a nimbus of scattering droplets sparkling all around.
“Cho!” Kimber called, creeping closer and behind Bre’et’s tense and dripping form.
The Elanaite seemed to shrink within her prison, gaping and slack-jawed. “The Heaven Walker?”
“Good Lady,” the boy said, a little louder than his previous breathy squeaks, in what might have been meant as a shout.
It was a woman in a long white frock, her long straight hair falling nearly to the grass, the tips of her feet hovering over the tops of the wet green sward. Her features, familiarly sharp, were placid and beatific, and when her mouth opened, revealing overly long teeth, it looked as though there might be more than just Kimber that was unnatural to the World. It seemed she would speak.
If she did, the storm drowned the words. The boy was back on his feet, his pants and hands stained by the grass. The rel, a truly white rel, faced him, reached out and touched his face as his mouth opened and closed in words made mute by the rain. Neither face creased with smile or frown. Neither voice was raised to indicate a heated exchange nor softened to share confidences. The rel stroked the boy’s cheek. He grasped her hand with pale, shaking fingers. Kimber imagined it as affection and felt jealousy bubble up, hers mixing with the Other’s.
And then the boy flew.
As though wrenched from behind, he crashed backwards through the air, arching high before his silhouette was lost in the fog. A scream, wrenched up from his placid depths, forced its way through the downpour and whirled with the wind long after he had disappeared.
The white rel settled her vacant stare on the bunker.
Cho’s mouth opened but there was silence, her voice a captive of surprise or something more sinister.
The white rel lifted an arm, the long sleeves of her dress unmoving, even in the raging wind. Light glimmered on her fingertips, stars captured in her hand.
Kimber flung herself next to Cho, grabbing her free arm and pulling. Cho’s face fell into a grimace but she did not protest. The air shivered, crackled. The insects returned, this time under her skin, frenzied.
The white rel’s mouth stretched. It might have been a smile. There was no way to tell if it was malice or delight.
The rain turned to ice and fell in a shower of stabbing needles, the wind forcing it into horizontal flight. Bre’et bleated, lowered his head, and tried to back into the bunker again. Kimber shielded her face with bare arms but the cold water found her anyway, flaying the skin from her forearms. Something struck her side with bruising force, spinning her off her feet onto the quickly freezing ground.
Kimber lowered her arms and was snapped in the face by a whipping cord end. It and several others trailed behind the cloth and metal ‘kite’ as it hurtled forward of its own accord. Trapped within the silir wings, Cho took to the air.
Another cable snapped past and Kimber’s hand darted out to catch it. It slid through her palms, splitting the skin before she could get a good grip and then she was slipping over the sodden earth on her belly. Rocks punched her gut and scratched at her chest. She struggled to look behind when Bre’et’s vengeful bellow managed to cut through the drowning silence.
The black beast charged the white woman, his beak open and pouring plumed breath like smoke, his claws throwing clumps of earth into the frosty air. The white rel did not move but when the raging veser reached her, she was gone, a puff of pale condensation spread thin by a tempest gust that caught the kite and wrenched Kimber up into the air.
First Interlude
A Tale Not Told
The Goddessi had hoped that Kimber’s Tale would take a very different turn. Watching the group move through the World, from the basin of the Seido Bashran through the highgrass and into the meadowlands, the women who were not women saw a chance to change something that had long been on Their minds.
The city of Caelan has long sat suspended above the roiling deep waters of Big River, better known by its Faer inhabitants as Wind River, linking the precipitous northern cliffs and the rolling broken southern plains of Big Valley, again better known as Wind River Valley. The city is connected in various ways to its sisters downstream; the cities of Hlanae and Maelae. Caelan is a busy, bustling metropolis unlike anything seen outside the White Wastes of the north where the Fallen Star’s people rule, but it is also more sedate, almost sleepy. This contrast is a product of the city matriarch’s tight hold on her people and, in fact, on the people of all the cities and thus the entire Faer race.
The White Rel.
Also known as the Good Lady, the White Rel has ruled the Faer since they came up out of the muck on the shores of Wind River. She made them what they are, through endless toil, careful planning, and utter ruthlessness toward anything that might threaten either the peace of the cities or her leadership. The word of the White Rel is the Law of the cities and it is strictly enforced. Anyone unwilling to follow rules is reeducated with extreme prejudice. Those who break the Law of her land are summarily exiled to the great wide World, where their sheltered lives often leave them unable to cope with fauna, other peoples, and even harsh sunslight, leading eventually to madness and finally death. But through this iron-fisted dictatorship, the White Rel has kept a peace so complete that Faera overlooks the sometimes harsh reality of Her people’s lives.
But the other Goddessi are not quite so forgiving. Yet to interfere with Faera’s followers is to invite similar meddling with Their own worshippers. Thus, the situation must be changed by an outside force.
Enter Kimber and her less-than-merry band.
In a Tale not told, Kimber and Cho entered the city of Caelan. They were met by many wonders and the people of the city were kind, in an aloof, confused way, but they were amazed at a rel who spoke and their trust in the White Rel, who could not speak, was shaken. When Kimber moved on, the seeds her visit had planted led to a great revolt, which was unfortunately quashed quite quickly, leading to the exile of hundreds and the deaths of many who leapt from the city ramparts into the all-consuming rapids of Wind River, rather than face life either in the harsh World or under the White Rel’s harsh rule.
The Goddessi were not happy with this outcome and They decided that Kimber should do more. In another untold Tale, Kimber and her compatriots came into the city and as the people began to revolt, Kimber came into herself. She found confidence and became as she most wanted, something more than the wisps of a Tale always in danger of blowing away on the breeze into the lurking darkness.
Unfortunately, what she became was the next White Rel. When the Good Lady was overthrown and locked within the Pillar that upheld the city, the people knew of no other life and set Kimber as their new leader, although she had no understanding of what it entailed. Without direction, the cities began to fail and people grew hungry and inconvenienced and they remembered back to days of peace and security, until their thoughts shaped Kimber into a mirror of the White Rel and she ruled as the Good Lady had, losing herself in the role.
This too was not to the Goddessi’s liking and it angered Faera that the White Rel, whom she loved so well, was treated so poorly. Before the other Goddessi could hatch yet another plan, the Heaven Walker went down upon the World to Caelan and warned the White Rel that a strange cousin to her would soon come and disrupt the peace of her home.
The White Rel readied herself, calling down a great rain from the clouds to assure that anyone coming toward the city would have to take shelter. She went down upon the earth, though not truly, for she hovered so that her feet would not touch the corrupted remains of the World Mother. No Faer, save those exiled by her decree, have touched the earth since they left the shores of the river to live in their sky cities.
But Faera saw that the White Rel would not allow even a chance of disruption to the lives of the Faer. The Good Lady gathered skysplitters in her fists and held murder in her heart. Fearful what would happen if the White Rel were to kill Kimber, Faera warned the Good Lady’s assistant, a young boy whom the White Rel had loved best of all the Faer she had ever known in the entirety of her exceptionally long years. The Heaven