Storm Phase – 6
In this epic fantasy, a young wizard with a mysterious destiny, a cat-girl ninja, and a diary that turns into a bat-like creature journey through worlds of monsters and mayhem.
Gasping for air, Iniru slumped over the drafting table.
The acolyte patted her back. “You did well.”
“The arch… in the autumn land…” Iniru gasped, tears welling in her eyes. “Why… why wasn’t he there? Where was he?”
“Where was who?” the acolyte asked.
Iniru frowned. “I–I don’t know.”
“Here, drink this.” The Prophet offered her a bowl. “It will clear your mind.”
Iniru pulled herself up and took the bowl from the Prophet. She sipped the bitter tea and returned the bowl. After a few deep breaths, her thoughts cleared and the dizziness abated.
Twelve squares of parchment lay scattered across the table. On all but one, she had drawn a surprisingly accurate image of the baojen boy, though the background scenery on each was sketched in crudely, probably because she hadn’t had the time to fill in any details. On the exception, she had drawn herself kneeling alone across from the stone arch.
The visions slipped from her mind, falling rapidly away until all she had left were the pictures she’d drawn and a memory of the deep connection she had shared with the boy. It unnerved her to so quickly lose the memory of something so profound. No wonder the drawings were necessary.
“So a hairless baojen boy is the the destiny you chose focus on?” the acolyte asked.
“Stop prying, child,” the Prophet snapped.
“I didn’t choose him,” Iniru said. “In every vision, he was there — except for one.”
“I got this lousy cavern, and you got a boy,” the girl muttered. “That’s hardly fair. Even if he is weird looking.”
“I’m… sorry,” Iniru answered awkwardly.
The acolyte sighed. “Do you think—”
The Prophet lightly slapped the girl on the back of the head. “Hush, child!”
The desire for companionship, male or female, platonic or romantic, was something Iniru had suppressed so that she could relentlessly focus on the one thing that mattered: becoming a great qengai, so that she could make her birth mother proud and prove the village elders wrong. And it wasn’t hard to suppress. Being an outcast made it easy to avoid attachments. It made it easy to not even daydream about them. Until Priestess Ataki’s gesture early that afternoon, the thought of having a friend hadn’t even crossed her mind, save for in the darkest moments of the darkest nights when she lay awake, her mind drifting and restless, contemplating a future where she might have a normal life. But such thoughts and aspirations never haunted her in the bright daylight where the reality of being an outcast was ever present, guiding her to focus on her abilities.
Iniru tucked the drawings inside a pocket.
“Everything you went through today,” the Prophet said, “is a sacred process. And it is to remain a secret — always. Speak of it to no one, not even a mate or your children, should you one day have any.”
“I understand,” Iniru replied.
The Prophet gestured. “Follow me.”
Iniru stood and followed the Prophet and her acolyte. They walked to the west side of the chamber and turned a blind corner that lead into a narrow tunnel. Iniru glanced back toward the entrance.
“How did I miss that?”
The acolyte said, “It only appears when—”
“Hush, child,” the Prophet said.
“Sorry, Madam Prophet,” the acolyte answered meekly.
The dank, winding tunnel — smelling of rotting leaves and upturned earth — led them to a cramped chamber. From a minuscule skylight, a ray of sunshine struck a pedestal of interwoven roots, highlighting the enormous book that rested on top of it. Copper wire threaded through the book’s ragged-edged pages and its worn, bamboo-plank cover.
Hands and knees trembling, Iniru stopped at the entrance and stared at what could only be the Nine Eyes’ section of the Sacred Codex of Master Notasami. The Prophet and the acolyte continued on until they stood beside the pedestal.
Iniru dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the earthen floor, while the Prophet and the acolyte sang a long hymn honoring the Great Deities of the earth and sky, as well as the lesser gods known as the Shogakami, of whom Lady Ishiketa was one.
“Rise and declare yourself,” the Prophet said.
Iniru spoke her name and recited the Vow of the Qengai handed down by Master Notasami himself. Then, at the Prophet’s invitation, she stepped up to the pedestal and gazed reverently at the Sacred Codex.
The Prophet flipped the book open about halfway, to a spot marked by a silk string. The right page was blank while the left was filled with tiny, intricate glyphs that ran down the page in narrow columns with barely any separation from one another. The glyphs in each column were either deep brown or yellow, with the yellow ones largely concentrated on the right side of the page. A few brown columns were struck through by a line of crimson ink that dripped blood-like down the page. Iniru didn’t recognize any of the glyphs. They were unlike any writing she’d studied, and she could read three different languages.
“Each column describes a mission and names the qengai chosen to perform it.” The Prophet pointed to the blank area on the page. “When a new mission is required, a new line of writing will appear.”
“So this is mine, the new one on the far right?” Iniru asked.
The Prophet nodded. “The glyphs on your column are yellow, representing an ongoing mission. The missions described by the brown lines were completed successfully. The brown lines struck through with red…” she pointed to four lines near the left edge “…those are failed missions.”
The Prophet flipped the codex to a previous page and trailed her finger down a particular line of crimson glyphs. “If a qengai were to refuse a mission, then the yellow glyphs themselves would turn red.” She gave Iniru a meaningful look. “That has happened only once in my lifetime.”
Failing a mission was a shame every qengai dreaded because each failure added one or more lines to the Sacred Codex, delaying the arrival of the promised Golden Age by months, maybe years. And, of course, it was hard to face your clan and admit failure. But to refuse a mission… Iniru had seen the result firsthand. She lived it every day when she woke up alone and unwanted by her relatives. And she had no doubt that it had led to her mother’s…
Iniru clenched her fists and shook her head. She couldn’t let her mind wander onto that subject. Nothing good would come of it. She had a job to do, and it was time to prove herself.
“So what now?” Iniru asked, excitement edging into her voice.
The Prophet reached out a folded slip of paper. “Here is your mission.”
“I translated it myself!” the child said.
“I made sure she did it correctly,” the Prophet added.
Heart thumping, Iniru took the paper. The missions of a qengai could range from spying or theft to scouting for an army. But it could also, and often did, mean assassinating a target. Obviously, the day would come when the Sacred Codex would ask her to kill an unsuspecting victim — some threat to building a great new world. She didn’t want to kill anyone, even though she’d been trained to do so swiftly and effectively, but she would do what she must. She prayed, however, that wouldn’t be today, not on her first mission.
Iniru took a deep breath, steeled herself, and unfolded the paper. A grin tugged at her lips as she read the goal of the mission, its parameters, and the instructions for reaching the destination.
“Of course,” she said. “Of course.” She shook her head, laughing. “Well, he shouldn’t be too hard to recognize.”
“Why do you say that?” the acolyte asked.
Iniru pulled out the illustrations she’d drawn during her visions and shuffled through them. “How could I miss him?”
“How do you know it will be the same boy?” the acolyte asked.
“How could it be anyone else?” Iniru asked.