Bai-Jimao sits in his cell in The Celestial Temple, fragrant bark burns in the charred bowl before him and wafts about his head. Expressionless, the mask that is his face somehow still manages to convey the concern, the worry, the distress that rages through his mind, interrupting his meditations.

 

With a sigh he pours a small vial of water into the bowl, extinguishing the smouldering bark and he climbs wearily to his feet, his body still scarred and aching from the doctor’s experiments upon his body. Restless nights, waking in a sweat believing himself still captured have not improved his concentration or his mood. It feels as though he has awakened from one nightmare into another.

 

Has Atys changed so much in the time he has been away? From a time of peace, of homin coming together to rescue him from The Goo and uniting to face the common threat of the Kitin, to this. To war.

 

The bearer of bad news is often the first to suffer and the words he had been ordered to carry, the words of Ma-Duk, the words of the Kami, they were bad news indeed. Was Jena truly coming? The Guild of Elias, if it were truly them, could not be trusted but the word of Ma-Duk was beyond reproach. If the Kami acknowledged that Jena was coming, and in the incarnation of some wrathful and destructive goddess, The Night Empress, then war was, indeed, surely coming.

 

But how does one fight a god and what destruction might be wrought in the wake of such a battle? He would do his duty, as always, as was expected. Faith and devotion would see him through but not all homin have faith, there would be great suffering.

 

His eyes moved behind his mask, raising to the sky high above the canopy, to the stars, seeking some sign of Jena’s coming.

“Ma-Duk, hear my prayer, keep us safe and find us a path to peace once more.”

 

And he wept.

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