Esie contacted to me to let me know I didn’t need to share my thoughts with her about the meeting right away. Instead, she said I should gather my thoughts together and come see her when I had time in the next day or two.
It felt like another test and it made my hackles rise. Esie had helped me out in the past, there was no doubt about that, and she was friendly when many other whisper women hadn’t been, but I didn’t like feeling like I was just dancing to her whims. Ever since I went to the inner valleys her tests had become more openly apparent and frequent. It was as if she, or the Lady of Calm Waters, had decided they needed to knew what role I could play in their little group or how much I could be pushed before I said enough. Or both.
Well, enough was enough.
If she wanted to know my response she could have it now. She didn’t need the chance to observe me or test whether I would go straight to Juniper with everything I had learned. Juniper would learn the truth one way or another, but there was little point in telling her now when there was little enough we could do to act on the information. Besides, Esie wasn’t the only one who could ask questions, and her answers would inform my own.
It was getting late but I went to her second home first since that was where I was used to finding her now. But her garden full of dangerous plants was empty along with the storage dome. When I went to her regular residence it was the same story. Apparently, Esie was keeping busy after the meeting. I tried sending her a whisper on the wind and then a second, in case the first failed, but she didn’t answer.
Stymied, I stood on her balcony and tried to figure out my next move. I didn’t want to wait to give her my report since that’s what she wanted me to do, but I also couldn’t give a report to someone I couldn’t find. Well, if I had the materials I could write down my basic thoughts but then I wouldn’t be able to see her reactions and I’d run the risk of someone else finding the message if I left it behind. And my current skill with wind whispering wasn’t good enough to give a full report either.
In the end, it came down to two options: either I could wait where I was with the expectation that Esie would come home to sleep at some point or I could head back to my own bedroll and try contacting Esie again tomorrow at a more reasonable time.
I wasn’t in the mood to be reasonable. I had just watched and heard one thing after another that I wasn’t supposed to know and I still didn’t know why I was involved. Having questions and no answers didn’t sit well with me, especially since the last time that happened with my patron and her emissary I ended up in the clutches of a wish maker.
I settled down against the curve of her balcony, so I could watch the entrance to her home while being less conspicuous to anyone who might pass by. I ignored the fact that I had a comfortable bedroll waiting for me that I could easily shadow walk to and that I still had lessons tomorrow I should be alert for. Esie had said I should come when I had time during the next day or two and I had time now.
While I waited for Esie to make an appearance, I split my attention and turned most of it inward to my memory tent. Now that I no longer had the sprawl of plants going to the horizon I had room to work with other things that caught my attention. Still, I couldn’t quite bring myself to focus on the meager patch I had consolidated my poison knowledge to. Not when the knowledge I was learning from Esie couldn’t yet hide the hacked apart nature of the plants from my previous training.
Instead, I focused on creating a space for my growing knowledge of the turmoil happening in the Swirling Waters delta and a narrow, framing plot for how Esie, the Lady of Calm Waters, and I might relate to it, including my suspicions on their motivations for getting involved.
I would have loved a map of the region, but without one I created a vague outline of what I assumed the delta could like based on what I heard. It was more to help me organize my thoughts rather than anything that could help geographically.
Hordes of fish and the other monsters I had faced filled the sea beyond the delta while a large tribe of people that mostly looked like Juniper and her mother filled the delta. I sprinkled a few squads of whisper women in there as well.
Then I set about assimilating the other information I had learned: the frozen channels, rough terrain and tired fighters, the horde pressing into the waterways, and so on. I created symbolic fights and posed conversations so I could have a shorthand to reference for the relationships between the different groups. In one a group of grinning tribesfolk ambushed a group of fish soldiers and in another I had three tribespeople lowering their heads to Juniper’s mother who in turn was giving a whisper woman the side eye. I even put a giant curled up snake in one corner for lack of any better idea of what the Water Frond Snake could be.
On the edges of my imaginary map, I hooked bits of information that didn’t lend themselves well to being visualized yet and set up up statues of everyone who had been present at the meeting, including Hana and the High Priestess. I also made statues for Juniper and me since we were getting drawn in by the others.
It painted an abstract, grim picture. Through sheer numbers and time the Lady Blue’s soldiers could win out over the delta’s defenders unless something was done to deter them from continuously sending reinforcements. There was also the commonalities between this sudden, intense attack and the fight on the shore. If all the fighting really was a distraction though, I was glad for our goddess’s apathy over the Lady Blue’s cruelty towards her creatures.
Given the importance of defending the delta and the river that created it, I was a bit surprised most of the fight had been left to the tribesfolk there rather than whisper women. Whisper women tended to keep their affairs to themselves, but it did make sense to have another fighting force when, otherwise, nearly all of the Peacekeepers would likely be needed to defend the delta, or even just the last defense at river’s mouth. If that happened then threats would be free to act elsewhere.
Which, perhaps, was the purpose of all the fighting, to overwhelm the tribesfolk so they were forced to call in the Peacekeepers and keep them from other posts. But I didn’t have the necessary information to know what the Lady Blue might target instead.
If the fighting wasn’t a distraction then there had to be a reason why the Lady Blue thought taking the fight to the delta and then the Seedling Palace was worth the fight now. That there was some weakness she thought she could exploit.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
It made me think of the visions I had during my dark vision trial. Fish and Shore Eaters invading a forest; the Seedling Palace broken and splintered with an army of shamble men before it.
But, surely, this situation couldn’t be that. Not the second vision, at least. That one had also contained a scarred old woman among the shamble men and my gut insisted that woman had been me. And even if that wasn’t true, it was lunacy to think the Seedling Palace could be destroyed while the goddess breathed—and goddesses don’t die.
Perhaps, in the vein of crazy ideas, the sea creatures might have a slim chance of threatening the Seedling Palace if the Lady Blue got involved directly in the fight, but there was no precedent for it that I could think of. The demigoddess’s wail might enough to make a person’s soul shudder and she might capsize every attempt to travel through her watery territory, but she never seemed to tear at the shore with her minions. Perhaps because she knew that was a step further than what the goddess could tolerate or because she didn’t want to waste her effort on simply being a nuisance.
The Lady Blue had already proven she had the capacity to be a cunning enemy and it made me uneasy to wonder why she was pushing the fight now. In some ways she already had the upper hand between the sheer numbers of her forces and the adaptations she had made to them so they could infiltrate the land while we had yet to glimpse more than the surface of her domain.
I’d have to look into whether there were any other areas of interest that the fight at the delta might be distracting us from. Falling for the same misdirection tactic again would be the height of idiocy even if the entire coastline could be suspect.
Esie arrived home in the small hours of the night. I was struggling to stay wake at that point after the late night I had before setting up my spying post for the meeting, but I jerked to attention when she stepped in front of her doorway.
My mentor caught the movement and stopped untying the knot holding the entrance flap closed. She shifted and I had the sudden image of a poisoned needle sticking out of my neck.
“It’s me,” I said. Not the most eloquent, but I didn’t feel like surviving something unpleasant and that was what spilled out.
Esie immediately relaxed and her customary smile slipped onto her lips. “Had so many thoughts you couldn’t wait?”
“Something like that.”
She chuckled and finished untying the entrance flap. She held it open for me. “Let’s hear them then.”
I slipped past her and into her home. It wasn’t cluttered or austere, nor did it have the small personal effects that Mishtaw had acquired during her travels, the things that reminded her she was home. Esie’s home was serviceable with her low table to sit at, sleeping area, and enough space for a small group to rest in, but there wasn’t really anything that marked it as hers. Really, her second home with the poisoner’s garden had much more of a presence than her actual home. It was if she was so used to enjoying distant beauty, between her enjoyment of the stars and viewing artwork around the Seedling Palace, that she forgot to bring any of it into her home.
I settled at the table while Esie splashed water on her face from a bowl in one corner and plopped a different bowl of dried fruit on the table between us as she settled down opposite of me.
Originally, I had planned slowly lead into my questions and suspicions, but I was tired and the way she sat there smiling gently at me as if I was some unexpected amusement made it more than apparent that any subtlety I might be able to summon at the moment wasn’t any match for her conversation skills.
So I opted for blunt force instead. “Are you baiting a trap with the delta or is the Lady Blue striking at a weakness we thought was covered?” I thought for a moment and then added, “Or is the trap being strained beyond its limits?”
Esie’s smile froze in place for a moment before she reached for a bit of dried fruit and ate it. “The delta has always had strategic importance.”
An intentional trap then. A point of obvious weakness to concentrate the Lady Blue’s forces so that the rest of the coastline was less likely to be targeted. Otherwise, with the wealth of different blessings available as well as the goddess’s own powers, the delta likely could have been neutralized generations ago.
However, now that trap was having unintentional consequences since the Lady Blue’s forces had started to ignore the rules of the game. It was becoming a weakness in truth. Now there were generations of tribesfolk living there, devoting their lives to its defense, and any wholesale method to remove the delta’s risk would likely end their lives too. Not to mention that if the river was rerouted or otherwise changed from the delta we would lose the defenses entrenched there and possibly make it a child’s walk for any invading forces to charge up to the Seedling Palace.
I wouldn’t be surprised if originally monsters had been allowed through the defenses while a token resistance was raised to give the Lady Blue a sense progress was being made, but that now monsters that hadn’t been selected were forcing their way up the river.
The thing that made the delta such an enticing trap for the Lady Blue, its proximity and connection to the First Shore Lake and the Seedling Palace, was now twisting it into a long term trap for us. We couldn’t abandon it, but neither could we keep adequately defending it.
“Why are you testing the others in the meeting? Why would the High Priestess allow that? I doubt you had them all come just as a front so that Juniper’s mother felt like she was being listened to.”
“Appeasing people can have powerful results.” Esie leaned forward and rested her chin on her palm. “But what makes you think I was testing them?”
I glowered at her. “It seems to be something of a hobby of yours.”
She lifted her eyebrows. “Not a habit?”
My glower intensified. “It’s too intentional for that.”
“I do like to learn things.” She shrugged one shoulder. “More people made for more insights.”
“But why were you even leading the meeting? The Lady of Calm Waters might have influence but you’re not a sect head or second.”
Esie sat back and chuckled. “Not everyone likes to be in charge and I’ve found others appreciate my ability to keep a meeting from stagnating.”
I didn’t doubt that there was more to it than that. Esie might be able to pull people’s focus to her and keep a conversation moving, but there was likely something more to it. Something that had to do with the Lady of Calm Waters.
“Why are you getting involved? It doesn’t seem like the Lady of Calm Waters has a long standing history of helping with the delta.”
Esie’s tone gained an edge. “Our mistress has a long standing history of protecting the people of this territory. This is another facet of that.”
I made a mental note of her word choice. That the Lady of Calm Waters protected the people—not the goddess or Her territory. That held some significance I could feel but that I wasn’t entirely sure of the meaning yet.
I crossed my arms. “Fine, but this is still new.”
“Perhaps.” Esie considered and then asked, “Not going to ask why I involved you in the meeting?”
It was my turn to shrug and pretend like I saying more than I was. “You want me to involve Juniper.”
“Let’s not forget your powers of observation and the fact that you were directly involved with the discovery of what was going on the fight on the southern shore.”
Flattery. I wouldn’t fall for it. “You want my thoughts? Then tell me why the High Priestess is already involved.”
“You’d ignore the favor?”
“I’d ask for information to provide you my best answer.”
“She’s worried about the delta like the rest of us.”
That was a partial answer at best, but I doubted I get a clearer one from her. So I gave my own incomplete answer. “I’ll give my report on the meeting in two days. I have things I need to think on.”
Esie didn’t stop me as I left her home. All in all, I had confirmed some things and was still in the dark about others. She could have my report after I tried to confirm a few more things.