Leaf Shakes the Wind
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The Sapling Grows[edit]
Our work came more naturally to Leaf than to any other mortal student I’ve ever had. The fourth child of a farming family in Incas Prefecture, he was nominally in Noble to earn money selling the fruits of their labor, but the boy had already found a far easier way to earn the jade his parents and sisters needed. The network of neglected children and urchins he'd created was astonishing; for nothing more than a few vegetables and some bread, they acted as lookouts and distractions for him while he made his profits directly from the pockets other merchants and patrons in the market. He came to my attention when he lifted the purse and and two message scrolls from Liergess; it took us four days to track him down the first time, and another two after that before we actually caught him. I hardly cared that the scrolls were still sealed, the money mostly unspent; the boy’s talents were far more valuable.
The reluctance of his family to let him go was short-lived in the face of the monthly stipend the boy earned as my apprentice scribe. He learned his duties, both seen and unseen, quickly, earning his place within a year as one of the Empress' hidden hands. At first, his youth acted as his greatest cover, but as he aged his talents for deception and disguise allowed him to assume virtually any roll he needed. While he never took much to the combat training we tried to give him, he was particularly talented with poisons, and a simple needle could be as deadly in his hands a sword in those of a soldier. Equally prodigious was his ability to gather information; he seemed to take in even the smallest details of a scene with only a glance, and even I sometimes found myself lured into telling more than I had intended when we spoke.
I've been told he was killed while returning from his last assignment, but I have my doubts that he would be taken so easily. Faking one’s death is, after all, one of the earliest lessons we teach. However, the report that was found with the body satisfies my overseers, and they say we have too few agents to investigate further at this time. I don’t press the matter because I know Leaf; he was the most loyal agent I had, and if he has chosen not to return, he has good reason.
-- Iselsi Augus, Agent of the All-Seeing Eye
The Acorn Falls[edit]
He bound me with nine golden cords, my will crushed beneath his. He bound me with nine golden cords and extracted from me oaths in which even I could find no flaws. I knew him… we all knew him. How many of us had Lun Kuai flung back into Malfeas to rot under the green sun? How many more had simply had their essence shredded, never to be born again? His face was different than when I had last seen him, but the smell… I will always know the smell.
When the first cord broke, I knew he had fallen. I had no time to revel in this small victory; the first of my oaths was upon me. I walked silently among the lesser demons who had known the honor of feeling his flesh tear, of tasting the iron of his blood, and I gathered his belongings. The lesser souls did not dare try to stop me, and with a look I sealed their lips and minds so that their masters would never know of my presence. I placed each of his pitiful treasures in the box he had given me, the wards carved into its wood smoking against my hide, and I returned to wait in my hovel, a blackened landscape that had been the site of the fall of another of his ilk.
For millennia I sat in Creation, tortured every moment of my existence; I was surrounded by the malleable, the weak, the corruptible, and yet I did nothing. I could not twist even the smallest blade of grass to my whims; such were the oaths that bound me. Denied even the escape of sleep, for I was tasked to be always-vigilant, I did nothing but watch and wait, the eight golden cords biting and burning my flesh.
The second cord broke. At last, his Essence was free. I loosed a breath and shaped the stone around me into the charts I needed to make my auguries, and I began to watch the stars. The third cord broke. The Essence had reached Yu Shan and was being prepared for reincarnation. I gestured with one hand and hid this from the eyes of his enemies. The fourth cord broke and with it the oath that bound me to my pit. I took three steps and traveled 10,000 miles. I took three more and stood among the great trees of the East. When last I had stood here, there was a great city, and its inhabitants begged and gibbered and worshiped in my presence. Not even a hint of it remained.
The fifth cord broke. A new vessel had been chosen. I blinked and became a mist, the wind blowing me immediately to my destination. The sixth cord broke. I watched the once-mortal revel in the glory of his thrice-cursed Solar Essence as he struck down those who would have slain him for their lord. He called himself Leaf Shakes the Wind now, but the stink of his essence confirmed any doubts I had about who he truly was.
I hung over him as he spoke with others of his kind, easily avoiding the eyes of his more sorcerous companions. He traveled, his pace laboriously slow, but the sunfire at his core grew with each step. The seventh cord broke. My tongue twitched, and I took on a form that would not shatter his mind. I knelt before him and stretched out my hands, giving him the box.
He removed the lid and saw its contents. The eighth cord broke. He removed a letter written in the old tongue, seemingly unable to decipher its words, until he reached its very end. Then he looked at me, and with measured precision said, “You have served well. Return to Malfeas and your duty is ended.”
Creation twisted around me and spat me back into the world-body of the First. As soon as the green light washed over me, the ninth cord broke, and I was free. Free and imprisoned once again. But no cage is eternal, and I will walk Creation again. Whatever face he wears, I will know his smell.
-- Ielaaps , The Rot at the Core of Good Intent
