Lord Cymryn,
The Emperor has declared that there shall be a celebration of the defeat of the World Eaters, honoring those who hunted them down. It will be small; only Imperius will celebrate, and it may yet be limited to only the Palace; the Emperor has not decided yet. World Shaman Senkovar should not be difficult to convince, but make certain that Lord Serenity attends as well.
I believe that meeting Lord Serenity may be the primary reason for the celebration. The Emperor is intrigued by the reports you sent about Earth. Do not ask if he has intentions to conquer the planet; he has not yet made his intentions clear.
The date of the celebration has not yet been set, since it cannot occur until after you reach Imperius.
I am also anticipating meeting Lord Serenity. If he is as impressive as your reports indicate, it will be an interesting meeting and possibly a large mark in your favor to have managed him as well as you have. In combination with the success of the World Eaters mission, I believe your grandfather wants to reward you with the opportunity to enter the Imperial Priesthood; if you turn it down, I’m certain he’ll find another reward for you instead.
Congratulations, Cymryn. Now all you actually have to do is advance in Tier.
Baron Restali
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It didn’t really take all that long to talk the White Tiger mother, Hiitska, into retrieving her cubs and relocating to Earth; all Serenity had to do was bribe her with the Black Tortoise shells they’d recovered from Eitchen. Serenity originally wanted to relocate them to Tzintkra, but it turned out that there was a reason she’d skipped the planet even though it was right next to Berinath: Hiitska was sensitive to Death mana. It didn’t hurt her more than it hurt others, but it made her feel ill.
Even after she was convinced, it took time to actually gather up her cubs and get them to Earth. Serenity took the time to make certain that Hiitska knew what would happen if she went after Earth’s World Core. He also used the time to set a few spells on her to monitor her, along with small tracking devices on her and her cubs. Serenity wasn’t quite willing to believe that she was completely reformed and he had no compunctions about allowing Tek to gift them with mana-powered devices that could reach a satellite and report their positions. Aide would have to set up the monitoring; Serenity didn’t quite trust Tek to stay on task.
They were on their way to Suratiz for Serenity to fulfill the “promise” he made to the World Shaman to visit the moon when Cymryn sprung the idea of an Imperial celebration on them. No matter how much Serenity grumbled about it, he knew he wasn’t going to win once Cymryn got Senkovar, Rissa, and both of Serenity’s parents on board with the idea.
Despite the way it made him lose the argument about a trip into the Empire, Serenity couldn’t bring himself to regret picking up Lex and Bethany while they were on Earth. Lex distinctly wanted to see his ancestors’ world and Bethany claimed she couldn’t resist watching him visit. Serenity was fairly certain she just wanted to spend time with her husband, but it wasn’t like he could blame her for that. He felt the same way about spending time with Rissa.
The trip to Suratiz was longer than Serenity expected; it was fairly close to Imperial territory, even though it wasn’t officially part of the Empire. It gave him time to work through the information Althyr gave him on phoenixes. Serenity was fairly confident that what he needed was in there, but it wasn’t nearly as straightforward as Althyr made it seem. The rituals were also very involved if you didn’t have a phoenix; Serenity was going to have to do every single one of them the hard way, which meant he absolutely had to understand them. Yes, he’d use Arcane Affinity mana, but that wouldn’t be the same as using Fire or Life, which seemed to be what they expected of non-phoenixes.
Serenity listened to the communication between Captain Tsa’ikeet and Suratiz with only a fraction of his attention. The moon and the planet it orbited were far more interesting.
The moon Suratiz didn’t orbit a nice, blue-white marble like Earth or even something that might have been a blue-white marble once upon a time like Tzintkra. Instead, it orbited a massive ball of swirling orange, white, and red with hints of green, blue, and purple. There was even a giant circulation that reminded Serenity of Jupiter’s eye. Whatever world it was, it wasn’t a rocky inner planet; that was a gas giant.
“Unknown ship, this is Suratiz Control. Please identify yourself.”
“Suratiz Control, this is Captain Tsa’ikeet of the Death’s Wings, requesting landing permission. Be advised that we have World Shaman Senkovar Et’Tart on board.”
There was no ring like Saturn’s, but there were a large number of moons. One of the moons was at least a dozen times the size of the others; it even seemed to have some tiny moons of its own, though Serenity suspected they were more like temporarily captured asteroids than actual moons. It was the sort of blue-white Serenity expected of a full planet with both water and clouds, though large stretches were green or, oddly enough, purple.
“Death’s Wings, please repeat: did you say that World Shaman Et’Tart is returning to Suratiz?”
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“Yes, Suratiz Control, that is correct.”
As they came closer to the planet, details became more clear. The blue was indeed water, while the green and purple were the land surface; somehow, the moon seemed to have a lot of plants that were green and a lot that were purple.
“Death’s Wings, you have landing permission and immediate priority at Spaceport Prime; follow the mana beacon. Will you require a runway or will you be landing vertically?”
“”Suratiz Control, a vertical landing is standard.”
As they came in to land, Serenity discovered that that was only partly accurate. The green plants were indeed the land surface. The purple plants, however, floated in the air. They seemed to be especially common near cliffs, on the side where that put them well above the ground level. They made the approach interesting, because the Death’s Wings was directed to take a specific route that avoided sudden ground elevation changes; at least, that seemed to be Simurgh’s opinion on the matter and Serenity had to believe the ship’s AI.
Spaceport Prime turned out to be directly inside what had to be a large city, on top of a mesa that was nearly as tall as the buildings that surrounded it. The area surrounding the mesa was heavily populated with floating purple plants, which lent the entire scene an otherworldly feel.
They all grouped up at the ramp. As it opened, Senkovar smiled a clearly practiced smile at the group. “I can’t remember if I told you or not, but please don’t try to use offworld flyers here. Suratiz flyers are better for heights and work better in the open here; the Asura’s Eye can interfere with flyers that aren’t built for it.” He gestured up to the planet above their heads. Serenity assumed that the Asura’s Eye was the giant storm on the surface of the gas giant.
It was a short walk into the spaceport building. They were barely inside when a man in heavily decorated robes approached them. He stopped short when got close to the group. “World Shaman Et’Tart?” Hos voice squeaked as he spoke.
Senkovar nodded slowly. “I am. You are…?”
“Ah, I’m just a customs inspector. Of course anyone you want to bring with you can enter.” The man looked nervous.
“That surely wasn’t why you were hurrying over here?” Senkovar’s voice was calm and slow but the sheer doubt it exuded was obvious enough that even Serenity could hear it.
“Um,” the man said. He clearly wasn’t ready to deal with Senkovar. Serenity might have felt pity for him under other circumstances, but in this case he rather wished the man would grow a backbone. It would be faster. “I’m supposed to register mana signatures for all arrivals?”
“Then we should do that,” Senkovar stated with a smile that should have looked reassuring but somehow came off as predatory.
It was a process Serenity had been through before, though it wasn’t all that common; only highly organized governments bothered to record mana signatures from transients. The most common use was for contracts that weren’t enforced by the Voice, as a way to verify who the parties were if there was a later dispute.
Well, in many places the practice was also used for marriages. That wasn’t something Serenity had much experience with, since he’d never formally married anyone. He had, however, attended weddings so he’d seen it done.
All a mana signature took, technically, was a properly treated mana-storing enchantment and the person donating the signature to express a tiny bit of mana. There were a number of ways to achieve the enchantment; in this case, it was done with metal embossed onto the surface of a sheet of vellum. The other identifying information about the person was filled in elsewhere on the sheet.
Everything went fine for the first three mana impressions, but when Serenity’s mother gave hers, something strange happened. White spread from the symbol across the paper. At first, it looked like a pair of spikes, but it fairly quickly settled into a shape that looked more like a pair of wings.
The customs inspector paled. He glanced at Bethany, then turned to Senkovar. “World Shaman, your companion …”
Senkovar chuckled. “I know. I’m a little surprised the signature page caught it; it’s not supposed to be that sensitive. Pass her through on my authority.”
The customs inspector bowed his head and placed the paper on top of the others before handing the next sheet of signature vellum to Serenity’s father. “Please fill out your name and inject your mana in the center of the symbol.”
Lex’s symbol also changed unexpectedly. His didn’t gain wings; instead, the two spikes were silver and looked an awful lot like the horns Senkovar and Serenity shared. The customs inspector seemed surprised again and glanced between Lex and Senkovar, but this time he didn’t say anything.
Senkovar set a hand on Serenity’s shoulder when he started to move up next. “You should go last or we’ll never get this done.”
Serenity tilted his head and whispered to Senkovar. “It’s testing bloodlines? I thought that was more difficult than this.”
Senkovar shook his head. “Only a few specific bloodlines. If he’d taken my mana signature, you’d have seen the same horns as your father’s showed; that’s the Suras bloodline. Any fairly strong Suras will show it, even if we have no purebloods these days. Almost all Et’Tarts have the Suras bloodline.”
Serenity supposed that made sense. “Why did it show wings for Mom?”
Senkovar gave a sign and glanced up at the planet above them. After a moment, he turned his attention back to Serenity. “There were two species on our original home world. Only the Suras came to Suratiz. We don’t know what happened to the other. Your mother isn’t the only one with their blood to turn up over the centuries since then, but she’s one of only a few.”
Rissa was the last to go before Serenity. Like almost everyone else, her mana imprint didn’t show anything odd.
When Serenity pushed his mana into the paper, he felt something click. There wasn’t a small change near the imprint site; instead, the entire circle that should have held the imprint shifted to look like his sigil. No, a second look said that it was almost like his sigil. It was his sigil with the addition of a pair of silver horns, flanked by multicolored wings in his blue and purple coloration; the silver underside showed as well in a few places.
The customs inspector took one look at it and froze, even paler than he had been at the sight of Serenity’s mother’s sheet.