Name: Pythia

Rank: Transcendent

[Aspect: A Wall of Wood]

Aspect Rank: Transcendent

Aspect Description: [The Sybil hymned a note of destruction and red rivers flowed. The oracle

sang a note of plague and sickness sowed. The soothsayer chanted a note of famine and

starvation followed. The fourth said nothing, fate was not owed.]

Innate Ability: [Red Strings]

Innate Ability Description: [Sleep brings dreams of fate.]

[Aspect Ability: Memory Share]

Aspect Ability Description: [Touch a living thing with consent and you may see into their

memories.]

[Aspect Ability: Glow of Hope]

Aspect Ability Description: [Optimal futures glow faintly against others.]

[Aspect Ability: Desperate Seer]

Aspect Ability Description: [Expel all of your essence to find three of the most optimal fates.]

[Aspect Ability Transformation: Mist of Time]

Aspect Ability Transformation Description: [Upon death, you may join with the mist of fate.]

Flaw: Curse of Cassandra

Flaw Description: [Your words are always doubted. Your prophecies are never believed.]
The dullard tripped on nothing and fell face-first into the sand. Jeamin waited for him but

Phythia would have none of it. “Pick yourself up or die!” she screamed, never looking back.

“The sand’s a bastard's way to die! You won’t be buried, not by me nor by Jeamin.”

The dullard stirred. He didn’t rise.

“Phythia!” Jeamin wailed like a babe, sweat beading over his forehead and eyes and lips

and all of him. “We, we have to go back! The maps ended where the black waters met the mist

… I made no promises to cross a blazing desert.”

Phythia managed to turn but her steps never stopped. Eternally forward, with or without a

cohort. “Take that oaf's cloak back with you, proof that he died. Might as well take your cloak off

too. Anvil will bury the both of you in the same grave.”

Jeamin shuffled at that, his feet sinking ever deeper in the sand. “He won’t—“

“He will,” she interjected. “It’ll be your cloak that’s buried, mine too if we don’t find

him.” The heat waved at Phythia on the horizon and the air sizzled off shadows that weren’t

there. “The sands a bastard's way to die, Jeamin. But it’s better than whatever Anvil has in store.”

Jeamin looked once at the dead man in the sand, then trudged on. He left the cloak.

***

Pythia summoned a small vial. It provided only a worm’s worth of water but it never ran out and

refilled quick enough for her.

Not quick enough for Jeamin. “You’re sure he came this way?” Jeamin downed the whole

vial and then some but only sand filled his lungs. “You saw it? In your visions?” He handed back

the vial.
 A clang of steel drew Pythia’s attention. “Yes. He came this way. I saw it.”

“Why? Why would he ever run here?”

“Because it’s perfect. No one here but shadows and nightmare creatures and sand.”

Another clang of steel and Pythia doubted her words. “Do you hear that?”

Jeamin fell still as a ghost. His eyes raised through the cloak he used as a head wrap and

scanned the horizon. “No,” he whispered like some craven before an unholy titan.

“Fighting,” Pythia said. “I hear it. Faint but it’s there. Someone’s close.” She didn’t have

to say more for Jeamin to make formation. It was a hollow gesture. When they were ten men

instead of two, it would have been a frightful thing to fight against. Now, it was just two people,

back to back, swords of black steel so dark no reflection could shine off of them.

“Is it him?” He shook like a madman against her back. His feet were restless as they

stomped on sand, twisting when the air brushed him wrong or turning when the sand shifted

queerly.

“Don’t know. My visions all end in the sand. He’s here. Not sure where. Your eyes are

closed, yes?”

Jeamin grunted a reply. “What do you mean your visions—”

Steel against steel and a screech from hell announced itself, the air vibrated against the

clash and Pythia fell low as did Jeamin.

She opened her eyes. “Nightmare creatures. They’re far away. You can stop shaking. It’s

not him.” She sheathed her black steel and it vanished into her soul sea, blue and white sparks

falling into the sky.

 Jeamin didn’t follow. He stayed low, his eyes clamped shut like iron prongs. “Are you

sure?” The black sword in his hand waved in the air. It was meant for traitor's blood. Pythia

knew better.

“I’m sure of nothing. Hurry up, we’ll rest only when the sun dims, not a moment before.”

She walked off and only then did Jeamin open his eyes.

Dusk came and with it shadows. The clangs of steel made their owners known, in the far

distance were nightmare creatures that could have stepped over oceans, fighting and clashing like

two mountains come to life. They fought in a world of white sand and storm and they were no

larger than the nail of Pythia’s pinky in the horizon. She knew better than to gaze at them. Jeamin

did not.

“Don’t look at them. Pretend they don’t exist. Steal and glance and die.” Her orders were

strong and resolute but she knew his eyes would drift despite that.

They had other worries than mountains clashing. The desert came to life under moonlight

and the white sands glistened where they stepped, graves shifting under lands not trotted in a

thousand years. Nightmare creatures with skin like night pulled themselves from the sands;

ganglion sores pimpled the cadavers and red pus bled out from beneath rotted fingernails. There

was one then ten then ten thousand and the sands became a battlefield with nightmare creatures

pitted against one another in an arena that lasted for eternity, ebbed only by day and night.

Pythia and Jeamin fought through the horde, most were merely corrupted or fallen but

greats did sprinkle their numbers. They avoided a battle where they could but little shelter

provided itself on the desolate dunes. “Make for the mountains!” Pythia commanded but Jeamin

hesitated, damn her flaw!

 The man eventually overcame doubt and fear and cut a line in the horde leading to the

Hollow Mountains, his black blade near invisible at night. Blood and gore followed Jeamin and

Pythia was not far behind, her eyes closed just in case he came out to play. She knew he would

not, her visions gave no tell of him here but instinct bid her close them. So she did.

The mist of the Hollow Mountains prickled her skin and a coolness washed over her.

Behind her was the stench of death hundreds and half-sheared nightmare creatures, some still

crawling but not toward them.

“They don’t follow us?” Jeamin exclaimed. “Why are your eyes closed? Is he here?”

She opened her eyes. “No. Nightmare creatures don’t like the Hollow Mountains.” The

few intact nightmare creatures still behind them were turning back around, the arena of sand like

a silent siren call. They would fight there for a thousand years and rise a thousand more. She had

foreseen it.

“You're sure he’s not here?” Jeamin had his eyes closed and his blade up in battle

formation, ready for anything. He would do little when the real fighting began.

“He’s not here. Not yet. He’s northward, lodging somewhere in the dunes.”

Jeamin opened his eyes and the mist of the Hollow Mountains licked over him, the great

swathes of white like tongues seeking prey. Pythia grabbed him and led him closer to the desert

center. “We travel by day only. Don’t get too close to the mist and don’t engage unless a

nightmare creature attacks first.” She fell to her knees and curled into a ball, the cloak wrapped

around her was a poor blanket but sainthood had made her resilient to desert cold.

Jeamin shook like grass in the wind. “You’re sleeping? Here?”

“Yes.”

“And if he comes?”
 “Then you’ll die first, and I second.” She closed her eyes and just as soon opened them.

The future was a gray place, a film of murky still water always coated it. She looked left and

right and deciphered the thousands of fates yet sown. Strings of red destiny attached to each gray

future like spiders silk in a corner. She could not sever the strings, nor could she sway it nor prod

them to change. The future was set as much as the past but she could choose what she saw. Fates

most kind to her would glow ever so slightly brighter than their peers. When Dawson died that

frigid night in the Hollow Mountains, it was her decision that killed him. His future was always

bleak as if his death was meant for that place. She saw the dullard die and Grace and Ben and

Kenly and the three others. They served a purpose once. To get her here. Only Jeamin was left, a

coward and vanguard fighter, but it was his caution that made him live so long.

Pythia plucked a string and a possible future was shown to her. When she woke, blasts of

sunlight beat down on her like a hammerscale. Jeamin stood over her, hand on the butt of his

weapon, circling her like some vulture. “You’re awake!” He knelt next to her. “What do we do?”

Fool. He knew her flaw but still, he asked and still, he would receive the same answer.

Pythia stood and summoned the vial of water. She downed it and tossed it to Jeamin and began

on her way before the memory refilled itself. He was on her heels in a moment.

Clangs of steel vibrated through her and loose particles of sand stung her nose and lungs.

The desert was a hellscape not so unlike the rest of the dreaming world. It was east of the

Forgotten Shore and passed the Hollow Mountains. No map marked land passed the Hollow

Mountains but her visions saw sand and she knew where he must have run off to. Anvil had

gifted her the right to find him, a saint, and nine masters strove off from a bastion half a world

away. Ten at the Chained Isles, two at the Sands. And to think, perhaps even the ten of them

wouldn’t be enough. What good was two?

 Pythia kicked sand and the dust blocked her vision. When it cleared, an oasis was before

her. “Jeamin,” she ordered and the craven was in front of her at once.

“What is that?” As if he didn’t have eyes.

“Directions,” she said and pushed him forward.

The oasis was clear and reflected the pale blue in the sky. Jeamin pounced on it

immediately, a special sort of obsession taking him. Thirst, she thought and remembered he was

not a saint like her. A tree whiter than the dunes sat on a stone hillock overlooking the oasis. The

leaves and fruit that hung from it were a deep crimson, darker than blood, and even Jeamin had

the sense not to go picking. But it wasn’t respite Pythia saw when she led them this direction.

“Azarax The Mighty,” she spoke to the tree, “Plague of Steel, King of Kings, and Conqueror of

One Hundred Thrones! We are honored to grace the presence of one so mighty!” She genuflected

and dragged Jeamin down parallel to her when he did not follow.

The tree stirred. From its branches came a cadaver white as snow. His arms were

branches and his legs wrapped around the trunk; the skeleton of Azarax unfolded to hang limp

above them. “Who is it that would come unannounced to the chamber of a king?” The skeleton

writhed but stayed in place, nails hammered deep into his wrist and ankles.

“A soothsayer and her ward,” she announced and ignored Jeamin’s nonplussed brows.

“We’ve come from lands beyond the mountain to meet the great Azarax!”

The skeleton chittered its teeth and knocked bone against wood. “To meet me? And what

gifts would soothsayer and ward bestow upon a king?”

This was the pivotal point, the future splintered into a million different possibilities here.

A single slurred word or suspicious twitch would lead them awry. She eyed Jeamin with a look

that said do not move and do not talk. He had to be left in the dark for any of this to work. She
hoped he understood. “The future, My King. A glimpse into the possibilities of a life not yet

extinguished.” She eyed Azarax and he took her meaning.

“You wish to tell me my future, witch? The streams of time do not bend so easily and yet,

you claim to possess this power?”

Pythia nodded. “We wish to serve.”

“Rise then,” a garish timbre accompanied the words, “and serve first by removing the

nails in my wrist and ankles.”

Perfect, Pythia thought. She needed only to touch him once and willingly.

Jeamin shuffled and the seer wanted to kill him on the spot.

“You!” Azarax slammed the back of its head against white bark. “Ward to a soothsayer!

Tell me, how is it that a man became servant to a witch?”

It was over. Idiot Jeamin, stupid blistering fool of a man, miracles must have unfolded for

him to live so long. When did harlequins become ascended? She considered, just for a moment,

if she was better off wardless. “I found him as a babe in the gutters of Hope’s Kingdom!” she

chanced. “Fire had taken to the city and I stole him from death. The moment I touched him, I

knew he had the potential to be like me.”

“Fires, you say.” Azarax pondered. A long pause. Sweat beaded over Jeamin’s face. “You

will speak only when addressed henceforth, witch. Ward.” Its head swung to gaze at Jeamin,

empty holes where his eyes should have been. “Which God do you serve?”

Jeamin gulped as essence began to circle within him. “Hope?”

Azarax laughed wildly, bone banged against wood and nails creaked in their eternal

positions. “Begone! Fool and mummer. Your lies cannot trick a king!” He laughed again and

Jeamin rose to his feet. Pythia followed.

 “What do we do?” he said. Again.

“Guard me. You are capable of that, aren’t you? I was hoping to save my essence for the

Prince but …” She unwrapped her cloak, Anvil’s bronze sigil was threaded onto the back of it.

This would be the last time she ever saw it. She placed it next to Azarax and sat with her back to

the tree and her hands on her knees.

Essence flowed through her, a tumultuous river of power that ran from head to toe and

coalesced along her spine. She braced, made final prayers, and ejected all the essence within

herself.

She must have fainted but when, she could not say. She stood on a sable platform with a

ceiling and a roof that had no end. Three futures proffered themselves, gray and red only where

strings met fate. Each was bleaker than the next. The red strings waved and flickered dully as she

fingered them, she had scarcely used this ability in the past but a thousand times she had chosen

a future. Bleak as it may be.

The first future would have to do, she knew. The first was duty and honor. The second

was life and pain. The third was torture and hell.

She stepped toward the first one but hesitated, her will faltering only for a moment. The

second future: life. It was green and pale blue and scented with roses and honey. It was home, a

bastion with friends and the murmur of children. Her children. Her husband. Her life. And then

pain, pain like heated prongs to flesh and the death of a lover. The death of a child.

Fifty years she saw. Fifty years of joy and pain and life. The life she was supposed to

have. The one she deserved. With an outstretched hand, Pythia clung to duty and honor.

She woke to midnight clangs of steel and endless guffawing. Jeamin was fighting off the

nightmare creatures come in the night and Azarax was watching. A mummer’s show, she thought
and almost laughed with him. Sleep took her before she could. She woke again to the mountains

in the north, two lumbering colossal nightmare creatures that sang the tune of death and battle.

Jeamin was standing over her. Vulture.

“You’re awake,” he said. She didn’t want to guess his next words but she knew it was

coming. “What do we do?”

Pythia sat up, her essence was still drained and would be drained for months to come.

Time they did not have. She summoned the vial of liquid and a bout of dizziness followed. She

drank from it and handed it to Jeamin.

He took it but looked at the oasis behind in confusion. “Can’t I just—“

“Drink it, damn you Jeamin. Drink.”

So he did.

Pythia began northward when Jeamin was still sipping the meager liquid. It tasted like

honey, she thought, and left the cloak of Anvil sprawled at the foot of Azarax’s tree.

***

The colossal nightmares were the length of her thumb as they traveled north. The clang of steel

became a thundering boom with each clash of body and sword. The sand jumped at the

vibrations of their battle and so too did Jeamin. “He’s over there?” His timbre quaked as much as

the sand.

“Still alive Jeamin?” The ascended mummer had taken to following well behind Pythia,

his black sword always summoned even during the day. “He’s over there. Not quite under the

moving mountains but close as can be.”

 “Pythia.” He jogged to her side. The sweat beading over his face mirrored her own. It

wasn’t supposed to be this hot. “How much farther?”

“A trip and a fall and a skip past the dunes. You know I can’t say. Azarax was supposed

to give us directions. If the Prince came through the desert, I doubt he’d miss something like that.

The oasis would have been the only reflection in miles.”

Jeamin nodded and winced when the colossal titans slammed together once more. He

waited until the din of their clash died to speak. “Will I live?”

“What sort of life, I wonder.”

Jeamin knew he would receive no clearer answer. And yet, “I have a son you know. No

older than the Prince. When I had him, I thought the two would grow up to be friends or maybe

even cohort companions. Like us.”

Like us, Pythia thought and pitied the fool. “What of him? I won’t give out seers

knowledge for pleas and dying wishes Jeamin. But I can tell you this, he won’t be a friend to the

Prince and if he’s lucky, he won’t have to fight in any cohort.”

Jeamin nodded at that. “You’re right. As always Phythia, you’re right.” He took the

vanguard, his shoulders standing scarcely higher than before, but higher nonetheless.

Sand jumped at the thunder and crash of mountains and when it fell, a monster clad in

human flesh stood before them, white sands hovering around him like a nimbus. He was finally

here.

Jeamin fell into formation and so too did Pythia. “You don’t have to close your eyes,” she

whispered but only received wrinkled brows in response. She separated from him and strode out

into the sands. “My Prince!” She didn’t bother kneeling. “We’ve come to parley.”
 A raucous laugh escaped the nimbus. He came forward, the eyes of death staring directly

into Pythia. “Hm, parley. And who sent you?”

“Asterion,” she lied. Any other name and he would have taken her on the spot. “We come

bearing a message. That is all.”

“Is it?” He eyed Jeamin. Her cohort member’s eyes were shut until crow's feet took

around his eyes. “That one smells like piss. Did you wet yourself?” He asked Jeamin.

Jeamin gave no reply.

The terror laughed. Six out of seven, she saw. Enough to fight a saint to a standstill.

“There is a woman in the waking world. A scion of Song, her name is Seishan,” Pythia

explained. “You would do well to meet her.”

“Would I?” He said and the thunderclap of the mountains drowned out his next words.

The sounds were no louder than they should have been, and yet, her ears were ringing.

Her vision swam in a sea of swamp water and the sun turned thrice as bright.

Jeamin slumped and fell face first in the sand. No one would bring back his cloak.

“What’s this?” Mordret, Prince of Anvil asked. “Some petty trick? I know a man with

tricks, his are a thousand times more convincing.”

“Seishan,” Pythia murmured, the vial would take longer to work on a saint. She still had

time. “Meet Seishan. I cannot say why you must but you must.”

The nimbus stirred. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll find your life very fun and pleasant.”

Mordret laughed again and the swollen sun beat Pythia to her knees. She looked back at

Jeamin. A baker, she wanted to say. Your son becomes a baker. And the vial took her before

Mordret had a chance to cement his soul in hers.

 There were mirrors there, a thousand mirrors in his soul and each of his six cores was a

still bed of water. Mordret stood in each reflection, a different version of himself. Who he was,

who he wanted to be, who he could have been. Who he is. A murderer. A killer. The death of so

many.

She closed her eyes and the reflections vanished.

[Memory: Vial of Life and Death].

Memory Description: [A vial capable of filling with the purest of waters or the deadliest

of poisons. The liquids look and taste the same.]

***

Pythia woke and for an instant, she assumed the worst. A red string caressed her and it was not

as she feared. He has not taken me. Am I not dead? How? The questions stunned her. They

proved she still lived.

The red string drove far and away from her and led her deeper into the mist of night. She

followed, never once had there only been one future in her visions. The red string glowed a

vibrant scarlet as if a star had imbued it with fire. It parted the mists of futures yet sown and

landed on a single glass pane. Color found itself in this future, another queer aspect of this

vision, and a lady sheathed in starlight proffered herself. Hair white as the dunes and a sword of

light to match. The night bowed to her and shadows quivered as they followed. She was death, a

killer and murderer, unlike Mordret. She was more. She was the end of nightmares and the

beginning of dreams. She was light and behind her followed shadows.
 She was and is and when fate found her defiant and feral, she would shatter it and make a

fist of steel where space met moon.

Pythia crumpled into herself. Her body began to fade and wisps of black smoke rose from

her like plumes of a fireplace. This was the future, she knew. The one and only future, where all

strings collided and all fates became one.

Pythia joined the darkness but not before glimpsing once more at the white women.

Changing Star’s soul was a twin to Modret’s. It sang of vengeance.

Vengeance she would never find.