Estelle 2
Since it was necessary for us to depart before Genji woke and Munno refused to take my former master's horse, we hurried back to his farm. He packed us enough food for several days and saddled his mule. Then we rode to the home his nearest neighbor, Hiram Lao. The old man was clearly confused by Munno's sudden desire to leave his whole world behind, but I quickly manufactured a story about an emergency involving a distant relative and Lao decided it would be "no trouble at all" to look after Munno's fields and animals for a few weeks.
In truth, we would be gone much longer than that... if we returned at all, but I doubted the old man would mind. I'd seen Lao's three sons sloshing around in his rice paddy and throwing handfuls of mud at one another like a pack of wild baboons more than once before. The boys could clearly use some extra work.
I could tell as we headed back to the main road that Munno was reconsidering the wisdom of his spur-of-the-moment decision to come with me. Of course, I had told him that I was in the employ of Heaven, but Munno had worked very hard to hide himself where many thousands of would-be "apprentices" could not hope to find him. After wielding the Heaven Sent Sword against Iyutha so many years ago, he had started off traveling incessantly, but doing so had only added to his legend.
In the end, Munno had paid the very greatest price for his desire to be a hero, and nothing anyone could do would ever change that. His wife and my son, the two greatest treasures of his life, had both been dead for more than twenty years.
As we made our way down from the mountains and into the open country, I told Munno silly stories I'd heard in my travels and answered the questions he posed about me and our mission. He was quiet for several hours. Then we reached the river that snaked through the valley and led all the way to Great Forks. Since we'd already passed three forks in the road, I suspected we were well beyond Genji's reach. He could spur his horse as fast as it would go and he would still have no way of knowing where we'd gone left and where we'd gone right.
As we stopped to water our animals, Munno sat down in the grass on the riverbank and watched the midday sun on the surface of the blue water.
"Where are we going?" Munno asked.
I realized belatedly that I hadn't actually told him.
"To be honest, I don't know yet. Whoever it is that controls Iyutha is somewhere in the Scavenger Lands, but he or she is keeping that demon on a very long leash." I admitted. "Iyutha has burned through An-Tang once already and she's been sighted flying over both Chiarascuro and Lookshy."
"That is a very long leash." Munno agreed. "You don't know anything more?"
"I'll know more when it becomes important." I told him. He said nothing, though it was obvious from the expression on his face that he did not like my answer. "For now, we'll head West. Great Forks is the closest major city to here. And since you don't know how the Heaven-Sent sword was originally forged, we're going to have to track down some of the best craftsmen in Creation and ask them."
"I have the shard in here." Munno nodded tapped the medicine pouch he wore around his neck. It was a good luck charm that an old friend of his had made for him. Like most of Munno's friends, Brock was long dead. I imagined that he would have approved of the quest that Munno had accepted. From what Munno had told me of him, I knew that Brock had been a connoisseur of adventure stories and would have approved of the last smoky pipe dreams of a hero long past his prime. "But as I told Tepet Genji, I did not see the original blade forged. I may not be any help at all."
I sighed heavily. "Munno, I've received orders from one of the most important Conventions of the Bureau of Destiny. You will help. Now I can't say how, and I can't say when... but you must trust that Heaven is watching you for a reason."
"One girl and old mercenary against a demon?" Munno laughed slightly.
"Hey! I know how I look, but I'm no young pup!" I informed him. "I get paid very well for what I do, and I'm never assigned missions that aren't important!"
Of course, I didn't tell Munno that sometimes Fate was capricious, and a "First Priority" Oversight job could be something as seemingly insignificant as stealing a horse.
The part about my salary was true, however... and it was also true that most of my assignments were of the kind that Munno would consider "important" himself. My favorite kind of work was physically challenging and dangerous, and my superiors knew what I preferred. My sifu, Jonah, often lamented that I wasn't a Chosen of Battles like he was. He'd always appreciated my skill with a blade and since I'd become a full-fledged agent of Fate myself, he often asked me to do favors for him. I could seldom bring myself to refuse.
Unfortunately, the last "little favor" I'd done for Jonah had gotten me roped into a mission for Oversight at his side. It had also involved me working for Himitsu, Field Supervisor Number One, which was something that made my skin crawl. Though Himitsu had been a pillar of the Division of Endings for longer than I'd been alive, he was also a complete lunatic. He'd withheld important information and even backstabbed Jonah and myself who were members of his own Faction. I'd heard someone say once that Himitsu's only friend in Heaven or Creation was Adamant Quill, The Emissary of Nexus, an Eclipse Caste Solar he'd been assigned to watch more than a century ago.
And Quill had recently let a Primordial loose in his city.
Working for Himitsu was a like working for a fae lord, which was something I was intimately familiar with and did not like to remember. Fortunately, even though I was back on the job for Oversight, there was a chance that the madman hadn't specifically requested me. No one knew who gave the orders for Oversight, not even Field Supervisors One and Two. In fairness, Field Supervisor Two wasn't anything like Himitsu. Despite the fact that she was the sweetheart of the Gold Faction, Whisper wasn't likely to send me on something madcap and potentially fatal. In fact, she'd probably give me all of tools I needed to do my job with very little prodding. She was a helluva savant, that I had to admit. But Whisper had a tendency to whine and whimper for no reason, which was something I really couldn't tolerate. More importantly, like every Chosen of Secrets... she also liked to hide things.
"Estelle?" Munno interrupted my thoughts. He'd climbed back into the saddle and was looking down on me as if he expected it was time for both of us to start riding again.
I mounted my horse and we continued along the river.
Munno had obviously been considering his words for some time before he spoke. "I blindfolded myself while the sword was being finished." He explained. "The man who made it told me to. I was only a boy, fifteen years old when I killed Iyutha. These days the bards say that I jumped so high that it looked as though I'd been blessed by the Dragons." He smiled slightly. "Perhaps it was a mercy that I never Exalted. My life has been eventful enough these past thirty-odd years. With a Dragon's grace, who knows what sort of trouble I might have gotten into?"
I smiled slightly despite myself. "I thought the same thing once." I admitted.
"How old are you?" Munno wondered. He seemed embarrassed after he spoke, as if he'd remembered that it was a somewhat impertinent question to ask a woman.
"Two-hundred and forty-six." I replied, enjoying the incredulous expression on Munno's face. "But that's nothing for a Sidereal! They still consider me a young hellion around the Cerulean Lute. Of course, that's not liable to change. You see, most Sidereals are found when they're very young and raised in Yu-Shan. I was almost thirty when they finally caught me living in a Freehold not far from Halta. I was taken by the fae as a child. It's a bit hard to imagine now, but I honestly thought I was a goblin myself. That didn't go over well within the Bureau. Certain people thought I could never be trained. That I was too "tainted" to be a Chosen of Serenity."
Munno considered what I'd told him. He seemed more disturbed hearing about my childhood than he had been when I'd revealed myself to be an agent of Heaven.
"And I do understand why. Let me tell you about this fae lord I once knew." I continued. "Every ten years, he'd go to the village near his Freehold and demand a pair of children, usually twins. You see, his hobby was to Shape one child and leave the other one "plain". And when he'd finished torturing and transforming his poor canvas, he'd force her to stand beside her for twin so that he could decide whether he'd "improved" upon the original or not. If he thought that he had, he'd kill the "plain" child. And if he didn't like his own work, he'd kill the one that he Shaped."
Munno stared at me. "Great Dragons, how were you ever able to find peace?"
"Oh, I saw worse before I was taken to Yu-Shan. I fought in several wars." I finished.
Munno said nothing. He only nodded. War was something he understood.
I decided to change the subject. "As you might imagine, I caused a whole lot of misery for a lot of folks when I first came to Heaven. I even punched the Goddess Lwaxana once. Being the Goddess of the Written Word, she got the worst kind of revenge on me. I still can't read much faster than a snail can crawl and sometimes the letters look backwards and... well, let's just say it's pretty embarrassing for a Sidereal." I laughed slightly, mostly to break the silence.
We rode on for many more miles before I could bring myself to say anything else. I didn't feel it would be right to continue spilling all of my own secrets, but Munno had never been one to talk much. I tried to focus on the road and clear my mind, but I'm no Chosen of Journeys and I can only really find serenity when I'm able to sit somewhere comfortable and enjoy a nice cup of tea.
The sun was beginning to go down and I spied a copse of trees not far ahead that looked like a nice place to set up camp. I reined my horse so that Munno could catch up with me and pointed. "Let's camp over there."
"Mm." Munno agreed.
We dismounted and let our animals drink from the river. Warm as it was, I set only a little fire so that we could share a pot of tea. The summer night was gloriously clear and the moon was only a thin sliver, which made the sky look like a sheet of black velvet. I still remembered the first time I'd seen the stars. I'd always known that they were up there, but when the Chosen of Battles who would later become my sifu had rescued me from the Green Lord's freehold and explained that Fate was written in the night sky, I'd actually looked at them. And the first constellation he'd named for me had been The Sword.
I pointed it out to Munno, who nodded. "That's The Sword. I'm very partial to those stars."
He said nothing, not even a little grunt of agreement which was most of the conversation I got out of him. Clearly, his thoughts were elsewhere.
We finished our tea, and my little fire burned down to embers. Towards the north, I could see a faint flickering of emerald green aurora. It was still too early for the winter lights. What was over there?
It was further off than we could travel in several days, so I supposed it didn't actually matter.
"I have a question." Munno announced suddenly.
"Go ahead." I replied.
"If you are an Agent of Heaven and an Exalt like a Dragonblood, how do you fit into the Perfected Hierarchy?" He asked.
I almost spit out my tea. "Uh..."
Words wouldn't come to me. With what we might be facing, I expected that Munno might need all the faith he had. I didn't know why it hadn't occurred to me before to ask him what Gods he favored. I'd assumed that he was not very religious, like most mercenaries I knew. It wouldn't have surprised me if I had discovered that he paid some sort of homage to a God of strength or swordsmanship or victory. But I certainly hadn't pegged him for a believer in Immaculate philosophy.
See, the Immaculate Order is actually an arm of the Bronze Faction, a political tool of distraction masquerading as "the one true faith". It serves its purpose in keeping most of Creation obedient and complacent under the rule of the Realm, but it's basically a load of bunk. The real Heaven bears very little resemblance to the Heaven described in Tenzin Zhou's On Immaculate Philosophy. If an Immaculate monk ever made it to Yu-Shan, they'd probably believe they'd been cast into the bowels of Malfeas.
More importantly, although the Immaculate Dragons have a lot of push and pull in Heaven, they are not, nor will ever be, on par with the Incarnae themselves.
"We're like the Gods." I explained, avoiding his question a little bit. I gestured to Thought and Memory. My two blades were set against the tree behind me and they looked particularly striking in the firelight. "You remember how heavy my blades were, don't you?"
Munno nodded.
"They're heavy because they're edged in Starmetal. It's nasty. Very efficient for killing stuff that's nominally outside of Fate – like Fae. Starmetal is made out of dead Gods and Sidereals like me who step out of line." I paused. "So if I don't want to get myself in a position where I'll be forged into a nice carafe or something like that, I have to do what I'm told. I respect the Dragons, Munno, don't get me wrong... but one of the perks of being mortal is that you get to choose your own path. I may be five times your age, but you have more freedom than I've ever had in my life."
"So who is it that you serve?" He asked me.
"That's a complicated question. I serve the Convention I'm currently working for. I serve my Division, The Cerulean Lute. I serve my... superiors." I caught myself before I said 'Faction'. That would have sounded too political, and I still thought it was best to let Munno believe that Heaven was a great and benevolent force of good rather than the corrupt, impressively dysfunctional bureaucracy it actually was.
"And I serve Venus, the Maiden of Serenity." I finished. "Although I probably should have said that I serve her first. Venus is my mistress. Through me, she can act in Creation. All the power that I have is hers, I only borrow it."
"Oh." Munno observed. "So are you..."
"Am I what?" I raised an eyebrow his direction. "Anathema?"
"That wasn't what I was going to say." Munno protested, though the expression on his face told me that it definitely was.
"No, I'm not." I told him.
"I have heard something like what you've just said before." Munno admitted. "It was a woman who told me that she was the messenger of a God. And that her God used her to make his will known throughout the world."
"Crazy people will say anything! Most Gods can't be bothered to answer half the prayers that mortals send to them." I scoffed. "I wouldn't worry about it too much."
"This woman wasn't mad." Munno replied. "She was Anathema."
"Oh." I couldn't think of anything else to say.
I had very limited experience with Solars and none of it good. Generally, I'd discovered that Lunars were easy enough to deal with if you focused on the concrete sorts of things that tended to motivate them – such as territory and the condition of the land. The fact that Munno had met a Solar and never mentioned it before worried me.
"A Blasphemer." Munno continued.
I grimaced, but tried to hide my expression of distaste. Of all Solars, the Zenith Caste were my least favorite to deal with. Though they rarely matched the Dawn Caste for brawn and tactical planning or the Twilight Caste for intellect and crafting ability, they made a terrifying, indelible impression on everyone they met. Out of the sixty that the Unconquered Sun had forged for the Primordial War, there were presently twenty of them running a muck. All of the reports filed said the same thing. Every Zenith Caste was a supremely irrational idealist, convinced that all of Creation needed to be remade in a very grand, 'total paradigm shift' sense.
Since the Bronze Faction maintains its hold in Yu-Shan largely through maintaining the status quo, I decided that it would be best to convince Munno that the Solar he'd met was not someone he ought to be emulating.
"Have you ever met an Anathema before?" Munno asked. "They're very powerful." He informed me, as if that was something I didn't know. "And perhaps it is wrong of me to say this, but... while I understand why the Immaculate Order says that they are demons, sometimes I wonder if they are mistaken. I think that they are... something else."
"Sent by Heaven?" I hazarded a guess, hoping he wasn't actually enthralled.
"I don't think I would go that far." Munno laughed uneasily. "But I do have some experience with demons, as you know. I also have an understanding of power, and how it is often abused. If you had the power to kill a thousand demons with one blow of your sword... wouldn't that make you very dangerous to the average mortal?"
"Beyond dangerous." I replied.
"And if you were so dangerous, some people might suggest that Creation would be better off if you were destroyed. Because of what you might do." He continued.
"Of course!" I agreed.
"But then... what happens when the demons that you could have easily killed suddenly emerge? Everyone calls for a great hero. But if all the great heroes have been slain because they are too dangerous, then what do you do?" He pressed.
"Settle for little heroes?" I replied. "Or retiredones?" I gestured to him.
Munno sighed heavily and rolled his eyes.
Our journey down from the mountains must have been sped by Mercury herself. We ran into no trouble of any kind along the way and six days later, Munno and I arrived in Great Forks. We found ourselves a place to stay sufficiently far from both the Imperial Quarter of the city, which Munno suggested we avoid, and the opium dens which I had no desire to be close to myself. Though The Cerulean Lute is sometimes degraded as the Bureau of Destiny's "house of ill repute", the effects of opium and most other drugs reminded me all too clearly of the pervasive, mind-destroying powers of the Fae. Why anyone would spend good money solely to ravage themselves is beyond my understanding.
Settled in at The Lucky Lady early in the day, we proceeded to go about our mission, interviewing every smith who would have a look at our shard of The Heaven Sent sword. Of course, we didn't alert anyone to what it actually was... we simply asked their opinions as to what they thought the metal was composed of and if they felt they could duplicate the unusual alloy.
No one volunteered for the challenge, and at the end of the day we were waiting outside the tower of a crotchety local thamaturge who'd spent the last several hours blessing the warts off of one of her clients.
She proved to be no help either, and exhausted but not yet thoroughly disillusioned, we decided to return to our accommodations for a meal and some well-deserved sleep.
There was a bard sitting on the bar when we stepped into the common room, a Western woman wearing a boyish cap and a short blue jacket with musical notes embroidered all over it. Her attire was colorful if cheap, and gave the impression of a career performer who worried more about earning quick passage to the next town than keeping warm on cold winter nights.
Munno gave the girl a long, contemplative look as we sat down and waited for our supper. It surprised me to see that he was so interested in the very young bard, but maybe I'd made a mistake in thinking that he was too old to give a damn about a well-built, charismatic little piece of tail.
Being a Chosen of Serenity, I'm pretty good at spotting a man or woman who gives out certain kinds of favors freely. It was pretty typical behavior for a bard, and considering how attractive the girl was, I suspected that she probably earned more in the sack than on the stage.
The girl produced a beautiful antique mandolin out of a carpet bag and her fingers raced across the strings. The sound the instrument produced was nothing short of extraordinary. I reevaluated my assessment of her ability immediately.
Maybe she was a real musician after all.
"Ahem." The bard cleared her throat. "I don't know about all of you, but since I've been in this town I've been hearing mention of a name that I haven't heard in a long, long while! Heaven-Sent Munno!"
There was a murmur of approval from the gathered crowd. The song had been a popular one when Munno was still in his prime, and evidentially with Iyutha's return it was gaining momentum again.
Munno blanched. I elbowed him and he composed himself.
The bard took a long swig of someone else's ale and stood up right on the bar. In fairness, The Lucky Lady didn't have much of a stage, but the bard was positively shameless, knocking over glasses and making herself the center of attention as if she were the greatest soprano ever to grace the stage of the An-Tang Opera. Clearly, she thought she was a very important person.
And then, just when I'd made up my mind to dislike her as a matter of principle, the bard began to play.
Young Munno to slay a demon is gone,
In the ranks of death you will find him;
His father's sword he has girded on,
And the Heavens rise up behind him!
"Have no fear!" Young Munno swore,
Though a demon has been set free!
One sword, at least, shall stand guard,
And no fiend will pass through me!"
Young Munno rode for many miles;
Traveling far from his home.
And with his blade a legend wrought;
Which has come to stand alone.
Young Munno came upon the sorcerer;
And they battled, blade and will.
"Send back the fiend you've summoned!" swore he;
"Or rest assured, I will!"
With a sharp cold crack Munno's sword failed;
And twas broken clean in two.
The sorcerer dead but the demon still free;
Munno's work was far from through.
In the dark of the night a smith appeared,
"Look not upon my work!" warned he.
Young Munno did as he was bid.
And when dawn broke, he was first to see.
The Heaven-Sent Sword of beauty,
With its blade of crystal white,
Through it flowed the moon and stars,
and all the majesty of the night.
The Heaven-Sent Sword in glory bound;
For a demon prince to slay!
In the hands of a boy its spirit matched;
And Young Munno won the day!
Young Munno to slay a demon is gone,
In the ranks of death you will find him;
The Heaven-Sent Sword he has girded on,
And The Sun rises up behind him!
The sound of the applause when she finished was almost deafening, and the bard had just launched into a wild rendition of The Goblin's Ball that was attracting an audience from across the street.
The girl was as good as she thought she was... and that was saying something. A bard of such skill could have doubtless won a comfortable position as the pet of some wealthy merchant or Dynast. But from the way she kissed one of her admirers, I suspected that she performed in pubs like The Lucky Lady because there was a certain visceral authenticity to them. Anyone would have praised the bard's skill and clapped politely, but only the illiterate hostler who'd had a few too many drinks would be brought to tears by the effervescent joy that she created.
I felt more humbled than I wanted to admit. Clearly, Venus had meant for me to take a lesson about judging a book by its cover. Because I disliked the way that Munno had looked at the young woman, I'd assumed she was a common tramp and undeserving of his respect. How had I misread the situation so terribly?
I wasn't sure, but being piss-poor at what should have been my preserve was nothing new for me. Very often, I feel like a Chosen of Battles masquerading as a Joybringer.
Munno offered me his hand and I blinked in surprise.
"You want to dance?" I stared at him.
"You don't?" He raised an eyebrow at me.
I took a long drink of my slightly lukewarm ale and grinned, leaping to my feet.
Though I couldn't imagine Munno dancing alone in his little cottage with only his animals for company, he was very light on his feet and managed to avoid stomping my toes when I stumbled twice.
Then again, there probably wasn't a mercenary anywhere in Creation who couldn't manage the steps to The Goblin's Ball. It was the first song that many bards learned and sometimes the only dancing tune they knew.
But our bard was a virtuoso if I'd ever heard one. She had begun playing Rufty Tufty and there wasn't a soul in the common room who wasn't shoving tables out of the way to make room for a more rowdy swing. Munno gave me a good spin into the arms of the drunk hostler who somehow managed to send me over to a bespectacled little merchant and then to a big, broad woman who was dancing the man's part on the end of the line. Eventually I made it back to Munno again, which was something of a relief.
Considering my orders from Oversight, I didn't want to let him out of my sight for more than a heartbeat. It wasn't that I doubted he could handle himself in the face of danger... it was that part of me still worried that Himitsu might be making an appearance soon.
Rufty Tufty became Luck Be A Lady as a boy with a flute and two raggedy street buskers joined our bard up on the bar, swinging their feet and playing with gusto.
The barman was pouring drinks as fast as he could and his kitchen boy was throwing buckets full of cracked corn on the floor to keep everyone from slipping in the huge puddles of beer and wine.
It was as festive as the first night of Calibration, and I almost didn't notice when four big men in the lamellar armor shoved their way through the front door.
Munno saw them first. He tugged sharply on my sleeve and I stopped mid-turn. Two more soldiers entered The Lady Sailor, followed by a man in a Talonlord's uniform who looked like a Earth-Aspect Dragonblood. The insignia on his cloak said that he was a member of Dragonlord Takamori Saito's Fangs of Heaven, a fairly well-known and well-organized Wyld Hunt.
The bard stopped playing abruptly, but the street musicians picked up the tempo and the revelry continued as if nothing was amiss. I read the situation pretty quickly myself. Apparently our talented little songstress was in one great big heap of trouble.
She grabbed her meager belongings and bolted for the back door, and when the men moved to follow her, Munno stepped in front of them. "What seems to be the problem, sir?" He asked innocently.
"Get out of the way, you stupid old man!" The Talonlord cursed incoherently in High Realm. He took a swing at Munno and seemed surprised when he missed.
Munno had stepped deftly to the side and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender, not that it did him any good. The bard was gone and the Dragonblood looked quite upset.
He eyed us both suspiciously. "Arrest these two!" He ordered his men.
"On what charge?" I demanded, my hands on my hips.
"Aiding and abetting a known Anathema." The Talonlord replied coldly.
"Anathema?" I gagged involuntarily.
"That was her? But Dragons, she still looks so young!" Munno exclaimed, obviously not considering that he couldn't have possibly said anything worse in front of several officers of the local Wyld Hunt.
The Talonlord rapped his fist down hard on the bar and the street musicians stopped playing. Two of his soldiers came forward and unraveled a wanted poster. It was an expert likeness of the woman who'd just been entertaining all of us, and when I saw the name on the bottom of the paper, I almost bolted for the door myself.
Windswept Rhapsody. Blasphemer.
Though I hadn't run afoul of her during the whole Nexus debacle, I remembered very clearly that my first orders from Oversight had contained a short list of Solars to be avoided at all costs, and that the name 'Windswept Rhapsody' had been very near to the top of that list.
"If any of you have any information concerning this Anathema, it is absolutely imperative that you bring it forward right now!" He ordered.
Not a soul moved.
"Dragons-forsaken backsliding heretics!" The Talonlord snorted, turning on one heel and stomping away.
I smiled at Munno as sweetly as I could, wincing slightly as one of the Fangs of Heaven tied my wrists around my back and took my swords. In such close quarters, resistance would surely lead to some innocent bystander getting killed.
Munno followed suit and surrendered himself. The Talonlord and his men marched us out of The Lady Sailor and in the direction of their camp. When the opportunity presented itself, I kicked Munno in the shins.
"What was that for?" He hissed.
"Not telling me you suspected something sooner!" I retorted.
"So how do you propose we get out of this?" Munno wondered.
"Easy." I replied. "The Fangs of Heaven take us to their leader. We tell him the truth, that we didn't know who she really was... and then, as further proof of our innocence, we tell him who you are and what you're trying to do. And we've got the shard of the sword and all of those smiths we talked to earlier for proof."
It was obvious that Munno did not like the last part of my plan at all. "There will be a parade." He informed me with distaste. "There's always a parade."
"Looks like you're officially out of retirement, hero." I winked.
Of course, Munno did not dignify my little jab with a response.