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At the Court of the Sun Goddess
From the Azenahal folio edition of the Journal of Inverness Dugray
10th Blood Aurora. After the ascent,
for the first time since arriving at Jakatta, I was not sweating from the
heat. The central tepui's cliff rocks are sandy, the color of bread, and it
rises from the surrounding jungle like a loaf baked in the sun. Atop it is
more jungle, a miniature world raised high above the kingsvet canopy below.
Did I say miniature? Hardly, for the goddess’s tepui has a plateau summit
that is perhaps 8 miles by 15 miles. It is flat and redolent of iris and
honey creeper. The tepui itself is at least a mile high, and the only ways
up are the goddess's basket-gondolas or the secret path behind one of the
waterfalls shown to us by our Jakattan guide. Atop the tepui, one has the
impression of having ascended to a heavenly realm
My audience
with the goddess, as she calls herself, was in the Great Peristyle of the
capital city, Nas Jakatta. Nas Jakatta is a marble city, white and gleaming
in the high sun, relieved of starkness by the creepers and iridescent birds
that flash along its walls. The Great Peristyle is an open-air rectangle of
one hundred six columns cut from marble inlaid with electrum and ruby
intaglio. There were no trumpets to announce the six of us. The only sounds
were the murmurings of the twenty or thirty guards, courtiers, and
officials; the waving of their sweet palm fans; and the trickling water
weeping from the human-shaped thirty-second pillar, the so-called Punished
Mother.
The goddess,
as she calls herself, was recumbent on an electrum sponge chaise attended by
two bare-chested nineblood men (a rarity among the islanders). She is
beautiful, with black hair, fair skin, and a lithe body. She stood up,
rippling the sponge-foam chaise like the night wind on a jungle pond. I
found it interesting that there was no glamer over the scar in her upper
lip.
She
introduced herself as Iszara and asked what brought us to Jakatta.
I am afraid
that she did not understand my answer. But she was graceful and moved on to
the gift ceremony.
My gift to
her was an atomizer of ice rose attar. She gave to me a machete witch-dusted
with amethyst. Ever the goddess (rare is the goddess whose most ardent
worshipper is not herself), she had enchanted the weapon to whisper in her
voice, "Attend your Goddess," "Render unto the Sun," and similar
whispers whenever the blade was drawn. Lloyde and Alphonso gifted
engineering books to her rain troll, and Tomas opened a heavy box that the
bearers had struggled with for weeks. Inside, insulated in saw-dust, was
chocolate. Chocolate is unknown in Jakatta. The goddess and her court
enjoyed the treats. She caught a bit of chocolate in the scar in her upper
lip, and one of her attendants moved to wipe it away. She would not let him
do that, and instead she licked it away while catching my eye. I had the
thanks of a goddess, she told me, and that meant that I was invited to
dinner.
Dinner was on
a barge that sailed from Nas Jakatta at sunset. Unlike the Great Peristyle,
the royal barge was boisterous. Musicians pounded drums and wailed on reed
and conch horns, and dancing girls in ribbons and bangles kept time with
electrum castanets. The food was exquisite, a feast of meat from cloud
jungle antelope, trout, and lightning-crest cassowary laid out with jungle
fruits and honey on the backs of ruby-barded tortoises that were moving
buffets.
Once more at
dinner, the goddess asked me why we had come.
Still, she
did not understand the answer. She suspected, of course, that I had come for
magic.
As I said,
the food was delicious, with water, juice and wine to drink. I did not
detect whatever drug was slipped us.
I awoke below
deck, on a bed of sponge-foam, smelling of ice rose attar and staring at the
sleeping goddess beside me. Why did I awake? I am not sure. Perhaps she
meant for her slumber magic to wear off. Perhaps it was some lingering
counter-magic from the Orange port or that medicine that Lloyde and Alphonso
had concocted to ward off the jungle’s fevers. But Iszara was asleep, I was
awake, and escape was the only thought in my mind.
No doubt the
rain troll major domo would be at guard just outside the door to her
quarters. I left the goddess sleeping and padded to the door, pressing an
ear against the teak while tying on my leggings and cutlass belt. No sound.
Hoping that the goddess would not wake up, I drew the witch-dusted machete.
"Attend your
Goddess," the blade whispered, in the goddess's own voice.
The rain
troll opened the door. He was shocked when I, and not his goddess, answered.
His hand had not yet reached his blade's hilt when the amethyst edge cleaved
his head from his body.
Kicking his
head down the hallway to prevent the body's arms from blindly lucking onto
his head (trolls in the south are just as regenerative as those in the
north), I bounded up to the top deck.
The courtiers
were finding their own entertainment with the outlanders. Under the jungle
stars, they were forcing my party to "leap the falls" at the tepui's edge.
The water fell free for 2000 feet. Another 3000 feet it bounced against the
rocks before finally entering the kingsvet trees. I saw one of my porters
pushed off, his arms flailing, briefly silhouetted against the southern
moon. I did not hear his scream. The barge was a cacophony of mad rhythms
and drunken shouts.
Tomas was the
key, but he was held at swordpoint by one of the bare-chested hulking
ninebloods that I had earlier seen oiling the goddess. Without time to
waste, I leapt across a wine-bearing tortoise to strike down the guard -
- and was met
in mid-air by a dancing girl! A castanet bit into my shoulder as she passed.
I landed wine-soaked on the tortoise, which calmly carried me as just
another burden. The girl tumbled past me and thudded to a stop against the
gunwale. Quickly re-balancing, while still on one knee, she flicked her
three remaining castanets toward me. One of the rotating blades sliced my
left forearm, the other two embedded in the oblivious tortoise's shell. Then
the surprising brunette pulled the strap of her small garment, causing silk
scraps to fall away and further impairing the poor outfit's ability to
perform its function. The strap that she pulled free was another hidden
weapon: a tailored version of the famous thorned vine of the southern
jungle. She uncoiled the whip, smiled at me, and stood.
I never saw
the whip crack - only heard it. I was under the turtle. Grunting, I lifted
the beast and charged the girl. It was a lumbering charge - the tortoise was
heavy - but the shock of a serving tortoise being used as a shield gave her
pause for long enough. I was rewarded with the sound of a splash as both
turtle and girl tumbled over the gunwale and into the river.
By that time,
the duel with the dancer had distracted the courtiers and guards. They
turned toward us. At my signal, Tomas, no longer threatened by a sword at
his throat, began his Maelstrom style. In seconds two guards were
incandescent and melting in Misthra's bands.
Some will
consider this the most intriguing part of this entry: the courtiers did not
respond with magic, even as a counter to Tomas. Surely that is at the
goddess's orders, but the exact nature of those orders must wait for another
explorer, for in the chaos following Tomas's spell, my men and I leapt from
the boat, which had veered toward the shore without anyone guiding it. We
vanished into the midnight jungle, and did not stop running until we were
off the tepui.
Still, Iszara
could have found us had she wanted to. Why did she not? Perhaps, after all,
she understood the reason for my coming. To me, every wave must be sailed,
every mountain climbed. As simple as that. But maybe a goddess understands
it better than I do.
At any rate,
we reached the waterfall stair by dawn, and we were off Jakatta before three
days' time.
Illustrations from Peter Szabo Gabor and Eastern Raider Games
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