Heretics in the Temple?

Yue opened her eyes, this first transgression hidden behind the sacred veil of the Ryn Chantry. Her veil bore the telltale sapphire and onyx geometry of the Batani, marking Yue as a bloodmember of a Founding Family, the earliest known progenitors of the Ryn species to step foot on Omigae (the continent they shared with the drake descendants, the Hrothros and Tian). Yue had been tasked by the Council of Thirteen with surveilling the small border community run by Matriarch Orirosa, an upstart clamoring for loosened restrictions on Chantry admission and incorporation of non-Ryn “technologies.” It had been rumored that the young matriarch allowed outsiders to observe chants of healing and ascension, a crime punishable by excommunication, severance with one’s voice, had it occurred closer to the capital cities. For a community this close to the edge of the Hrothrian Wastes, any additional reproach seemed overly punitive for the backwater population, their distance from Ryn homelands was punishment enough. Yet, Yue was here, perhaps herself being punished for her indiscretion – perusing the silent poems composed by the late Matron Cheborau, disgraced head of the Oka bloodline.

Scanning for any non-Ryn among the quietly chanting women, Yue realized that she was not alone in her surveillance. She’d been a fool not to keep her head lowered, used to the overtly pious nature of the tree dwelling capital chantries, where absolute obedience to the Lady of the Chant was the norm: when She demanded heads to bow, one bowed until the order was released. Matriarch Orirosa either lacked such authority over her Chantry or declined to wield it, as her lady-in-waiting proved. Though neither could pierce the opaque veil of the other, the charge of Orirosa’s second bore down on Yue, who could feel the intense heat of her watcher’s gaze. Yue refused to look back down, but found it impossible to look away from woman standing guard over the chanting body of Gori Ellatoya. She broke every rule Yue had internalized over seventeen years of training under Eldest Mother Jiwoksa; just like this damned village, the girl’s continued presence in Yue’s mind was a rattling annoyance. How could a common Ryn, veil revealing no crest or geometry of heritage, bear to stare at one powerful as the third daughter of Batani?

Orirosa released the chant, a supplication for plentiful harvest and fair weather, and was met by several of her chantry seeking aid. Yue was surprised by the sheer number of Ryn that deemed their personal problems worthy of their Matriarch’s attention. It would be a long while before Yue could gain audience with Orirosa judging by the time she gave each Ryn. The investigator shifted her attention to the stage, where the lady-in-waiting still stood, veil pointed straight at Yue. She stood, stretching upwards, a physically refreshing release from the traditional group chant pose; Yue made for the eastern wall of the Chantry’s main hall, a through line to the brazen commoner. Yue started to speak, but the Ryn cut her off.

“Hasn’t anyone told you it’s rude to break a chant? I would think someone with as noble a title as a Batani heiress would know some basic etiquette.”

The commoner did not bow, another offense which she would answer for soon.

“If you know my sigil you must know how little good your tone is doing for you, grass-dweller.”

Dismissive laughter answered Yue’s threat.

“It is satisfying to see things haven’t changed in the capital cities. Orirosa is not ready for you now, and I have little interest in playing host to a Foundling spy. Follow me and you can wait in the matriarch’s privy.”

Yue’s response faltered, her mouth stuck agape as one of the chanters – a Tian! – walked through the supposedly hallowed ground of the Chantry, joining the line of hopefuls waiting for Orirosa’s audience. It wore the traditional leatherwork of the roaming caravans that trolled the Wastes, but bore a wondrous cloak and veil of gold, geometry wholly unfamiliar to Yue adorned its face.

“You dare to add yet another insult to the pyre by letting a lizard-beast speak with the Matriarch before me? I see little else to investigate here; clearly the matriarch of Gori Ellatoya has lost her reverence for the Chant, and her loyalty to the Founding Families.”

Another laugh of contempt from the stranger that dared to command Yue. Her skin crawled, aching to lash out at the insubordinate peasant. If only Jiwoksa could witness the deplorable greeting her emissary had been treated with, she might not have wasted the talents of her finest onjisae – honorary title of the war chanters with Founder’s matrilineage – on such an obvious case of heresy. Long had the Batani warned the council that these border communities had grown lavish in their embrace of the drake cultures, warned that they were no longer recognizable as Ryn, unworthy of the gentle tenement afforded them on the edges of the Thirteen’s domain. Until this matron-forsaken journey to Ellatoya, Yue had privately held that the Batani Council had been too hard on the small villages that dotted the savannahs between the Great Jungle and Hrothro’s holdings among the red dune seas of the Wastes. How quickly she’d realized the Batani Council’s wisdom, and how glad she was that her previous thoughts on the subject had never escaped her lips.

A light hand on her shoulder pulled Yue from her fuming, a smile audible in the quiet laugh from behind the veil of Orirosa, fine gold linework moved along hypnotic routes carved deep within the green canyons of the Matron’s tapestry; from afar the effect was unnoticeable, but quite enchanting face to face. Before Yue’s eyes was a veil magnificent enough to gift a Founding Mother; even this extravagant dressing smacked of the very heresy the Batani claimed reason enough to prune the tree.

“Apologies, esteemed Onjisae, I did not mean to startle you!” The matron bowed, too deep to be anything but mockery of Yue’s station.

“Accepted, Matriarch Orirosa, although the apology I require is not from you.”

Yue made a point to stare down the lady-in-waiting, who’d stepped behind the Matriarch. Orirosa either missed the gesture or cared little for the application of her rank; neither boded well for Yue’s esteem of the matron.

“I see you’ve met Kodje already; I dared not keep an emissary of Jiwoksa waiting, but at last fortune smiles upon our timing and the final face needed for our little meeting has just arrived. Etakocho! Come and meet the Founding Matrons’ representative.”

As the Tian abomination headed towards the group, Kodje tapped Orirosa’s shoulder, nodding towards the handful of chantry hopeful still waiting for their Matron. “I’ll go and see if I can work through some of their troubles.”

“Go with Omigae’s love beneath your feet.”

Yue stood, dumbfounded, and watched as one scoundrel’s place was taken by something yet worse. Her jaw threatened to fall from its hinges as the highest ranking Ryn alive in Gori Ellatoya bowed deeply to the foreigner, who matched the depth and apparent sincerity of the Matron’s respect. For a woman in her position to so basely defile herself with honoring anyone not ascended to Matrydom, let alone to some stinking salamander! How could the capital cities stand to support such heretical communities? Yue’s stomach wretched. The Tian standing before her bowed just as deeply to Yue, who did not return the courtesy.

Orirosa beckoned for the pair to follow her, bowing again to the members of her Chantry as she passed. Yue waited for the foreigner to move, now determined to convince Batani’s Council that there should be a harsh reckoning with the many transgressions she’d witnessed in her short time in Ellatoya. They travelled through an grassy courtyard, all the signs of a recent Kopei match still scattered about; crossing through a set of large draconae and brass doors bearing the immaculate, interwoven flowers of life that Ellatoya had taken as its sigil. Orirosa’s Chantry had been built into the hill, supposedly taking almost half a decade to be completed. Yue wondered if foreign hands had defiled the very skeleton of this place, as she looked down the slope into a – city? It was a place unlike anything Yue had laid eyes on: open aired and vast, the city had a haphazard architecture, alien and unwieldy to eyes long accustomed to the magnificent world trees of the capital cities. How she’d believed that Gori Ellatoya was a simple village was now utterly beyond Yue; the population must have numbered in the tens of thousands, enough to rival all but Fio and Hoya, the birthplaces of the Ryn, first homes of the Founding Families and still the seat of the Ryn Theocracy.

Etakocho split his veil, catching the last light of Yache, first in the trio of setting suns, and loosed twin streams of steam from the cracked edges of his mouth. Where the boundary lines of his speckled gray maw and the dull reds of his crest met, each slight movement set the two sides in a clash, his scales shifting color in the sunset lights. Yue had never seen anything like the Tian in front of her, and she stood transfixed, feeling like little more than a child gawking at a stranger. An aroma of spices and leather wafted through a breeze, and Yue found herself releasing just a bit of tension. The city below them bustled with life. She had to keep herself from jumping when the Tian spoke, his voice somehow gravelly and all nasal all at once.

“She’s quite the sight, huh? Betcha won’t expect what’s coming next!” He let out a throaty howl, which Yue took for a laugh.

Yue slid her veil to reveal her left side, a show of deference to Orirosa, whose current status, heretic or not, demanded the respect Yue had been trained since childhood to give. She half watched the setting of the next sun, Gobo, half inspected the Tian beside her. Was he so simple that a sunset could entertain him? What was he getting at? Yue doubted the smug and now silent salamander would offer up any hints, and she didn’t dare press her luck by speaking to the Matron out of turn. She’d already bungled her introduction, thanks to the menacing of that nobody Kodje. It was beneath an Onjisae to be rankled by common Ryn, the very beings she swore a daily oath to protect, and until now none had dared disrespect the young war chanter. And now, to stand aside the very creatures she’d trained for years to defeat, as the earliest Batani had three thousand years before, and watch suns set! Yue wondered if she too wouldn’t be excommunicated for partaking in such heresy. Kimikimi, smallest of the suns and last to set, gifted her last rays to the darkening sky while Yue pondered her return to Akikoji, seat of the Batani tree.

Without warning, the city of Gori Ellatoya kindled into life – faerie fire, some kind of illusion, it must have been!? A lake of stars sparked in the valley, a mirage, no torches could ignite simultaneously at last light, the hair on Yue’s neck stood on end. Night belonged to beasts of the jungle, yet Ryn walked among Tian and even the hulking figures of the Hrothros moved about freely, awash in crystal lights. Unless Yue’s eyes deceived her, the city had somehow become livelier than anything she’d seen aside from Festival days; the shimmer had even grown in strength, colors glistened across the valley.

“You see, Yue, the Tian have long waited to share their advancements with the Ryn, to move forward after the defeat of the Drake Lords. They were tyrants to all, the Seven, and until we recognize that basic fact, we’re doomed to live in the pale imitation of a world much greater than what the Ryn can achieve on our own.”

Yue started to speak, though the words hadn’t quite solidified in her mind yet. Orirosa intercepted her.

“I would do anything to protect this place, but to call for a Warmaiden… you must trust that I would have taken any other route. For one such as you, never traveling beyond the Ryn’s jungle sanctuaries, this friendship between Drakish and Ryn must smack of the forbidden. But then, I hear you have developed a taste for such pursuits recently. It may come as a surprise but you are not the first to be dumped ‘in the middle of nowhere.’ At least you’ll be able to draw hot water at will, a luxury I can assure you we did not have when we first arrived.”

Etakocho gargled, shoulders bouncing, a chuckle? “You wouldn’t believe what it was like, the first time we laid eyes on the two rundown maidens approaching the Gori that fateful night. They were delirious, ranting about their order to ‘Walk until you reach the wastes. Then survive.’ Of course the Ryn believed they alone had trekked far from home. I guess we got off on the right foot when we offered the pair a place to rest the eve and shared some hot food to eat.”

“Ha! Yes, and Kodje was convinced you would eat us as soon as we slept. I was already asleep and willing to test her theory by the time they convinced that stubborn ox to at least eat some food before she passed out from hunger.”

Etakocho nodded, loosing another jet of steam. “I think it was Rezhsket’s cinnamon and sugarcane spirits that finally did the trick.”

They both laughed at that.

Yue slid her veil closed again, soaking up the sea of nightlife from the safety of her silk bordered domain. She felt as though the hill beneath her could give way at any moment, that she’d roll down the gentle slope and be consumed whole by the alien world below. It excited her, but she was frightened, alone with a heretic and a foreigner; was she truly ready for the duties of her station?

Orirosa’s words sat heavy on Yue’s mind; so this was punishment after all. Had the matron been told ahead of time? Yue had difficulty imagining any Ikibo rider could outpace her, and she’d only been given the order three days ago. Her departure was sudden, without the fanfare she’d dreamed of as a child, even Jiwoska hadn’t arrived at the capital’s edge to bless her journey, though Yue swore she felt the old chanter’s presence, a gentle breeze beneath her feet.

The trio stood outside the temple’s gates for some time, watching the dance of the Tian’s faerie lights. Kudje rejoined the group, deep bows to Yue’s company and a curt nod to her, acknowledgment Yue did not return.

“Eto, Rosa, mind filling me in? We haven’t had a visitor from any capital since-“

“Yes,” Orirosa cut in, “and I see you’re already well acquainted. Etokocho, it may be easier to show them first.”

The Tian nodded, producing a sphere of translucent quartz. He murmured a quiet prayer, a chant? Yue thought her eyes might burst from their sockets! Now he chanted too? Eto crouched down, placing the orb on the dirt path. Even more amazing, the chant worked, and this time Yue couldn’t stop herself from jumping back. A memory, images and sound clear as day, played back as miniature ghosts hovering above the quartz, a Tian’s voice screamed for a nearby child to get away from the window. The whole wall beside the young salamander shook violently, trembling as some massive beast glided by. After a lifetime the thing’s tail tapered to a tip, barbed and vicious. The beast roared, rumbling with the thunderous threats of an incoming monsoon. Was that the tail of a Drake? Why would it attack its own creations?

A voice boomed with a dragging tongue, elongated and ground shaking; it felt older than Drakish, older even than the hymns of the rainforests, whose world trees are said to have existed as long as all of Omigae. Individual words broke through the sobs of the seer, but few were recognizable to Yue. A root or two were vaguely Drakish, but her best guess was the beast spoke a language lost well before the last of the Drake Lords fell.

“Some Tian traditions claim ancestral ties to what they call the Worldwyrm, a serpentine drake believed to carry Omigae through the endless oceans that surround us. It is said only two existed, but the never-ending storms of the Endless Sea swallowed the lesser of the Wyrms, Kolomet. I never put much stock in such junk, but now… I’m out of other answers.” Eto faltered.

“After this speech, the wyrm caused a massive cave in, wiping out a city of two thousand in a single minute of rampage. And then it just disappeared, tunneling back into earth it emerged from. I lost many friends that day.”

Orirosa clasped the Tian’s shoulder, adding, “Before you jump to the conclusion this is just a foreigner’s problem, we need to visit one of our neighboring ‘villages’. It’s been a week since I last heard from Matron Ikoba. We set out at first light tomorrow.”

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What awaits Yue on the coming journey? Will she learn to coexist with her unusual companions? Find out here!

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