SSCS 04: Installment 1 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Installment 1 of my next SSCS is now up! (That stands for Serial Stream-of-Consciousness Story, which is something you can find out more about here.) I’ll be putting out a new installment once each week, on Friday, until the story is done (around about mid August).
This year’s story, ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress,’ is, as per usual, a new stand-alone story, separate from (and unlike) those that have come before. This time, we’ve got something with a bit of a quest. (And something with enough characters that I’ve gone ahead and provided a list up front of most of the ones you’ll want to keep track of.)
SSCS 04’s tone: Sword and Sorcery
SSCS 04’s mild content warning: some interaction with corpses
Hope you enjoy!
…The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Characters of Note:
The Breathbound Lazarine, Last-Seekers-for-hire:
El – leader of the Lazarine, healer, as a dark-skinned young girl
Ki – second of the Lazarine, priest, as a pale-skinned androgyne
San – partner to Ki, spy, as a changeling man
Du – musician, as a half-djinn man
Lot – fortune-teller, as a blue-skinned part-Trawerler woman
Queens of Kolssidir (‘the City of Bridges’):
The Iron Queen – of builders and infrastructure
The Gull Queen – of guard and soldiery
The Haven Queen – of archives and civil offices
The Moth Queen – of laborers and spies
The Salt Queen – of merchants and trade
Known Queen’s Avatars:
The Iron Queen’s Architect
The Gull Queen’s Huntress
The Haven Queen’s Cipher
The Salt Queen’s Emissary
…The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress
Installment 1: 19.1220, 20.1231
In the glimmering near-dusk, in the glitter of wrought-silver railings and the glinting of the low sun upon the water, five travelers stood upon the northernmost archway of the city of Kolssidir, which had been built upon the widest stretch of the river Tide, and so was known as the City of Bridges. Despite the dazzle before them, all were brooding, weary, and lost in thought. The five were Last-Seekers-for-hire, the Breathbound Lazarine, and though they’d made the full ring of this city in one day—twenty-two bridges just to mark the city’s outer boundaries—still they had sensed no hint of the thing they searched for, the thing they’d been bound into finding, by oaths, and by ancient magics also—their lives were forfeit should they fail. Their leader, El, guessed they had at most two days left to accomplish it. After that would be too late.
It did not help that this was a foreign city to them, though in all their years, in all their lives (for of all Last-Seekers everywhere, only the Lazarine could say that they had failed before), any place truly foreign had become harder and harder to find. It did not help that the thing they searched for was as impossible as themselves: The living heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress—though they’d seen the woman standing before them, breathing and animate, even as this task was laid upon them.
But they were Last-Seekers, and had bound themselves thus, immutable—if also as temporary—as death to their charges, because in all their years, in all their lives, true purpose had proved itself the hardest thing of all to find. They had spent many lives without purpose. It did not do. Not for them. Not for the selves that would be uncovered should they find themselves too long in idleness.
The first of them, their leader, was El. This life, at this time, she wore the body of a girl-child, with skin as black as night, but carried with her, as always, her bag of medicines and potions to mark her calling. If any would speak, she would stop. If any would ask, she would heal them. But none did, nor likely would do on this journey, because they would see only a girl child. This was always a trouble that could not be helped, and long and long they had found their ways of coping. While El appeared as yet a child, to speak with mortals she spoke through the voice of her second. Her second was Ki.
Ki was narrow in a way that made them seem taller than they were, and commanding in a way that was obscure. No one in the City of Bridges had ever heard of the priests of AkunSoohn. They could not recognize the symbol Ki wore always bound around their neck, three circles set one inside the other, like petals on a strange flower. But the shabby, carefully pressed suit, the beaded shawl, and the symbol together still made their impression. Also, the skin as white as snow, which in this body Ki now wore had made them appear ageless these past fifty years or more.
The three others? San, who was ever older than his guileless looks and matched his age always to Ki. Upon Ki’s death, he would take his body’s life, and vice-verse, so that they might never part. Du, whose shabby finery couldn’t quite hide the half-djinii golden light glinting from his obsidian eyes. And Lot, who walked now with El’s skinny hand in hers, playing the part of governess or nurse-maid. Her head was topped with a modest, brown scarf that could hide the tentacled nature of her ‘hair’, but not the bluish cast of this body’s skin.
Though today they had walked the full spans of twenty-two bridges, now they were brought to a stand-still, their purpose pulling them, but no openings marked out to follow next. They were Last-Seekers, and could not be unbound.