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3.53. Perspective: Xefwen
🕑 Added 2023-05-20 17:08:23 +0000 UTCAuthor's note: This is the third of three short alternate-POV slices.
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The hierophant of Albei stood atop the pyramid at the city’s center with hands behind his back. From his vantage, he had an unobstructed view from wall to wall, and he often came here to observe the lines of luck and fate, so that he might interpret what the future would hold.
None saw him, of course. He’d paid good money for the enchantments to hide his presence from the small figures below. Bundled in their furs, they looked like mouse droppings on tiny legs shuttling back and forth across the snow-covered plaza.
Their lives were of such limited scope, only touching lightly on fortune’s fault lines. Exceptions existed—they always did—in people like the land knight, the city head, and a handful of others. But the rest? A kalesk could eat them with little to no consequence. Oh, their families would wail and gnash their teeth, but power... power moved on without them.
And there was power here, hidden in the lands around Albei. Why else would a silvered Earth-Touched and Master Diviner come to a slovenly little outpost at the edge of civilization? Why else put up with the beastly smell and beastlier people, their petty politics and mundane struggles. Xefwen could go anywhere else and be showered in antaak and light.
Alas, wealth and levels were only two facets to the bright gem that was power. Insight was also necessary, an understanding of the bedrock of truths underlying reality. A clarity so penetrating, it changed the soul and how that soul interacted with the world.
There were traditional ways to form soul marks—daily observances, rituals, meditations, and so on—but at Xefwen’s age, the most direct path was by consuming the light from greater beings and thereby glimpsing their truths. And if the light came from a being with powerful soul marks of their own, then the comprehension was even greater.
Fortune pointed to the ruins of Old Baxteiyel to the southeast, while fate hinted at mysteries to the west. Except that none of the expeditions to the ruins had returned successful, and the mysteries remained just that, with not even Xefwen’s prodigious skills able to pierce the veils obscuring them.
Once a year, at the summer solstice, he caught sight of a slight shimmer of fate to the west. A minor spirit of the land out the way was causing a stir, but Xefwen had already dismissed it as unworthy of his attention.
There were greater powers moving, roiling the lines all around him. The disturbance had begun approximately half a year ago when someone or something started pushing impatiently against fate, fracturing the established foundation and revealing new relationships between the people, spirits, and land.
It’d been like looking through the upturned earth after a great magic—all the insects scurrying, along with the rare sparkle of something more valuable. The truth was that chaos always afforded opportunities to the patient and keen sighted. As pressure mounted on the Albei and the land around it, the established lines of luck and fate would buck even more. All he had to do was wait, and his path ahead would be revealed, as would those hiding from his sight.
Xefwen allowed himself a smile; he stoked the anticipation building inside him. Whether it was Old Baxteiyel or something else, it was only time a matter of time, and then he would have them.Author's note: This is the second of three short alternate-POV slices.
Comments
D J Meigs
I smell a hint at where Eight might end up exploring next!
