Lillene

Enjoy!

In the air above Eitchen, Serenity knew they were too late. It wasn’t nearly as bad as on Themrys; in fact, it was more like itching than pain. If anything, that made it more irritating; it didn’t hurt but it still grabbed his attention periodically.

While the Death’s Wings was given permission to land at the same spot as the previous time, they were told to stay on the ship until inspectors from Aurble arrived. Serenity was confused for a long moment until he realized that that had to be the name of the only major city on Eitchen. He’d never asked.

Serenity waited for the ship to reach the ground, then made his way from the small Observation Room to the large Observation Room, where he could find Cymryn and Senkovar. They’d know more about the political situation and what it might be different than Rissa would.

Serenity didn’t even consider himself to be in the running to understand politics. He could probably learn to if he wanted to, but the more he dealt with them, the more he realized he didn’t want to. Other people could deal with them.

“Serenity?” Senkovar sounded surprised. “I thought we’d meet you at the ramp.”

Serenity blinked, then realized that Senkovar and Cymryn wouldn’t know about the inspection yet. They couldn’t hear the communication from the bridge; it wasn’t echoed in the Observation Room. Serenity heard it because it was on the electronic channels through the ship. “We may have a problem. We have permission to land in the same place, but we’ve been asked to stay onboard until inspectors from Aurble arrive.”

“Did they say what they’re looking for? Cymryn sounded even unhappier than Serenity expected. “I know this isn’t an Imperial ship, but that shouldn’t matter, not at a small port like this one. Any ship is important.”

Serenity could only shrug. “They didn’t say. Should we wait for them or not?”

Cymryn shook his head. “Not a chance. I want you and everyone who’s traveling with you off this ship as soon as possible. I’ll find out what’s going on and, if necessary, stall them until you’re done. Ita should stay here so that you can portal back if they’re obstinate.” 

Cymryn didn’t wait for Serenity’s question to answer it. “There’s no legitimate reason for them to want to inspect this ship. I wouldn’t permit it if this were my ship; you shouldn’t permit it here. We have landed outside the city and are not planning to trade with them; even if we were, I’d only permit inspection of trade goods, not the entire ship. They’ve been dancing around, trying to gain the benefits of association with the Empire. Well, it’s time for them to find out that Imperial patience is limited.”

Serenity tilted his head. That didn’t quite make sense. “This isn’t an Imperial ship.”

“So?” Cymryn shrugged. “It’s here on Imperial business covered by my Warrant. As far as they’re concerned, this is an Imperial ship. I don’t know what they’re trying to get away with, but the Empire does not appreciate it when associates transgress their bounds.” Lord Cymryn spoke, his tone shifted from dismissive to coldly angry. 

Serenity wasn’t certain what to think of this side of Lord Cymryn. For once, the title seemed accurate rather than ironic; he reminded Serenity far more of the man he’d met on Asihanya than the cheerful if slightly single minded man he’d gotten to know since then. He clearly had opinions on the rights due to him because of his position; as long as they didn’t get in Serenity’s way, he wasn’t about to argue.

Serenity had the feeling that if the people from Aurble got in Lord Cymryn’s way, they’d regret it. He’d never dealt with nobles when he was Vengeance, but he’d heard the stories; Imperial nobles could be dangerous. He had the feeling that Cymryn had just decided to lean into that. 

Serenity decided it might be best to calm Cymryn down a little. He didn’t want actual bloodshed, after all.Figurative bloodshed would be plenty. Serenity grinned at the thought; he didn’t much want to be there while Cymryn figuratively tore out their livers for daring to suggest inspecting an “Imperial” ship, but he’d definitely want to hear about it afterwards. “Well, as long as you don’t decide this is an imperial ship instead of mine, you’re welcome to deal with them.”

“I’m staying on the ship,” Rissa told Serenity. “You don’t need me to deal with another cub, but there might be something useful I can do here.”

“The same group, then?” Serenity glanced around; both Senkovar and Blaze were already nodding. 

The first hour of the trip to the Nexus where they left the Eight was uneventful, but well before they actually reached the nexus itself, Serenity started hearing the sound of metal hitting metal. Serenity knew the sounds of combat when he heard them; that wasn’t going to be anything else. It was a little strange, because Serenity didn’t hear anything that sounded like magical combat. 

It definitely wasn’t combat against monsters, either. That sounded different; Serenity had heard enough of it over the years to be able to tell. This was combat between armed and armored forces. While it was possible, even somewhat common, for that to happen with dungeon monsters, it was rare on the surface. Dungeon monsters simply weren’t usually released in large enough groups to make even a small army possible.

Although, now that he thought about it, maybe this was exactly the case where that could happen. The dungeons near the Near Point on Themrys released all of their monsters en masse. If there was an army-type dungeon here, maybe you could get combat that sounded like what Serenity was hearing. That wouldn’t explain the complete lack of audible offensive magic, but it was still a possibility.

They circled wide around the noise, wide enough that they couldn’t actually see what was happening. It was clear that something had happened on Eitchen while they were gone. Serenity found that he didn’t really care what it was; he just wanted to see if the mother tiger was still here. If she wasn’t, they’d need to head on to Berinath, since that was the next likely stop as far as Senkovar could tell.

The Dreaming Tree’s prophecies also rather strongly implied that it would be the next stop, but Serenity didn’t completely trust prophecies. They were vague suggestions, not a solid course of action. If he trusted prophecies, there was no reason to stop on Eitchen.

They were unable to get closer to the nexus until they were well past it. At that point, Serenity decided to divert to the settlement of the shrine of the Eight; there didn’t seem to be fighting from that direction and they would surely know what was happening.

They didn’t even reach the village before they saw a small group of armored warriors marching down the path that led from the village to the nexus. It was far more obvious than Serenity remembered; it was clear there was regular travel on the route now.

“Hello!” Serenity called out to the eight warriors, or perhaps soldiers. He didn’t want to surprise them; surprised warriors tended to assume they were being ambushed. “Are you from the settlement of the Eight?”

The fact that they all went for their weapons when they heard Serenity wasn’t surprising. The fact that they relaxed the moment they saw the flyers, however, was. Was it that obvious that they weren’t with whoever the opposition force was?

That made it seem more likely that it was indeed monsters, but Serenity still couldn’t quite believe it. He couldn’t possibly have gotten lucky enough, or possibly unlucky enough, to have the Near Point be right next to the people he knew on the planet. More than that, it didn’t explain the city’s insistence on inspection. That might be unrelated, but Serenity couldn’t bring himself to believe it.

The warriors waited as the flyers approached to a comfortable distance. Now that they were close enough, Serenity could definitely see that they were followers of the Eight. Octagon symbols decorated their armor and weapons.

“Are you Serenity?” The warrior at the front of the group asked.

Serenity nodded. “How do you know my name?”

All of the warriors bowed; they weren’t quite in unison, but it was still close enough to make it look like they tried. “You revived the Eight from their slumber. How could we not know you?”

Serenity opened his mouth, then closed it again. He had no clue how to respond to that; it should have occurred to him that his name and appearance would spread. He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous among humans. 

Senkovar took pity on Serenity and took over the conversation. “Speaking of the Eight, we were headed to visit them, but it sounded like there was fighting nearby?”

The man who recognized Serenity winced a little. “Technically? Yes. That’s our duty; we’re here to be certain that the cityfolk aren’t trying to sneak in anything they shouldn’t. Well, once we get to the tournament grounds.”

The word tournament suddenly made everything clearer in Serenity’s mind. It certainly explained why he heard combat without magic; that would happen if the tournament’s rules were restrictive enough. It might well even restrict Skill usage that didn’t require mana. Tournaments like that were supposed to reward pure trained skill, but all too often in Serenity’s experience they rewarded the people who could successfully sneak in things that were disallowed and people who were able to find loopholes.

It did make the insistence on an inspection of his ship more understandable. Serenity still wasn’t happy about it; he was pleased to let Lord Cymryn refuse the inspection. Any good inspector would find something about his ship that wasn’t permitted; on Earth, that would probably be to steal the tech to reverse engineer it. Here it would probably be because they didn’t understand the tech. Either way, he didn’t want the ship inspected.

“Why is the tournament set up near the Eight’s new home?” Senkovar probed.

The man who seemed to be in charge of speaking glanced at one of the other people in his group, then back at Serenity’s flyer before he answered Senkovar. “I’d better let the Speaker answer that.”

From there, it was a fairly simple trip to the Nexus. They didn’t pass through the tournament grounds; they didn’t even see anyone who didn’t seem to be a follower of the Eight. Serenity had the distinct feeling that it was deliberate.

The building in the nexus was no longer a tent or even the small building that was erected while Serenity was last on Eitchen. Instead, there was a huge octagonal building that reminded Serenity of the one above the shrine in the original settlement of the Eight.

There were also a large number of other new buildings, enough to make Serenity wonder if the entire village was relocating. He wanted to say that was silly, but at the same time he couldn’t dismiss it. They might not call the Eight gods, but they treated them that way. If the Eight had to move, it wasn’t too much of a surprise if the village moved as well.

In fact, moving the village might well be required, now that Serenity thought about it. It was the settlement of the shrine of the Eight. It went into decline when people stopped visiting the shrine. Now that the Eight were revived, it shouldn’t be a surprise if they tried to also revive the practice of visiting the shrine and prospering from the visitors.

Lillene

The new arrangement might work better for the shrine village - after all, there isn’t an entrance where you can mostly skip the village now. It’s right in the center of the new village because no one wants to be any farther from the Eight than they have to be…

Of course, this all assumes they can get worshipers or tourists to come see the shrine.