II. A Rasp of Sand
The hot air blows across your face, even through your veil. A lock of black hair escapes, flapping loose. The burning sun beats down on your back, already sweltering this early in the morning. The desert wind catches the canvas sails, and lifts them. The whole landscape of barren valleys catches the desert wind and funnelling you uphill, along the dry and dusty riverbeds.
The mountains here are known as the Fire Mountains. It is not because they are literally on fire, though up ahead you can see where a mountain smokes. It is from the colour of the stone. The stone here is banded in oranges and reds, broken up by black basalt from the volcanoes that break up the landscape. The plants are yellow and brown; there is no snow on the wind-worn mountains; the rivers are umber dust-choked things.
In the morning sun you can see the ember-coloured gleam of a firedust deposit stretched across one exposed landslide. To think that this is a place where firedust can be found just… lying there! There's a work-camp there in the deposit, ant-like figures scrabbling over the distant red. You have read in books that they must work with special wooden tools to avoid even a spark.
It would be awfully amusing to watch that mountainside catch fire if there were such a spark… but no, alas. You must remain unnoticed. Unnoticed, yes, you mutter below your breath.
Perhaps those locals can deal better with the heat. Sweltering, endless heat. Even in Air and Water it is never cool here, and now, as Wood draws to a close, you can feel the water drawn from your skin with every breath.
The air smells hot. It smells dry. There's the scent of hot flint, swamping even that of the three-master sandship and its cargo.
So different to your homeland. So different to your ancestral lands, mighty and strong, where the mountains are snow-capped even in the heights of the Season of Fire, where there are always mountain streams fed from ice, and in Water the cherry blossoms show their transient beauty. There are no pines here. You always loved the tall pines others called gloomy.
You stand at the bow of the sandship, hearing the rasp of the hull against the near-endless desert, and wheeze. Your lungs hurt, but not from the heat. They hurt because of your wounds.
It was almost more than you could take to leave your cabin and walk up on deck. You touch them through your robes, naming where each one came from. There, that one on your left arm, that was that grim-eyed swordsman who said that it was revenge for his mother and expected you to know who in Creation he was talking about. The one on your right thigh, that was a crossbow bolt. The one that runs from groin to throat, nearly bisecting you… that was the sharpest betrayal.
Did they know how who you were? Well, no, they knew exactly who you were. You've run over these thoughts time and time again since you had to flee. Those insolent fools came for Ferem Odat Rena. They did not care about the Odat name. They did not care about the Ferem name.
Well, why would they? Your family removed their protection. Your house removed their protection. How dare they! They will pay for this affront. All in good time, but they will pay.
You turn too quickly, and your leg nearly gives way. Red-hot pain shoots up your thigh, and you hiss through your clenched teeth. Your knuckles whiten as you cling to the railing.
"What happened?" demands one of the ill-dressed, ill-mannered sailors. As if you would,
could ever show weakness to someone like that.
Even though you can barely stand, you flap your hand in his direction and drive him away. "I'm fine," you insist, with the dignity that is your birthright. "Just a bump in the ship."
Like an ill-mannered oik he dares disbelieve you. "Are you…"
"Go!" you order.
He dares to shake his head as he leaves, and you gasp at the sheer lack of regard. Yes. That's what it is. You're just gasping at the dishonourable way he acts. It's not pain. It's not the rage at your body not doing what you want it to.
It's so dusty out here. So very dusty.
Gripping on hard to the iron handrails, you slowly make your way along the side of the sandship, and head back down below decks. Your funds at least extended to a cabin. Better to have a place to yourself that you can be private, rather than staking out space where the common passengers must - finding a place to sling a hammock or bedding down on the floor. Still, before you began this journey you would not have been happy with the quality of your quarters down here.
Once you have barred the door, you slump down on your cramped bed and let out a shuddering sob from the pain in your leg. Your medicinal studies are helping, yes, but too slowly. You are on the run, but you cannot run. Such cruel irony.
The hanging cloths shift as the sandship tacks once more, hull groaning as it cuts through the grains. You lean with it, well used to the motion. The contents of your travel crates shift around, and once again you make a mental note you need to see what's loose. Then comes a voice.
"Well, look at you. It must be a bad day." A pause. "My lady."
A shadow moves among the boxes in this cramped space, darting from place to place. A small animal, and one might even believe that as long as one were not to look at its shadow.
"Sei," you growl. It's just because your throat is dry from the hot air. Of course.
"My lady?" He mocks you. You know he mocks you. "Is something the matter?"
And there is his head, poking out from your travel chest. Not where you last saw him move. What makes its appearance is a white cat with orange eyes, and a little pink tongue that flickers as he tastes the air. And a full set of horns, which sprout form his skull like a deer. You tell people who see him that he is a northern deer-cat, a rare and exotic breed of pet.
Pah. Those fools. There is no such creature, at least not within the realms of sanity and shape - and that is not his true form. The collar he wears is lined with white jade, and you tricked him into wearing it sixty years ago. Your brilliance, your genius chains him, limits him, keeps him trapped in this minuscule form where the mainstay of his power is confined and he must obey your orders.
He slinks over, fox-like tails wagging behind him. He purrs, the little monster, as he sits beside your leg. "You know, my lady," he says with a yawn, "if your wounds are aching, if you would just remove my collar I could sup upon it. You would not have to feel such an indignity." He smiles, and there is something almost innocent in the feline grin as he pats at your leg, paw putting pressure on it just below the threshold of pain. Almost. "I could remove it all."
And perhaps it might even work, if you did not know what he was. And if he had not made this offer every day in your travel thousands of miles south. "I must decline, Sei," you tell him with forced politeness.
"Are you sure?" He leaps up to sit beside you. "I hate to see you suffer. It's just… awful."
Yes, it is awful. It's very awful. Pain is a worm that lives in you, and it won't let go. It's been months, and it's still squirming in your flesh. But what he would do is worse. "I am quite sure," you say softly.
"Oh well. If you wish." Sei curls up on your bed. "Remember, my lady, I am always here."
"Yes, you are," you mumble, reaching out for your wine bottle. There's still some left from last night. Perhaps you should pour yourself a glass. Well, not a glass. You don't have glasses. They broke all your lovely glasses. What you have are cheap clay cups.
You shudder, and drink from the bottle. Clay cups make your teeth hurt anyway. Not that they could be much worse than this inferior red. It's trash. Awful, low-grade swill, barely fit for pigs. But you drank all the good wine a while back. Quite a while back. Less than a week into this current, endless journey. And now all you're left with is this pigswill you've been able to get when your ship stops off at these dusty little miserable towns.
Dragons curses it all. Your hands ball into fists, squeezing tight on the rough fabric of your outer layers as if you could throttle them for what they are. For what they represent. You hate this cloth. You hate the fact you haven't seen a hot spring in months, and you have to wash when you can with precious water. You hate that you don't have any handsome young men here to tend to your wounds and tell you that you're being very brave and that the scars only make you more beautiful.
They'd be lying to you, the little shits, but you need to be lied to when you're feeling like this.
Such thoughts distract you while you carefully rub aloe balm into the scars, and work your legs to try to keep your muscles from cramping up. Maybe if you'd been able to rest properly then things wouldn't have gotten so bad, but that was a dream. Not when those wretched ingrates of your family passed on all manners of scurrilous rumours to the Immaculate Order.
Look at you, you're brooding on dark thoughts - and not the productive kind of dark thoughts. It's all this wretched sand! It's constantly there, the sound of the hull scraping against it! It's just getting on your nerves! So instead, to while away the monotonous hours before the disgraceful lunch is prepared, you flick through some of the scattered books you managed to bring with you. Ahh, but a remnant of the great libraries you once had. To think you are reduced to this… this status.
Things will be better once this journey is over. You promise yourself this.
So, yes, you are Ferem Odat Rena. Rena, born into the Odat family, counted - by the Realm - as part of the Cadet House Ferem. The Feremese families largely disagree with this, it should be noted; as far as they are concerned, they are each ancient families that date back to the Shogunate, and the Realm insults them when it thinks of them as provincial hicks. The Odat family are northerners even by Ferem standards, living up in the high borderlands. A rough and beautiful land of pines, glaciers, and alpine meadows that bloom in the short warm months of Fire before being under snow most of the year.
Perhaps that isolation is how the young Rena, heiress to her family, could go off the rails. By the time she inherited from her mortal mother, she was already a self-taught sorceress - and there were dark rumours about where she had learned, because her family had certainly never paid for her to attend any reputable sorcerous academy. As the years went by, the rumours only grew stranger; that she had dug up ancient mine shafts in the mountains, that she had ventured to the courts of the princes of chaos and made certain bargains, that she had signed over the souls of a whole village in return for… something.
Eventually, the rumours grew loud enough that they could not be ignored, and when the eye of House Ferem fell on Odat lands, it saw things that could not stand.
Pah. Small minded fools. Just think of the wisdom she gained! Such as...
What Sorcerous Arts do your books describe? Pick Two.
[ ] Geomancy - You draw power from the land. You tap the dragon lines of Creation's lifeblood, and turn that fuel into raw power whether from demenses or manses. You know how to destabilise the fabric of the world to take advantage of chaos in ways great and small.
[ ] Hierarchy - True power lies in organisations. You wield your command of power structures like a cloak, turning that authority to a blade in your hands. It matters not whether it is yours or leant (though of course it is best to rule in your own name, you know). And to rule over a court of chaos beasts has even more power in it.
[ ] Contracts - Oh, many arts make use of the beings outside the world, but you have specialised in directly making oaths with them - and their trickeries. Such oaths often have a great cost and fearful punishments if not upheld, but you can personally vow to the advantages of such a personal arrangement with such beings.
[ ] Artifice - Cunning mechanisms of crystals, jade, and even stranger things can do peculiar things. You are a mistress of making such devices, especially ones which draw upon the impossibilities from outside the world, and with a proper workshop you can assemble them.
[ ] Idolatory - There is no greater power than faith. Cults are one of your favourite tools. There's nothing quite like being worshipped, darling. And from the chaos-things, you learned darker secrets of the soul - how to take it, and what might be done with a stolen soul. A shame your cultists are all dead.
[ ] Astrology - Through mathematics and lenses and great charts, you mark out the stars, understanding the plans of the gods - and how they might be swayed to your whims. Fate is a chain on one such as you, after all. Chaos is your ally. If only you had a proper observatory...
[ ] Alchemy - You leave the ways of hedge-witches far behind you. With your knowledge you can do such wonderful things with wyldstone, the trapped essence of possibility - not to mention the rendered down flesh of creatures from outside the world. Lead becomes gold, life becomes death, the fairest perfumes and the foulest poisons… but you need your workshop!
[ ] Surgery - Oh, such things that can be done with living flesh with the right tools! Automata of meat, beings reborn from fertile mud, beasts that only exist to serve your will. And then there is what one can do to mortals, too! Such art! Such cost to replace what they took from you!
