Library of Rain

The Others

Leaving her pillar, Rain approached the gathering of shades. Before she could make out their muttered words, they fell silent and looked over at Rain.

“What does the little one want?” asked one of the shades in a high-pitched cackle. Rain was pretty sure it came from the shade on the left, the one with the mouths around it. Judging by the outline of the shade, she guessed it was a man. 

Before Rain could answer, the woman shade with the awesome pointed hat cut in, “Now, now. Don’t be rude to the newcomer. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the champion of Neth, prince of ill luck and potion-craft. Now then, what Prince do you serve?” 

Rain was temporarily mesmerized by the woman's melodious voice. Shaking her head to clear it, Rain decided to answer this question honestly. After all, she had no reason to hide her connection to Oru. If her actions got him in trouble, then that was his problem. And if things went well, Rain might become friends with this woman.

“Oru. Prince of forbidden knowledge.”

Rain didn’t say anything more than she needed to. Hopefully, it would make it harder for these people to find her later if things went poorly. 

“The little one only serves a single domain prince, and she hasn’t even been gifted a mantle. I see no reason to deal with it. Shoo, shoo.” 

The cackler, whom Rain decided to name Lips because of his floating mouths, made shooing motions at Rain. Rain naturally ignored him and instead turned to Hat: the woman with the awesome hat.

“What’s a mantle?”

“Oh my, it seems you’re quite new. Don’t worry; I'll help you out. We girls need to stick together. The mantle is the pretty pictures you see around us; it shows what domains our patron has blessed us with. It seems your patron hasn’t chosen to give you any power over his domain yet. Don’t worry; I’m sure if you serve him well, he’ll give you the power eventually.”

The way Hat said ‘power’ was like she was caressing the word with her mouth before letting it free. Unfortunately for Rain, the mantle made it hard for her to see if the woman was lying. Rain caught the occasional glimpse of colored smoke in the black fog wafting off the woman, but she wasn’t sure how much she missed, and any lie blended right in. 

“Ignore the little one. Let us talk of the deal. If you agree, we can kill thousands and harvest their energy for our patrons. Think of all the suffering.”

“Yes, we could kill quite a few people if I helped you, but their deaths would go to you, not me, so I have no reason to. Until Neth orders me, I won’t help you.”

“Fine! I offered to share the energy with you, but we can scour the isles without you. Come!”

With that, Lips turned to leave and motioned to Rat, who silently followed afterward.

Rain took both of them off her potential friend list.

“Who was the quiet one?” Rain asked, not really expecting an answer.

“Oh, that would be Gic. He’s the only one here who doesn’t hide their name and past. Apparently, the Lord of his island killed his family. After that, he made a deal with Seg, the prince of disease and fear. He got the power and opportunity to get revenge but now he has to serve Seg unconditionally. The fool could have gotten so much more for his service.”

Hat shook her head at that.

“Oh, what did you trade for the chance to become this Oru’s champion?”

“Everything.” Rain answered simply. It wasn’t a lie, but it might mislead Ms. Hat. Hopefully, she would assume Rain was like this Gic fellow and not that she had been reborn. It would be easier to blame Oru for anything she did that way.

“I see.” Ms. Hat seemed far less interested in the conversation for some reason. Had Rain misjudged something? “Well, perhaps I can make a deal with your patron later. There’s some information I could use.”

With that, Ms. Hat turned and walked away, leaving Rain standing alone where, only a few minutes ago, three people were busily talking. That was fine, though. Rain needed time to process what she had just learned. 

These people were like her; they had made deals to get something in exchange for serving their Prince of Darkness. Though Rain had never promised to serve Oru, so did she really count? Rain also didn’t have any tasks to kill people for some kind of power, though she wasn’t sure whether these people were trying to get power for themselves or their patron.

Either way, Rain was certain now that the Zimir or the Princes of Darkness - hmm, she hadn’t actually heard the word Zimir yet - were a problem. After all, they had domains like ill luck, lies, and disease. The book she’d snagged mentioned simpler ones like war and pain. 

As Rain was thinking, aimlessly staring at a pillar, her mind latched onto something. Rat served the lord of disease and fear. In the last few years, plagues have broken out on more than one island, such as Estom, forcing the Gathering to condemn the island as dead islands. 

Standing next to Rat was Lips, surrounded by dried and cracked mouths; those mouths sure looked like they hadn’t eaten in a while. In Rain’s mind, she could see her last trip to the Low Ring where two men fought over a loaf of bread.

Rain turned, sweeping her gaze over the room where her eyes caught the shade with waves around it. Again, her thoughts drifted back to a conversation she’d had with Mr. Markson. ‘Where did you get this! This is lemon juice. It’s a fruit from the mainland, but no ship has returned from sailing there in the last ten years. Did some lords house grow lemon seeds in their domain without any of the other lords finding out?’ 

Next was the priest of Agro. Rain remembered a priest standing in a city square surrounded by desperate people searching for some way to escape the hopeless feelings that smothered the islands like a blanket of ash. Yet all the priest did was take their money and tell them comforting lies, encouraging them to do nothing and trust in a god who wouldn’t protect them instead of doing something to fix their problems. 

“Oh,” Rain whispered as she looked at the other shades, the champions she didn’t recognize. What were they doing to serve their patrons?

“Like sharing knowledge that brings corruption and chaos to the isles?”

Rain looked over at Lon’s sneering face. 

“You’re right. I need to make sure that every move I make brings more good than harm. I’ll start with these people here.”

Rain looked around the room, memorizing as much as she could. The images of the mantles gave her an idea of what the others would use to destroy, but the images weren’t everything. 

There was Rat, and she knew a bit about his past and his prince’s domains, which were supposedly disease and fear. Next was Lips. He had a funny way of talking and probably had some domain related to hunger and possibly more. Hat was definitely a woman, and she claimed that her prince was over ill luck and potion-craft. Her mantle had bent coins, which Rain supposed supported the ill luck. Then, there was the tall shade with waves. Did she have powers over the ocean, maybe storms? The priest of Agro, or rather the Pontiff, Rain already knew about. That only left the small shade with puppets. Rain had no idea what that was about.

Right! Rain’s next step would be to learn about the two she knew the least about. Rain started walking toward them when the world around her folded in the familiar sensation of teleportation, leaving Rain standing in her room with a worriedly pacing Sunrise.

“What the? I wasn’t done yet! What was the point of that!”

***

Oru laughed at the girl as she raged back in her room. This had gone perfectly; the others had seen her and knew she belonged to him. The child may have pulled one over on him by creating that diaskus earring and stealing one of his servants, but now all that was left was to sit back and watch the tension rise. He would regain his investment in her when she died, just like he had regained his spent energy teaching her to manipulate others by taking her talent with a blade. 

“The others can waste energy harvesting this failed world while I claim another domain for free.”

It felt good to be winning.