PART 1
Pandora Wen
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1
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THE SHADOW
Dawn broke above the nation of Junowa, radiating the light of two orange suns. New Saxshire is alive with the laughter of children, soon to be loosed from their lessons for the autumn break, and the Harvest Festival. Academy children amble through the streets at an even pace, in no hurry to their last day before the break. Exams are complete, and the Instructors, at least most of them, would be easy in their discipline this day. Banners go up in Hullwood and Hill Tree, while sun lamps are hung at every home in Tynehurst. Wine casks are opened to aerate, and the scent of exotic fermentation wafts on every breeze as it passes through the village green. The Harvest Festival is not for many days, and the Equinox is still a month off. But Junowans are known for their good humor, and will take any excuse for a feast day under the suns. Such as the commendations of their most promising youths. Days beneath the twin suns, Myshala and Bhazima, are long and bright in Junowa. So much the better to see that which hides in the shadows.
Pandora Wen has lived in those shadows for most of her life, pulled out of the light by the cruelty of causality. She was not special or exemplary. She was not chosen by destiny or fate. There is not now, nor has there ever been, any such thing. There is only Causality. Cause and effect.
Pandora knelt in a fallow farming plot, hunched over a pond as the water rippled far more than the breeze could muster. Rippled by the head of the woman Pandora held beneath the surface. She struggled ferociously, bucking like a mudhog in a festival pit. While Pandora held the woman’s left arm behind her back, the right one lashed out viciously. It alternated between firing gouts of air that gouged deep furrows in the dirt, and trying to grasp enough purchase on the muddy ground to push herself out of the water. The blades of air were growing weaker however, and none had come close to striking Pandora. Grappling was her specialty, after all. The woman must’ve realized how little of an effect her attacks were having, because she went back to clawing fruitlessly at the muck. Unfortunately for her, the mud surrounding the pond was so soft and pliant that it immediately gave way to her grasping fingers. The woman could find no purchase in that morass. It would not be long now. A good thing too. Pandora’s wrist was starting to get tired.
Couldn’t the bastards give her one day. They had to come for her on today of all days. And after that morning had started off so smoothly too. Pandora had kicked off her trussed and tousled bed sheets and shaken off the headache she often awoke with. Brought on by yet another fitful night of tossing and turning. She had donned her black and gold Beta Guild uniform, buttoning up the glittering silver buttons and nearly falling over as she struggled to get her left leg through the trousers. Pandora Wen, Born of Junowa under Myshala and Bhazima, was not a morning person.
She’d spent longer than usual readying herself before, leaving her old country home of stone and wood. Blacking her boots, polishing her spectacles, and doing up her hair had taken up precious minutes that she could not afford. She had no intention of being even the slightest bit late. It was not everyday that one completed the Testing and ascended into the ranks of the Central Krystariums elite BetaCorps. So she had donned her uniform as quickly as she could and sauntered out the door of the Wen residence without breakfast. Out the door, into the light of the twin suns.
Walking down the cobblestone walk of her family home, things had seemed ideal. None of the neighbors’ wooly ovi had wandered in through the open gate of their white picket fence. And there hadn’t been any gardeners out to slow her commute with inane small talk. There had, however, been a lone, dark-haired woman in a farmer’s overalls. One who always seemed to be behind Pandora, regardless of which path she chose to walk. Pandora could feel the pulses of the Ether within the woman, even from a distance. Even without her affinity, Pandora could still do that much at least. The pursuit had seemed casual enough at first, but when Pandora intentionally took a wrong turn down one street that would take back down a road she just left, it became clear that the woman’s path would mirror Pandora’s wherever she went. And so Pandora had led the woman to a nice, secluded spot.
That way they could hurry up and get this attempted assassination over with.
Even with the woman’s frantic death throes churning the waters, Pandora could see her own face in the bubbling pond. Her hair was tied up into a traditional Krystarian bun, disheveled by the fight but held together by the stylus from her uniform pocket. Her coppery skin and button nose were flushed with tension. And her full lips were drawn into a rictus grin. Her dark brown, hooded eyes were wet with unshed tears. Odd that she would still cry after all this time, that she would still feel the hollow pangs of guilt. Why should she feel any guilt for this woman’s death? She was an assassin after all. She had come to take Pandora’s life, and would have felt no remorse for doing so. Pandora need not feel any more guilt than the killer would have. But knowing all that, understanding the truth of her circumstances, didn’t make it any easier for Pandora to sleep at night. It was fortunate that Pandora wasn’t actually the one killing this woman. No, that was the other her. The tears streaming down her cheeks may have been Pandora’s, but that grin… That grin was most decidedly not.
The woman stopped struggling after about a minute, her thrashing becoming sluggish and unfocused. Still, Pandora continued to hold her head under the water for two more agonizingly long minutes. It took that long for Pandora’s life senses to determine that the woman was well and truly dead. Once the pulses of life finally stopped, Pandora rolled off of the woman, panting and fighting to catch her breath. She sighed, wiping the tears from her eyes and rolling off of her back. She got to her feet, dusted herself off, straightened her uniform. She’d nearly managed to pull herself together. Just before she turned away from the pond and proceeded to vomit into the dirt.
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“Oh stop it,” the other her muttered in the back of her head. “It isn’t the first time and Great Beyond knows it won’t be the last. You’re no farmer, so you needn’t act like you just spent the morning mucking stables and foaling calves.”
Pandora shook herself, spitting the foul taste into the dirt. “Easy for…,” She spat. “You to say. You’re not the one… who has to clean up the mess… when we’re done.” Shuddering, and wiping more tears from her eyes, Pandora stood up. She coughed, fighting back more bile as she stared down at the dead woman’s body. As much as she wished otherwise, Pandora still felt pity for her. She was an assassin, a killer, a monster who would have slew Pandora without a shred of pity. But what was Pandora, if not a monster of a different kind. In spite of herself, she mumbled a prayer to shepherd the dead through the abyss, into the Great Beyond. There were no twin candles to light, one for each of the suns, so words alone would have to do. She finished with a slurred, “In Sun and Shadow,” and a single clap of her hands.
The assassin looked to be about twenty-five, perhaps younger. Not much older than Pandora herself. She might have been pretty, if she hadn’t gone deathly pale with her head face down in the water. She had been a professional, almost certainly, if still young in her trade. Tougher than the others Pandora had been forced to deal with over the years. Pandora had disarmed her of no less than three weapons before forcing her into the pond, and each had been wielded with trained precision. Had it not been for her own training, and the voice in the back of her mind, it would have been Pandora laying face down in the water. Not the assassin. Choking back another fit of sickness, Pandora grabbed the woman by the legs and rolled her end over end into the pond.
Pale as a ghost, the woman sank immediately into the shoulder deep water. In life, her body would’ve been easily buoyant enough to drift on the surface of the pond. Her corpse however, drained of the life and light of the twin suns, was far heavier in death than it had been in life. Her flesh was now stone-gray and pallor, petrified by the transformation of death. Pandora watched her sink down into the deep end of the water, drifting deeper and deeper until she disappeared completely from view.
There had been no witnesses, fortunately. There never were. This farm was between masters at the moment, and it was off the beaten path for most residents of Tynehurst Village in New Saxshire. Luring the assassin here had been a calculated move on Pandora’s part. She could not have her neighbors knowing what she was, and what she was capable of. It was bad enough being the village’s pride and joy, the golden child. As much as she hated living up to everyone’s expectations, and putting on a brave face for her parents, being a pariah would be even worse. How would she even begin to stay sane under those conditions?
For some reason, the shadow within her laughed at that thought. Sighing, Pandora fell backwards into the dirt to wait. She waited a long time. It felt even longer, considering that she had places to be this morning. She always waited. But no one ever showed. No one came to question her, or help her clean up the mess. No one came to examine the body or spirit Pandora away to somewhere where she’d be safe. Just as no one ever came to her rescue. She’d always found that strange. The Oracle and her Prophets were surely watching her at all times. Her superiors had to know.
After ten minutes of waiting, Pandora gave up and stood. Perhaps, she wondered for the hundredth time, whether the Oracle was waiting for the day when Pandora finally broke down and revealed of her own accord just how many people she’d been forced to kill over the years. If so, it would be a long wait. As long as the Oracle continued to keep her secret, then the reason made no difference to Pandora. The Drahmen would still have seen the scuffle though. She would have to deal with that.
As she began to walk away, Pandora stepped on something hard that her boot pressed down into the mud. Pandora looked down at the boot to find that she had just stepped on the assassin’s other weapon. The others had been a knife and a soulstone revolver, both of which had ended up in the pond during their scuffle. This one however… Pandora reached down and picked up the lancer. Fortunately, the assassin had not had the chance to bring it to bear. It was a fine piece of work, with a rounded cross guard that curled toward the pommel, and a blade so thin that it belied the sword’s true durability. The weapon was versatile, capable of being wielded in a variety of ways. It was a standard armament for officers of BetaCorps, as she was to become. Soldiers of the Central Krystarium.
Pandora felt her brow furrow as she inspected the weapon. The assassin may not not have been a simple gun for hire. Nor a soldier of fortune or guild funded freelancer. Was it possible? Did her own people want her dead now? The question made her fist clench around the weapon in her hand.
“You see,” her shadow whispered in her mind. “At the end of the day we can’t trust anyone but ourselves.”
Pandora felt her brow furrow. “That’s not true,” Pandora said, weakly. But the words felt hollow in her mouth. Other than her parents, Pandora wasn’t sure if there was anyone else in the entire world whom she could trust. Her parents, herself, and her Shadow. No one else.
With a sigh of resignation she turned and tossed the lancer into the pond before her. It splashed into the water with an audible plop. Pandora did not wait to watch it sink.
She walked away, trying her best to make her stride seem natural. She took deep calming breaths, shoving down her fears and trying still her rapidly beating heart. She fixed her hair as she walked, tucking loose strands back into her bun and making herself look less conspicuous. She straightened her uniform, and made for the path back to Tynehurst’s main thoroughfare. She gave up on pruning her appearance halfway back to the road. She had been trying to make herself look normal. Not exactly an easy task when you hardly knew the meaning of the word.
*****
Solarics are the basic principles by which the energy of life is transferred from one place to another. When the flowers feed on the light of the suns, or when men and women bask in their warmth, that is Solarics at work. A Solar hones this ability in order to manipulate the energy of life to accomplish their own ends.
From An Introduction to Elementary Solarisis
By Artemis Grunwell, Born of Crijatakure, under Bhazima
Crijahtan Institute of Science and Solarics