Yenna of Ulumaya placed her hand on her chest and drew her knife. The wide, leaf-shaped blade of the athame knife gleamed resplendent in the six colours of magic as the true and vengeful witch drew it forth from her flesh. In her other hand, she held open the pages of the book bound in black—and through it she sensed so many other reflections of herself mimic her actions.
Across from her stood a figure in a simple robe—a plainly dressed kesh like any other, a pale mockery of what Yenna had lost. The bitter taste of the memory of her burned and tortured hometown stung as the witch recalled it. The thing standing across from her was not a peaceful member of the townsfolk, no matter how much it cried and apologised—it was the vile mask of an unknowable creature that craved death, and had done everything in its power to orchestrate it.
The cult of the Word had worshipped it, in a horrid way—they had wished their champion, their ancient construct carrying all their hopes for a ‘better’ world to become it, to take its prodigious power over all of history without any of the safeguards or responsibilities that the creature known as Fate claimed to have.
To the avenging master of Ulumaya, slaying Mulvari and Nadhan had been sweet catharsis—but it had not been her ultimate goal. Stopping the Ledger had been more trying than expected, but with the help of Lumale’s ritual Yenna had been able to loosen the fetters on her soul and strike it down. At least, that’s what she thought had happened—there was a worrying gap in her memory that had led almost directly to a discussion with Fate.
“I am sorry that it had to come to this,” Fate bowed her head. “Would that it could have ended any other way.”
“It could have!” Yenna spat her words with such venom that Tirk, cowering some distance behind her, made a quiet whimper. “It could have, you vile monster! I know it could have, because I can see them!”
The avenging master, a once bright-eyed teacher of magic turned engine of destruction, held up the black book.
“I can feel them, you know. They’re all fighting you—every single one. There are so many that are barely a step removed from me, but yet more have had such a blessed journey. A straight shot, a happy little adventure to arrive here. Why? Where was my happiness? Everyone I ever knew is dead, and it’s all because of your cult!”
Fate did not deny a word of it, though she trembled—in fear, or sorrow? The kesh-shaped mask over the greater entity faded, leaving behind a churning mass of totality solidified. With a voice like stars at midnight, Fate spoke for the last time.
“End me, and make your own happiness.”
Yenna approached, and raised her dagger.
Yenna Wanderlust stood at the ready with her gleaming longsword in hand. The long, six-coloured blade shone with inner light, even through the thin coating of zombie blood. With a sweep of her hand, the warmage cleaned the sword with a simple spell and took a quick look behind her—Tirk was up on her back, the black book open in his lap. Yenna shot him a confident smirk.
“Ready to finish this, lad?”
“Yes, master!”
The chamber around them was a bloodbath—the cult’s zombie hordes had thrown themselves on the party’s blades and spells, a tide of undeath now little match for the lessons learned on the road. Through magecraft and witchcraft, Yenna had become a true warmage. A fight like this? Just a warm-up.
To her left, Eone Deepstar and her brother-in-arms Muut Greenstar stood back to back—the former wielding the powerful Starbearer to annihilate packs of the clawing damned, the latter a whirlwind with a curved scimitar, keeping the fiends off of them. Still, Muut bore a nasty burn across one side—a relic of the climactic battle against the alchemist Mulvari, who had gone out in a plume of deadly alchemical fire in an attempt to take the steward with him.
To her right, the captivating beauty of the Dancing Demon, Narasanha. Her twirling, leaping dance of devastation left nothing standing in her wake, the taciturn warrior covered from head to toe in red. She fought with a freedom and joy that Yenna had never seen before—having taken the head of her nemesis Nadhan, Yenna’s lover had finally cleansed a taint upon her soul. She fought finally for herself, and for the warmage she had promised herself to.
Yet, the waves of the damned, the vile remnants of the cult’s evil schemes to empower their golem to take the power of Fate itself, were not what Yenna stood ready to face. In the midst of the carnage in a robe of pure white, with wide wings across her cervine lower back, an angelic and fine kesh cried tears of pure and holy water.
“Come, champion!” Her mournful voice rang across the chamber, piercing the sounds of conflict. “Defeat me, and free your world!”
With an expression of purest sorrow, the angel drew forth a long and flaming blade and prepared herself—Fate had asked for death, but she was not allowed to make it easy.
“For the sake of all the world, Fate! I will not lose!”
Yenna charged, and raised her sword.
Yenna of the Pawprint Banner sat atop the head of the silupker Chime, the massive earthenware millipede rearing up over the throng of the beast-march. A young adventurer, barely old enough to run errands in town let alone embark on an epic quest, she held the hand of her trusted companion and adventuring pal Tirk as they stared down Fate.
“But why do we have to fight?”
The young girl fought back the tears in her eyes. She had journeyed far to answer the question, ‘Why do bad things happen?’ Along the way, Yenna had turned countless foes into friends—befriending the dark spirit Demvya, taming the wild rampage of the silupker Chime, even convincing a horde of beasts to follow along under her banner.
However, along the way the girl had been told time and again that sometimes, there were just some people that couldn’t be convinced. That peace and hope couldn’t win every battle. Every time, Yenna proved them wrong. With a shining smile and the gift of magic earned from the witch Lumale, Yenna had forged a beautiful song of hope and understanding that resounded in the hearts of all who heard. When there were those who wouldn’t listen, Yenna had her banner—a shimmering banner of crystal-glass that appeared when she called for it, shining the six-coloured light of peace across the world.
Fate was a hideous demon, an immense giant with a hundred burning eyes and a thousand arms, each limb wider than a venerable oak. It towered over Yenna’s fellowship, a colossus of destruction with skin more scar tissue than flesh. Its huge, slavering jaw dripped with molten rock, the furnace heat of its terrible breath washing over Yenna from the other side of the huge chamber. All around its feet were its fallen hordes of the undead, whose spirits Yenna had freed along with that of the Ledger—though, for some strange reason, she couldn’t remember exactly what she had done.
“We must fight,” the demon called Fate spoke in a voice like mountains grinding together, “Because that is the way of the world. I guide the course of history towards conflict, away from the stagnancy of peace.”
“But there can be conflict without death and destruction!” Yenna’s cry echoed loud, her voice empowered by the spellsong within her. “Look! Even the fiercest of enemies can be joined together—can look past the cycle of conflict and go to the future in peace!”
The banner-carrying songstress gestured across the army around her, at the peace she had brought with her. A pair of yolms, Mayi and Jiin, stood resolute alongside the ghostly form of the kesh-form spirit Demvya, saved from their woes by mutual understanding. A vast sphere of living water hovered at the centre of a group of magical beasts, the elemental shown the light of friendship and freedom despite its alien intellect. Even the former cultists of the Word stood alongside the soldiers of House Deepstar, once bitter rivals and now allies united against a common enemy—though Narasanha and Nadhan still refused to look at each other. Yenna giggled. I know they’ll go right back to squabbling, but I know those sisters will work everything out in the end!
“A temporary ceasefire.”
One of Fate’s massive hands slammed down to the ground, the floor trembling with a powerful earthquake.
“I believe we can make it permanent! Under the Pawprint Banner, the banner I marked with my own soul, we can bring peace to the world!”
Fate’s harsh bark cracked the air, followed by a hellish wind that threatened to knock everyone over. Yenna remained resolute—she trusted absolutely in Chime, the silupker who had once fallen to grief and hate at the hands of hateful people, to keep her steady in her time of need. When Chime had needed someone to stand firm for her, Yenna had done so—the silupker was ready to pay her back for that trust.
“You will never have peace, so long as I live. You must destroy me.” With the sweeping of a palm that could have levelled a building, Fate pointed a massive finger inches from Yenna’s face. “Order your minions to attack, to fell me as one would an ancient, diseased tree. Only then shall you have peace—with one final act of violence.”
Tirk gripped Yenna’s hand tight, his other hand holding the black book. His black eyes, as bottomless in darkness as Fate’s own burning gaze, sent her a message. In the mutual understanding of two friends who trusted one another with everything, Yenna conceded to the boy’s judgement. He’s always right. I just wish that this one time he wasn’t.
“I’m sorry, Fate!” Yenna stood and bowed her head. “I’m so sorry that this is the only way we can be friends! This is what your heart desires most, isn’t it? The key to your peace. Then, allow me into your heart!”
“Thank you, girl. Come, strike me down, as a friend would.”
Yenna nodded, and raised her banner.
Yenna blinked in surprise.
Yenna Bookbinder, she reminded herself, that’s me.
For a moment she had been someone else—several other people, but all Yenna. A true witch, a bold hero, a child of peace, all so different but aiming towards the same goal. Even now she could sense the rest, could see into their hearts. Some exulted in the chance to change the world, others mourned the tragic journey to arrive here. Hearts burning with passion and malice, with love and hope. Minds possessed by war and weakness, but still blessed with tranquility and life. Between all of them, their singular soul burned as it cast off its shackles and reforged a new shell—a rainbow-coloured shield, encompassing the hopes and dreams of countless Yennas, champions and villains, heroes and nobodies cast outside Fate’s domain for one purpose, for this purpose.
An ancient chant rose up and passed through Yenna’s lips.
“In Stasis, in calm inaction, I behold Death and Peace, no true end but a new beginning. Then, in Flow I wash away my tears of Sorrow to see Truth, a world ever-changing at my command.”
Yenna rose to her hooves as a two-toned blue glow enveloped her body. Fate’s tears vanished, along with her kesh mask—the true force of totality revealed. The entity that had witnessed every past, present and future moment remained perfectly still, transfixed as it beheld something new. A moment that was truly beyond it—a song it had never heard before.
“With Pride, I sink into Despair for the sake of Power, an unending battle to hold destiny in my hands. In Wroth, I go to War for Life, no mere conflict for petty stakes but an endless turning of the sun and stars.”
The witch’s dagger began to change shape, at one moment a wide, leaf-bladed knife, the next a hero’s longsword. It changed constantly, never fixed in one form but an expression of possibility, of an unpredictable future beyond the totality of Fate’s design. It was no weapon. It had become an instrument of choice, of the ability for people to make their own paths through life.
“I hold a Certainty in my heart, that there will always be Deceit—that there will always be Resolve. For as long as there are people to choose, to forge their destinies and tell their own stories, we shall know Joy.”
Yenna held up the tool in her hand—held up her soul, the thread that spanned across time and space and allowed her for one moment to rewrite reality. To choose the third path. To make a future that even Fate couldn’t have foreseen.
“In Joy, there is Weakness. We stand atop a fragile pillar of happiness, knowing that it may crumble beneath us at any moment.” Yenna stared deep into the indescribable form of Fate, a rainbow wind whipping around her. “And yet, to perceive the light, of Peace and Truth, of Power and Life, of Resolve, we must hold onto that final element. We must hold on to Courage. The Courage to stand tall in the face of all that would destroy us, to say, ‘No, we tread this path willingly, and we tread it to the end.’ To rise high, far above the fear of being brought low. That is what it means to live.”
Yenna stopped, took a deep breath in and slowly exhaled.
“That, Fate, is what it means to be able to choose. Thank you, for everything you’ve done so far. Let us see to the future—watch what us mortals can do.”
Yenna smiled, and raised the instrument of choice. Across every world, held aloft in hopeful hands, Yenna’s soul burned with purest light as she brought the expression of her hopes and dreams down.
Fate, in all its forms, awaited oblivion—yet, it didn’t come. For Yenna’s target was not Fate, no cruel destruction here at the final moment.
“I choose the third path. I free you from yourself, Fate.”
On the low table, between the cups of kaffe and the plate of biscuits, Yenna destroyed the black book in a hail of rainbow light—and with it, she destroyed what was written. From here, the future was blank. An unwritten thing for each and every one to make for themselves, in triumph and sorrow, in love and hate, in every little moment of life.
For the future is your own, and no one can take that away from you.
Huh, never say there is no third path, for it simply needs to be forged.