ellinor
Explorer
21x03
WEEK 7 | MONDAY
After Dawn prayers, Savina returned to her bedroom, opened the screen, and watched the day turn from pink to blue as the sun began to bathe the crater city. Two months here, and she had become part of Cauldron’s high society; she would soon meet Lady Funaki Chinatsu, the head of the Peerage. Savina had already learned what she needed to know: that Lady Funaki was an excellent host, with strict etiquette, who placed a high value on social structure. She liked, as one of Savina’s new friends had put it, being a big fish.
Talking with Lady Funaki would be easy—but everything else here was so hard. Savina stared outside. To the East, across the sea, was Pol Henna. Two months here, and Pol Henna seemed so very far away: there, she had Father to deal with politics, a cohort of Givers to do the healing, and a butler to quash nasty rumors among the slaves.
As Savina crossed the courtyard for breakfast, she overheard Kormick’s voice beyond the screen of the common room. “Just stealing some gold, then?” he chuckled. “I had a bet with young Tavi that they’d ask you to kill Savina.”
“The week’s just beginning, Justicar,” Arden replied. “You haven’t lost yet.” She paused. “What they’ve asked already is bad enough. I told Shen that there was a big fight in the dungeons, and that all of you have had secret meetings with the Inquisition—but I don’t know how long I can keep on with nothing but vague information and revolutionary talk. I think we're running out of time. They said they have ‘plans’ in motion. The whole thing makes me sick inside.”
Savina thought it was the longest statement she’d ever heard Arden make. Moreover, despite the worry she was expressing, Arden sounded more confident than Savina had ever heard her sound – just one concerned adult talking to others.
“Whatever you can get from them is helpful,” came Mena’s voice, in a rare friendly tone.
Savina opened the screen. “Arden.”
“Blessed Daughter?” Arden's face, as she turned to Savina and dropped a curtsy, was all bland subservience.
“I . . . I just want to know that you’re all right,” Savina said. There was no easy way to say that she knew about the rumors Arden was spreading, and that it hurt, and that she trusted Arden all the same. This would have to do.
“Thank you, Blessed Daughter, I’m well.”
“Is . . . can I do anything to help?” Savina asked.
“I couldn’t drag you in any further,” replied Arden, “but I would ask a favor. The Tide asked me to steal some gold from a man, and I did. I’d like to repay him. I’m carrying your gold, Blessed Daughter; could I use some of it for this?”
Savina felt a wave of relief. “Yes, Arden, by all means.”
###
TUESDAY
Mena awoke and did a few push-ups to clear her head. Her talk with Brother Soburu had, she mused, confirmed what she suspected: that only ill could come of her enjoying herself with a bunch of Ehktians. And now that she’d met with the Ehktian Synod member, she didn’t have to spend any more time with Ehktians she liked. But the responsibility did fall to her to spend time with a group of Ehktians with whom she had less affinity, and therefore less potential for enjoyment – the Extinguishers of the Flame.
Intellectually, the mission of the Extinguishers of the Flame made sense: like the Defiers’ mandate that evil exists so it can be eradicated, the Snuffers (as they endearingly called themselves) held that challenge exists to be eliminated. What greater challenge could there be, they hypothesized, than the elimination of all challenge? It makes intellectual sense, sure, but not common sense. The Snuffers busied themselves by running spas, meditating, and acting as a volunteer fire brigade. Spas. About the least Ehktian things I can think of, Mena thought.
But that’s where she was headed. Savina had recounted what the socialites had said: in Cauldron, the Extinguishers of the Flame took care of some of the healing duties that would, on the Peninsula, be carried out by Givers. If they were going to find any underground Alirrians in Cauldron, the temple of the Snuffers was as good a place to look as any.
A heavyset man with a ponytail met Mena at the door to the temple. “Welcome,” he intoned, and led her to a room filled with soft cushions. A woman playing the harp in the corner looked up and smiled. Mena resisted the urge to growl. “You look . . . stressed,” the man said. “Can I interest you in our sauna, or a hot stone massage?”
“I tweaked my shoulder wrestling,” Mena replied, truthfully, and poked at the front of her shoulder with her fingers. “Is there someone here who can take a look at it?”
He led her back to an area that looked like a more traditional sports-healing clinic, with folks on benches receiving massage, compresses, and basic bandaging. As one of the Snuffers stretched Mena’s shoulder and applied a warming ointment, she observed the others. To anyone else, it wouldn’t have been obvious, but Savina told her what to look for: A couple of the Snuffers weren’t just wrapping up injuries; they were praying.
###
WEDNESDAY
Tavi came down to breakfast as Kormick and the others were finishing their own. “Kormick!” Tavi said, “Are you interested in joining me today? There’s nothing on the social calendar, so I thought I might try to intimidate a few of the known Tidesmen. Nothing major, just hang around their bars and such to make them nervous about the eye of the Inquisition.”
Kormick thought, once again, how Tavi had a spark of the Undian in him. “Can’t, Tavi—not today—but perhaps Dame Philomena would lend you some menacing, yet oddly alluring, assistance.”
Mena pursed her lips, but held back whatever biting retort she surely had prepared. “Kormick, what has you occupied today?”
“I’ve decided to do some research on the prophecy. I had a dream about my sister last night. It’s inspired me to go down to the Adepts’ library and see if there are any records there about the Alirrians in this region that might help us understand the symbols in the prophecy.”
“Tried. Nothing there,” Twiggy mumbled. She had her nose deep in a book about Go.
“Justicar, you have a sister?” asked Savina, her innocent eyes inquiring.
Kormick realized that, until now, Twiggy was the only one who had asked him about his family; she must have assumed his story was confidential and kept it to herself. The others had been waiting for him to volunteer. It seemed the time was ripe to explain.
“My sister, Elizabette, was six years older than me. You remind me of her, Savina; she was kind, and helpful, and wanted to be a priestess of Alirria. Right after King Lucas was established as the leader of Dar Und, a group of the old Bosses plotted to kill him at a meeting in my father’s bar, where Elizabette worked. She saw what they were doing . . . she saved the King’s life, but lost her own.”
Savina’s eyes were wide. “How old were you?”
“Eleven,” Kormick replied. “That was the day I learned I had magic. King Lucas sent me to the di Raprezzi’s Academy to learn to use it. Turned out, magic wasn’t my strong suit.”
“That must have been terrible for you,” Savina continued, her voice comforting.
“Oh, it was fine,” Kormick deliberately shifted the subject. “My father taught me to kill—but Signor di Raprezzi taught me to think. I returned to Dar Und an agent of the King.”
“No, the death of your sister. It must have been terrible,” Savina pressed.
“It was . . . unspeakably bad.” Kormick paused. “For a time I had an ill-conceived need for vengeance. But . . . I saw Elizabette’s face in the Spring, you know. She is still looking after me. Now I know that the justice of Kettenek and the mercy of Alirria will establish law in Dar Und. Vengeance is not for myself, it is for the Law. The murderers will not escape punishment.”
Everyone was quiet. Mena and Arden each looked deep in thought; Nyoko swallowed hard. Kormick knew that Nyoko, too, had witnessed the death of family members, and had not seen the killers brought to justice.
That was enough quiet. “So last night, I dreamt about my sister, and I knew I had to research the prophecy.”
Nyoko blinked hard. “If, as Twiggy-san says, the Adepts have no records touching on Alirrian symbology, you might want to check the archives of the Inquisition. See if there’s anything else on the ravings of that madwoman.”
Six hours later, Kormick’s hindquarters hurt from sitting on the archive’s benches. How does Twiggy manage to do this all day? he thought. But he had some information.
The madwoman was a member of the Sheh, which was a tribe of Old Ones. The Sheh tribe lived mostly deep in the Ketkath, west of Divine Mark. Apparently, the Sheh considered themselves guardians; the madwoman said something about ‘guarding you for generations’ . . . So the Sheh might have something to do with the ‘guarding tower’ in the prophecy.
But if the Sheh had anything to do with the prophecy, it wasn’t going to be easy finding out what. The Sovereigns had eradicated the Sheh—nearly erased them from history—decades ago.
###
THURSDAY
“Aha!” Iwai-sensai clapped sharply and uttered the first syllable of praise Nyoko had heard in three weeks of grueling practice. “You see?” He continued. “You listen to your body, and you hear the steps.”
Nyoko wasn’t sure what that meant. Much of the time she wasn’t sure what Iwai-sensei meant, but she had been listening to her body. For the first two weeks, her body offered mostly complaints. Now, it had something productive to contribute to the conversation. She could feel the energy move up through her arms to her fingers as they articulated the dance’s mannered flicks; she knew how hard she could push her ankles before they would collapse; she could sense the spring in her thighs, coiled, ready for dips and leaps. Finally, she thought, she knew more than just the steps of the dance; she knew how they were supposed to feel in her body as she did them.
Nyoko had also become accustomed to the side-eyed looks of rivals. Today it wasn’t just looks; Nyoko deftly dodged as Unsuku, the more seasoned dancer who’d first demonstrated the dance of Sedellus, tried to trip her in the locker room. The trip attempt was done with all the finesse and subtlety of an Adept, but it was unmistakeable—and if it was meant to discourage Nyoko, it didn’t work. Let her try, Nyoko thought. I’m the one dancing in the pageant.
###
FRIDAY
Twiggy stared at her dinner. She wasn’t hungry. The bits of dark meat arranged themselves in her bowl of rice like black stones surrounded by white. The meat had lost that match, she thought, as she sank her chin in her hands. She took a bite, turning the meat’s position on one edge of the bowl from dead to unsettled.
Twiggy closed her eyes. The last two months blended together. Go, sleep, eat, Go . . . and not much sleep, at that. She had played hundreds of matches; studied histories of the game and its trends; studied the writings of great strategists and tacticians; memorized countless move sequences and learned when not to use them; learned the language of the game. But in two days, Twiggy was expected not only to play well—something she felt she could do—but to play better than people who had been playing for a lifetime, to gain the attention of the head of the Ring of the Military, to impress her somehow . . . how naive I was, taking on this task. Twiggy had seen it as an opportunity to do something important, for once. A chance to experience the life she might have been born to, to be with the people she might have been with. To make a difference in the world from the top, rather than chipping away at it from the bottom.
Now—her mind was an empty 19x19 board, impossibly large, its permutations impossibly numerous. She rubbed her tired eyes. Spots appeared; black and white dots, whirling and swimming like the orbs in the Ketkath.
Twiggy leaned back in her chair, and watched the spots move. There was a rhythm to them, she realized. At the Academy, her teachers had taught her a form of hypnosis, allowing her to feel the energy patterns of magic and to align herself with it. One needed to feel the patterns of the energy to cast well; merely knowing placements and incantations was not enough. She pressed her hands against her eyes again, slowed her breathing, and felt it, the energy of the spots in her mind as they danced with each other in time to her heartbeat. Gradually, they aligned with each other, first in the patterns of known sequences, then in new patterns she did not know. They were alive in her mind; like the familiar energies of magic, the stones knew where to be even if she did not know where to place them.
At last, in some small way, Twiggy knew what it meant to feel the game. She could play a lifetime and still have more to learn—but as much as she could be, she was ready.
###
SATURDAY
Midnight. Rose heard the ringing of the bells, idly rolled over in her bed, and let her eyes flutter open. After seven weeks in Cauldron, Rose usually no longer took note of the Kettenite bells, no longer thought it strange that the whole city woke at midnight.
As she stared at the ceiling, Rose realized that this night’s bells signified something different. Something Ehktian, in its way. In the morning, it would be Ehkt Ascendant—Ehkt’s Judgment, by Sovereign reckoning.
Today, Rose thought, as she closed her eyes and dozed back to sleep, is going to be a day full of challenges.
WEEK 7 | MONDAY
After Dawn prayers, Savina returned to her bedroom, opened the screen, and watched the day turn from pink to blue as the sun began to bathe the crater city. Two months here, and she had become part of Cauldron’s high society; she would soon meet Lady Funaki Chinatsu, the head of the Peerage. Savina had already learned what she needed to know: that Lady Funaki was an excellent host, with strict etiquette, who placed a high value on social structure. She liked, as one of Savina’s new friends had put it, being a big fish.
Talking with Lady Funaki would be easy—but everything else here was so hard. Savina stared outside. To the East, across the sea, was Pol Henna. Two months here, and Pol Henna seemed so very far away: there, she had Father to deal with politics, a cohort of Givers to do the healing, and a butler to quash nasty rumors among the slaves.
As Savina crossed the courtyard for breakfast, she overheard Kormick’s voice beyond the screen of the common room. “Just stealing some gold, then?” he chuckled. “I had a bet with young Tavi that they’d ask you to kill Savina.”
“The week’s just beginning, Justicar,” Arden replied. “You haven’t lost yet.” She paused. “What they’ve asked already is bad enough. I told Shen that there was a big fight in the dungeons, and that all of you have had secret meetings with the Inquisition—but I don’t know how long I can keep on with nothing but vague information and revolutionary talk. I think we're running out of time. They said they have ‘plans’ in motion. The whole thing makes me sick inside.”
Savina thought it was the longest statement she’d ever heard Arden make. Moreover, despite the worry she was expressing, Arden sounded more confident than Savina had ever heard her sound – just one concerned adult talking to others.
“Whatever you can get from them is helpful,” came Mena’s voice, in a rare friendly tone.
Savina opened the screen. “Arden.”
“Blessed Daughter?” Arden's face, as she turned to Savina and dropped a curtsy, was all bland subservience.
“I . . . I just want to know that you’re all right,” Savina said. There was no easy way to say that she knew about the rumors Arden was spreading, and that it hurt, and that she trusted Arden all the same. This would have to do.
“Thank you, Blessed Daughter, I’m well.”
“Is . . . can I do anything to help?” Savina asked.
“I couldn’t drag you in any further,” replied Arden, “but I would ask a favor. The Tide asked me to steal some gold from a man, and I did. I’d like to repay him. I’m carrying your gold, Blessed Daughter; could I use some of it for this?”
Savina felt a wave of relief. “Yes, Arden, by all means.”
###
TUESDAY
Mena awoke and did a few push-ups to clear her head. Her talk with Brother Soburu had, she mused, confirmed what she suspected: that only ill could come of her enjoying herself with a bunch of Ehktians. And now that she’d met with the Ehktian Synod member, she didn’t have to spend any more time with Ehktians she liked. But the responsibility did fall to her to spend time with a group of Ehktians with whom she had less affinity, and therefore less potential for enjoyment – the Extinguishers of the Flame.
Intellectually, the mission of the Extinguishers of the Flame made sense: like the Defiers’ mandate that evil exists so it can be eradicated, the Snuffers (as they endearingly called themselves) held that challenge exists to be eliminated. What greater challenge could there be, they hypothesized, than the elimination of all challenge? It makes intellectual sense, sure, but not common sense. The Snuffers busied themselves by running spas, meditating, and acting as a volunteer fire brigade. Spas. About the least Ehktian things I can think of, Mena thought.
But that’s where she was headed. Savina had recounted what the socialites had said: in Cauldron, the Extinguishers of the Flame took care of some of the healing duties that would, on the Peninsula, be carried out by Givers. If they were going to find any underground Alirrians in Cauldron, the temple of the Snuffers was as good a place to look as any.
A heavyset man with a ponytail met Mena at the door to the temple. “Welcome,” he intoned, and led her to a room filled with soft cushions. A woman playing the harp in the corner looked up and smiled. Mena resisted the urge to growl. “You look . . . stressed,” the man said. “Can I interest you in our sauna, or a hot stone massage?”
“I tweaked my shoulder wrestling,” Mena replied, truthfully, and poked at the front of her shoulder with her fingers. “Is there someone here who can take a look at it?”
He led her back to an area that looked like a more traditional sports-healing clinic, with folks on benches receiving massage, compresses, and basic bandaging. As one of the Snuffers stretched Mena’s shoulder and applied a warming ointment, she observed the others. To anyone else, it wouldn’t have been obvious, but Savina told her what to look for: A couple of the Snuffers weren’t just wrapping up injuries; they were praying.
###
WEDNESDAY
Tavi came down to breakfast as Kormick and the others were finishing their own. “Kormick!” Tavi said, “Are you interested in joining me today? There’s nothing on the social calendar, so I thought I might try to intimidate a few of the known Tidesmen. Nothing major, just hang around their bars and such to make them nervous about the eye of the Inquisition.”
Kormick thought, once again, how Tavi had a spark of the Undian in him. “Can’t, Tavi—not today—but perhaps Dame Philomena would lend you some menacing, yet oddly alluring, assistance.”
Mena pursed her lips, but held back whatever biting retort she surely had prepared. “Kormick, what has you occupied today?”
“I’ve decided to do some research on the prophecy. I had a dream about my sister last night. It’s inspired me to go down to the Adepts’ library and see if there are any records there about the Alirrians in this region that might help us understand the symbols in the prophecy.”
“Tried. Nothing there,” Twiggy mumbled. She had her nose deep in a book about Go.
“Justicar, you have a sister?” asked Savina, her innocent eyes inquiring.
Kormick realized that, until now, Twiggy was the only one who had asked him about his family; she must have assumed his story was confidential and kept it to herself. The others had been waiting for him to volunteer. It seemed the time was ripe to explain.
“My sister, Elizabette, was six years older than me. You remind me of her, Savina; she was kind, and helpful, and wanted to be a priestess of Alirria. Right after King Lucas was established as the leader of Dar Und, a group of the old Bosses plotted to kill him at a meeting in my father’s bar, where Elizabette worked. She saw what they were doing . . . she saved the King’s life, but lost her own.”
Savina’s eyes were wide. “How old were you?”
“Eleven,” Kormick replied. “That was the day I learned I had magic. King Lucas sent me to the di Raprezzi’s Academy to learn to use it. Turned out, magic wasn’t my strong suit.”
“That must have been terrible for you,” Savina continued, her voice comforting.
“Oh, it was fine,” Kormick deliberately shifted the subject. “My father taught me to kill—but Signor di Raprezzi taught me to think. I returned to Dar Und an agent of the King.”
“No, the death of your sister. It must have been terrible,” Savina pressed.
“It was . . . unspeakably bad.” Kormick paused. “For a time I had an ill-conceived need for vengeance. But . . . I saw Elizabette’s face in the Spring, you know. She is still looking after me. Now I know that the justice of Kettenek and the mercy of Alirria will establish law in Dar Und. Vengeance is not for myself, it is for the Law. The murderers will not escape punishment.”
Everyone was quiet. Mena and Arden each looked deep in thought; Nyoko swallowed hard. Kormick knew that Nyoko, too, had witnessed the death of family members, and had not seen the killers brought to justice.
That was enough quiet. “So last night, I dreamt about my sister, and I knew I had to research the prophecy.”
Nyoko blinked hard. “If, as Twiggy-san says, the Adepts have no records touching on Alirrian symbology, you might want to check the archives of the Inquisition. See if there’s anything else on the ravings of that madwoman.”
Six hours later, Kormick’s hindquarters hurt from sitting on the archive’s benches. How does Twiggy manage to do this all day? he thought. But he had some information.
The madwoman was a member of the Sheh, which was a tribe of Old Ones. The Sheh tribe lived mostly deep in the Ketkath, west of Divine Mark. Apparently, the Sheh considered themselves guardians; the madwoman said something about ‘guarding you for generations’ . . . So the Sheh might have something to do with the ‘guarding tower’ in the prophecy.
But if the Sheh had anything to do with the prophecy, it wasn’t going to be easy finding out what. The Sovereigns had eradicated the Sheh—nearly erased them from history—decades ago.
###
THURSDAY
“Aha!” Iwai-sensai clapped sharply and uttered the first syllable of praise Nyoko had heard in three weeks of grueling practice. “You see?” He continued. “You listen to your body, and you hear the steps.”
Nyoko wasn’t sure what that meant. Much of the time she wasn’t sure what Iwai-sensei meant, but she had been listening to her body. For the first two weeks, her body offered mostly complaints. Now, it had something productive to contribute to the conversation. She could feel the energy move up through her arms to her fingers as they articulated the dance’s mannered flicks; she knew how hard she could push her ankles before they would collapse; she could sense the spring in her thighs, coiled, ready for dips and leaps. Finally, she thought, she knew more than just the steps of the dance; she knew how they were supposed to feel in her body as she did them.
Nyoko had also become accustomed to the side-eyed looks of rivals. Today it wasn’t just looks; Nyoko deftly dodged as Unsuku, the more seasoned dancer who’d first demonstrated the dance of Sedellus, tried to trip her in the locker room. The trip attempt was done with all the finesse and subtlety of an Adept, but it was unmistakeable—and if it was meant to discourage Nyoko, it didn’t work. Let her try, Nyoko thought. I’m the one dancing in the pageant.
###
FRIDAY
Twiggy stared at her dinner. She wasn’t hungry. The bits of dark meat arranged themselves in her bowl of rice like black stones surrounded by white. The meat had lost that match, she thought, as she sank her chin in her hands. She took a bite, turning the meat’s position on one edge of the bowl from dead to unsettled.
Twiggy closed her eyes. The last two months blended together. Go, sleep, eat, Go . . . and not much sleep, at that. She had played hundreds of matches; studied histories of the game and its trends; studied the writings of great strategists and tacticians; memorized countless move sequences and learned when not to use them; learned the language of the game. But in two days, Twiggy was expected not only to play well—something she felt she could do—but to play better than people who had been playing for a lifetime, to gain the attention of the head of the Ring of the Military, to impress her somehow . . . how naive I was, taking on this task. Twiggy had seen it as an opportunity to do something important, for once. A chance to experience the life she might have been born to, to be with the people she might have been with. To make a difference in the world from the top, rather than chipping away at it from the bottom.
Now—her mind was an empty 19x19 board, impossibly large, its permutations impossibly numerous. She rubbed her tired eyes. Spots appeared; black and white dots, whirling and swimming like the orbs in the Ketkath.
Twiggy leaned back in her chair, and watched the spots move. There was a rhythm to them, she realized. At the Academy, her teachers had taught her a form of hypnosis, allowing her to feel the energy patterns of magic and to align herself with it. One needed to feel the patterns of the energy to cast well; merely knowing placements and incantations was not enough. She pressed her hands against her eyes again, slowed her breathing, and felt it, the energy of the spots in her mind as they danced with each other in time to her heartbeat. Gradually, they aligned with each other, first in the patterns of known sequences, then in new patterns she did not know. They were alive in her mind; like the familiar energies of magic, the stones knew where to be even if she did not know where to place them.
At last, in some small way, Twiggy knew what it meant to feel the game. She could play a lifetime and still have more to learn—but as much as she could be, she was ready.
###
SATURDAY
Midnight. Rose heard the ringing of the bells, idly rolled over in her bed, and let her eyes flutter open. After seven weeks in Cauldron, Rose usually no longer took note of the Kettenite bells, no longer thought it strange that the whole city woke at midnight.
As she stared at the ceiling, Rose realized that this night’s bells signified something different. Something Ehktian, in its way. In the morning, it would be Ehkt Ascendant—Ehkt’s Judgment, by Sovereign reckoning.
Today, Rose thought, as she closed her eyes and dozed back to sleep, is going to be a day full of challenges.
This is a truly excellent read, thanks for sharing and please keep it going!!
