1. The Lost Warriors

The Mikramurkan headlands felt the lash of the turning of the planet’s seasons despite the fact that only one season existed in this arctic waste – winter. Waves two hundred meters high beat against the Titian Cliffs, but the thunder of the water never seemed as loud as the breaking of the glacial rifts. The desolation of the oceans reminded the Sebiestor woman of gray fabric, undulating with the force of a winter’s night breeze. She stood at the edge of the Cliffs, salt water spraying her face and her eyelashes caked with ice.

Shawled and clothed for the worst the Mikramurkan singular season could throw, she waited until the light of the sun became rays that skirted the receding clouds. This dawn would bring the foretold Three Days of Light. Heat, even the smallest temperature rise, felt good to her as the sunlight hit her face, and she smiled as the Three Days of Light began.

Turning from the dawn, she trudged along the ice cliffs toward the northern Mount. A brazen granite rock breached the glacier’s mass, refusing to move or be diminished even by the sometimes-roaring waltz of the glacial mass into the sea. The Mount remained jagged with tall spires of gray-freckled quartz even after a thousand millennia, and beckoned the Sebiestor forward. Icy waste and bright sunlight reflected the energy back into her eyes, but her eyeshield kept the glare from burning out her retinas. The topmost permafrost became slushy snow as she approached the Enclave, the amphitheater at the base of the Mount, carved from the glacier.

Entering the Enclave was by one small corridor cut from the ice, each wall completely smooth and often polished to keep it so. She took the thirteen steps of Matar down the corridor, moving from a wasteland into a warmer oasis. Shielded by a wall equal to the height of the seasonal waves, the Enclave had already been prepared for the First Day’s Welcoming Ceremony. Staggered terraces were polished smooth, and led downward into the wading pool where steam rose, heated by geothermal activity. Mikramurka was a continent of ice, the furthest piece of land in the arctics of Matar, but oddly pierced with granite Mounts and geysers of steaming mineral waters.

“Be welcome sister,” a monk said as she passed, never turning from his duty of lighting the torches.

“Thanks from Matar for your welcome, brother.”

The amphitheater would soon be alive with Sebiestor, all filing in through the corridor. Winter’s garments would be discarded out on the glacier in favor of the traditional dress of patterned woolen shirts and pants. Soon, Matari with tattoos and some without would walk these terraces again to welcome the Three Days of Light.

“Be welcome sister,” a monk said as she passed him on her way to stand on the dais in the wading pool, never turning from his duty of lighting the torches.

“Thanks from Matar for your welcome, brother.”

The wading pool created the bottom-most terrace of the Enclave, barely twenty meters in diameter, but butting up against the Mount itself. Clear as deepest space, the pool reflected the Mount perfectly, and the Mount’s reflected Sky Spire rested dead center of the granite dais at the center of the pool. She took the walkway to the dais, and settled her feet to straddle the Sky Spire’s shadow.

A drum thumped back along the topmost terrace, hidden in one of six cutouts from the wall of ice. In their earliest days, the cutouts had served to provide cover for repulsing Matari war bands, and then Amarrian troopers, now returned to service as echo chambers for the ceremonies of the Sebiestor.

The drum thumped thirteen times, deep bellowing that reverberated in the Enclave. As that first drum stopped, another started, in succession, beating out thirteen taps. That first drum cued the assembling Sebiestor to enter the corridor, and as the second drum began, the first of the Matari appeared in the Enclave. A man whose age was unknowable, whose visage was scarred and worn into softest fabric lead the other Sebiestor following him smartly along the staggered terraces down to her. Each drum tap brought in another ten Matari, each new drum filling a terrace completely with strong Matari bodies from the very oldest to the youngest.

As the sixth drum ended its tap, the last Matari stood in his place at the entrance to the corridor, the youngest of the tribe to attend the Three Days of Light. Though the most revered and ancient Sebiestor stood on the walkway to the dais, the position of honor was that young man in front of the corridor. Barely six, the Matari’s duty was to prevent an attack on the ceremony by any invader, a duty the young man took without reservation. He gripped a Khumaak in his right hand and stared with determination into the Enclave, down the terraces to her. What Destiny would his Voluval bring?

“Be welcome sister,” the entire assemblage said to her in one voice as the last drum ended.

“Thanks from Matar for the welcome, brothers and sisters.”

The drums began the Song of Matar, from the Faith of Matar, and the Matari danced and gyrated in place. Only she, the oldest and the youngest did not move or sing. The sunlight became a beam of light that peered down into the Enclave, and the sky was the deepest blue. Soon the beam would strike the dais and the Ceremony would reach its fulfillment.

“It is foretold,” she started as the Song of Matar ended, “That the Three Days of Light would come.”

“And so it was,” came the answer as one voice.

“And so it was,” she affirmed. “Every year, for all the years that even Matar can count, our Father of all Matari, the Three Days came. We welcome Matar and we welcome the Three Days.”

“Matar bless us,” came the answer as one voice.

“Matar bless you,” she affirmed, waving the first of the Matari to cross the walkway and receive the blessing. The old warrior strode to her, turning and bowing his head as she touched his hand. She marveled at his strength, older than any in all of Mikramurka, a warrior who after today would return to his rifter and follow his Destiny into the Amarr home worlds. His traditional dress of woolen shirt and pants smelled clean and natural, and she smiled. She still wore the winter’s garments, the symbol of Cizin, the Transitional One. As Matar was the sun and the light, so Cizin was the darkness and the deepest space.

Each Matari stepped across the walkway to the dais, and received a blessing. The Matari would then walk off the dais over the walkway opposite, first bending to scoop a bit of the steaming water to drink. The procession would continue until the oldest Sebiestor stood behind the youngest, with hands resting on his shoulders as a mentor.

Halfway through the procession, a Sebiestor stumbled and fell at her feet. No one said anything, but the whole assemblage stopped in astonishment. He got to one knee and stayed there, shaking . . . crying.

In all the Welcoming Ceremonies of known memory, no one had ever stumbled, certainly no one had ever fallen and then began to cry. The beam of light approached the dais, a juggernaut that kept the timing of the ceremony. She withdrew the shawl and removed her winter’s garments, and the Sebiestors as one gasped. To stand thus naked on the dais was unheard of, and she knew that perhaps some even considered it sacrileges.

She bent down and took the Matari’s hand in hers. He stood, but only when she lifted his head up did she see the horror in his eyes. He was a strong Sebiestor, a Matari warrior with Destiny marks that spoke of battles and journeys yet to be. Yet he was crying, shaking.

“Brother . . . “ she said, whispering.

“The faces! The faces of the children!” He said in whispered reply, then turning and shouting up into the sky, “The children! Damn Matar for this!”

The shouting from the assemblage became so loud that even the waves against the Cliffs were drowned out. The Matari warrior cried into the heavens and fell to his knees. Only when she raised her hand did the whole Enclave become silent. She felt heat on her raised fingers, and turned her head to see that the beam of light was now touching her hand. “Brothers and sisters, this Matari is searching for his soul.”

The assemblage became a mass of nodding heads, and strong statements of outrage that their Sebiestor brother had come to such a troublesome spot. Not angry at him now that they understood his plight, but angry at themselves for not helping him earlier. No Matari in such a condition suddenly became a ranting mindless body, rather a long series of tragedies and resultant outbursts were the indicators of pain that had ripped out the soul.

Angry that they had betrayed their brother.

“Matari, you must tell me your tale.” Without his soul, she could not call him brother. She had to act or he was lost.

He stayed on his knees, crying, but speaking earnestly. “The battles against the slavers grow, and I am there for my Matari brothers and sisters. I do not delay in battle, and often have I fallen to rescue the slaves from their false God.”

“As you must,” she answered.

“But in these last few weeks, I witnessed cargo holds of slaves ripping open and my brothers and sisters blown into cold space . . . I can feel their screams and deaths reverberating in the gel of the ship, deep inside me I feel them!”

Affirmations of this echoed in the Enclave as Matari warriors saw similar things recently. “The Amarr have weakened their slaver holds to rupture in a fight!” One Matari shouted, and angry threats of invasion and tortured death became the sound of the ceremony.

“No!” The Matari warrior said, standing and pointing. “I attacked a transport last week and in the fire of my zeal to kill the Amarri, I ruptured a cargo hold with children! Children who became frozen corpses in the grasp of Cizin - I murdered them!”

She took his shoulders and spun him around. The cold wind of the Mikramurka blew across her naked body, across the left hand side of her scalp where she had shaved all of her hair in deference to lost family. He stared at her and she stared at him. “Matari, hear me. The death of the Amarr is a thing that all Matari wish, some seek their complete genocide, some only those who traffic in slaves.”

“Matar burn them,” came the reply from the assemblage in once voice.

“It is Matar that guides you, but your own two feet are the tools to the return of your soul. What say you?”

He said nothing.

“What say you!?”

“I am lost,” he said finally. “What am I?”

She clutched him close, and they wrapped arms together as the beam of light struck them. Intense heat made them sweat and she spoke into his ear. “You are the Sun, and the ground is your goal. Is the horizon real or illusion? It is there that your answer lies.”

He broke away, his face dazed and his eyes bloodshot. He stumbled back, hands ringing, mouth moving without words. He turned and stared into the faces of his tribe, who stared back to stabilize him, to affirm his status as Sebiestor.

“I am the Sun,” he began, first haltingly, then assuredly and with fervor. “I am the Sun, the ground is my goal! I can stand here in anguish at the murder of my brothers’ children, languish in search of my soul or I can start running for the horizon.”

“The horizon? Is it real or illusion?” She asked him.

“Whether I stand and do nothing, or run to catch my soul at the horizon, I would be a fool. I am Matari. I am Sebiestor. I will always seek to free my brothers, and I do not accept the death of any of them, but should that happen, I trust in Matar and Cizin to judge me after they have taken in the fold of those I could not save.”

“The horizon? Is it real or illusion?” She asked him again.

He spun to her and bowed his head. She blessed him. “Be welcome brother.”

“Thanks from Matar for the welcome, sister.”

The ceremony continued to its end with the sun well overhead, the dais in bright warm sunlight. It was about at this point that the Sebiestor-in-Waiting was sacrificed, in ceremony only, to Matar as thanks for His promise of the Days of Light. The ceremonial aspect of the sacrifice had been the tradition only recently, starting about as the same time the Republic became a reality. Prior to that, prior to even the Day of Darkness when the skies became black, the Day before the Amarrians came, the Sebiestor-in-Wating was sacrificed in the flesh at the headland Cliffs.

Today, this one year, would see a return of that old way.

She stood on the dais, still naked, waiting as the last of the Matari moved into position along the terraces. The Ending saw the Sebiestor standing in a spiral pattern along the terraces, the oldest now standing behind the youngest at the entrance to the corridor that led out into the wastes.

“I am his Mentor,” the oldest said, his voice deep.

“I am his protector,” the youngest said, his voice small but firm.

“And who has demanded this?” She asked.

“Matar, our Father,” they said in unison.

She clothed herself again, starting outward past each of the Sebiestor, each bowing their heads as she passed until she stood behind the oldest and the youngest. “Led me to the Cliffs.”

“Our Honor, sister,” they said in unison.

As the procession of the Sebiestor weaved up the Thirteen Steps of Matar, out into the wastes of the Mikramurkan headland, the Sebiestor-in-Waiting thought of her sisters, one-in-faith, one-in-blood. She had already encoded a PAD to her sister-of-faith, sister RageChild. It was in her pocket, and would be taken to her sister after the ceremony by one of the Attendees.

Despite the intense sunlight, the icy waste was not very warm. Despite the bright light of the sun, the snow wasn’t reflecting enough light to make her the eyeshields. She was glad. The wastes were beautiful, and the shadow of the north Mount lay across their path as they trudged to the Cliffs. Waves two hundred meters high beat against the Titian Cliffs, the thunder of the water never quite as loud as the breaking of the glacial rifts. The desolation of the oceans reminded the Sebiestor woman of gray fabric, undulating with the force of a winter’s night breeze. The procession stood at the edge of the Cliffs now, salt water spraying their faces and their eyelashes caked with ice.

“Wait!” A voice yelled to them, a woman with bright red hair running across the plains to stand by her sister-by-blood. Airgoidh was breathing heavily, a Brutor with bright red hair and eyes. “Wait! I . . . I . . . this isn’t in my dreams . . .”

The Sebiestor-in-Waiting handed her sister the PAD, which played immediately.

Sister RageChild and Sister Airgoidh, I am dying. It is only a matter of days.

We are tway, we are Paratwa turned ronin, but you are alone now. Daison did more than torture me. He introduced a poison that cannot be undone. This poison kills me slowly, but not to be compassionate, it also prevents proper clone reactivation by inhibiting my mind from transferring upon activation. The clone would be mindless, and could never be whole. This cannot be undone.

I am dying, but I will not die from the poison. The Sebiestor have granted me to be the Sebiestor-in-Waiting. I give myself to Matar that in his wisdom he might remake me or keep me.

I have arranged for you to take ownership of the corporation hangars in Amamake, as well as provided a small sum of twenty million into that account. The leadership of the Rona Paratwa is yours, but it is not a thing to hold onto.

We are ronin. To be alone or joined with our tway is the only Thing Matar and Cizin seek for us.

I am the Sun, and the deepest waters of the Mikramurkan Sea are my goal. There is no horizon. It is an illusion.

Airgoidh dropped the PAD, and the sun peered from over the very pinnacle of the north Mount. The assemblage of Sebiestor began an intonation no different than the sound of snow falling across a roaring sea, and Airgoidh cried.

The Sebiestor-in-Waiting, Gaelbhan Wulf, turned to face the roaring sea. She raised her arms sideways to the height of her shoulders, and fell forward down the Titian Cliffs into the deepest waters of the Mikramurkan Sea.

“Thanks from Matar, sister Wulf,” the assemblage of Sebiestor intoned.

cont...