Arrivals

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QSI-N_0005186433302

Ulloriaq/Halcyon's Weathermaster

Arrival Day :: Relicborn Temple Xhifuu

4 rota before Glitch City TDE Collapse

Ulloriaq never liked Arrival Day. It was always a joyless occasion. The children, filled with resentment and fear, looked at her with a hatred as pure and potent as Azrael’s wrath falling upon the world that so loathed him. They were surrounded by guards, the children. It was as much for their own protection as it was for the purpose of intimidation. Twelve men, the guards were, with bare arms of bulging muscle folded across chests their robes barely could contain. Each held an expression cold and stern, like a First Marine Drill Instructor inspecting cadets fresh off the bus. Imposing, menacing, statuesque figures of terror were the guards to a man.

Then there was she, Ulloriaq, Halcyon’s Weathermaster, Headhunter of Relicborns, a thin, wispy, dark woman in a raven-coloured dress, her mane of hair unbound as it flowed like a shimmering silver waterfall to her hips. Stood behind the children, her back to the doors whence they had came. Those double doors, bolted shut and protected by the High Völva’s wards, led to a short hallway, and thereafter a dock for her shuttle. Beyond lay the vacuum of Interstellar space and, in the middle distance, Ulloriaq’s Syrinx-class Midwinter Cruiser—the Qaanaaq—upon which thousands of other Relicborn children lay in stasis, awaiting their own Arrival Day at their Home Temples.

There was but one way forward for those sitting in that dim, column-lined room now. The twelve Ulloriaq had gathered over nearly five Terran decades would walk the path so many before them had tread. These, Xhifuu’s most gifted children, possessed of power so great it could snuff out the lives of billions, would spend their lives sequestered away from their homeworlds, away from the banals, training and mastering their power under the tutelage of those who came before them at the Xhifuu Relicborn Temple.

Mighty though the flows of their individual Wellsprings were, none of the twelve children assembled and seated on the cold, flagstone floors could muster enough arcane power to disturb even a mote of dust. Ulloriaq had seen to that. Like all untrained Relicborn she was tasked to contain, she had brought them into a pocket space Halcyon had created, and exhausted them to the last drop of power. Once capable of no more than a banal, Ulloriaq had them put into stasis until enough had been gathered to bring them to their Lossec’s Relicborn Temple.

Even with wellsprings drained, Ulloriaq and twelve of the Xhifuu’s Masters stood by, ready to intercede should one throw a tantrum or other such fit. Untested Relicborn could still overdraw their wellsprings to unpredictable, often fatal, effect.

“I’m hungry,” Ch’maki Maai, a girl of no more than six, complained, breaking a silence that had pervaded the hall since Ulloriaq had brought them in nearly an hour ago.

“Silence!” barked Master Jabbu from the wings, startling the entire group.

Ulloriaq’s brow furrowed, but held her tongue. She was in the Temple of Grand Matriarch Hjóni T’kmak’a. How the High Völva ran her Temple and trained her Temple Guard was not Ulloriaq’s to question nor override. Only Halcyon, and those acting on her behalf, had such authority—authority she had not been granted.

“I’m really hungry!” Ch’maki whined.

Master Jabbu had barely shifted before Ulloriaq was across the room, the gatecasting an afterthought, manifested as simply as she might set one foot before the other to walk. Standing between him and Ch’maki, Ulloriaq caught Master Jabbu’s staff an open palm, meeting his gaze with hers.

“Move over, Weathermaster!” Master Jabbu ordered.

“No,” Ulloriaq refused.

“I said, move over! This is not your Temple!”

“Until your Mistress receives them, these are my charges,” Ulloriaq countered, “and I forbid your trespass upon that which is my domain.”

“Jabbu!” a shrill voice barked from the far end of the hall. “Restrain yourself at once!”

“Mistress T’kmak’a,” Master Jabbu reacted, dropping to one knee and bowing his head.

A series of expressions washed across Master Jabbu’s face, and Ulloriaq released her grip on his staff, confident that the Grand Matriarch had communicated privately her rebuke. She turned to face the Temple Mistress, striding across the hall in no hurry—as was her way.

Dressed plainly, the High Völva was, eschewing any adornments or cosmetics—not that Hjóni needed them—the small, short woman, dressed in a plain, black dress, seemed many times larger than her physical stature simply by the presence she commanded. Of average build, neither overly fit, nor carrying excess about her waist, Hjóni possessed exceptional natural beauty. Perhaps the Temple Mistress’s most startling feature—at least to Ulloriaq—were her eyes. Violet, brilliant, and piercing, her gaze could cut clean through a bunker made of hardened titronium armour.

“Weathermaster,” T’kmak’a addressed, cordially.

“Grand Matriarch,” Ulloriaq returned, genuflecting appropriately.

“Midwinter has kept you some time now,” T’kmak’a mentioned. “Forty-seven Tanno by my count.”

“My delay was not from Soulstar,” Ulloriaq replied, “I’m afraid the Glitch has been quiet of late.”

“Yes, I too have felt the fabric calm,” T’kmak’a agreed, “like a receding tide, it feels. Something is coming.”

“Have you consulted with Beacon T’kwammu?”

“I have,” T’kmak’a agreed.

“What did the tapestry reveal?”

“A gathering storm,” T’kmak’a answered.

“Nothing else?”

“He has been tugging at threads for decades now,” T’kmak’a said, “in his words, the tree will not flower. It drives him deeper into madness by the Lune.”

“I see,” Ulloriaq replied, her concerns growing.

“Will you go to him?” T’kmak’a asked. “He will not cease gazing into what he calls ‘the Fog’ and I worry he is becoming lost in it. I have advised him to halt his searching, but he refuses to see reason.”

“He is not a man easily swayed from his course,” Ulloriaq replied, “in that you two share great kinship.”

“Yes, but he does respect your counsel. If he can be swayed…”

“I will see what I can do,” Ulloriaq said, a blanket of dread settling on her.

In her travels gathering the most powerful born of the glitch—the galaxy’s great Relicborn Masters and Grandmaster, suspenders of all that governs reality—at every Lossec Temple where the children went, the Farseers had begun experiencing the same. Great clouds loomed on the horizons. The closer they swam to it, the less they saw, but the more enraptured by the fog they became.

Thirty Tanno ago, it was only Beacons—the most powerful of Relicborn Farseers—who spoke of this ‘Fog of Madness’, calling it a pernicious thing, singing to them like sirens to sailors. Most had the wherewithal to resist the siren song, at first. In the Tanno that followed, more and more Farseers had claimed of, or fallen to, the Fog of Madness and the storms beyond—which no Farseer could see and return from with their mind intact. Even 3rd Rank Neophytes, whose vision was the dimmest of all Farseers, almost universally spoke of nothing but impending storms and the siren song. Only those possessed of singular focus and discipline could resist the call. Those who could not, Ulloriaq had found, were already lost.

“You have the ear of Aisling, do you not?” T’kmak’a asked, drawing Ulloriaq from her thoughts.

“As much as any,” Ulloriaq answered.

“Has she said anything of this? Anything which might break T’kwammu of his obsession?”

“Aisling is rarely so plainly spoken,” Ulloriaq replied, “she did allude some time ago to portents of fog, but it’s impossible to know what she may have been referring to.”

“Nothing pleasant, I would gather,” T’kmak’a assumed.

“Aisling’s riddles have only ever made sense in hindsight. Picking meaning or omen from them, whether for good or for ill, is a path only fools tread.”

“Odd that she’s considered the greatest Farseer, isn’t it? What good is the clarity of vision when she lacks the skill to communicate it?”

“You know my opinions on the Apokalypsos School of Farseers” Ulloriaq replied, hoping T’kmak’a would drop the subject.

Their debates on the philosophies of Apokalypsos versus Moirai Farsight had never born fruit, only bitterness and bruised egos. Both knew the other’s position, and neither would cede ground to other.

“Yes, I do,” T’kmak’a agreed, “it is a shame Aisling has put such waste to her talent.”

“Have your Adepts started having nightmares?” Ulloriaq asked, forcing the subject to change.

“What kind?”

“You know what kind,” Ulloriaq answered.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” T’kmak’a lied.

Something flashed across T’kmak’a’s eyes, something Ulloriaq recognised. The High Shaman of the Twelfth Sector Kaidan Temple, Kvtá Éhá Tsàtzv III, had the same look in his before the Twelfth Calamity. A local surge in the Glitch blinded all the Twelfth Kaidan Temple’s and sent them into a blood rage from the psychic shock. Collectively, the crazed Farseers slaughtered dozens of Temple Mages and staff before being put down by Halcyon herself.

Ulloriaq had never forgiven herself for the event. Despite Halcyon’s repeated attempts to convince her that she couldn’t have known, that it was only hindsight and survivor’s guilt clouding a clear view of clean hands, she had seen something. Unable to recognise it for what it was, she allowed a disaster to happen, allowed one of the children she had taken from his parents to claw his eyes out and throw himself over a balcony. All the signs were there, but she didn’t recognise the reaper. She vowed to never let it happen again. Never.

“I think you do,” Ulloriaq called, staring T’kmak’a down.

“I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The lies. She knew. T’kmak’a knew what was before her. The High Völva could sense it, and Ulloriaq could see the greed, the lust for that power on the Temple Mistress’s face.

“Ch’maki,” Ulloriaq barked, “come with me! now!”

“No, she’s not,” T’kmak’a balked, as the girl stood, and, without questioning the command, walked toward Ulloriaq. “She belongs here! Sit down, girl!”

Ch’maki ignored T’kmak’a. The little girl, barefoot and trembling, wrapped her tiny arms around Ulloriaq’s leg. Without saying a word, Ulloriaq lifted the child with one arm, saddling Ch’maki on her hip.

“Put the girl down!” T’kmak’a barked, the tiniest note of desperation in her voice.

Turning, Ulloriaq walked away in silence. Any further dialogue with T’kmak’a would endanger everyone. There was a corrupting influence festering inside the High Völva, the same corruption that had eaten away at High Shaman before the Twelfth Calamity. Ulloriaq turned and walked toward the back of the hall.

“Stop!” T’kmak’a ordered, the desperation gone. In its place now was rage, entitlement, and the corruption of Vostok.

Ulloriaq continued toward the exit. The twelve guards moved to intercept her, but the Weathermaster bound them in place with a telekinetic brace.

“Where are you going, Weathermaster!” T’kmak’a exclaimed, indignantly.

Ignoring the Temple Mistress, Ulloriaq continued walking toward the hall’s exit.

“I said stop!” T’kmak’a roared, phasing in front of Ulloriaq.

As quickly as T’kmaka teleported she was bound in the same telekinetic brace as her Temple Guards. The Grand Matriarch’s face contorted as she struggled to free herself. Veins bulged on her forehead and the tendons in her neck strained as she struggled to no avail against Ulloriaq’s will. Closing her eyes, Ulloriaq entered the Temple Mistress’s mind. T’kmak’a tried to resist, but to Halcyon’s Weathermaster, whose well had no limit, sweeping aside her defences was as brushing dust from the cover of an old book. One psychic lance to her deepest fortresses, and T’kmak’a’s focus was lost.

When she opened her eyes, Ulloriaq saw T’kmak’a slumped over, leaning heavily on one of the stately columns lining the perimeter of the room, exhausted and disoriented. Lifting her free hand, Ulloriaq took the staff from T’kmak’a’s right. The defeated witch barely looked up as Ulloriaq passed her on the right, taking full possession of the High Völva’s talisman—a traditional display of dominance and humiliation. In silence, Ulloriaq left by gate, offering no further taunt, returning her and Ch’maki, to the Qaanaaq’s bridge.

“Weathermaster? You’re back?” Captain Grace—an Angelic from Dark Sister—reacted, startled upon seeing Ulloriaq appear on the Qaanaaq’s Bridge. “With Ch’maki? What happened?”

“Have Cenote prepare a stasis pod,” Qaanaaq answered, “and set our course for Soulstar.”

“Should I have Utëta send Halcyon a message?”

“Yes,” Ulloriaq answered.

“What should it say?”

“Priority One,” Ulloriaq said, “Beaconfall Imminent. Quarantine Temple Xhifuu.”