalted. Among the blessings given to the chosen Lawgivers during their exaltations was an endowment to the warriors of the Dawn Caste, allowing them the innate ability to summon an imitation of the Unconquered Sun’s wrathful majesty. Dawning Daughter now elected to make full use of that power.
She cut through the air with her twin swords as she wove Essence into the flows of the Raging Eagle Form, making her body light and her gaze charged with supernatural intensity. She then ran forward and launched herself into the air with a second Charm. The Soaring Crane Leap carried her up over the waters that had separated her from the Plum House, and in midair she invoked her Caste’s ancient display. Essence flowed into her anima and flared majestically, blinding the bowmen who otherwise might have struck her with their projectiles.
Falling towards the third-story balcony that wrapped around the main house, she paid no heed to the fact that she was again outnumbered. There was little room to maneuver on the balconies, and only one or perhaps two guards at a time would be able to come at her — so long as she did not allow a foe to catch up from behind. She landed lightly and charged the nearest two soldiers. Her Essence-swollen anima made Dawning terrible to behold: taller than her actual height and preternaturally fierce with an undaunted godly anger. The soldiers, veterans of the Wyld Hunt, struggled to master their terror even as they sought to blink clear their ruined vision. At the last moment, Dawning leapt onto the balcony’s banister.
The power of her gaze sapped concentration from the first man as she reached down and separated his head from his shoulders. Then second man swung and missed, still overwhelmed by Dawning’s display of power. Without breaking pace, she flashed by and dealt a crippling blow in passing. Landing on the balcony, she rounded a corner and ran towards the next two soldiers, who had been rushing to reinforce their fellows. Her sudden appearance and divine presence were simply too much. Both the men turned and ran, colliding with two of their comrades who were attempting to converge on the attacking Solar. Dawning Daughter fell upon then in a rain of blows, and when she had finished her gruesome task, she darted inside the main building. Behind her, arrows smashed into the lintel of the door that she had just sprinted through. At the center of the building was the hollow space of its three-story foyer, overlooked by levels of walkways and rooms. Soldiers were ascending the inside stairs and shouted when they spotted the radiant Exalt. Ignoring them, Dawning Daughter leapt off the interior balcony and descended lightly to the foyer’s floor. She sprinted through the room’s rear exit towards the tea hut where the falcon god claimed her fellow Chosen were being held. She emerged from the central building’s rear portal, just in time to see the hut shiver, twist and collapse.
Across the city...
Holvic led his mount and remount through the city, clad in his full suit of lamalar armor with the glass sword Enlightenment sheathed at his waist. The streets emptied of pedestrians as he pressed on. In the Temple District, armed godlings, priests and acolytes had been visible in the portals of temples and at the balustrades of shrines. Though the citizens and slaves of the city did not yet know that a battle was being waged in their midst, word was spreading of strange lights and armed parties on the move.
The priest of the Unconquered Sun elected to stay off the well-lit boulevards and favored the more discreet side ways whenever possible. He followed clues from the vision that had been granted him and relied upon his sharp senses to help steer him towards combat.
The battles he had tracked had been short, swirling and diffuse. The members of this seemingly ad hoc Wyld Hunt were operating under the restraint of having only the small units that its Dragon-Blooded officers had been able to smuggle into or hire within the city. Thus far, their quarry had not obliged them by standing in one place and fighting overly long. Additionally, there seemed to be some confusion between units. Small groups of armed men — perhaps not under the control of the Dragon-Blooded — had been attacked by the soldiers of the Hunt or had even sliced into each other on more than one occasion. This left Holvic to wonder just how many factions had been stirred to battle by the presence of his fellow Solars.
Now, however, enough Essence had been expended that there was no hiding the divinity within the core combatants. Ghostly sheets of green and purple lit the windows and balconies on the top floor of a three-story stone tenement. Observing from a roof well out of spear toss, a water-aspected Dragon-Blooded and his earth-aspected companion stood steeped in the radiance of their elemental animas.
A single javelin arched out of a window with impossible speed. The water-aspected Dynast’s sword blurred and smashed aside the missile, but only just. Both of the Dragon-Blooded elected to evacuate the roof in favor of a safer observation platform.
Having observed this engagement from the side, Holvic moved to circle around behind the tenement house, hoping that if the Night Caste Solar and his or her companions withdrew yet again, he would be able to intercept them. Night fire continued to light the three-story tenement from within as Holvic covered ground, and when he had arrived two blocks away, he left his mounts tethered in an alleyway. There were few citizens or slaves on the streets now, and those who moved about did so with obvious haste away from the battle.
The word, Anathema, could be heard here and there, shouted in panic.
Holvic strode forward down the tree-lined avenue — his great sword now in hand. The neighborhood was composed of well-maintained stone tenements with shops on the ground floors, as well as the walled villas of successful merchants and established artisans. The fires of the street lamps had been extinguished, casting deep shadows across the street. A bloody corpse dressed in black lay sprawled on the paving stones, its hand wrapped around a wickedly curved short sword.
At the base of the three-story tenement house, lay more bodies. Armored corpses were sprawled face down, with wounds in their backs. Warily, Holvic drew nearer. He had nearly arrived at his goal when a man swathed and masked in black stepped out from a sandal maker’s shop.
“Five,” the stranger stated in Riverspeak. Recognizing that he was being confronted with a challenge for which he did not know the proper password, Holvic dropped into a guard position. A lancing pain stabbed through his back. The priest of the Unconquered Sun staggered; then smashed his armored elbow back into the face of the individual who had crept up noiselessly behind him. His attacker — the man dressed in black who had been sprawled out as if dead on the side of street — fell to the ground. The blood that covered the would-be assassin had apparently been painted on, but now the man shed a fresh wave of crimson from the gash that Holvic had opened on his forehead. Even before the attacker landed on his back, his four companions were already upon the Solar swordsman, silently springing from the windows and trees where they had hidden themselves.
The attackers’ hatchets and curved swords rained down in a cascade of coordinated attacks, and Enlightenment became the Essence-fueled blur that answered. Straining with exertion, Holvic gave ground and sought to prevent any of his foes from getting behind him. The men and women — clad in black and likewise masked — did not appear deterred by his demonstration of superhuman ability. Mortal though they were, they had obviously contended with unnatural foes before, and they responded accordingly. A fighting chain lashed out and wrapped itself around Holvic’s left forearm. The man who had cast it dropped into a low stance to act as an anchor. Holvic was forced to expend more Essence defending himself as his opponents attempted to wear him down. The priest wrapped his left arm around the chain, shortening the length between him and its wielder; then lunged backwards. The man with the chain flew through the air and staggered into a companion who had been attempting to maneuver behind the Solar. His golden Caste Mark shining, and again relying on defensive Charms, Holvic parried the other two attackers’ blades and then struck back, opening an enemy’s ribcage in a gory blossom. Blood hissed across the cobblestones as his opponents back flipped away from him in unison.
A darkened blade sang through the air, thrown by the assassin who had earlier feigned death, and it lodged in Holvic’s shoulder plate. The others drew throwing knives, but before they could cast in unison, a red feathered arrow took the first assassin in the base of his neck. The rest of the black-clad attackers melted away, running quickly and crouched low as they abandoned the engagement. Six of the veteran brides of Ahlat emerged from the tenement, armed with bows, spears and carrying shields. They moved fast, even though one of their number was seriously wounded and required the assistance of two companions. The acting leader, a tall, dark-skinned woman in a tasseled red cloak and bronze gilded breast plate shouted to Holvic in Fire Tongue as they jogged towards him.
“Our captain says for you to hold the street. We will retreat past you, hide, then counter attack.”
Holvic nodded, and as the others passed his position, their mistress emerged from the building, leaping in a long arc from a second-story window; surrounded by the burning night glory of her anima. Above her, the phantasmal banner image of a sliver-skinned, raven-haired woman mimed her motions. The earth-aspected Dynast followed close behind, shining with crystalline white light as he jumped. Civilian-clothed soldiers and hired killers spilled out from the main entrance of the tenement, and the water-aspected Dragon-Blooded was among them, resplendent in his rippling brilliance. The broad avenue was now lit as bright as day with the anima banners of Exalts, and the hued lights reflected off windows and pools of spilled blood. The Night Caste Solar alighted next to Holvic and turned to face her enemies. The earth-aspect, his magic weaker than that of the Solar Exalted, landed short. He yelled in Low Realm and gestured with his sledge for soldiers to form up on him.
Holvic infused his anima with Essence, and a column of raw gold fire flared around him. The image of the holy white bull appeared; the full noon disc of the Zenith Caste shinning on its brow. The phantasmal animal roared its challenge. The Realm soldiers and paid murderers faltered — their Dragon-Blooded masters blanching as well. They had already suffered at the hands of a single Exalt and her companions; now they faced not only their original foe, but a fresh demigod spoiling for the fight.
Obeying a shouted command from the earth-aspected Dynast, the soldiers broke into pairs and held their tall shields before them as they retreated back up the steps to the three-story tenement building. Holvic threw himself flat and rolled as the Dynasts raised their hands. Shards of crystal and darts of ice slashed through the air. The Night Caste Solar spun around the blast meant for her and came out of her dodge with a javelin in hand. She hurled at the water-aspected Dynast. The Dragon-Blooded dodged backwards through the entrance, leaving one of his men to be impaled by the projectile. The last of the foot soldiers completed the orderly retreat back through the portal, with the earth-aspected Dynast in their midst.
Without a word, Holvic and the Night Caste warrior jogged down the avenue and away from their enemies. When they rejoined the other brides, the former sergeant who had addressed Holvic approached him with her empty hands held warily in front of her. She withdrew the dagger from his back, and his jaw clenched as she did her work. When finished, she slapped a dressing over the wound.
“That won’t be necessary,” Holvic said, as he stanched the bleeding by force of will. The woman’s eyes were wide with awe as she reversed the dagger and handed it to him, handle first. Holvic studied the weapon and grimaced.
“A demon weapon of a Yozi cult. No wonder it penetrated so easily.”
“A lesser man would have been maimed by the wound it left,” the former sergeant whispered.
“We have been attacked by nearly every enemy conceivable this evening,” the Night Caste said. A wry smile played across her lips.
“Though they seemed to have confounded each other in many instances,” Holvic replied and tossed the dagger away. “Their numbers may have ultimately been our salvation.” He then drew the other weapon from his shoulder guard and discarded it.
“Be that as it may, we should not linger,” The Night Caste said. “They will be back as soon as they have rallied their forces.”
“Agreed,” Holvic said, then as an introduction, “Holvic Kagi, swordsman, formerly of the Kagi Company.”
“Wendai of Harborhead.”
A dawn glow raged against the sky, rising up from the riverside teahouse district.
“I think we should see to our comrade, as quickly as possible,” Wendai said, her voice filled with eagerness.
Moments earlier, inside the tea hut…
Fia stood up slowly — her only concession to the last two hours of stillness the cautious deliberateness of her motion. Her hands disappeared into her wide sleeves and reappeared holding folding paper fans. A silver shimmer infused her kimono, and bright motes of Essence drifted upwards from the garment. She dropped into a fighting stance with both fans spread wide and backed cautiously away from Sesus Bera and his astrologer. The Dragon-Blooded lord’s hands remained on his sword, ready to draw and strike.
The dawn light on the paper screen door diminished, as if its source had moved indoors.
“Passic,” Sesus addressed me calmly even as he tracked Fia’s movements toward me. “You have my forgiveness if you are under her control.” Beneath my hands, Leda was utterly motionless. The stolen knife pressed up against her vulnerable throat just above the jade collar of her armor. I had the power of death over life, but I knew that could not exercise it, not like this. I had never killed, and cutting a helpless victim’s throat was beyond pale, even with my life at stake.
“But you are not under her control, are you?” Lord Sesus observed, his features hardening. “You would not be so frightened.”
I found it necessary to clear my painfully dry throat before speaking. “No lord Sesus, I am-“
The astrologer’s hand blurred and her darts were at my side before I had registered what had happened. My anima flared and filled the room with twilight purple and fading red as the weapons were stopped cold. The scholar-adventurers of the Twilight Caste have always been explorers and meddlers, and where our Dawn brethren’s animas can be made to inspire awe, ours shield us from the physical dangers that have accompanied our inquiries and sorceries.
As if the attack had been signal, the floor began to buckle and tendrils of darkness boiled up into the room through the splintered cracks.
Lord Bera was on his feet, sword out and lunging towards Fia and me. I kicked Leda forward into her father’s path and the floor fell apart entirely beneath us. I managed to grab Fia’s loose sleeve and wrap my hand within its voluminous fabric before we hit the water. Discharges of Essence and an inky enveloping darkness vied for dominance as an indigo-lit, polished wood blade slashed through the blackness inches away from my eyes. A powerful surge pulled me backwards. My arm was nearly dislocated in its socket, and I lost my grasp on Fia, but not before she had been caught up in the same flow.
Points of green, sunlit insanity sparkled in the living darkness around us. Struggling, I fought towards the surface to escape the mad lights that plucked at my higher soul. I broke into the air and looked around. Fia appeared next to me and fought desperately to keep her head above the water. A formal kimono is a weighty garment, even before its accompanying, heavy and lengthy sash is wrapped around the wearer. Dropping the courier’s knife, I swam behind Fia, reached under her arms and then strained backwards, towing her. Fia kicked as best she could, losing her silk slippers, and we found ourselves heading towards the shore. A flash of submerged, forest-green fire appeared and disappeared in the depths. Ashore, the brilliant dawn radiance enveloped a girl who sprinted and dodged between the buildings of the Plum House as she searched the river and fended off attackers. Some twenty or so yards away, the water parted and the violet-haired astrologer surfaced. Her dark eyes found ours and glowered.
Fia and I redoubled our efforts.
The astrologer broke into a quick crawling swim towards the stretch of shoreline nearest to her and called out for aid. The unnatural current that had pulled Fia and me from the battle had carried us further north, and we reached land there only moments before our enemy gained the shore. I helped Fia out of the water and onto a walkway, just as a group of mercenaries reached the astrologer. She snatched the bow out of the first man’s hands and an arrow from his quiver before he could protest. She loosed the shaft, then stole a second and loosed again in a display of skill that had been honed over centuries. Fia and I expended Essence dodging, leaving behind halos of water where we had stood. The arrows punched through stacked crates. Charms of archery burned within my mind and on the tips of my fingers. If I had had a bow, I could have answered the astrologer with shafts lit with blazing Essence. The violet woman drew another arrow from the quiver of the now unresisting soldier for hire and took her time. She let fly, and the arrow rode a cable of fate, keening with its imbued destiny to take my life.
A rake-thin woman in a battered long coat and an equally weathered traveling hat appeared beside me from out of the shadows and slashed the air with an iron-bladed lance. Threads in the Tapestry of Creation snapped with a metallic ringing, curled back and rewove themselves. In a nearby teahouse, a customer and a concubine who had been destined to conceive a male child would now receive a daughter. In the warehouse beside us, a drunken guard dicing with his equally inebriated companions came up with a pair of ones instead of the double sixes that the pattern spiders of the Loom of Fate had intended for him. The line of destiny guiding the arrow broke, and the missiles spiraled away over the water as if it had glanced off a solid object. The Astrologer drew another arrow and knocked the shaft against her bow. The woman in the battered coat threw herself in front of Fia and me, arms held wide to shield us.
The astrologer glared at her with cold rage, but did not loose.
“Run,” the woman in the long coat said tersely in Riverspeak.
“What?” Both Fia and I asked stupidly. In our addled state of shock the situation around us had ceased to make sense.
Sesus Bera emerged from the water next to the astrologer, nimbly drawing his armored bulk from out of the water without assistance. The astrologer directed a cold smile at the woman who was attempting to shield us with her rake-thin body.
“Run!” the mendicant shouted, and her free hand flashed through the motions of making the sign of Mercury, the Maiden of Journeys and Travel. A saffron light enveloped the three of us, and the astrologer drew her arrow fully back and loosed.
Each of us dodged out of the missile’s path with our battle magics and ducked around the corner of the warehouse. We ran, and I nearly went sprawling to the stone street as the ground seemed to flow beneath me. With the yellow-orange light of Mercury radiating around me, the paving stones sped under my sandals as if I were riding a charging horse rather than merely sprinting on foot. We covered several city blocks, leaving startled shouts in our wake. Ahead, to the west, a column of golden light rose up above the buildings, along with burning curtains of green and purples. The woman in the long coat came to a halt with an expression of wonder on her face. Fia and I also paused in our flight.
“Not merely two, nor three, but a perfect circle of the sun,” our benefactor whispered to herself in Old Realm. Her accent was disturbingly similar to the astrologer’s. Then she turned to address us in Riverspeak. “Run north and stop for no one. You are familiar with the dock district?” I nodded. “Good. At the fourth dock there is a ship’s skiff. A captain and some of his men will be waiting. They will have a yellow glass lantern lit as signal, they and are instructed take you to the ship Salt Lotus. That is our transportation away from this city and to safety. When you are aboard the Lotus, make sure the captain sends the skiff back to dock to wait for myself and the others. Understand?”
We both nodded and then she was off, running in a flash of orange starlight.
Her patron deity’s grace receded from around us as the woman moved away, leaving Fia and myself to make our way north at our own speed. After several minutes we reached the dock, and winded, staggered to the lighted skiff. Four oarsmen and a tall man with a sword and captains long coat watched our approach with disbelief.
They allowed us aboard with the briefest of explanations, despite our being able to recall only a general description of the traveling woman. She had apparently briefed them to be prepared for anything, and I wondered if they would have accepted us with the full knowledge of what Fia and I had become.
They might have, considering the worshipful looks on the faces of two of the rowers.
We had shoved off from the dock and were only twenty yards out when our benefactor appeared — the orange starlight of the Maiden of Journeys’ blessing commingling with the gold flames of the dark girl from the teahouse who bore twin hooked swords. The woman gestured and the girl sprinted down the wharf towards us, her sunburst Caste Mark shining brightly. The captain shouted, “No!” certain that the young woman would overturn the boat if she somehow managed to reach us, but this was not to be the case. She arced gracefully through the air, her passage illuminating the water below her with dawn radiance, and alighted lightly, as if she weighed no more than a bird of the air.
“Dawning Daughter,” she announced proudly, balancing effortlessly on the prow of the tiny boat. On the shore, the Chosen of Travels turned her back and set out running tirelessly towards where the burning curtains of night fire reflected against the clouds above.
Inside the city…
Holvic’s anima and Caste Mark had faded to darkness, but Wendai shone bright with the residue of ambient Essence. In the minutes since the last skirmish, her display of power had only lessened enough so that the totemic image of the silver-skinned woman had vanished. Thus still illuminated, it made sense for Hovlic to precede some yards before her to surprise any foe who might be rushing towards the Night Caste Solar’s radiance. Her companions walked behind her, prepared to defend against attacks from the rear or front with their bows and few remaining arrows.
Holvic’s advance nearly cost the wandering woman her life. She appeared around a corner, moving with such swiftness that she was nearly upon the sword priest before Wendai could shout a warning. Holvic turned with his blade held low; prepared to cut diagonally and upwards through his opponent. The wandering woman skidded to a halt, her dire lance of meteoric iron held in one hand and an expression of mischievous joy on her face.
“Well met, Resplendent Sun!” she exclaimed in Fire Tongue.
“My mentor, since my Exaltation,” Wendai explained when she caught up to them. Her soldiers fanned out around the three Exalts to keep watch on the different avenues of approach. “It was she who brought me to this city to rescue a fellow Child of the Sun.”
“I am a servant of Heaven, sent to act as a humble instructor and guide, if you will have me,” the wandering woman explained, cheerfully.
“A guide filled with false modesty,” Holvic observed.
“True. Certitude and at least the pretence of polite humility are two requisites expected of Yu-Shan’s messengers,” the tawny-eyed woman replied smugly. “I can offer confidence in abundance, though humility in lesser amounts.”
“Or perhaps just in appearance,” Wendai remarked, though she seemed more amused than annoyed by the verbal sparring that was developing between Holvic and the mendicant.
“Better the countenance of modesty than its utter absence,” the wandering woman countered with a Scavenger Lands proverb. “But we should concern ourselves with military matters just now. A ship and three Children of the Sun wait for us in the dock district.”
Holvic glanced at Wendai, and she nodded, indicating her trust of the wandering woman. The Exalts and soldiers set out, speeded by the enveloping blessing of Mercury, but they had only covered a city block when five thunder birds descended from the sky in streaks of fury. Two of the powerful elementals of the air retained the forms of war-like eagles and perched on flanking buildings. The other three took to the street in front of the Exalts, wearing the shape of men in feathered cloaks. Their gleaming hairless heads were adorned with white cedar wreaths, and each bore a fire-blackened club of ironwood, reinforced by bands of sun-touched orichalcum.
The centermost of the man-shaped thunder birds addressed the wandering woman in Riverspeak.
“Go back, Chosen of Mercury,” he said, his voice like rolling thunder, echoing off the buildings along the street.
“I was promised no interference from the forces of this city in exchange for my haste in removing the Solar Exalted,” the wandering woman answered in a clarion voice. Wendai heard her comrades stir behind her. They were surrounded.
“And you have fulfilled our agreement admirably.” The voice that spoke these words was an instrument perfectly crafted for the telling of stories. It rose and fell, conveying a sense of meetings well carried out and pledges fulfilled. Its enunciation was precise, with immaculately both crisp consonants and vowels that brimmed with emotion to make mortal listeners melt.
The three Exalts turned and found a long-limbed, travel-toughened man in his middle years. Like the wandering woman, he wore a broad traveling hat, which hid most of his face and revealed only a chin covered in glinting, iron whiskers. A divine yellow halo shone around his head, and the wandering woman bowed low.
Wendai leaned near to Holvic and whispered. “I do not understand the language of these lands.”
“I will translate as best as I am able,” he replied. Around the Exalts and elementals, an unseen bell of silence descended, cutting off all sound from outside the small area that they occupied, and preventing their voices from being overheard by observers.
“You have worked with due speed, attempting to avoid an open, or at least large conflict, and you are as near to accomplishing your ends as can be expected under the circumstances,” the illuminated man said.
The wandering woman licked her lips nervously. “Spinner of Glorious Tales,” she addressed him. “There was not one, but four of the Sun’s Children within your city. Three remain on a ship near your docks. If I am to take these Solars out of the city and remove the threat of large-scale bloodshed from Great Forks, I must reach that ship.”
Holvic translated this and added, “We are in the presence of a god of regional power, one of the three who rule this city.”
Wendai nodded.
“The remaining forces of the Wyld Hunt are moving to encircle the docks as we speak,” the city god said, and his words carried an utter certainty of combat and tribulation. “Meanwhile, the road I stand on will lead you unhindered out of the city, free from opposition by your many enemies. However, if you attempt to gain the harbor and cut your way through the soldiers of your rival and Lord Sesus, it will result in the type of fighting that the triumvirate wishes to avoid. Both our citizens and our property are dear to us.”
“My mandate does not permit me to sacrifice the Exalts on that ship. And should Lord Sesus and his allies attempt to assail the Salt Lotus, battle on a destructive scale could easily result. One of the Solars is a warrior of the Dawn Caste, and at least one of the other two carries the shard of a sorcerer of the Adamant Circle.”
Spinner of Glorious Tales cleared his throat in warning, conveying with inhuman clarity his exact assessment of just how little he thought it likely that three Solars — only newly come into their Exaltations — would be able to withstand the onslaught of and elder Dragon-Blooded Dynast and his Exalted companions. With this established, he continued. “You may take some comfort in that I have dispatched a message to the captain of your hired vessel, instructing him to depart at once. That evens the odds, making it much likelier that the Sun’s Chosen will escape with a minimum of bloodshed.”
“I can not abandon-”
“Orich Lythe,” Tale Spinner said, “Your mandate comes from your fellow conspirators in the Gold Faction; it is not an official decree of the division of The Barque of the Heavens. Your agreement with us is still another matter entirely, one that speaks of right of ways and authorizes you only the most expeditious routes to complete your task. The fastest avenue of travel is the one that I now direct you to take.”
The wandering woman’s face was carefully blank. After a brief pause, she spoke. “Thank you for your generosity Lord Tale Spinner. If you would assign us guides out of the city, we would be grateful.”
Spinner of Glorious Tales nodded and then turned to Wendai and Holvic. “My apologies, Princes of the Earth,” he said in flawless Firetongue. “Had there been another way, we would have offered sanctuary.”
Wendai scowled back at the god of wandering storytellers and beside her, Holvic’s face hardened as well. The way of the warrior was one of brutal determination. While victory oft went to those best able to understand the terrain and other factors of battle, almost as regularly it was taken by those whose indomitable will overturned long odds and found openings within otherwise impossible situations. Thus a willingness to compromise was not a trait often engrained in soldiers.
Nor was Spinner of Glorious Tales oblivious to the reaction that his words had engendered in his listeners. “My city can ill afford to overly antagonize the Realm at this time, divided as the Dynasts may be. Certainly not after Mishaka,” Tale Spinner explained before fading into the paving stones of the street. The two warriors were left to grudgingly mull over the god’s words. Some years before the Mask of Winters had overrun Thorns, that city’s potentate had been persuaded by his Dynastic advisors to mount a campaign of conquest against the Scavenger Lands. Great Forks had answered the Confederation of Rivers’ call, and dispatched a force of 3,000 to serve under the direction of Lookshy’s 7th Legion. The war had been won, but a debacle during the climatic confrontation at Mishaka had resulted in fewer than 100 of the city’s daughters and sons returning home. Even in the far South of the world, the generalities of the Realm’s defeat and the tribulations of the Scavenger Lands were well known.
“He does as he must, as do we,” The wandering woman said quietly, and Wendai looked at her. Lythe, the god had addressed her as Lythe. Wendai knew that she had heard the name before from the wandering woman’s own mouth, but now, for the first time, it remained fast in her memory.
“Let’s go. We must retrieve your mounts and be on our way,” the wandering woman said.
“To where?” asked Holvic.
“To intercept that ship. If not in the city, then outside,” Wendai said, divining the wandering woman’s — Lythe’s — intentions and planning ahead. That is, we will intercept it if our fellow Solars survive, she thought, keeping that observation a private one.
Offshore from Great Forks…
“This is madness,” the captain of the Salt Lotus hissed through clenched teeth. Around him, the crew paused in their preparations — seemingly frozen in place as they watched the conflict play out between the master of the ship and the sunburst-marked young woman who would not let him approach the wheel. “When the Three send you an order telling you to depart their city, you do so at once or end up with curse that will blister your shoulders and wither your posterity!”
“I don’t care what the rulers of this city think or threaten,” Dawning Daughter answered angrily, still surrounded by flames of white and gold and sunrise violet. “Tell your men on the skiff to stay at the dock and wait for the saffron woman’s return.”
Watching this exchange and twined through ropes of the rigging was the triumvirate’s messenger — a small, sinuous dragon made of multicolored jade with ivory-like claws and emeralds green eyes. None of the crew nor Fia nor even Passic could ascertain if the entity was a savant’s automaton or a spirit manifested.
Before Fia or Passic could intervene, a falcon’s cry split the air and caused the planks of the deck to reverberate. Men clutched their ears and glanced upwards. A pair of golden talons could be seen grasping the rigging above the dragon-like messenger, and a pair of predators eyes glared down at those below.
Dawning Daughter relaxed, and then turned her hazel eyes back to the captain. “It seems that the orange traveler wishes us to leave. Also, the Dragon-Blooded’s troops are on their way.” With that she walked past him to the port side of the ship, which was nearest to land. The captain glared at her back incredulously.
“By your leave, lady Anathema,” he muttered almost silently under his breath, though Fia, standing nearby, could sense that even in his anger he had been careful not let his crew overhear his choice of invectives. Around them, the sailors needed no urging. The mention of the Dragon-Bloodeds’ approach served to goad them into frantic action. Ashore, the skiff’s crew pushed the small boat away from the dock and strained at the oars. The jade messenger untangled itself from the ropes and took to the air, slithering in flight towards the palatial Manse of the Three.
Fia approached the ship’s gunwale beside Dawning Daughter. “That might have been better handled,” she said to the younger woman.
Dawning Daughter glared back at her, surprised and angry to find herself being reprimanded. “There are two of our kind and an ally still in the city. We can’t leave them because some local gods say so!”
“I do not think you understand the combined power of the Three,” Fia said. “They are not normally violent, but-.”
“The Dragon-Blooded!” Passic shouted.
On the shore of the Dock District, a group of wildly varying figures on foot and on horseback rushed towards the nearest pier. Sesus Bera led at a run with the astrologer close behind him.
The men on the skiff exerted themselves to the utmost, and as the Salt Lotus began to move — its anchor leaving the harbor’s bottom — the Captain dispatched men with a hook and grappling line to the aft of his ship. They were to snag the skiff as soon as it came into range and draw it alongside the Lotus. A second pair of men with a rescue line stood close by.
Riding on horseback, Seus Leda pulled ahead of her father and rode down the pier as fast as her mount would carry her. Lord Sesus shouted at her in High Realm, but she ignored his orders. Gusting, luminescent clouds of pale blue light sprung up around her as she swung one leg over the side of her mount and leapt clear. She scissored her legs in midair and landed lightly at a full run, despite the heavy panoply of jade alloyed armor that encased her.
“A bow!” Passic yelled. “Do any of you iron-headed sailors have a bow?” but the crew members backed away from him in fear. Fia looked into Leda’s hate-filled eyes across the space that separated them, and she knew what was about to happen. The windy blue anima brightened as Leda jumped towards the skiff. The men onboard the boat shouted in terror as the Dynast landed among them and then leaped again, overturning their small craft. The Dragon-Blooded soared towards the Salt Lotus, rising in her arch and then descending. Fia’s breath caught in her throat as she realized that Leda was going to fall short of her goal. At the last instant, the young scion of House Sesus thrust her dire lance into the side of the ship, just below the gunwale. The pole arm’s blade bit deep, and an icy mountain breeze washed across the ship, rippling its sails. As light as the wind and inhumanly nimble, Leda flipped around the weapon’s handle and came up standing balanced on the long ironwood shaft. At the captain’s command, sailors surged towards her with axes and long knives, even as Dawning Daughter sprinted afterwards towards the Dynast. The knife-wielding crewmember who was first to arrive at the gunwale was sent reeling backwards by a gauntleted blow to the face. Leda vaulted on to the deck and kicked the legs out from under the second sailor, and then leaned over the side to grasp her weapons’ haft. An axe and a knife glanced off her heavy armor as a sailor tackled her legs. Her attuned weapon released itself from the ship’s body, allowing her to draw it forth one handed and smash its heavy, jade-capped butt down on the man who was attempting to throw her overboard. The sailor screamed even as Leda rammed her elbow into the hatchet-wielding attacker. Dawning Daughter was nearly upon her when the young Dragon-Blooded spun her wide-bladed lance in a glittering arc, sending the other attacking crewmembers sprinting away from her in fear and causing Dawning Daughter to slide to a halt, just outside the lethal reach of her enemy.
The Dawn Caste warrior cut through the air as she re-invoked the Raging-Eagle Form, and Leda’s anima brightened again as the Dynast readied her own Charms. On the pier Lord Sesus’ party had come to a halt. The astrologer pointed towards a nearby dock, which a messenger catamaran was in the process of drawing alongside. The group set out in a run, and in a moment of detached relief, Fia decided that there were apparently none among the party with the ability to make themselves light enough to reach either the ship or the midpoint of the abandoned skiff. Secure in that knowledge, the former courtesan unfolded her fans, and her sodden kimono was again infused with a silver shimmer as motes of sun-like Essence drifted up around her. As Passic cast around and called for the sailors to give him a bow or blade, Fia channeled Essence into her paper fans and used a now steel-strong edge to effortlessly slice through the heavy bolt of silk wrapped around her waist. The water-heavy material fell away, and she made her way aft, towards the combatants.
Surrounded by the radiances of their animas, Dawning Daughter and Leda glared at each other as Leda held her white-bladed dire lance thrust forward, forcing Dawning to stay outside the weapon’s long reach. The Dynast tossed her head violently in an attempt to shake off the concentration-sapping effect of Dawning Daughter’s Essence-charged stare. In that instant of distraction, Dawning attacked, reversing one of her hooked swords to snag the dire lance’s ironwood haft with a wickedly curved edge. The blade caught the lance and Dawning drove the huge fighting spear’s point into the deck as she lunged forward and struck with her other sword. The second blade sparked off Leda’s shoulder guard as the young Dynast snap kicked Dawning Daughter in the pit of her stomach. The Solar staggered backwards and was jerked off her feet by her grip on the sword that held the dire lance trapped in the deck. Leda pulled hard, freeing her weapon and disentangling it from Dawning’s blade. The Dragon-Blooded coiled and stabbed at her supine opponent, who rolled aside and then sprang to her feet. Leda cut in a wide arch, seeking to slice Dawning Daughter in two at her waist, but the Dawn Caste Solar leapt over the blade in a back flip that carried her to safety.
Fia’s heart pounded violently within her ribcage. The memories of past lives and ancient Celestial combat styles aside, she was no warrior by temperament or training. Her enemy, conversely, was a Dynast whose skills and martial talents had been honed by the battle-scarred, Exalted instructors of the Realm’s preeminent military academy. Fia’s pounding heart urged her to flee the melee, but a desperate sense of loyalty to another of her kind impelled her towards the fight.
Leda did not wait for her opponents to gather their wits or for one of them to attempt to flank her. She attacked aggressively, thrusting at Dawning Daughter and driving the Dawn Caste warrior towards Fia. The former courtesan backpedaled frantically and only managed to avoid being trampled by her fellow Solar by throwing herself to the side. Dawning dodged and parried, giving ground, and then Leda spun and slashed at Fia. The dire lance shone with power, leaving a sparkling arc of frost crystals in its wake. Only sheer reflex saved the Solar. She blocked with both her Essence-stiffened fans, and her weapons were wreathed with a hypnotic, mirror-like energy every bit as distracting as Dawning’s empowered gaze. The impact of Leda’s parried blow and the supernatural winds that accompanied it sent Fia sliding backwards, but the Sun’s diplomat nimbly kept her feet beneath her and avoided being knocked over the ship’s waist-high gunwale. Below her, in the water, men screamed. The crew of the messenger skiff had abandoned their overturned boat and seized the rescue line that had been thrown to them. Now a blackness as severe as pitch boiled up in the water around them, and it sparkled with green motes of madness. On the ship’s deck, the lanterns’ illuminating flames lost all color and became wavering forms as clear as glass.
Malwia’s oval face and misted eyes emerged from the ink-like river water. In his fear, the foremost man clinging to the rescue line lost his grip on the rope and was swept away by the water’s pull before his fellows could reach him. Malwia seized the line where the man had clung to it and climbed easily, her gray cloak hanging around her shoulders and a pair of matched, brass axes sheathed on her belt.
Burning bright with expended Essence, Dawning Daughter and Leda exchanged a flurry of blows. Dawning twisted around or knocked aside Leda’s Essence-guided strikes. The Solar’s answering attacks were either likewise parried or turned by the Dynast’s heavy plate. Dawning Daughter was more skilled than Leda, and her celestial Charms more potent than the Terrestrial Exalt’s, but the power invested in the mystic jade of armor and lance gave the Dragon-Blooded an edge.
Passic had just discovered a cutlass set aside to repel boarders when the demon Malwia vaulted onto the deck beside Fia. Startled, both Dawning and Leda backed quickly away from each other, warily watching the demon as they opened a space between them. Malwia laid eyes on Passic and sighed in the sudden stillness. She strode across the deck between Dawning and Leda’s weapons, the smile on her lips daring either of the two to attack her. Passic swallowed as Malwia planted herself beside him and turned to watch the pugilists. Leda and Dawning warily took turns eyeing each other and the demon, trying to ascertain the newcomer’s intentions. Malwia returned the warriors’ gazes evenly.
“By all means continue.” The demon’s resonant voice seemed to linger in the air above the silent ship.
For a motionless moment, there was only the rippling of the sails and the sound of waves. Then Dawning Daughter hurled a hooked sword at Sesus Leda with all her might. The blade rebounded off the Dragon-Blooded’s armor with a loud ringing, and the weapon shivered as it tumbled through the air. Dawning sprinted towards Leda as the air-aspect staggered, one hand clutching the newly formed dent in her breastplate. Recognizing an opening, Passic and Fia charged from opposite directions. Leda stayed on her feet and swung one handed with her dire lance at Dawning Daughter, who rolled under the blow. The Dawn Caste Solar came up and plowed into Leda with her shoulder, smashing the Dynast into the gunwale behind her. Both staggered but remained upright, and as Dawning drew back to strike with her remaining sword, Leda hit her hard in the solar plexus with her free hand, dropping the Dawn Child to her knees. Passic found himself charging towards an enemy who was suddenly free to meet his headlong attack. Leda split the air thrusting at him with her lance, and a brass axe flashed by, driving the blow off to the side. A steel-like hand seized Passic by the collar and yanked him off his feet.
“I am forced against my will to keep you alive, Setting Sun,” the demon said as she dragged him back from the melee. “Do not make my work difficult.”
Sparks erupted from a shoulder guard and the side of Leda’s armor as Fia struck with her fans, the disk-within-a-circle Caste Mark blazing on her brow and golden-edged nimbus of white light struggling against elemental blue. Leda in turn slammed the butt end of her pole arm into the Eclipse diplomat’s stomach. Fia grunted as her infused robes absorbed most of the blow’s force. Then abruptly Leda was struggling, wrestling for control of the dire lance as Dawning Daughter seized it with both hands. The two women strained, and again sparks exploded as Fia attacked. Leda screamed as the fans lacerated her back. With one fist firmly locked on the lance, Dawning drew back and struck. Her free hand flared in a brilliant corona of gold, and bright falcon talons of Essence were visible in the heartbeat before her blow passed through the Dragon-Blooded’s armor and plunged into her enemy’s flesh.
Leda’s eyes went wide with pain and her mouth worked silently as she fell to her knees.
Dawning withdrew her bloody hand through the armor leaned her full weight onto the jade dire lance, tearing it out from the Dragon-Blooded’s grasp. Then she and Fia were on Leda, forcing her down to the deck.
“Rope!” Dawning Daughter cried. Before Passic could react, the ship’s captain was striding over iron shackles in hand. In short order the wounded Dragon-Blooded’s wrists and ankles were bound.
Dawning dragged Leda to her knees and forced her up against the gunwale facing towards where her father was ordering the crew of the catamaran off their boat.
“With her as a hostage, they will be forced to let us go,” Dawning Daughter explained to the captain and her fellow Solars.
Leda coughed blood. It took her two attempts to speak, and when she did so her voice was faint with pain and fear. “Forsaken,” she whispered as she shook, “my father will sink this ship to prevent my being defiled by captivity.” On the pier, the astrologer pointed towards the Salt Lotus as Sesus Bera was joined by the earth- and water-aspected Dynasts. At the astrologer's urging Lord Sesus turned to look. The expression on the elder Exalt’s face was horrible to behold as sudden pain collapsed into a brutal determination. One of the signature magics common among the Dragon-Blooded was the ability to cast bolts of elemental Essence from their hands, and everyone standing on the deck of the Salt Lotus found themselves wondering if Sesus Bera would prove capable of single-handedly sending the ship to the bottom on his own. After Lord Bera, the astrologer and a handful of archers had boarded, the earth-aspect joined them and shoved the messenger catamaran away from the dock. Soon the water-aspected Dragon-Blood was moving in supernatural flurry of naval activity as his maritime Charms aided him in single-handedly rigging the small ship for pursuit.
“Can we go faster?” Passic asked nervously as the Salt Lotus drew farther out into the Rolling River. Ahead waited the confluence with the massive Yellow River.
“Not by much…” the Captain said, and then fell silent as the messenger catamaran’s sail snapped taunt and the smaller craft was nearly lifted out of the water as it shot forward. “They have an unnatural wind behind them,” he said, his eyes fixed on the water-aspected Dynast, whose anima banner now boiled like a typhoon driven sea.
“Then we’d better come up with a way of finding a more powerful wind,” Dawning Daughter snapped.
“Charms, artifacts, small wonders? Anyone?” Passic asked.
“I know the spirits of the river and the strand,” Fia stated. “Both are patrons of mine.”
With that, Passic strode towards the Sesus Leda’s white jade dire lance, which lay abandoned on the deck.
“No!” The wounded Dynast screamed hoarsely as Passic reached for the heirloom weapon. Still surrounded by the radiant blue of her anima, she rolled painfully on to her side, away from the scholar so that her bound hands faced towards him.
Passic blurred into a golden flash as shards of white ice slashed through the space where he had stood and blew through the far gunwale. The sole of Malwia’s grey boot slammed to Sesus Leda’s forehead, snapping the Dynast’s head violently backwards. On catamaran, Bera raised a hand with a glinting jade lens strapped to the palm and sent a jagged lance of barbed wood flashing through the air. The elemental shot disappeared neatly into the water a few hundred yards behind the Salt Lotus, and a thunderous geyser exploded up into the air at the point of impact, hanging for an instant well above the Ship’s masts.
“He doesn’t need to hit us,” the captain hissed as water rained down. “A near miss could capsize us.”
Passic strode past the dire lance and checked the supine form of Leda, where she lay on the deck. His hands found a pulse, weak but steady, and her lips still flared with breath.
“We need her alive,” he growled at Malwia, meeting her cold gaze in with the heat of his anger.
“It matters not to me,” the scarlet-eyed demon replied.
“It will matter for my staying alive later on, and you will obey me in this, daughter of the Yozi.”
In the time before history, when the Celestial Exalted and their Dragon-Blooded host had defeated the enemies of the gods, the vanquished primordials had been made to swear oaths on their own names. Beyond imprisonment, the gods had also forced servitude on their former masters by carving out weaknesses within their souls, and such fissures were driven deep into the Messenger Soul that was Malwia.
With no choice but to comply, the demon lowered her eyes.
Passic took up the heavy dire lance and dragged the weapon across the deck. He faced away from the city, and Fia offered to prop up the lance while he performed the ritual. He asked her the name of goddess of the river, and having received it he clapped his hands three times loudly. In his limited scholars Old Realm, he called for the goddess’ attention.
“Beautiful spirit of the Rolling River, tributary to the majestic Yellow, Passic Taut, Chosen of the Unconquered Sun calls to you. Goddess, I offer a tribute worthy of your time and trouble, this spear of white jade and ironwood.” His words rang across the river, and though no god manifested, he sensed a shift in the waters. Then he began to sing. It was a simple song, often sung by the sailors and rowers of Great Forks, offering thanks for the bounty of the river and the joy of a safe return.
As he sang the river goddess rose from the flowing water. She had taken on the form of a silver-skinned woman. She wore no clothes, though her body was concealed by her light green hair, which was draped wetly around her torso. Her eyes were the soft dark brown of silt and her teeth startlingly white as she smiled at her supplicant. From the waist down, within the water, she possessed the body of a river serpent.
“Well spoken, Setting Sun,” the goddess said in Riverspeak, her voice a calm ripple of sound. And then to Fia, “Well met, Crowned Sun. Your newfound station gladdens me. Your beauty will not soon wither, but span millennia, even if you must leave my domain.”
Fia fought the habitual impulse to drop to her knees in ritualistic greeting. Though many of her patrons had been callous or deliberately cruel, the river goddess had been one of the few visitors to the Plum House whom she had looked forward to serving. It was in the Plum house that the goddess manifested when the whim to sample terrestrial pleasures overtook her, and her chief delights had been Fia’s dancing, singing and stories of the creatures of land. Her company had been cheerful and often sister like — as befitted the bond of elemental blood between the two. During the darkest moments of moonless nights, secrets had been whispered between them in the cool and embracing sanctum of the goddess’ shoreline shrine.
Passic glanced over his shoulder at the messenger catamaran. The small vessel skipped across the water towards the Salt Lotus like a perfectly pitched flat stone, and already Sesus Bera and the other two Dragon-Blooded had gathered at the prow.”
“You have practiced the dances and songs that I am fond of?” the goddess asked, and Fia nodded as Passic began to pray silently to the Unconquered Sun.
“You have sung those praising my mistress, the Yellow River?”
Again, Fia nodded, and the goddess turned her face to address Passic.
“Very well. Young scholar, in exchange for the lance and the praising of my name in song, I will shield your passage from my domain into that of my lady’s. As long as Fia sings, a mist will obscure the vessel’s movements and smother the sounds of your leaving.”
The three Solars took up the lance together, and after a short count, heaved it into the waters. The weapon arced into the river without a splash or ripple. Then Fia began to sing in praise of the Yellow River's name. Her voice was magic, her mastery of the vocal art enhanced by a Charm that lent the strength of her Essence to inflection, tone and projection. Her song of tribute rooted the ship’s passenger and crew in place, and it was not until Dawning Daughter roused herself and bestirred the Captain that the sailors began to see to their tasks again. Even as a heavy murk of dark gray rose out of the waters, a rippling path of silver formed on the water before the ship, and broke apart into moonlight dapples in its wake. On the catamaran, the Dragon-Blooded and their Sidereal advisor waited in vain as the world vanished into muted gray. They did not see the path of light nor hear the song that sustained the obscuring fog. For them there was only the unbroken gloom and the whispers of the unclaimed dead — the murmurings of those who had drowned in the river and for whom no mourning songs had been sung or ceremonies made.
After some hours…
The strident footfalls of the violet-haired astrologer faded away, leaving wakes of anger and cold calculation in the brightly-lit, marble-walled cellar. In the aftermath of her departure, The Spinner of Glorious Tales continued with his self-appointed task of rummaging. Bins of cedar were heaped with the token payments of those who had entered the city during the last week. These had not yet been taken to the municipality’s temples to be smashed or burnt as sacrifices to the Three. His hand closed around a small coin of bronze, and he shut his eyes, scrutinizing the inward image of Holvic Kagi handing the coin to the man-shaped thunderbird. The token dropped into a pouch which contained the thumb-sized statuettes that the Dragon-Blooded and many of their soldiers had given to the gate guards.
“Our false astrologer had little reason to complain so,” Tale Spinner said out loud, his enunciated amusement overlaying and then overwhelming the fading wisps of anger left by the purple-haired woman. “The Dragon-Bloodeds’ soldiers were easily twice the number she informed us of.”
“And we did not interfere with the Hunt, as promised,” Shield of a Different Day said, her granite-like eyes alight with an ever-present gleam of deliberation. The goddess belonged to Creation’s pantheon of martial divinities, and she was manifested as a warrior bearing both shield and lance.
“There was no intervention in any overt fashion, not in any military sense,” said Weaver of Dreams of Victory. In the absence of the astrologer, the third member of Great forks triumvirate was slipping back into a ripple of seemings and miens: the shifting appearances of all who had beheld it or passed through its multifaceted domain. In the Chosen of Saturn’s presence, Weaver had appeared indistinct and feminine, displaying the facets and traits of the women — some thousands of years dead — whom had been important to the Sidereal during the long ages of her existence: the eyes of a mother, the voice of a long-passed friend, the complexion of a rival.
“We never blocked their movements nor pressed against their attacks,” the goddess continued. “We only covertly prevented a disastrous encounter which would have resulted in not but heartache for all concerned. We can correctly claim that the destructive interference and manipulations sensed by the astrologer were not our own.”
“Though it was for the best that we did not divulge that these were the works of The Spinner of Glorious Tales’ newest protégé,” said Shield of a Different Day.
There was a fourth entity within the cellar, whose presence had been concealed from the Sidereal astrologer by the three divinities’ magics. Those cloaking Charms now fell away, revealing a figure who wore a bright mask along with robes and armor which obscured its form, figure and gender.
“Are you content?” Tale Spinner asked the young actress. “Is it satisfactory, Mirror Flag, that you were able to aid your fellow Chosen of the Sun by only indirect means?”
The Eclipse Caste Solar responded in a voice that was nearly as well tuned as the storytelling god’s for expressing emotion and craft. “My lord knows full well that such manipulations are my preferred medium. Art and artifice will always suffice where a thousand swords will not. Through my actions my fellow Chosens’ enemies have been played against one and another, and your city has been spared conflict with the Scarlet Empire.”
“That is if Orich Lythe can find the three who were on the Salt Lotus,” Weaver of Dreams of Victory observed. “The Solars aboard that ship so pleased the Yellow River with their songs and homage that she has confounded friend and foe alike with the intensity of her response. Indeed, after last night, it will be interesting to see who reaches the Solars first, Lythe or Sesus Bera.”
Hearing this observation, The Spinner of Glorious Tales ceased his rummaging and turned to face his fellow rulers and the Solar, Mirror Flag.
“Yes, though not as entertaining as what those three Solars will accomplish in the meanwhile,” he said, and then paused, recalling the stories of the Dawn, the Twilight and the Eclipse. “By the time the Dragon-Blooded have another chance at confronting them, the Sun’s Chosen may well have won glorious victories, created strange wonders and founded kingdoms.”
The next morning…
Wearing the resplendent destiny of the traveling Gull and the identity of the wandering woman, Orich Lythe looked nothing like the bureaucrat and courtier that she was in the officialdom of Heaven. Just now, rather than letting fly with the elegant string of Old Realm curses that would have been appropriate to her nature, she laughed and shook her head in accordance with the template destiny she had assumed. She and Wendai and Holvic faced a wall of fog that glimmered in the morning light, reaching down the length of the Yellow River to the horizon. Tendril branches of sliver mist had shot off from the murk and now wound through tributary river valleys, sectioning the visible world into discrete, geographic sub-regions.
It was not merely the sight of hindrances and physical concealments that led her to shake her head in good-humored resignation. A conjured phantasm of shimmering Essence had just delivered a message sent to her by a member of her Circle — a fellow Sidereal whose superiors had overheard something of the potential futures of the Solars aboard the Salt Lotus, during a planning session for the Loom of Fate. A gulf of possibility had been opened by the Twilight scholar’s improvised sacrifice to the Rolling and to the Yellow. The way ahead and the meeting of the five Solars would be a path strewn with obstacles far more difficult that the ephemeral barriers that lay before Lythe’s sight in the here and now. The most problematic of those would arise from the two Solars who stood beside her, watching the mists that blocked them from their companions.
fin
Writen by: Munificent Perception
Return to: SaltLotus
Back to:Salt Lotus: Cycle 3
