(Vol 2) Chapter 43: The Pillars of Fate

Tashome raised an eyebrow at Samantha through the mirror. “Telling ourselves ‘there must be some point to everything’ is a key to coping, but I can see you mean a lot more by that.”

“Yes! You’re saying you think I’m different and things have changed. It has to be because of my separation from the System, right? Earth, or… that universe? I don’t know. I mean, fuck, was I still reincarnating? Whoa. Now that is a weird thought…”

She had no real sense of it. If it were true, she had no memories there, either.

Tashome began squelching the incense he had burned. “I feel as though you’ve been missing for a long time, Goddess, but who knows how time works outside the System? If I had to guess, probably in a totally fucked way. What it does is beyond our capacity to understand in power level and scope. It’s cosmic and… well I guess god-like isn’t exactly appropriate, but you get the idea.”

“When I think about it, though, it doesn’t really matter. Any one child of Earth is bringing it all with them, is the product of that will and evolution… one continuous, collective being. All the little bits added up…”

“Philosophical there.” Tashome looked down at the incense smoke in its final undulations before it would die. “I can tell you that you are quite the character and individual, though. No one would disagree.”

Sammy laughed. “Look who’s talking! But sure. I guess my job is to keep being it until we win or I fuck everything up. That must be the plan, huh?”

“Such a one as we have, yes.”

“Mind-wiped, Tashome.”

“Hmm?”

“That’s what he did to you. Utter mental obliteration, ruin of the soul itself, to force the System to flush them back into the lottery. I understood that, then. It’s so they can’t be saved after death by any means. And maybe inhibits any experience from that particular life passing on, though the System has said that the soul cannot be prevented from passing on cleanly.”

“Yes. Similar to what they do with certain criminals. Mind-alteration when they have you in their power.”

“This First Minister guy did it in the field, essentially. It doesn’t seem like what happened with Redberry… maybe it is different with a deity.”

“Quite likely. And that one was killed, or so I’ve heard. It’s also synonymous with the Dominion more or less hitting an ultimate decline, so it seems accurate. They’ve done nothing but lose influence since then, dangerous as they remain.”

“Mmn.” Sammy’s fingers drummed on the throne’s arm. She was certain something was missing in the math of the matter, but it was not a mystery that seemed likely to get solved anytime soon. The Dominion was menacing and formidable enough even as faceless as it was. She didn’t particularly want a deeper nemesis to worry about.

“So… I guess I’ll get to this summoning, then. Belvedere, right?”

“Yes. And Constance when she’s ready.”

Tashome had a smirk on his face.

“What is that smirk about, Tashome?”

He shrugged. “Constance is very active in your Followers’ minds, Goddess. Her curiosity is insatiable. Especially about what makes people tick. Not only did she want to know about me and my experiences on a range of subjects, she wanted to know what I thought about everyone else, too.”

“Good. This is exactly what I want her to be doing. She will wear whatever face I need her to. She’s definitely authorized.”

Tashome nodded, though he still had a little smirk. “Understood… Madam. I need to get used to that word, now that we’re in the city.”

“Oh yes! Do that, and remind everyone else, too. The word goddess or majesty as an address should not be spoken aloud in Geirkos, though I suppose ‘goddess’ in general is fine with the right wording…”

“And thank the goddess for that.”

It would be a waiting game on Mr. Smile and the mansion. The wards were concerning. Sammy checked carefully around Geirkos, spying for other mansions and significant locales to see if there were wards. It was all around a great time to spy thanks to recent rains providing still-water puddles everywhere.

Sure enough, there were several ‘dead zones’ to her mirrors preventing her ‘scrying,’ though hardly prolific. The feel was slightly different from a place simply not having mirrors, though that was obviously not going to be true of the places she checked. Wealthy properties, the inner keep of the big castle, a couple of guild halls, a library, these were warded. She had a vague sense of their strength, too — a couple she could probably pierce if she needed to.

I could technically pierce any of them with Alter Fate…

The trouble was, she wasn’t skilled or knowledgeable about whether she’d set off alarms. When she invoked [Wizard], there was only an inconclusive ‘maybe’ about the matter. It was probably impossible to tell without piercing inside in the first place. As such, it was only a consideration in a dire emergency, not just for reconnaissance.

There were slums out past the city proper (and the ruins of the walls), and beyond these too was a veritable sea of dye vats downwind to the northeast, where the shantytown dregs mostly worked. She always had multiple visions out from the vats thanks to — at that time unattended — many circular pools of murky liquid, overlooked by tall walls where a few guards could be seen.

The backbone of the Geirkosi trade economy, here. Probably bustling during the day.

There was a place she just barely noticed had a ward — some back alley mudbrick building in those slums. The roof of the building stood out, clay tiles instead of the reeds and straw of those around it. Colorful beads were the only doorway, and she vaguely sensed an invisible magic rune on the wall near it, but the distance from the puddle in the dirt street made it into a tickle at the back of her wizardly mind.

Hmm. A witch, maybe? Or a fortune teller. In any case, wards aren’t terribly rare in the Southlands. Maybe because spirits are more common, and due to the paranoia against the Dominion spying and scrying.

Sammy spent some time simply poking around in her mirrors and listening to the bits of prayers that filtered to her — in the wee hours it was much more tolerable than at other times. Fate prayers she had squelched most of the time, as they were legion. Cries for change in the future… hopes for knowing how things would go. She could’ve maxed out her answers in an hour, probably.

Most prayers don’t do jack shit. Priorities and favorites. Heh…

With her desire for contacts in Traesh, she shifted her attention that way. A city in the foothills, high, formidable walls, and numerous fortresses on the high ground. A river in a valley.

She could see it easily from multiple angles thanks to a wonder in itself up on a stony height — an amphitheater with white stone cylindrical pillars all around it, so polished and perfect they cast a reflection. Even at night, it was well-lit by some sort of alchemical torches on poles. The stone had some innate magic to it, similar to but greater than the giant statue in Rivermount she often looked through to spy on the Dominion.

The Silver Pillars. Azure had mentioned them. They really are beautiful. With the light reflected, they do seem to shine and gleam like polished silver.

The coalescence of all these ingredients made her aware there was a lone man, a young man, down on the steps in fine red robes, crouching down over something. Simultaneously, he was ‘praying’ and perhaps whispering it to himself at the same time.

“Is Kalypso the one I should marry? Is she the one I could love and trust?”

Sammy realized he was tossing something down on the stone below him, attempting a divination. What he saw did not seem to answer him, though. He sat back and took a swig of wine, staring out in contemplation. The prayer just hung there, almost tauntingly.

The Goddess of Mirrors drummed her fingers. She couldn’t get a direct connection with his eyes at the distance of her viewpoint. She furthermore felt nothing terribly strong for him.

“I’ll put it to the Tarot, then.” She summoned her deck, then shuffled, thinking and focusing on the worthiness and relevance of the young seeker she looked down upon. Then she drew a card, letting it hover up in the air, but sure to preserve the facing as drawn.

A young warrior with a sword in his hand standing on a hill, head turned to the side in alertness for what lay beyond. The wind blows his long hair and the green leaves of trees in the background.

“Page of Swords, upright. Vigilant. Forthright, but remains shrewd enough. A summer cherry. Have a bite.”

Sammy frowned at the Fortuneteller’s word choice. Inappropriate much? In truth, it was vaguely dismissive, like Fate shrugging and saying ‘why not?’. She knew she’d just gotten a pretty clear go-ahead.

She spent a Fate FE so she could divine his question, choosing — intuitively — to channel it through a single card draw of the Tarot, perhaps due to the simplicity. As she shuffled, a foggy connection with his mind blossomed. She drew the card, understanding that he would see the image too.

A figure flopped face down, dead, blood pooling underneath him, with ten swords stuck in his back, his neck, his head. The vista in the background is of a golden sky, but storm clouds rage above.

The Fortuneteller’s voice spoke out loud as well as directly into the startled young man’s mind, her volume not muted at all. “Ten of Swords, upright. Betrayal. Marry her and you will know the deepest depths of ruin, cursing your family in the process. Plots conspire, as you’ve sensed… will you be blinded by beauty, scion of the noble hills? Or will you see?”

Fuck! Going a little heavy, aren’t you?!

The man leapt up, head turning around in alarm and fear. He tripped and almost broke his neck spilling down the hard amphitheater seats, as Sammy’s breath caught. But he recovered quickly, hopping back up with a groan and a curse. Instead of fully speaking with his mind, he cried out, “Who the hell are you?! Where are you? How can you know? Tell me!”

Sighing, Sammy invoked her Goddess class and spoke — much more calmingly — directly into his mind. “I am one who sees Fate and divines the future of Man. You prayed and sought the truth, so I provided it. I am nowhere and I am everywhere. You know well what I am.”

Despite his fear and the strong potential for him to flee, to push her away, he did not — wonder and curiosity kept him from such an act. Figuring out the mental trick, he sent, “A-a… goddess?! Can it be? You are not just some random spirit or trick?”

“Search your own mind and heart for the answer. Walk to one of the pillars, as old as the stone below. Stare into your own reflection. Then you will know.”

Hesitantly, the young man approached a pillar, as Samantha looked out through it and took stock of him in the glow of the alchemical torches. His robes were light and Greek or Roman like to her mind, somewhat showing off an athletic figure. He was certainly handsome in a boyish manner, and his hair was long and dark.

He was possibly slightly inebriated, but not enough that he was swaying when he walked. But she’d spent a year in college — she could damn well tell!

When he saw his reflection, when their eyes met, his own widened in amazement, and Sammy felt a little pulse of recognition and connection. It definitely wasn’t like some of those she’d met, but she already had Followers that generated far less, too.

Like the card I pulled. A page, if not quite a knight. Potential.

The man walked up quietly and touched the pillar. He seemed to study what he couldn’t quite see beyond, while also pulling some sort of little pouch from his pocket. Samantha watched curiously as he opened it and took a pinch of some powder, tossing it up in the air to cascade down onto him. The grains glittered white in the torchlight.

Her Detect Magic did a weird flicker. Like the opposite of magic. Nullification of mana. Spells would die within that dust.

The Traeshan glanced at the dust and nodded to himself. “No wizard bespelling, then. I still feel you and almost see your eyes. A spirit, at least.” He took a deep breath. “A goddess… it’s difficult to believe. But I sought an answer and it came. ‘Beauty hides a dagger’ — what my mother would say. And my father would say to trust my gut.” He looked away then, thoughtful.

Samantha switched so her voice was audible through the mirror. “You’ve searched your own heart well. Intuition… well. I’ve found that it is all too critical, Son of Traesh.”

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