Chapter 2182 (Patreon)

ToC: https://www.patreon.com/posts/23899958

Okay, one today to finish off last week. I'll be doing hiking things tomorrow, so I'll be back in the second half of the week for more chapters.

And one last reminder, I'll be off for two weeks, the first two weeks of October, starting next week! I really need the rest. It's been a long year.

Silver dust covered Enmya’s boots as he trudged along, but it did not go any higher than that. The wind might sing a constant song, but somehow, the ground was too solid to be touched. Sky and ground stood opposite one another, a well-established border of silver and navy blue.

No longer were sky and ground the only presences filling the expanse.

Enmya nodded to the guards as he passed through the woven black wicker gateway. Here the gateway was purely ceremonial, ornate and fanciful with elaborate flourishes along the sign. The Nether Warriors inclined their heads in a gesture of respect for him, but Enmya’s eyes quickly returned to the sky. Huge brightly colored kites drifted across the settlement as the constant wind continued to tug everything toward the edges of the plains.

A winged wolf made from magenta and sage fluttered past a massive, rainbow-colored square construction large enough for a child to climb into. Smaller whistlers with their flashy strips of cloth and long tails, streaked past as the wind caught their small sails. Ornate ships designed to imitate water vessels formed the lion’s share of the kites, hewn from oranges, reds, and yellows, so a fleet of fire seemed to cruise through the sky.

None would ever be so bold to refer to these kites as any sort of resistance against the environment, but certainly it spoke to an existence beyond the monochrome tableau of their chosen existence.

The Hollow Plains, the silvery, flat expanse on which they now traveled, possessed a sort of beauty, but the kites of their people brought a whole new dimension. The constant influx of fluttering paper and cloth bridged the distance between ground and sky on the almost-blank expanse of the plains. A brief and purely symbolic bridge, eventually pulled away by the wind, but so many people found cheer in the practice that it had continued for hundreds of years.

Two initiates spoke quietly next to the water barrels, their elaborate tattoo denoting an approaching attempt at being named a Nether Herald. Perhaps out of some sense of rivalry, both drew deeply from the Nether, insinuating their personal patterns into the broader ecosystem of the Nether encampment.

Keeping his head down, he avoided walking through their area of influence. Drawing their attention wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

Enmya passed through another wicker gateway a few minutes later, moving from the residential areas to the wider circles of their wandering settlement. This entrance had a heavy wall of wicker spreading out from the gate and was guarded by Nether Gatekeepers. The wicker resembled corrupted ivory more than the relatively light wicker, ending in horrifyingly sharp points so that the transport crews regularly had injuries from a thoughtless grip. The nods of acknowledgment from the Nether Gatekeepers were curter than the Nether Warriors earlier, but still respectful.

Respect was the foundation on which society was built. It gave Enmya hope, that their civilization would continue for a long time, to see them offer it to him, when they clearly didn’t recognize him out of his usual ornamental dress.

Enmya had to pause as he passed through the large gate, letting a rush of children stream around along the wall. A small smile hovered on his lips, almost in spite of his personal opinions on the practice; the typical rite of passage for a Nether being’s first kite involved looseing the kite at one end of the settlement and racing to the other side to catch it. To fail to make it in time meant not only that the kite was lost, but that the wind of the Hollow Plains found the individual wanting. For a year they would be considered unlucky, given the worst chores around the camp as punishment for the failure.

Which necessarily meant their first kites were often the largest and most expensive, both so they moved more slowly across the sky and were possible to identify in a mass of kites. Any child could offer a pinch of grace to an artisan for a whistler, but those were impossible to distinguish in the mass.

Picking his way forward through groups of jostling Nether Warriors and more sedate foraging groups resting around cooking fires, Enmya remembered a conversation he had with Lowanna on the kite ritual, years ago. He had complained about the practice, partially because he had failed his first two attempts and had experienced the derision of his peers for two frustrating years, Enmya seemed to possess woefully deficient luck, but also because of the economic strain.

“Sure, we receive regular tithes, but most of the bolts of dyed cloth have to be obtained from Aether lands. And most Nether Kings choose the method of plunder rather than trade,” Enmya had argued. The two had been sitting before a small fire, the blue flames casting strange shadows across their hands as they had woven the black wicker of the plains into usable objects. “Kites can be considered the closest thing we upon the Hollow Plains have to a vice. And the attrition is small but constant; we lose kites every year. With the festivals, so many are released- we could be so much more responsible with our riches! Imagine buying metal implements. Maybe not for the walls because of the weight, but at least cookware-”

“Working the black wicker to make solid bowls hones the skills needed to make more important tools later on in life,” Lowanna pointed out. But she paused and set down her pieces of wicker. Annoyingly, her bowl already seemed perfect.

Yet it was the gleam in her eyes that grabbed Enmya’s attention. The girl had smiled at him, all mischief and adventure. “But I think you are missing the real point, En. Nothing is ever truly lost in the world. Can you imagine the surge of joy you would feel… if you stumble across the dwelling place of the Wind Spirit? Imagine a castle built solely of briefly colored kites, gathered from lost objects over a hundred years~”

Enmya and pursed his lips. “...do you seriously still believe in the Wind Spirit? How old are you?”

“Never so old to stop believing in magic,” Lowanna chuckled. She plucked up her wicker bowl and flexed her fingers. As though she had struck it with a mallet, the object shattered into a hundred twisted bits of wicker. With an elaborate flourish, she reached down, scooped up most of the bits, and had rubbed her hands together. Quite pleased with her sleight of hand tricks, she presented to him a perfectly formed black plate.

Never so old as to stop believing in magic… In the present, Enmya’s heart ached. He passed through another wicker barrier and entered the outermost ring of Wyndaos, the City of Emptiness and Billowing Borders. A mass of Nether Warriors stood together in tight formation, preparing for a journey out from the settlement to prove themselves against the hollow ones who wandered the wasteland. This group possessed a Nether Warrior of the 3rd Tier, so they would be ranging far. Enmya raised a hand in acknowledgment and the warrior slammed his fist against his chest.

He continued forward, hunting his childhood friend. Instinct and years of experience guided him to her almost immediately.

As he had expected, she had come out to observe the geographic phenomenon most people referred to as the scoops. The Hollow Plains was a vast expanse of ground that gleamed with a metallic sheen and possessed two distinguishing characteristics. First, the presence of ‘black wicker’ growing in the ground. It grew slowly, hence the reason why Wyndaos constantly moved to avoid depleting the local supply too much. From Enmya’s point of view, this had the added benefit of keeping them from developing too close ties to any one Nether King, those politickers living on the edges of the Hollow Plains.

Secondly, you would occasionally see periodic stretches of the flat ground where massive orbs had been plucked out of the ground. Most were shallow depressions, just the gentle bottom swell of a ball, but some of those spheres had their centers deeper in the ground, hence revealing a small hole in the ground that led to a massive cavity. Most adult Nether citizens claimed these stretches of ground had been taken by the Wind Spirit, but Enmya’s access to the history records pointed the finger at some of the early Nether Wars.

The whole Hollow Plains was an old battlefield, sentenced to be devastated and windy for hundreds of years.

Enmya found Lowanna next to one particular scoop in the ground, carefully reaching up and wiping away small tears from her eyes. She had to be incredibly focused because her hands were wrapped in an elaborate set of interlocking sculptures of black wicker. Many considered the accessories beautiful, but Enmya never forgot their first role: that of manacles.

Lowanna never said it out loud but knew that despite the many other burdens she now was forced to bear, it was the lack of those small dazzling displays of sleight of hand that weighed the heaviest.

“Cherished Lowanna,” Enmya couldn’t help but sound rather wry as he watched her flick the glittering tears down into the cavity. “I don’t suppose you have a reasonable explanation for what you are doing?”

“Blind Enmya,” Lowanna clicked her tongue at him, without looking back at him. She seemed intent on the cavity in front of her. She leaned forward for several seconds, observing the falling tears. It took a few seconds before she was satisfied and turned around. Lowanna grinned at him, the wrinkles around her eyes crinkling. “I could provide a very detailed explanation, but it won’t matter. This is one of the areas where, if you don’t understand from a look, you will never understand.”

“Try me,” Enmya countered.

Lowanna’s eyes sparkled. Always curtains and artifice, with her; she would have been disappointed if he had not pressed for more answers. “Ahem. Well, doesn’t each of these hollows sing in a different tune? A place for all things, right? This one tears, that one laughter, oh, the one over there regrets-- I had several easy examples for that just from suffering your presence for so long. And I might add only a pinch, but eventually, the accumulation will have meaning. This may someday become a holy place.”

Enmya bit down a disbelieving snort. In their youth, his practicality kept them out of trouble and helped them develop quickly. But now, it often became a default behavior that simply squashed her small joys. If she believed flicking tears into a hole had meaning, he would let her have it.

Lowanna’s face crumpled to a scowl, as though she had read his entire train of thought on his face. But before Enmya could respond, the look vanished. Suddenly, she simply seemed bored. “You’ve got that sour look on your face that says you want to talk about something. What is it?”

Enmya coughed lightly, trying not to dwell on that heavy look of disappointment she had briefly shown. “This is a subject we have traversed before, but the Lawless One continued to act freely. We should send a team-”

“Oh please,” Lowanna rolled her eyes. She wove her fingers together and allowed her hands to fall in front of her. “Do you know, they say you pluck crooked kites out of the sky and refuse to allow them to fly until they are fixed. So what if this individual does not live the same way as us? There is no reason to force our lifestyle upon others.”

“There are no reins upon the spread of his influence,” Enmya countered.

“He’s not spreading any influence,” Lowanna countered.

“That could change.”

“And it may not.”

The two stared at each other for a long minute. Enmya was the first to look away, but he still felt compelled to say a bit more. “He follows the old ways. Which should be entirely impossible, making the feat all the more alarming. There are reasons these practices were discarded.”

“Ah, En,” A genuine smile crossed her face. “I love you dearly, but you’ve never found a mystery that you didn’t think would be more interesting if it were well illuminated. Isn’t the very fact he managed to generate his own Nether Core reason enough to let him be?”

Enmya felt a cold prickle on his spine. He shot Lowanna and measuring look. “...do you wish to understand his methods-”

“Pah, you.” Lowanna threw her bound hands up, the black wicker of her bracelets clinking together. “You don’t… well, there is no need to go into it. I promise you, the point will soon become moot. Now, a question for you, Nagging Enmya: if you had to choose between the soul of the universe and your own life, which would you choose?”

Enmya’s lips twitched, but he recognized the dismissal in her words. She often posed hypotheticals to him, so he took a few seconds to consider. It was not a hard decision. “Assuming I allow, for the sake of this question, the universe possesses a soul, I would offer myself for the good of all.”

She nodded, as though she had expected that answer and asked a follow-up question. “What if you needed to choose between the soul of the universe and my life?”

“Your life,” Enmya answered this question even more quickly. For a brief second, Enmya slipped out of who had been born and became the role he had risen to become. Even the wind above stilled, cowed by the depth of his significance.

Lowanna scowled and kicked Enmya in the shin. “You bastard, you really mean it, don’t you? If you are going to commit genocide, use your own name as justification.”