Chapter 2182

Chapter 2182

Silver dust covered Enmya’s boots as he moved, but it did not go any higher than that. The wind might sing a constant song, but somehow, the ground was too solid to be touched. Sky and ground stood opposite one another, a well-established border of silver and navy blue.

No longer were sky and ground the only presences filling the expanse.

Enmya nodded to the guards as he passed through the woven black wicker gateway. Here the gateway was purely ceremonial, ornate and fanciful with elaborate flourishes along the sign. The Nether Warriors inclined their heads in a gesture of respect for him, but Enmya’s eyes quickly returned to the sky. Huge brightly colored kites drifted across the settlement as the constant wind continued to tug everything toward the edges of the plains.

A winged wolf made from magenta and sage fluttered past a massive, rainbow-colored square construction large enough for a child to climb into. Smaller whistlers with their flashy strips of cloth and long tails, streaked past as the wind caught their small sails. Ornate ships designed to imitate water vessels formed the lion’s share of the kites, hewn from oranges, reds, and yellows, so a fleet of fire seemed to cruise through the sky.

None would ever be so bold to refer to these kites as any sort of resistance against the environment, but certainly it spoke to an existence beyond the monochrome tableau of their chosen existence.

The Hollow Plains, the silvery, flat expanse on which they now traveled, possessed a sort of beauty, but the kites of their people brought a whole new dimension. The constant influx of fluttering paper and cloth bridged the distance between ground and sky on the almost-blank expanse of the plains. A brief and purely symbolic bridge, eventually pulled away by the wind, but so many people found cheer in the practice that it had continued for hundreds of years.

Two initiates spoke quietly next to the water barrels, their elaborate tattoo denoting an approaching attempt at being named a Nether Herald. Perhaps out of some sense of rivalry, both drew deeply from the Nether, insinuating their personal patterns into the broader ecosystem of the Nether encampment.

Keeping his head down, he avoided walking through their area of influence. Drawing their attention wouldn’t be worth the trouble.

Enmya passed through another wicker gateway a few minutes later, moving from the residential areas to the wider circles of their wandering settlement. This entrance had a heavy wall of wicker spreading out from the gate and was guarded by Nether Gatekeepers. The wicker resembled corrupted ivory more than the relatively light wicker, ending in horrifyingly sharp points so that the transport crews regularly had injuries from a thoughtless grip. The nods of acknowledgment from the Nether Gatekeepers were curter than the Nether Warriors earlier, but still respectful.

Respect was the foundation on which society was built. It gave Enmya hope, that their civilization would continue for a long time, to see them offer it to him, when they clearly didn’t recognize him out of his usual ornamental dress.

Enmya had to pause as he passed through the large gate, letting a rush of children stream around along the wall. A small smile hovered on his lips, almost in spite of his personal opinions on the practice; the typical rite of passage for a Nether being’s first kite involved looseing the kite at one end of the settlement and racing to the other side to catch it. To fail to make it in time meant not only that the kite was lost, but that the wind of the Hollow Plains found the individual wanting. For a year they would be considered unlucky, given the worst chores around the camp as punishment for the failure.

Which necessarily meant their first kites were often the largest and most expensive, both so they moved more slowly across the sky and were possible to identify in a mass of kites. Any child could offer a pinch of grace to an artisan for a whistler, but those were impossible to distinguish in the mass.

Picking his way forward through groups of jostling Nether Warriors and more sedate foraging groups resting around cooking fires, Enmya remembered a conversation he had with Lowanna on the kite ritual, years ago. He had complained about the practice, partially because he had failed his first two attempts and had experienced the derision of his peers for two frustrating years, Enmya seemed to possess woefully deficient luck, but also because of the economic strain.

“Sure, we receive regular tithes, but most of the bolts of dyed cloth have to be obtained from Aether lands. And most Nether Kings choose the method of plunder rather than trade,” Enmya had argued. The two had been sitting before a small fire, the blue flames casting strange shadows across their hands as they had woven the black wicker of the plains into usable objects. “Kites can be considered the closest thing we upon the Hollow Plains have to a vice. And the attrition is small but constant; we lose kites every year. With the festivals, so many are released- we could be so much more responsible with our riches! Imagine buying metal implements. Maybe not for the walls because of the weight, but at least cookware-”

“Working the black wicker to make solid bowls hones the skills needed to make more important tools later on in life,” Lowanna pointed out. But she paused and set down her pieces of wicker. Annoyingly, her bowl already seemed perfect.

Lowanna’s face crumpled to a scowl, as though she had read his entire train of thought on his face. But before Enmya could respond, the look vanished. Suddenly, she simply seemed bored. “You’ve got that sour look on your face that says you want to talk about something. What is it?”

Enmya coughed lightly, trying not to dwell on that heavy look of disappointment she had briefly shown. “This is a subject we have traversed before, but the Lawless One continued to act freely. We should send a team-”

“Oh please,” Lowanna rolled her eyes. She wove her fingers together and allowed her hands to fall in front of her. “Do you know, they say you pluck crooked kites out of the sky and refuse to allow them to fly until they are fixed. So what if this individual does not live the same way as us? There is no reason to force our lifestyle upon others.”

“There are no reins upon the spread of his influence,” Enmya countered.

“He’s not spreading any influence,” Lowanna countered.

“That could change.”

“And it may not.”

The two stared at each other for a long minute. Enmya was the first to look away, but he still felt compelled to say a bit more. “He follows the old ways. Which should be entirely impossible, making the feat all the more alarming. There are reasons these practices were discarded.”

“Ah, En,” A genuine smile crossed her face. “I love you dearly, but you’ve never found a mystery that you didn’t think would be more interesting if it were well illuminated. Isn’t the very fact he managed to generate his own Nether Core reason enough to let him be?”

Enmya felt a cold prickle on his spine. He shot Lowanna and measuring look. “...do you wish to understand his methods-”

“Pah, you.” Lowanna threw her bound hands up, the black wicker of her bracelets clinking together. “You don’t... well, there is no need to go into it. I promise you, the point will soon become moot. Now, a question for you, Nagging Enmya: if you had to choose between the soul of the universe and your own life, which would you choose?”

Enmya’s lips twitched, but he recognized the dismissal in her words. She often posed hypotheticals to him, so he took a few seconds to consider. It was not a hard decision. “Assuming I allow, for the sake of this question, the universe possesses a soul, I would offer myself for the good of all.”

She nodded, as though she had expected that answer and asked a follow-up question. “What if you needed to choose between the soul of the universe and my life?”

“Your life,” Enmya answered this question even more quickly. For a brief second, Enmya slipped out of who had been born and became the role he had risen to become. Even the wind above stilled, cowed by the depth of his significance.

Lowanna scowled and kicked Enmya in the shin. “You bastard, you really mean it, don’t you? If you are going to commit genocide, use your own name as justification.”