Shadow at the temple – Chapter 1

The onset of the fifth month eta-Lagretan (Bounty), the middle month of summer, 151 years after the impact of the Fallen Black Star

Green fields rimming a blue snake of dark water. A silent and heated wind kissing her earlobes, whispering of rumors and fleeting notions that pass by the land without ever fully touching those who might need to catch on. A wooden vessel carrying on forward above it, while holding the traveler who seeks one of the destinations that the fluid spirits bring along the deluged pathways. A dim fog that layers above everything and covers all distant vision for those who might hope to get ahold of and comprehending what it is they sail into. In far-off greyness, hazy mirthful squawks linger and hint at the distant avian visitors of which one cannot discriminate whether they might be spying or not. Below, the waters stir and in the corner of one’s eyes, passing contours may be spotted that scatter upon being fully traced.

Shaim Xil. Eyren has not even thought to drop by this land in quite a spell as of late, despite that this used to be a place where she in truth whiled away fairly considerable portions of her life, both during and after she exited Steorshlag. She can’t cleanly say that she’s kept on top of the latest enterprises and changes in the scenery for this central landscape, for she is not from these shores, nor has she dwelled enough to assimilate any more than the very northern dialects of the languages within, and even those qualifications are at an insufficient level at best.
Although she is in this moment seated upon a dry position, she’s not inactive in her manners, for her hands are roaming away at something soft – the feathers of her dear raptor. The boat they’re drifting along with is adequately spacious to carry exactly one mount across it, and this is made handier if the beast itself is lying down, which Razz is inclined to be. She’s got her head above Eyren’s lap, eyes closed in a snug and sedate pose, her breath slow and rhythmic to borderline chase each stroke of Eyren’s hand.

The sole other person in the vehicle is the ferryman at the back, progressively and steadily oaring them forward with experienced and familiar motions. He’s a local, obviously, albeit not one that Eyren has ever encountered in the past. For all that, he did seem knowledgeable enough when she hired him to sail her and Razz across this feeder and did not hesitate to get onto the craft as she paid for the ride in. Not an unheard of resolution in these parts, for rowing people to and fro across this region is one of the foremost known professions within the land of transports.

Shaim Xil is one of Steorshlag’s multiple neighboring regions and one of the central provinces of the continent, specifically in the central-west. Resembling all other provinces, the name holds a significance in one of the multitude of languages that exists inside, and like how Ahterilio means the ‘home of the sun’, Steorshlag sitting as ‘the law of the rigid’ and Ngoyamen being ‘the beating heart of the land’, Shaim Xil in its western tongue – Huanbasi, which Eyren is but mildly familiar with – apparently translates to ‘the rivers of vigor’. To outsiders, it’s even been called ‘the land of a thousand rivers’. This is not an exaggeration of a name per se, for a majority of creeks, bayous and streams converge in this province, from every bordering land and sometimes even beyond. In the west, these waters float out into the largest body of inland water, Lake Quetumfa, and down in the south it is touched by some of the humongous and oppressive Slithering Desert which caresses several provinces.

Equated with most of its neighbors, farming and fishing are two of the main sources of income for the commoners in Shaim Xil, but it is not what brings in impercesms for the wealthiest. For them, the land and river escort services and the tolls from their extremely comprehensive trade networks are what gets people speaking far and wide, as no one who’s traversed this realm has overlooked it. The establishment of enhanced transportation systems, even the one Eyren travels on today, is their most storied and well-used trait, both along the rivers which pass over Shaim Xil and beyond their borders. This has stretched to other matters, such as improved usage of wagons and beasts of burden, including a stabler infrastructure. Not even Ahterilio itself can rival them and it’s why rumors circulate of how the leaders during the Shadow Herd’s reign a century past could bring plenty of citizens out of harm’s way.

In light of the strength of their travel network, the reputation of the natives has been formed around it, figuring them as an efficient and quick-serving one, but seeing as they work with individuals, diplomats and traders from such a numerous source of nations, some view them as unreliable and treacherous. Word abounds of how Xilan corporate heads make their money not solely from escorting operations, but from information control and the selling of it.
In the distant past, this territory was one of the few who willingly accepted to serve the Ahterilion Empire once the easterners rolled in with their armies, without ever having to lose a drop of blood or a single soldier. Unlike the northern warriors of Steorshlag, the central mercenaries of Ngoyamen, even central-eastern farmers of Rhasgolmah and parts of the pious northeastern Tsabchuur, Shaim Xil did not oppose the invaders of the east with war. Not due to that they cannot fight, but because they perceived the precedence in cooperation. As did the Empire, naturally – the Empresses and Emperors of that age had equally foreseen that the easiest manner with which to extend their reach over Shaim Xil was to negotiate, and so they did, offering a deal with the corporate masters of the various larger cities and why it would benefit them. As it would land them better trading routes and potentially more lucrative contracts as the foremost transportation services in those regions and beyond, the largest corporate managers welcomed the proposal of granting access to their markets and swift travel in and out of Shaim Xil. And thus they were implemented into the Empire, coming to both use and be used by it for secondary expansions.

This is not to suggest that the province hasn’t and doesn’t engage in war or the reveling of battle in general, for this can have its application. The one conflict that ensued back then was internal, between the trading and escort companies, of who was to take the largest roles, something that ended in minor backstabbings in the shadows, corporate takeovers and a lot of ups and downs in promotions. For the most part, however, the companies believe that war is bad for business and one can acquire plenty by allowing one’s enemies to move through one’s lands, while awaiting with a dagger at their backs, just in case.

That said, the era of old and those disagreements are far away from both the Shaim Xil of today and for Eyren personally, for this has no longer been an issue in centuries, after the creation of the Empire, and certainly not with the fall of the Empire as a whole. One of the present knots for them to tangle with is rather that this province, like the others, holds its own system of governance and within that, its own tiers of leadership and reach. With Eyren as a Steorshlagan, she is mainly used to the Chieftains of the various northern cities and holds, those governors selected through the process and priority of strength and persuasion. It isn’t as much of a choice for the commoners, such as they might have in Rhasgolmah, but a Chieftain does carry a necessity to convince people to follow them and the strong do generally gain a fierce row of loyalists.
In Shaim Xil, there is no real ‘noble’ system whatsoever, nor do those who reign in this land have to worry for maintaining a sense of physical might. Nevertheless, administration as a whole in Shaim Xil retains more similarity to northern lands like Geb’nijk and Steorshlag, or even Ngoyamen, in that they are ruled by the previously mentioned transportation companies. Those of highest positions are the Chairmen and women, the bigwigs in their respective association, who are elected by councils within each company. In the past, it was these specimen who were given the chairs of power under the Empire, but their businesses held sway even before the Empire reached their shores, and they have not ceased overseeing all the goings-on in Shaim Xil since then. As expected, very little changes across this land, seeing as people still necessitate the travels that they provide, and their trade markets can at times even rival the grandest marketplace anywhere, Kubitauf in central Ngoyamen. Fishing and farming is abundant and solid within the province, but nothing and no one in any land can surpass the speed of these companies’ cargo deliveries, transportation of people or the news and whispers which bypass a plethora of ears.

Eyren does hold some understanding for that spies knock around across practically every centimeter of this province, despite that she’s sensed how Ngoyamen possesses a highly analogous grid. At the same time, this hasn’t impaired her verdict of it, for she has always had a fondness for Shaim Xil, in light of its nature and the rather temperate climate; besides the desert slithering in the south, of course. Finding work for a trouble-solver is not an enormous difficulty either, especially when thinking of her skill in the matter. Not that she has dueled many actual people inside, but the companies – both minor and major – acknowledge the utility of one with wisdom and familiarity of battling the Shadow Herd monsters that creep along these lands, and they gladly employ her to deal with the Herdbrand. That Shaim Xil had the fewest casualties due to their protocol during the great fall is something which has intrigued her, but whether they genuinely care much for their regular citizens beyond the other provinces is unclear.

As she’s currently lodged in a boat with Razz’s noddle upon her lap, taking her across one of the rivers to Dezasha, the most northeastern of cities in the region, she sits and ponders that it was only roughly a week that she had dispensed in Kubitauf, prior to a letter being dropped into her hand from an associate. It had been transmitted from Haova, a Lieutenant among the enforcers from the North River Freight Services, who had called Eyren to the burg. This lady hadn’t gone into details of what it’d entail, besides the promise of an eye-catching assignment touching the subject of Herdbrand in Dezasha’s territory. Since Eyren was fairly sentient of that Shaim Xil enterprises are prone to pay rather healthily out of pocket, this wasn’t a bid she could afford to reject.

At this moment, she’s sitting with the letter in her hand, back in its envelope, twirling it in loops. Staring up for a brief second, however, she notes how they’ve now passed into a faint mist which has captured them in far-reaching clouds that are unavoidable to sail off from. Once they enter and become encircled by it, she finds herself mildly on edge in this natural sight-blocking phenomenon, her fingers tightening and her jaw drawing back harder as she spies out past the eerily silent scenery to watch for potential threats. At first figuring that she mistakes herself through and through for being superstitious, how there couldn’t feasibly be anything within this compact miasma which could target her, there’s momentarily a scant flicker in a remote space. Looking to it, readying her senses for ambushes of any kind, she spots someone…or something out in the water. Initially, she assumes that her mind plays tricks on her, but the closer she gets, the more she grows persuaded that there’s a being out there, donning dark robes which hide its body and aspects below the cloth. It abruptly cranes up its head and looks straight at her, and shortly, Eyren takes it that she notices a person, a pale and red-eyed individual, with tall horns sticking up from their forehead. For just an instant, Eyren believes she can distinguish how they…smirk? Underneath her own clothes, Eyren detects a prickling inside her skin. Before she knows it, a shadow bolts right at her seat and she discerns how a bird exits the fog to launches all but for her, forcing her to duck and shake about. Two seconds down the line, rotating this way and that, she hears or sees neither the bird nor the person.

Razz has at this interval lifted her own head, perplexedly staring both at her human companion and the environment, but her slitted peepers track nothing of interest to hunt for. Quite shaken up, Eyren glances backwards and yet pinpoints the oarsman behind her, who himself is a tinge unnerved by her actions and their ongoing path.
“Did you…did you see that?”, she asks him.

The man, a fellow with pale skin, beaverish eyes and fur across his arms, bobs his head in confirmation and skepticism.
“…unfortunately.”

“You got any idea what it might’ve been?”

“Mm….” He gives their setting a second glimpse and speaks in the moment, as if being a scout who’s reporting in their active duty. “You ever heard of…Uono?”

“U…ono? Don’t reckon I have.”

“They are a well-known occurrence here in Shaim Xil, a collective of demons who roam on distant and shaded rivers. Rumor has it that their appearance is an ill omen and they are always hunting for their main sustenance.”

“…which is?”

“Dreams. They are associated with dream-eating, and at times they provoke nightmares. The Temple even partway made the decision to name one of their Shades from Shaim Xil culture for this purpose – the Shade of Dreams.”

Eyren runs her fingers sluggishly over Razz’s feathers, to soothe both herself and the raptor who’s begun making some whining rumble, as if feeling the aura from the humans.
“Xibusein…”

“In the north Xilan tongue, Junvishti, it stands for ‘the demon of still river’.” He shivers and rocks his head. “…it is a bad omen indeed that you spotted such a vision and that I followed your eyes to it. Wherever you’re going, miss, I suspect you will walk into trouble.”

Well, that’s a sure sign of what her life is about, isn’t it? What is the theme of the Fateworn’s scene but a constant and ineluctable path through trouble? Ever they are haunted by fate and fate brings with it disasters unlike what humanity may be ready to take on. It may not be their fault, but that Eyren should somehow summon the vision of a demon on this very day comes off as mighty typical to her. Settling her nerves once more, she sighs and clasps the hilt of her blade, just in case.
“I suspect you’re right.”