Chapter 429

The Dusk Amphitheater of Domal’Takela was located on the Western side of the main structure of the palace. All of those big white blocks of stone looked golden in the sunset as they acted as a backing to the amphitheater, which was sunk into the ground and very simple. It was a ‘traditional’ stage. There were no places for ‘high dignitaries’. Everyone sat on the same curves of stone that half-moon’d around a central stage, the whole thing reminding Mark of the Ancient Greece architecture he learned about in middle school. A lot of people in the audience didn’t like that everyone was seated together, but mostly because they thought they deserved better. That emotion seemed mostly contained to some of the noble children, though. The parents had similar emotions, but their emotions were sharper, and they cared more about everyone they were seeing, and everyone they seeing, than about being lumped in with everyone at once.

Mark sat down on the same wide arc of stone as hundreds of other people, to the center-right of the area.

The air was practically a miasma of emotions, while the sounds reminded him of a grade school cafeteria.

A lot of people had noticed and were talking about Addavein, and Addavein loved that.

Addavein was seated behind Mark, one level up.

Isoko sat on one of his sides, Sally on the other, and Eliot on Sally’s other side.

Everyone got a seat.

The sun was minutes away from setting.

Isoko sipped on a huge soda, leaning into Mark, adding, “I’m almost afraid to Union away the piss when I inevitably have to go.”

Mark practically giggled, the tension cut, and Isoko smiled, putting a hand onto his leg. Mark readily put his hand on top of Isoko’s and held her warm hand for a moment, saying, “Thank you.”

Isoko smiled a little bit, looking away and chuckling once, saying, “Anytime— Oh!”

A burst of white smoke erupted from the stage.

Mark tensed for a moment, but the smoke was only 5-meters-wide on a 20-meter-wide stage; just a part of the show. Speakers tapped the air with pressure, like the chiming of a silent gong.

A woman in a pale white dress stepped out of the smoke, her voice reaching everyone like a whisper in the night.

“Greetings, and welcome to the Winter Ball of 2050. I am Pearl Woods, of the Domal’Takela Witches. We will begin the Welcome in 5 minutes. Please be seated. As a reminder, no photography, recording, or speaking, but if you speak during the performance then perhaps you deserve to.”

Mark got chills as she said that last part, and he was not the only one.

5 minutes passed remarkably fast, but not before Mark’s hand got sweaty and he let go of Isoko. She grinned and sipped her soda.

Pearl Woods had vanished somewhere in all of that.

And then the sun dipped down below the horizon, and lights came on slowly, seeming to pool illumination into the center of the stage, into a winter fog that had been slowly building for minutes, ever since Pearl came and went in her small cloud.

The light pulsed; a drop of water on a pond, and not like that at all.

Mark felt himself gasp, and all words seemed to fail, silence unfolding like a blanket, stealing vibrancy from reality and yet the darkness illuminated a vibrancy that had always been there.

Lurking.

Existing.

Glowing white eyes stood at eye-level at the back of the stage, hovering over the mist, watching. Seeing.

Dreaming.

A dream unfolded into reality, and Mark’s dreamsight was the same as his real sight, as fog traced across Pearl’s hunched-over body. She had been inside the fog the whole time, and now the fog traced over the bodies of two other women, all of them wearing diaphanous white gowns—

“Welcome,” said the first woman, in the fog to the left, face upturned, as she stretched upward, arms raising slowly upward, mist curling off of her body like she was the breaker in a soft, slow storm.

“Welcome,” said the second woman, face downcast, as she blossomed upward anyway, arms stretched down and out, almost as though she was bowing, or plucking something from the ground. The fog curled into her open arms like a child greeting its mother.

“Welcome,” said the central woman, Pearl, standing tall and proud, fog curling off of her like a breaker in a storm. Her hands and arms curved above and below herself, as she stared into the audience, looking right at Mark… or maybe she was looking at others. But no, she was looking at Mark.

Mark wasn’t sure when the music began, but it was there. Soft strings thrummed lightly, deep like a void, and then the women danced, three voices raised, lowered, and directed, echoing in that void, in the dream, making reality out of words themselves,

“This is the winter of our sovereignty.

“The harvest is reaped, the silos are full, and now the cold flows fast.

“We gather together in the warmth, behind strong walls, behind strong Skills.

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“Here, in the warmth of the cold, in the light in the dark, talks are treasures. Plans are prosperity.

“The food you eat, the drink you drink, the words you share, only exist because we have planned, because we have talked.

“We feast, we rejoice, we sow the Empire for further bounty.

“Hand in hand in hand, we reach out, we connect, we support.

“This is the winter of our sovereignty.

“When the cold retreats and the warmth takes hold, when the light returns in full, we will prosper once again.

“We grow because we have been here, in the biting cold, by the warm fires, together.

“Welcome to the Winter’s Ball.”

Mark breathed, and it felt like he had forgotten to breathe the entire time the witches welcomed them to the Winter’s Ball, as they undulated, as they sang. It was over now. The drums quieted, the strings stilled. Gentle fingers brushed the violence of the dream back into some other place, back into darkness.

But the darklight remained.

There, in the colorful shadows.

There, in the black, was the gold.

The Witches of Domal’Takela took small bows in their white, foggy dresses, and then kept bowing, down into the mist, deep into the light in the fog, and the fog rolled away.

The witches were gone.

The three witches were at the back of the stage. They were the eyes in the dark, and they had been the eyes in the dark this entire time. They were dressed in pure black, each with a pointed hat. Pearl set her guitar into a holder, the left one set her drumming sticks down onto her drums, the right one stood up from beside her cello.

Assistants took their instruments from them.

And the witches strode, regal in shimmering black, onto the stage, hand in hand into the spotlight.

Pearl stood in the middle, announcing, “Thank you for being here. Thank you for your loyalty to Empire Aluatha.

“The Virgin Social is being held at the Dawn Stage, on the other side of Domal’Takela. If you have never been here before, you are requested there.

“We pay particular respects to two newcomers, whom we hope join us at that Social.

“One of these people is known to everyone here. He is the Adamantine Immortal, Mark Careed.”

A spotlight flickered onto Mark and all eyes went his way.

Mark stood up and bowed a little, because it seemed like the thing to do and he had acted on his feet more than once recently. Being called out at the Welcome wasn’t in the script, but if there was a script around here then Mark had not seen it.

Addavein, behind Mark, was ready to stand up as well—

“And the other is Jessie Stills, who is somewhat unknown, until now,” Pearl continued.

Mark was not the only one surprised, but other people were gasping as if they had finally gotten confirmation of something big. The light stayed on Mark, but another light blossomed on another location on the left side of the amphitheater. There, surrounded by a few guards in white and with an older man sitting with him, was ‘Jessie Stills’.

Jessie was not standing, and he did not want to, but the older man with him elbowed him and so Jessie stood. Jessie was dressed well, but he did not look comfortable, and yet he was there, and he was doing this; that was Mark’s impression of him.

Pearl continued, “Many of you know of the Battle of Memphi and the story of the person who went through the Tutorial during the Battle, who came out at the end of it all to resurrect the city. It is the story of the Resurrection Ghost, and Jessie Stills is that Resurrection Ghost.”

“Oh my gods,” Mark said, ears full of rushing, thrumming blood, heart beating hard.

The amphitheater got real loud with people asking a whole lot of questions at once.

But the Resurrection Ghost had been a lie, hadn’t it? A misdirection from Memphi so they could deny the Cultists of Thrashtalon the propaganda that they could both kill a city and resurrect it at any point in time.

Mark found himself asking his people, asking Addavein, “I thought that was a lie?”

From the vectors of the people by Jessie and the witches and even Addavein, maybe the lie had become true? If anyone had answers, it was not anyone here. But then again the Witches of Domal’Takela wouldn’t lie, right? They wouldn’t… they wouldn’t lie. Lies created weakness; Reeni had said something like that. Witches didn’t lie. Not really.

But the Resurrection Ghost was a lie… And yet…

In which case…

Mark locked eyes onto Jessie Stills from across 50 meters, and Jessie stared right back for half a second.

Anger. Distrust. But also hope.

And then he looked away, and all Mark saw on his face was a mask. Someone close to him tried to break the quarantine set up by the guards, yelling something about a recently dead mother, and then the guards got that person to stand down.

Mark kinda walked away.

In the confusion of leaving there, in their private tram to the Virgin Social, in all of the questions that Mark didn’t have answers for, there was only one question that Mark felt he could answer.

Sally asked everyone, “I thought the Resurrection Ghost was propaganda?!”

“It ,” Mark said.