The Iris Emperor
The twilight sun shimmered on the slick deck as Eoleo mopped the wooden surface of the old Alfhafran sailing vessel. He had dropped off the last of his companions, the young sage girl Himi, at her home in Yamata City. She was quiet but decent company. The girl was a talented adept and seer but a little bit too serious for Eoleo's pirate sensibilities. When the group was all together sailing the Great Eastern Sea she was often occupied with using the Third Eye to scope out Umbra Gear. Eoleo would try and coax a smile from her, but was rarely rewarded.
Now the pirate was sailing to Tonfon, the Sanan imperial capital. Before returning to Champa he wished to consult with his country's neighbour, the great and ever expanding Sanan Empire. Eoleo planned to request the support of the Emperor Unan in rebuilding Champa. Unan had been supportive of the group in their quest, and Eoleo hoped this would transfer to better diplomatic relations between their two countries.
He found that traveling along on the ship was difficult. But he had been a sailor for as long as he remembered. He was hoisting and lowering sails since before he was a teenager. In those days, the early days of the Golden Sun age, the sea was viscous. Whirl pools and waterfalls appeared in the middle of the vast ocean. So Eoleo had learned to sail in the most troubling of waters, for his father never paled in their wake.
Eoleo blinked long and felt his eyes begin to dampen as he remembered his father taking him out to sea as a boy. Eoleo hadn't put much thought into what Champa would do without Briggs, or what he would do without Briggs, during the quest to end the Grave Eclipse. He had to put grief in a closet in the very back of his mind.
For the time being Eoleo decided to keep it there. He dropped his mop to the floor and clutched the ropes to turn the sails and steer the ship. At the bow of the ship he could make out the faint light of a small lighthouse. The wind picked up and his father's old Alhafran ship quickened towards port.
As he approached he could make out the cobblestone walls of the lighthouse. Stairs spiraled the lighthouse on the outside and a small figure climbed them. At the top the figure lit the torch the flames glimmered against the silver sea of dusk.
As the sun set behind the Pumora Range, the eroded Sanan mountain range, Eoleo's ship sailed up the coast and around the peninsula where the stone lighthouse stood. There was still enough light to make out the lighthouse keeper as he passed. He sat at lighthouse summit gazing east. Eoleo offered a wave to the stocky man who returned it.
After rounding the peninsula Eoleo could finally make out the shape of the city beyond. In the massive city of Tonfon wooden houses and stone walls were lit up by torches. At the port many ships were still arriving. This city never sleeps.
After waiting nearly an hour for the docks to clear several Sanan boatsmen and sailors helped Eoleo dock the ship. He bounded off and unto the docks below. A young sailor with a mop of black hair and a very thin patchy beard approached. No older than Matt, Eoleo thought.
"Where's the rest of you?" he asked Eoleo.
Eoleo laughed, "Just me."
The boy gaped. Then he smirked, "Seriously. Where?"
"None."
"Come on. If they want to sleep on the ship that's fine. You don't have to pretend they don't exist," the boy said.
"Look," Eoleo said, "I'm Champan. We don't need a crew of fifty for one tiny ship."
The boy looked curiously at Eoleo's vessel, "Looks like this ship has seen better days. Are you a warrior?"
"I just came out of the eclipse," Eoleo said.
The boy shook his head and gaped again, "Come on."
Eoleo laughed, "Take a look." He pointed to one of the holes in the ship's upper hull. Eoleo recalled the exact battle. A shadow beast gone mad slammed its horns into the hull and got stuck there. Tyrell wasted no time in cleaving the monster in two but probably ended up doing more damage to the hull. Eoleo smiled to himself at the memory.
"Well then. I guess you'll be wanting to rest at the inn. I can show you the way?" the Sanan sailor asked.
"I know the way. But I need to see the Emperor first," Eoleo said.
"Come on man!" the boy said for the third time.
"Want to come?" Eoleo asked.
The boy snorted and Eoleo picked up his pack and headed off into the city. A moment passed and he heard the young sailors footsteps scurry across the dock behind him. The two entered Tonfon together which was strangely empty. The market with its cobble ground and the tight streets lined with houses and shops were all vacant.
Eoleo remembered that while he was talking with the boy at the docks many men and women unload from the ships and enter the city with a quick pace. None of the ships were departing, only arriving. And Sanans of every age and occupation were arriving in the city, for what Eoleo assumed was supplies. Shouldn't they now be at the market? Where is everyone now?
The young sailor struggled to keep up with Eoleo's pace but came up beside him, "Who are you?"
"I'm Eoleo. A sailor from Champa."
"You already said that. But," he faltered for a moment before continuing, "How do you know the Emperor?"
"Well, I'm a friend of Ryu Kou and Hou Ju's," Eoleo said.
"The royal family?"
"Yes," Eoleo said, "and who are you then?"
"I'm Shui, and I sail. And we Sanans aren't as bad at is as you think," the boy said pridefully.
Just then the pair arrived at the garden pathway to Emperor Unan's palace. All about the gardens were Iris flowers, the symbol of the Emperor. The noise from the crowd drowned out Shui's bragging. At least a thousand people were gathered there, all Sanans by the look of it. There were farmers, soldiers, craftsmen, and nobles. The pathway's torches lit up their faces. Children were huddled with their parents, friends stood together in large groups. All were murmuring worried words and looking up at the palace, as if they were waiting.
The sound of light Sanan fanfare horns blasted through the air and cut the chatter. From the palace emerged a procession of guards and royals. Eoleo could make out the Emperor in the middle of dressed in elaborate garments of silk. Behind him were his old friends Hou Ju and Ryu Kou with their mother Hinechou. There were too far to make out their faces. Eoleo only recognized them by their figures and royal dress.
After the fanfare ceased, the crowd bowed lowly. Eoleo followed suit, after Shui threw an elbow into the pirate's ribs. They waited in utter silence for the word of the Emperor. Eoleo glanced up to see the starlight and moonlight shining brightly. To the west was a dark cloud front rapidly approaching the city. Not very good sailing conditions. Perhaps I'll stay the night, Eoleo thought.
Unan rose both his arms in the air and then placed one in front of him and the other behind him. He bowed before his people. The crowd gasped. Then he spoke in a clear and resonating voice, "My people! Today is a-"
At that moment many things happened at once. A loud twang of crossbow sounded over Unan's word and a bolt whizzed from behind Eoleo head. It was black and moved with ferocious velocity before lodging itself into the Emperor's neck.
The crowd erupted into madness. A great many Sanans charged down the path back into the city and in all other directions. They were shouting curses and weeping laments. Resonating above everything else were the shrill cold words of some terrified Sanan, "The Emperor is dead!"
Through a sea of limbs, shouts, and weeping, Eoleo could see Unan's limp body crashing to the ground. Some of his guards raised shields to protect the royal family and rushed them back into the castle while the rest sifted through the crowd desperately looking for the assassin. In the madness misunderstandings and pushing resulted in fights breaking out between the Sanan citizens and guards and among the Sanan citizens.
Eoleo and Shui stood at the far back of the crowd, the closest to Tonfon. The closest to the assassin, Eoleo thought. He was positive that the bolt came from behind him. Before wasting any more time on thought, Eoleo turned away from the palace and sprinted into the city streets.
"Where are you going?" came Shui's voice behind him. The boy was running to keep up with Eoleo. All around them people ran to their homes or began to dismantle market stands and thieve, using the chaos as a shroud for their crimes.
"Go home Shui!" Eoleo said. Out of the corner of his eye the pirate noticed something useful: a ladder. The only was the assassin could get such a clear shot is from the rooftops. That's where I'll find him.
Without saying any more words to Shui, Eoleo climbed up the ladder as fast as he could manage. He was up at least three stories by the time he was standing on the rooftop. The madness of Tonfon was still deafening but Eoleo's sight line was now clear. He could see nearly the entire city from his vantage point. To help him see he lit a flame that flickered with its base in his palm using psynergy.
"Whoa!" Shui said, "How are you doing that?" Eoleo turned to see Shui had followed him up the ladder. He can see my psynergy? How?
Before Eoleo could tell Shui to go back down he caught a figure on a rooftop nearly two hundred yards away. Eoleo dashed towards it and leaped to the adjacent rooftop nearly a full story lower. He rolled to break his fall. He jumped and climbed and ran through a few more rooftops in this way. The figure still hadn't noticed him. He was now only fifty yards away.
Finally the assassin noticed Eoleo and took off running in the opposite direction. He leaped onto Tonfon's outer wall and Eoleo followed him. The wall was less than a metre thick and Eoleo chased the assassin along it in a full out sprint. A stone from the wall gave out under his foot. His knee and his palm slammed into the stones and broke his fall. He looked down to see the street yards and yards below him. Close one.
Eoleo looked up and saw the assassin had disappeared. He continued running along the wall until he noticed a rope tied to a peg on the top of the wall. The other end dangled down to the street. He must have climbed down here. Eoleo climbed down the rope.
He found himself in a quiet alley between a longhouse and the wall. The ashes of a small fire pit were nearby among heaps of trash. He heard the sound of feet hitting the stone ground behind him and whirled around. Standing there was Shui.
"You followed me?" Eoleo whispered.
"You'll probably need help, you're from Champa after all," Shui said and a goofy smile lit up his entire face. Eoleo couldn't believe the sailor had made it across all those rooftops and onto the sprint along the wall.
A sound filled the alleyway again, it seemed to Eoleo like sound of wood against stone. Shui's eyes widened. Eoleo mouthed the word quiet to his new friend. Slowly Eoleo put a hand on the hilt of his sword. It felt warm against his grip and he peeled his eyes to look for the assassin.
Slowly he walked towards the source of the sound, where the house's wall met the great wall of Tonfon. There was a dead end there. I got him, Eoleo thought. The alley was far to narrow for the assassin to escape past Eoleo undetected and there was no way up the smooth wall as Eoleo stood in between the assassin and the rope.
As Eoleo grew closer he finally made out the silhouette of his enemy. "Drop your weapons and come out," he said.
The assassin was cloaked in all black and his face was shrouded. At his back hung a crossbow. Eoleo drew his sword. Shui stood beside him with a small sailor's knife. Instead of dropping his crossbow the assassin grabbed something from his pack and threw it to the ground all in one fluid motion.
The attack was too fast for Eoleo to react with sword or psynergy. and from the object emerged a thick a nauseous grey gas. Smoke bomb, Eoleo realized angrily.
"Back up!" Eoleo shouted at Shui. But it was too late. The assassin, with a thin black blade drawn, leaped out of the gas and at Shui. The black robed assassin looked up at Eoleo and dodged the pirate's visceral sword swing. He slashed Eoleo's stomach with the quick blade and ran out of the alleyway past him and back into Tonfon.
Eoleo put a hand on his wound and it became wet with blood. By the time he looked up the assassin was gone. He rushed over to where Shui lay in a pool of blood.
Cradling the boy in his arms he saw that the assassin's blade had pierced him in the centre of the chest. Shui's looked at Eoleo desperately but was unable to speak. Rain began to fall slowly unto Tonfon. Eoleo looked up and the sky was shrouded in the thick grey clouds that had rolled in from the west.
The boy clutched at Eoleo's tunic, "Eoleo..."
The pirate warrior couldn't speak. He simply held Shui as the young sailor succumbed to his wounds dying in the cold Tonfon night.
