pigeon: The Celestial Lions nod politely as Serpent Ebb strides down the long hallway between Yu-Shan and the Sixtieth Gate. Near the Creation end, a light scattering of sand dusts the carpeted floor, as a sirocco investigates the unexpected gateway.
pigeon: The carpet god waits fearfully for the Sidereal to step out the door, so that he may begin sweeping himself up.
Serpent_Ebb heads out the gate and happily greets the sirocco.
Serpent_Ebb: "Where's that Ali guy, anyway?" Serpent Ebb cracks his knuckles impatiently. Maybe he forgot. Fairies are unreliable like that.
pigeon: The harsh whip of the dusty wind fails to perturb the desert-born Serpent. Irritated, it coalesces into a surpassingly beautiful nomad woman woven entirely out of cloth-of-gold.
Aurelia: "Ali is very busy, and cannot leave his hearth at this time. I have come in his place, to guide you to the Encampment of the Copper Rose, that you may speak with him."
Aurelia: "I trust that this is acceptable to you?" Aurelia picks idly at a loose thread on her shoulder.
Serpent_Ebb makes a little curtsey. "This unacceptable one will follow your guidance in all matters," he declares!
Aurelia: "Excellent. My first recommendation is that you leave behind your knife and your bracelets. Cold iron is so First Age." Aurelia rolls her eyes conspiratorially, patting Serpent on the shoulder.
Serpent_Ebb takes her hand and gingerly removes it. "How do I know that's a good idea?"
Aurelia: "Why, Serpent Ebb. I thought you said you were following my guidance. Raksha can be so judgemental, you know. It only takes one bad impression to spoil a deal forever."
Serpent_Ebb gives the woman a raised eyebrow. "I did say that. All right then." He unbuckles his knife, takes off three of his bracelets, and pointedly allows Aurelia to notice the fourth.
Serpent_Ebb: "Let's go."
Aurelia gnaws briefly on her lip, opening a slight tear in the fabric, then tilts her head and turns away.
Aurelia: The tilted archway that is the Gate rests atop a high platform, fully fifty yards above the highest other piece of rubble in the battered ruin that this First Age city has become.
Aurelia hops down lightly, beckons with one embroidered finger, and strides off into the desert.
Serpent_Ebb follows her, making a sort of flickering motion that would unsettle more conventional persons.
Aurelia: The two travel for about an hour into the featureless desert. Unsurprisingly, it's pretty boring, and after a bit Aurelia decides to experiment with conversation.
Aurelia: "So. What drives a...creature like you to make a deal with Ali of the Last Whisper?"
Aurelia: "I haven't run into your kind too often, but they never seemed all that friendly."
Serpent_Ebb examines Aurelia for a moment before responding.
Serpent_Ebb: "Have you ever tempted a child into the desert, even while his parents could hear and were saying, no, son, don't do that?"
Serpent_Ebb: "And the child follows you and he says, what do they know, they are old and out of touch with the world."
Serpent_Ebb: "And then you eat his spirit."
Serpent_Ebb: "It's like that, except I have no plans to be eaten."
Aurelia's stomach growls.
Aurelia: "It is my impression that the child's parents are usually right."
Serpent_Ebb: "Mine too."
Aurelia quirks an eyebrow, but says nothing. Producing a needle and spool, she begins to mend the tear in her lip.
Serpent_Ebb: "So what brings a pretty girl like you to a dump like this?"
Aurelia: "I luuh..." She bites off the thread, and starts again. "I live here."
Serpent_Ebb: "Life is hard."
Aurelia: "I wouldn't know."
Aurelia: "I made a promise to Ali, that I would serve him faithfully until the ever-growing sands of the Glitter-Flame Desert rise so high that they blot out the sun."
Aurelia: "He asked me to come to the Encampment, and so I have."
Serpent_Ebb figures it's arts and crafts time, so he pulls out a few blank sutra papers and scribbles down The Dancer on them.
Aurelia: "What is that?"
Serpent_Ebb: "Just catching up on my correspondence. My aunt likes me to write every few weeks."
Serpent_Ebb: "Blot out the sun you say?"
Aurelia: "Mmm." Stitching again, she cannot manage more than this vague syllable.
Serpent_Ebb waits for her to finish stitching. "You have a little hole right...there." He touches a spot under her chin.
Aurelia: The spot Serpent touches suddenly flares red-white with an intense heat, hot enough to melt steel and sear flesh.
Serpent_Ebb pulls back his finger and sucks on it, grinning.
Serpent_Ebb: "Feverish? We can stop for a drink."
Aurelia: "So I do."
Aurelia: "I think I'll be fine. We are almost to the Encampment."
Aurelia begins to stitch a patch over the small charred blot as the silken pennants of the Encampment of the Copper Rose begin to appear over the next dune.
Aurelia: As they stride into camp, several raksha eye the Sidereal with mixtures of hatred, hunger and fear. Nymphets and monsters, geometric ideals and conspicuous absences; they watch him, and stand aside as Aurelia, head bowed, leads him to the largest of the large tents, made of silk woven from last wishes unfulfilled.
Aurelia: "This is the tent of Ali of the Last Whisper."
Aurelia: "Good luck."
Aurelia smirks, and sashays away.
Serpent_Ebb pushes open the tent flap and walks in.
Ali: Within the tent is a man as large as the sky. His head is wrapped in stormclouds; his two eyes are the moon and sun. Before him is a table set for two. His dainty hand pours tea into a cup half-filled with rosepetals.
Ali: "Greetings, Serpent Ebb. I was not sure you would come."
Serpent_Ebb: "That makes two of us, but now I am here."
Ali: "Indeed you are. Please. Sit." There is a chair.
Serpent_Ebb sits and takes a teacup.
Ali: "So."
Ali: "When we spoke, in Yu-Shan, you and I, you said you had a request to make of me, but that you preferred to mention it in lands far off from the Celestial Bureaucracy."
Ali: "We agreed on a day on which to meet, and it is that day now."
Ali: "What do you seek?"
Serpent_Ebb: "I want to shape the world."
Serpent_Ebb: "You know that we sit at the Loom and we weave destiny day after mind-destroying day; I want to take a more direct hand."
Serpent_Ebb sips his tea.
Serpent_Ebb: "As your people do."
Ali: "This is not the world."
Ali: "This is a dream. This is a theory."
Ali: "This is ashes."
Serpent_Ebb struggles to look Ali in the eye.
Serpent_Ebb: "Then show me the world!"
Ali blinks slowly, with a rumble of thunder.
Ali: "Swear to me."
Ali: "Promise by your name that you will serve as a soldier, wild and fearless, laughing and everpresent, in my band, until the wonderful and glorious city of Gem falls into the Bordermarches."
Ali: "Then I will show you the world."
Ali: "But not today."
Serpent_Ebb laughs. "By my name? Sure. Names are cheap. I will swear to that."
Ali: "Can you suggest an oath that would chafe you more?"
Ali: "I would be obliged."
Serpent_Ebb: "Are these roses from farther east? I do not recognise the taste. I could swear to serve my Maidens and my Convention with a smile and a bounce in my step, if you preferred it."
Serpent_Ebb makes a face. "That's nearly unthinkable."
Serpent_Ebb: "I'm happy to swear your oath, but my employers will make it a Hell for me. Is that enough?"
Ali: "They are roses from the dreams of a young boy, whom I stole away on my first glorious sortie into the world that is what it is decided to be. He is dead, and the bones are dust, and the dust is dust. But the roses remain, until I run out."
Ali: "I have seven left."
Ali: "Not by your name, then. It occurs to me that some of your kind know ways of losing such things."
Ali: "Swear it by your sense of self -- by that spark within you that makes Serpent Ebb the man he is."
Ali: "By your Ring."
Ali: "Or what will become it."
Serpent_Ebb straightens up in his chair and puts on an air of bravado. He nods, stiffly. "I will swear it."
Ali opens a mountainous hand in a "proceed" gesture.
Serpent_Ebb takes another sip of the tea, and then clearing his throat, "I swear. By my sense of self, I will serve Ali of the Last Whisper as a soldier in his band, until the city Gem falls into the Bordermarches."
Ali fixes Serpent Ebb with a terrible gaze, parts fire and ice, and the Sidereal feels an odd sensation as he speaks -- a certain constriction in his heart, as if unbreakable silk bands were lingeringly wrapping themselves around his innards. He has to gulp out the last few words. Something in Serpent's teacup quietly clinks against the side.
Serpent_Ebb leans on the table for a second, supporting himself, and then pours out the teacup on the table. Mercifully, not very much tea was left.
Ali: Wrapped in the wilted remains of rosepetals, a small golden jewel, about the size of a walnut, thumps onto the table.
Ali: "A gift."
Ali: "I have three for you today."
Serpent_Ebb takes the jewel and examines it. "I am interested in gifts."
Ali: "Here is another. Hold still."
Ali reaches out to touch him on the shoulder.
Ali: Suddenly Serpent Ebb does not exist. There is a pattern of flesh and bone; there is an arrangement of Essence which serves to contain and organize the nearby flows, carefully monogrammed by Autochthon and countersigned by the Maiden of Endings.
Ali: But there is no person where Serpent Ebb once was.
Serpent_Ebb whirls through nonexistence for a moment, and is almost lost, when his fingers clench involuntarily and the yellow jewel cuts into his hand. The sudden pain is distant and interesting, and then he remembers: This is MY PAIN. I AM IN PAIN. I EXIST.
Serpent_Ebb looks at Ali critically. "I didn't like that, and I don't like making promises, and I certainly don't like you very much right now. Don't do that again."
Serpent_Ebb: "But also, thank you. I am interested to see where this goes."
Ali: "Unless something goes very wrong, I will not have to."
Ali holds out the hand that had touched Serpent Ebb. In it is a crystal orb, full of boiling water. Two snakes duel each other within the orb, one purple and one of many colors.
Ali: "This is your Ring Grace."
Ali: 'With this, you may impose your vision on the chaos you call the Wyld."
Serpent_Ebb touches the sphere exploratorily. "This is my what?"
Ali: "Your Ring. This is your declaration of self. It is what Serpent Ebb consists of, apart from a transient bundle of skin and bone."
Serpent_Ebb passes his fingers into the water and lets the snakes twine round his fingers. "I am that?" He thinks he can hear them whispering.
Serpent_Ebb: "Now I can forge chaos into the order of my choosing. Then let sunlight be the cause of flowers." He disturbs a flap of the tent to let a ray of light in.
Ali: "It is a metaphor for you. Or perhaps you contain it, as a text contains a chapter."
Ali: The tent flap swings wide open, and a beam of sunlight clears the smoky interior, refracting in rainbow colors off the spilled tea.
Ali: "You learn quickly."
Serpent_Ebb: "The first thing we learn is how to learn."
Serpent_Ebb pours himself some more. "I find it useful."
Ali: "Then you will have no difficulty with my third gift."
Ali: A wind whistles through the flap, redolent with spices, and a few grains of sand disarrange themselves over the carpets and rugs. Then a few more. Then a torrent of sand sweeps away the tent, covers the fabrics, erodes the table into nothingness. Serpent Ebb finds himself sitting on a dune, holding his teacup.
Ali sits across from him, gazing into his palm.
Ali lowers his hand to Serpent Ebb's gaze. In it rests a tiny silver scorpion, polished and gleaming like moonlight. It scuttles slightly and clacks its claws at him.
Ali: "A serpent is a poisonous beast. Here is another."
Ali: "Let me tell you a story. The story of the Argent Scorpion..."
Serpent_Ebb strokes the creature's head gently and offers it his palm to crawl onto.
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