What the Imperator is to the Empire, the Grand Spider of the Blind Fathers is to the fortress city of Synthos: a living deity, who’s very word is law. Though he has not yet ascended into the Heavens, there are those who worship him as though he had. And why not? The learned Theologians and Hierophants of Tamara claim the gods can see all, and if that is so, then surely there are none that see more or farther than Archon Katsura.
— Taylan El-Sharif, High Chronicler of Synthos
***
Zhao Jing padded silently along the wide boulevard which sliced through Synthos like the edge of a sword, making her way toward the Exalted Fortress of Oracles. A disquieting sense of unease, of fear, set heavy in the pit of her stomach. It was a feeling she wasn’t at all accustomed to. The Oathbound were renowned for their burning zeal and implacable bravery. Fear had been beaten out of her long years ago as a young Steel.
Yet all of her training and her countless missions couldn’t dispel the disquiet in her soul.
“Kalmir albi wa aqli. Bu seyr haddi,” she muttered beneath her breath, fruitlessly attempting to master her emotions lest they get the better of her. Be cool of heart, clear of thought, resolute of soul. This is the Path.
The familiar phrase rolled through her thoughts as she instinctively cycled mana along her channels, seeking the calm within her mind. That perfect place where she was one with her god and free of all self-doubt and uncertainty. The exercise was an old one, a dear friend who had walked hand-in-hand with her since her first days at the Crucible. It rarely failed her. But then, she rarely received a dark summons in the middle of the night by Archon Katsura.
This was not the first time she had been summoned to the Fortress of Oracles and it likely wouldn’t be the last, but such familiarity never made it any easier. The master of the Blind Fathers set her teeth on edge.
The whole Sect did.
Staring at her from empty sockets, pale flesh stretched tight over concave hollows where eyes should be, but were not. Their elders, blind to the world yet seeing all. Knowing things, they ought not to know. That no one, save the gods themselves, ought to know. It would raise the hackles of any sane person. There were those in Synthos who worshiped Archon Katsura—even made offerings in his name at shrines and spirit houses scattered across the city.
The whole affair reeked of heresy to Zhao Jing, but she held her tongue.
Among mortal flesh, only Imperator Serafel, the Sorcerer-God, was entitled to make such claims to divinity. Still, if the Jade Paladin, High Commander of the Oathbound, was the Right Hand of the Imperator, Archon Katsura was his Left. The favored child of a living god. Thus, the Grand Spider was untouchable. Surely the Imperator knew best and so long as his Glory tolerated the Archon’s false exaltation, it was not Zhao Jing’s place to speak against him.
Not that there was anything Zhao Jing could do, even if she had a mind to.
Although she was of the Peerless, Katsura was an Archon. He may not have been a living deity, but he was the next best thing. The sheer weight of his aura alone would be enough to grind her to dirt, should he will it so.
Even contemplating such rebellious notions was a dangerous thing.
There were those among the Blind Fathers who could pluck the very thoughts from one’s mind. They said there were no secrets from their order, and she believed there was at least some truth to the words. Though she was sure they had their limits, she didn’t know what they were and had no desire to find out. Despite the fact that the Blind Fathers made her skin crawl, Zhao Jing knew better than to cross them. Only a fool would be so brash, and she hadn’t gotten to her station by being foolish.
At last she reached the base of the Exalted Fortress of Oracles, which loomed high above every other building in Synthos. It rose up like an unbroken mountain. A monument and testament to the power of the Xenochs.
Its walls were stark and black, shot through with glittering veins of gold and streaks of silver that reflected the glow of the moonlight. Those streaks made the building look as though it had been carved from the night sky itself, though Zhao Jing knew it was marble, called up by an army of Earth Cultivators all working in perfect harmony. Almost as though it had been sculpted from the bones of the earth, instead of built by the hands of men.
A thin tower, topped by a golden minaret jutted up from the top as though attempting to defy the heavens themselves. That was the High Seat of Archon Katsura. It was said that from such a vantage he could see the whole world.
A polished staircase sculpted from stone rose several hundred feet to a set of double doors large enough to accommodate the wild elephants that roamed the grasslands, west of the Dragon’s Teeth. Each step was inlaid with the sigil of the Blind Fathers. The Cultivators who had crafted the stairs had opted to use real gold, instead of paint. There were minor noble families who possessed less gold than the staircase of the Fortress of Oracles.
Only once in the past hundred years had anyone been stupid enough to attempt to scrape free the inlay. By the following day, the thief had been drawn and quartered in the public square, his legs and arms ripped from their sockets. Instead of perishing immediately, however, he’d been kept alive by the power of Body Cultivators as a wailing torso for months.
Such was the fate of all those who crossed the Cult.
Zhao Jing took the steps two and three at a time, flying upward faster than the mortal eye could follow.
She slowed only as she approached the grand wooden doors, reinforced with bands of heavy steel, and inlaid with even more gold filigree. Powerful inverted wards and boundary formations, visible only to those with the spiritual perception of an Obsidian Errant, swam in her vision. A few of the sigils she recognized, though most she didn’t. She spotted several that prevented scrying while others were carefully designed to keep wandering Uzra away.
A pair of Black Lancers flanked the doors, their dark breastplates gleaming against the silver ring mail beneath.
Each wore a conical helm, the edge wrapped with a length of fabric while a black and red Spirit Hawk Feather extended from the front. A chainmail veil, called an aventail, obscured everything but their eyes. Those helmets marked them as Black Lancers just as surely as the deadly obsidian spears each carried. Though they wore swords as well, those lances were the real threat, capable of maiming or killing even Twice-Forged Body Cultivators.
Zhao Jing’s fingers itched at the sight of the sleek weapons, and a sharp pang of nostalgia rippled through her. It had been decades since she’d removed the veil, but there were times she missed it dearly. Those had been hard days, but simpler in their way.
Both Lancers were Cultivators, though only Bronzes from the feel of their spiritual aura. She didn’t even need to inspect them to know they would be Wardens on one body path or another, as all the Lancers were. As she had been before being remade and ascending to the ranks of the Twice-Forged. They would be strong and fast, capable of healing quickly even from grievous wounds, and meticulously well-trained in martial combat.
That would be the extent of their powers, though. With her abilities, she could crush both of them under heel as easily as Archon Katsura could crush her, in turn.
Though she no longer wore the armor of a Lancer, they knew her on sight and popped to attention, offering crisp salutes, left fist to heart. That was no surprise. Every Cultivator in Synthos knew her. Few were the Paladins of the Oathbound. Fewer still were those of the Peerless. And only she, the Crimson Scythe, called Synthos home.
“Huntress Zhao,” one said, bowing at his waist, though never taking his eyes from her.
In most circles, it was considered polite for an inferior to drop their gaze. It was a symbol of submission, my life is in your hands, should you choose to take it, the gesture said. But the Black Lancers were different. They belonged, heart and soul, to Imperator Serafel. They were slaves, and he was their master. If the Imperator commanded it, any of the Black Lancers would slit their own throat without a moment of hesitation. It was a harsh vow, but it also offered a certain freedom.
They were his and his alone.
“The Grand Spider waits for you in his tower,” one of the guards said as he straightened. “He bids you hurry, Huntress. There’s a portal waiting to take you directly to his quarters.”
“Many thanks,” she replied, dipping her head a fraction of an inch as the great doors swung silently inward, seemingly of their own accord.
The grand foyer of the Fortress of Oracles was as bleak and spartan as the rest of the damned place. No art or statues. No tapestries or chairs to welcome visitors. The Fortress always made her think more of a dungeon than any of the lavish manors most sects operated out of. The one exception was the golden sigil of their order, set so carefully into the marble floors. If the outer staircase contained more gold than many minor noble houses, the foyer crest held more than most major noble houses.
That was intentional.
A testament to the visiting aristocracy that the Cult of the Blind Fathers could not be bought. Could not be bartered with. Or reasoned with. That the Cult was so far above them, that the entirety of their wealth was fit only for dusty boots.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Zhao Jing ignored this and headed deeper into the complex. She made for a small alcove, guarded by a simple door.
The door opened to an octagonal chamber, the walls and floors covered with elaborate scripts and spatial boundary formations. The vast golden insignia set into the foyer floor didn’t impress her, but this room—rarely if ever seen by visitors—left her in awe every time she stepped within. The rune work was that of a master inscriber. The whole room buzzed with potent mana and powerful beast cores dotted the floors and walls, powering the arcane machinery.
Although many of the larger cities possessed an Aethergate capable of allowing those on the business of the Imperator to move vast distances in the blink of an eye, only the Blind Fathers had their own private Aethergate. That was wealth. That was power.
A lowly Bronze Arcanist attended the room.
After a few brief words, Zhao Jing moved into the center of the elaborate ring, and waited patiently as the attendant used the vast metallic control panel to input the temporal coordinates. Some sigils flared to life, while others grew dark. Lines of liquid mana blurred across the floor as the Aethergate cycled ambient mana and prepared to rip the fabric of space and time.
Finally, when the machine was primed and the coordinates set, the Attendant channeled a hair-fine thread of Aether into the great machine. The ground vibrated and the air buzzed, the familiar scent of ozone filling Zhao Jing’s nostrils. It was the same smell that accompanied a lightning storm.
In a flash, the world went white, the octagonal chamber vanished, and she was floating through the Dream realm. Neither in this world, nor truly in the next. This was the in-between place, which existed between the sleeping world and the waking one. Swirling purple light wrapped around her arms and legs, slithered along her torso, and ever-so-gently caressed her face. There was a long, claustrophobic moment where she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t breathe.
Then, as quickly as it had come, the sensation passed.
In the span of a heartbeat, the void was gone, and she found herself swaying unsteadily in a vast circular room with no walls or ceiling. Or so it appeared at first glance.
The Aethergate had effortlessly whisked her from the base of the Fortress all the way to its precipice, dropping her directly into Archon Katsura’s private quarters at the very top. She was inside the minaret.
From the outside, the stately dome appeared to be gold, but from inside it was the finest spelled glass. Stronger than granite or steel, but completely transparent. The stars above were so close it seemed she could reach out and snatch one from the heavens if she wanted to, and the dome offered an unparalleled view of the city below.
This, she reasoned, was what the gods must see from their heavenly perches.
Archon Katsura sat at the far end of the dome in a stately chair, which anyone else might reasonably call a throne. Though the Archon never did. Thrones were for kings, and he was no king. Rather, he was but a humble servant of the Imperator. Or so he always claimed. Like the rest of the fortress, the throne—which was most certainly not a throne—was crafted from implacable obsidian and made of hard lines and sharp angles.
Sitting on the floor, directly in front of the Archon, was a great crystal seer orb filled with green mist. Ghostly, half-seen faces materialized in the noxious fog every so often before disappearing back into the murk. The orb was unsettling, but not nearly as unsettling as the man on the throne.
The fear in her belly intensified against her will.
Archon Katsura was spear slender and abnormally tall, almost as though gravity was incapable of fully binding him to the earth. The man wore dark robes, cinched tight at the waist with a length of plain cord. Although his manner of dress was rather unremarkable, especially for one of his exalted rank, the Archon didn’t need something so mundane as clothing to impress visitors. Eight spindly silver legs protruded from his back, curling in the air like skeletal fingers. He also had both too few eyes and too many eyes all at once.
Like the Elder priests of the Cult, smooth skin dimpled over his eye sockets, while six insectoid eyes ran across his forehead, each one glittering like a living jewel.
Archon Katsure was named the Grand Spider and it was easy to understand why. Standing before the scrutiny of his utterly inhuman gaze indeed felt like standing before an enormous spider, one weaving a vast and unknowable web.
As always, she felt like a hapless fly, caught in a silky strand.
Although the Archon resembled a monster, Zhao Jing knew that to be false. Or half true, at best. Progressing along the Twelve-Fold Path, especially among Cultivators in the heavenly ranks, was a tricky and uncertain endeavor and the way forward was shrouded in mystery and speculation. For the most part, advancing from lowly Iron Aspirant through Diamond Envoy—the last of the six Earth-ranked levels—was a well-chronicled process, largely consistent amongst Cultivators regardless of Path or Affinity.
Ascending to the Heavenly-Ranked Realms, however?
That was another matter entirely.
And the number of Cultivators who knew the secret to advancing past Paragon could likely be counted on two hands. Legends told of soul bargains with powerful deities. Of human sacrifice. Of binding one’s core to powerful Relics or ancient divine beasts. Some tales were clearly fabrications of fancy and others were blatant heresy. All the stories agreed on one point, however: those who surpassed Paragon lost some of their humanity as they moved closer toward immortality.
Zhao Jing dropped to her knees, eyes averted, and pressed her fists firmly against the floor as she bowed so deeply her nose brushed the cool marble.
For a long beat, all-consuming silence settled over the room, and she had a terrible vision of the Archon descending from his throne and looping off her head with a casual flick of his wrist. That or worse. Wrapping her up in great strands of silk and feasting on her over days and weeks and months.
It was an irrational thought, yet she couldn’t banish it from her mind. Not completely.
Finally, however, Archon Katsure spoke, his voice smooth, slick, and cold as a serpent’s heart. “Rise my Huntress. My Crimson Scythe. Rise and be welcome.”
“As you will it, your Grace,” she murmured before standing.
The knot of fear loosened and dissipated somewhat, though it didn’t flee entirely. She was in the presence of a predator and her survival instinct sensed it. Still, she was not in trouble, that much seemed apparent. The Blind Fathers had not uncovered some secret sin for which she was to be punished.
No, if she was here, then they had a target for her. A mission.
The Archon stretched out a slender hand, his long fingers so much like the spidery legs extending from his back. The large seer’s orb before him flared to brilliant life as he casually fed a torrent of mana into the ball. The green mists danced and flickered for a beat, before finally resolving into a hazy image. Things were oddly distorted as though she were seeing through the eyes of another.
Then he was there, materializing in a flash like a creature of legend. Edriah tev Kular. The Bastard Son of Blood and Sand. Friend. Lover. Betrayer.
Her blood ran cold, then hot as another unexpected wave of emotion slammed into her like a furious hammer blow. How long had it been since she’d seen Rift? Years? Certainly. Perhaps even a decade, though not two. Rumors of his exploits never failed to reach the court or circulate amongst the noble houses, who seemed to loathe the man almost as much as they were infatuated by him.
By the time such rumors could be investigated, though, the Outlaw Cultivator was always long gone. Assuming he had ever been there at all—which he often wasn’t. He and that woman of his, Chains, were masters of duplicity. Further helped along by that Muzhry outcast who they dragged along like a pet.
But this now… This was different. No false trails. No half-heard whispers. This was real.
She watched in begrudging awe as Rift fell upon a contingent of imperial scouts, cutting them down with ruthless and bloody efficiency. He had always been fast, but gods above, she could barely follow his strikes. His technique had evolved over the years. He was a master artist, and his canvass was human flesh. She caught the occasional glimpse of Chains, dancing behind him, her iconic kusarigama flashing out in sweeping arcs.
Zhao Jing was in no way surprised to see the thief, though it irked her more than she wanted to admit.
“When?” she asked, her eyes narrowing, anger rising to a low boil.
“Not but a few hours ago outside a southern border village called Telrala,” the Archon replied slyly, “only a handful of miles from the blighted lands.”
“If you had ironclad intel about his location, why wasn’t I informed sooner?” she snapped, momentarily forgetting her place or to whom she spoke.
The Archon didn’t seem to mind and offered her a feral smile. “That is the truly interesting part. We weren’t hunting him at all. Last we heard tell, he was holed up in the hills outside of Kenza. This”—he gestured at the unfolding scenes of death and carnage, played on a loop—“was a rather fortuitous coincidence, at least on our end.
“A group of Scouts and an accompanying Watcher where tasked by the Council to aid the Paragon of Ruinsworn in an expedition sanctioned by no one less than the Imperator himself. The Council had reason to believe that Telrala was home to an ancient Ydrissid artifact necessary to complete the task.” The man cocked an eyebrow, which was disconcerting without normal human eyes. “Edriah attacked the patrol, seemingly unprovoked.”
“So you believe he’s hunting the same relic?” she asked, though it was as much of a statement as it was a question.
“The circumstances appear to indicate as much, wouldn’t you agree?”
She grunted, a thousand scenarios running through her head.
Rift was an enigma, and his thoughts and motives were difficult to suss out even for the most experienced hunters. But there is one thing she knew about him, certain as the sands. Edriah tev Kular craved power, above all else. Despite being broken, cursed, and a blasphemous heretic, the man pursued advancement along the Twelve-Fold Path with relentless devotion. Although she could think of several different scenarios that might’ve brought Rift to such a place, the Archon was right. This could not be a mere coincidence.
Finally, at long last, her god had provided her with a chance to serve the man justice.
“Any idea where he is headed, your Grace?” she asked.
The Archon’s smile widened, showing far too many teeth. They were all filed to sharp points. “I would not be so beloved by the Imperator, if I couldn’t manage at least that much.”
His spidery hand disappeared into the wide sleeve of his robe and reappeared a moment later with a scroll clutched tightly in his fist. He tossed it to her without preamble or ceremony and she effortlessly snatched it from the air.
“You will find everything you need within, including a brief overview of the Paragon’s mission,” he continued. “The Aethergate Attendant on duty has standing orders to bear you to Nassir this very night. There are already provisions, transportation, and a squadron of Black Lancers waiting for you there. You are bound for the provincial outpost city of Bhaleel.” He paused, all six of his insectoid eyes burrowing into her, as though looking through her. Into her soul. “Move with all speed and haste, my scythe. It may be another decade before we have such an opportunity again.”
“Of course, your Grace,” she said, saluting, fist to heart as she bowed her head. “It shall be as you say. I will make him bleed for his crimes.”
“I have no doubt. Now go. Let your feet be wings and your blade run red with the defiler’s blood.”