Broken Lands

Chapter 382 – Sigils of the Past

Sophia took advantage of the moment of silence that followed her announcement to turn towards Xin’ri. “Do you have a glass container, preferably with a glass stopper, that I can break? It needs to seal well enough that air can’t get in or out.”

“Um,” Xin’ri muttered. “Probably. No, definitely. I’m not sure any of them are empty; let me check.”

“The Broken Lord isn’t dead?” Arak sounded worried. “Can he call for help? I know many in the Arena who would try to help him if they could.” 

He paused, then added almost as an afterthought, “I don’t think the Broken Blade would, unless he promised her something good. At least, not if she had a choice. She’d come, but not to help.”

That wasn’t something the Wanderer mentioned either way, but Sophia had an easy answer anyway. “They’d have to get here. That took us a long time; this won’t take that long. A few hours, maybe, not weeks.”

“Tokens,” Dav warned with a shake of his head. “What if the Broken Lord can move the entrance? He’d have to be able to let people in, too, but we can’t count that out. Can we?” 

His last few words were directed at Ansuz, who took a moment to think about them before he answered. “I doubt he can move the location in the Maze; he could not do that before. Inviting people in, however … I am uncertain. It certainly was within his power as emperor or even heir-designate, but now that there is another empress, I do not know. It seems possible.”

“And yet he never did,” Sophia muttered. She could try to guess what the man who destroyed his own empire and somehow turned that into its own form of power was thinking, but she doubted she’d ever know. Even if she did know, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t understand. “I think we can risk it for as long as it will take to deal with his remnants. I need the jar, some feathers, and a symbol. Feathers are easy … let’s see about that symbol.”

Sophia pulled up the new Hub screen the Guide mentioned in its message. More than half of the entries had an error, but Sophia saw the one the Wanderer recommended immediately: it was the one at the top of the list.

Task: Choose the Imperial Sigil for your reign

Sophia selected the Task the same way she’d once selected new Abilities. The screen shifted to a display with nine labeled squares. The squares were laid out strangely; six of them were in a row. The row below that was only two squares, the same size as the ones above but separated on the far left and far right of the display. All eight of those squares held an image. The ninth square was four times the size of the others and empty.

The square at the top left was an extremely basic blocky step pyramid with the sketch of a sword shoved into the peak, labeled Emperor Kestii.

The next one added a little more detail to the pyramid. The sword planted in its peak also looked a little thinner with a longer hilt and a flat crossguard instead of a curved one. It was labeled Emperor Previs Kestii.

The other four in the top row were similar. Each one had a step pyramid with a sword shoved into the top. The pyramid seemed to get taller and get closer and closer to being a tower instead of a pyramid as she went to the right. By the sixth image, it also looked damaged. Nothing was obviously missing, but the facade looked chipped and worn. The sword continued to vary from image to image as well, as did the names - though no matter what the first name was, they were all Emperors or Empresses with the last name Kestii.

Sophia suspected she was looking at reign names rather than personal names. It was entirely possible that a family line carried on for six or more generations with heirs, but with the brutal requirements Ansuz talked about, it seemed far more likely that at least some of them either married into the family or took the name Kestii when they rose to power.

What really caught Sophia’s attention, though, was that two of the images also had something else. The third square had a shield in the background and the fourth had two swords instead of one. That made it pretty obvious: because the first emperor had a sword and a tower, those were the symbols of the emperors of Kestii. The fact that Ansuz talked about gaining power as “the sword passing to the heir” only confirmed the guess. It also tied in nicely with the Tower of Kestii that seemed to compete with the Broken Lord, at least in the Skylands.

The seventh image, the one to the left of the blank space, held the broken sword that appeared on the link-gate that led to the zone they were currently inside. Interestingly, the sword itself looked almost exactly like the one plunged into the tower in the sixth image, the one that was almost certainly the sigil for Ysalix’s father. 

The label read Broken Lord Ysalix Kestii. Sophia had to read it twice to confirm what she was looking at. It didn’t say Emperor; it gave him the title Broken Lord. “I wonder if that means he wasn’t an emperor or if it’s just because everyone called him the Broken Lord.” 

She didn’t ask Ansuz; she already knew he wouldn’t know. Maybe she’d ask the Wanderer if he was right and they were able to meet once she got the Gateways working. Of course, that required her to remember the question when it was nothing more than idle curiosity. Sophia wasn’t confident she would.

The last symbol, the one opposite the Broken Lord’s, was the only other one that was already familiar to Sophia: it was the symbol of a sword plunging down from a tower. Even the small details like the circle that held the tower and the streamers that came off to either side were there. 

The tower in the image looked a great deal like the tower in the fourth Emperor’s image, where it finally finished the transition from a pyramid to a tower, rather than the somewhat decrepit image of a tower in the sixth Emperor’s sigil. The sword resembled the little Sophia could see of the sword in the fifth Emperor’s symbol, which made her wonder if that was the person it was originally designed for. 

It seemed likely, though the title wasn’t for a specific person this time. The label simply said Heir-Designate. Sophia was pretty sure that was the title Ansuz used for Ysalix Kestii before he became the Broken Lord.

Sophia’s eyes moved to the label for the empty box. It was neither empty nor complete; it said Empress but the rest was blank. Her guess about Kestii being a reign-name at least some of the rulers of Kestii took, rather than simply a family name, seemed ever more likely.

She wasn’t going to take the name. She had a perfectly good name.

For a moment, she considered doing what the second Emperor of Kestii seemed to have done and taking her father’s name as a symbol of her dynasty. Sophia Serenity sounded entirely too silly, but maybe Sophia Tranquility would work? It might be funny to refer to the original source of Serenity’s name, Tranquil Conviction. He’d probably even approve; the old Sterath strategist had an odd relationship with Sophia’s father, almost more like a friendly rivalry than anything else. 

Sophia chuckled, but she knew she’d never do it. Empress Sophia was plenty; her last name was really only important if there was a dynasty, and she really didn’t care about that. If she could, she’d hold the position only for a few months or however long it took to reactivate the Gateways. 

She might have to hang on to it for a little longer until someone she trusted managed to clear the conditions Ansuz had for a new emperor, but she was certain it was possible. Ansuz might have the information they needed; even if he didn’t, it shouldn’t be too hard to get it from the Wanderer once they could talk more freely.

If it really came down to it, she’d do the same thing her father had and find someone who could rule the planet and call her in only if she was needed. If the Guide let her, she’d do the same thing her father did on Earth: be the ruler in name and its shield against the rest of the universe while keeping her hands out of the actual nations’ business. That probably wouldn’t work as well for Sophia as it did for her father, though; she wasn’t nearly as powerful as he was and she didn’t have a flight or two of dragons eager to defend their new home and prevent battles from escalating to the point where they might threaten the dragons’ young.

It was fine. Protecting the people she’d never met in the Broken Lands from each other wasn’t the point. The point was to finally unseat the Broken Lord and open the Broken Lands to the rest of the universe once again. There were people who wanted that here; even if there was no Guide-approved Emperor, they were doing fine as they were. They’d figure something out.

It would probably be bloody. Succession battles usually were, and this was worse: there wasn’t really an Empire to begin with. It had already fallen apart. Sophia wasn’t going to put it back together again. 

Sophia corrected herself. Empress Sophia wasn’t going to put it back together again. She’d do what she needed to, but she didn’t need to rule over a lot of people who didn’t want her.

The label seemed to shimmer as her first name appeared next to the word Empress.

Sophia grinned at the words. She might not want the responsibility of fulfilling them but she certainly enjoyed seeing them and knowing that they were in some sense true. If she could keep them as nothing more than a relic of the past, she’d prefer it.

Relic or not, she needed to get a move on with her sigil.

Sophia tried drawing in the blank space. It was quickly obvious why the first drawing was nothing more than a simple sketch: Sophia wasn’t an artist and the Guide did nothing to help her complete lack of artistic skill. Worse, the image started to blur and fade even as she drew it. She was clearly not doing it right.

She probably wasn’t correctly imbuing the surface with what she wanted it to be. Intent was vital in magic, even if no one in the Broken Lands talked about it in the ways she was used to. Despite that, there was one thing she wanted to try first: could she steal bits from the other Emperors’ sigils and use them? They were all very similar and some of them, especially the Broken Lord’s and the heir-designate’s, seemed to use parts of other sigils fairly directly.

Sophia tapped on the pyramid in the first Emperor’s sigil, then dragged her finger across the display to her own box. It reminded her of the Stepped Pyramid symbol of the followers of the Tower of Kestii, which was more than enough of a reason to choose it over the others.

There was no visual indication, the way there would be on a computer, but a pyramid identical to the one in the first Emperor’s sigil appeared for a moment, then faded to nothing more than a dark silhouette of a pyramid. 

Sophia frowned. It wasn’t the worst starting place, but it also wasn’t the best place to start. Was this because her mental image wasn’t good enough or because the Guide knew that the Tower was broken and therefore shouldn’t be a symbol for her?