“There are layers to every history,” said the Commandant. “Like a tower built atop a palace, built atop a city, built atop a tomb. Now I finally build a new layer for my clan.”
He stood upon the highest platform of the iron tower for which the small city was named, eyes cast upward at the great dome of heaven. The few wispy clouds hurried across the night sky, chased by a persistent wind until the stars shone, immaculate but somehow… lacking.
“Histories-emperors. All-follow-the-Mandate-of-Heaven. The-stars-will-tell. The-stars-always-tell.” The Philosopher had a way of mumbling in a voice so low you weren’t sure if he was here or elsewhere, speaking to you or merely of you, to forces you couldn’t see. He was the same age as the powerful warlord beside him, but while training and an austere life had left the Commandant looking younger than his middle years, the Philosopher seemed to have aged prematurely, weighed down by his role in interpreting the will of Heaven.
The Commandant fixed the haggard young man with a glittering gaze, the closest the iron warlord ever came to smiling. “And what do the stars tell? Where are they tonight, on this eve of my firstborn?”
The Philosopher’s eyes remained on the sky for a long while, longer than was usual, which made the Commandant scowl. The interpreter of Heaven's will shouldn’t have even needed to look to the sky. The Philosopher was supposed to know where the roving stars would sit on any given day, beginning two thousand years ago, and stretching forward two thousand years hence. Finally his eyes flicked toward the Commandant but would not hold them. “The-roving-stars-have-scattered. Their-spaces-lie-vacant-in-the-sky.”
“Vacant?? No. That must be a mistake.” The Iron Tower began to creak with the man’s powerful Silver Star Mandate.
“Man-is-ever-powerless-before-the-changing-of-the-stars.” A brief expression of sympathy crossed the Philosopher’s face, as if he only just now realized that there were people on the other ends of his pronouncements. It was the only hint that the gaunt young man was, himself, wholly human.
The Commandant was not mollified by this. “Consult your charts. The sky cannot be empty on the night of his birth. Look again.”
The Philosopher made no move. He shouldn’t have said anything in the first place. Had he simply made his pronouncement and left, it might have ended there.
The metal tower groaned beneath them and the Philosopher thought the Commandant’s Mandate might tear it down beneath their feet.
“Consult. Your. Charts,” he repeated, a cold edge to his voice as he made a sharp gesture to the platform beneath them. The stenciling on the top of the metal tower was so intricate, so elaborate, that, open to the sky as it was, it appeared to be a reflection of each and every star that hung above them. But the Commandant knew the map showed only the stationary stars. The five most powerful stars – those multihued ones that roved the sky – could not be committed to any map. Those five were depicted encircling the sky-map in the order of the cycle of elements.
The Philosopher fixed the Commandant with a weighing stare, but when neither backed down, the Philosopher simply sighed and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were as black as the night sky itself. His eyes mirrored the abyss above and he began to move across the top of the tower as if in a dream, seeing yet not seeing.
“Silver-star-of-honor-justice-and-sky-metal. Absent.”
He shuffled to a different place upon the tower, pinpricks of light wheeling in his eyes as he shifted his cosmic gaze. But where he stopped, again there was nothing but darkness.
“The-black-star-of-water-depth-and-wisdom. Absent.”
The stars wheeled, and then again the Philosopher’s eyes went black.
“The-green-star-of-life-leaf-and-root. Absent.”
Each pronouncement fell like a hammer blow upon the Commandant. But each time he saw for himself the emptiness in the Philosopher’s eyes as they looked at where the roving stars should have been.
“The-red-star-of-fire-and-passion. Absent.”
Hours ago, the head of the Silver Falcon clan would have been disappointed if his own Silver Star had not been present on the birth of his assumed heir. But now four of five stars had chosen to look away from the birth of his child. Now, he was no more than an expectant father pinning all of his hopes on the last pronouncement of a wise man. Now, the Commandant was desperate for anything but blackness.
“The-yellow-star-of-earth-balance-and-honesty.” The Philosopher paused for a long time, scrutinizing the sky, eyes darting this way and that, and in the end, he mumbled, “Absent.”
The Commandant blinked. He blinked again, as unreadable emotion flitted across his face. Finally he spoke. “But he must have a Mandate from Heaven. He cannot be powerless. It must be one of them.”
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The Philosopher shook his head and blinked the darkness from his eyes. He appeared once again like a young man worn thin by a heavy burden, though perhaps now the nature of his burden had changed.
“If a child were born without a Mandate,” the Commandant went on, pacing the tower, “What would that mean?”
The Philosopher barely moved his lips as he spoke. “A-child-born-without-the-will-of-Heaven-cannot-be-allowed-to-live. For-they-are-without-power-and-grace. They-are-Accursed.”
The Commandant halted and looked to have been kicked in the gut. Powerful men did not respond well to being kicked. He drew himself up. “No. No! My son was born under the black star! He must have been! He must have a Mandate or… Or…”
At the clenching of the Commandant’s fists the tower shrieked and lurched beneath their feet. When the tower steadied itself, the Commandant’s anger evaporated. A cold iron mask had slammed down across his features. When he spoke again, he sounded as he always did; as cold and clinical as a surgeon’s blade.
“The black star is fickle. You cannot see it in this light. My report to the Emperor will leave no room for doubt. Be sure that yours does the same.”
The Philosopher’s eyes flicked to the Commandant again. The Philosopher was favored by Emperors and peasants alike, welcomed in all houses great and small, despite his strange ways. He did not like being told his own business. But there was no hope for it. The Commandant was currently one of the Three Excellencies, and an Imperial Protector of three provinces, besides. As such he outranked all but the Emperor’s own household. The Philosopher had no choice in the matter... not if he wanted to leave with his head.
“Cast the coins,” ordered the Commandant.
The Philosopher winced. Even a man at the height of his power, even a man so high in the ranks could do nothing to coerce fate.
“Cast the coins, I say. Perform the reading.”
The Philosopher reluctantly drew out his coin purse, selecting three common disks of bronze. He looked to the Commandant once more, whose eyes bored into him. The Philosopher sighed, bent to the surface of the tower, then with swift, jerking motions, scattered the coins. Once, twice, three times. Again and again he scattered them, counting their values and converting them to prophecy.
“Solidline.”
“Brokenline.”
“Solidline.”
“Brokenline.”
“Solidline…”
With the last casting of the coins, the wind picked up across the plains, buffeting the two men atop the tower. The bronze disks bounced and caught the wind. One moved across the tower’s surface and skidded to a stop just before the edge, one flew from the tower into the darkness of night, and the last caught an edge of the stencilling and began to spin in place. So long as the wind blew, it showed no sign of slowing.
The Philosopher watched this all with horror, but the Commandant, a man of might and metal, martial prowess and war materiel, knew nothing of portents.
“Well?” asked the warlord.
The Philosopher blinked, eyes casting about in all directions, everywhere but meeting the Commandant’s eye. Finally, with stiff motion, the Philosopher shook his head.
The Commandant parroted the motion, as if trying it out could give him some insight into its meaning.
“No? What do you mean, no? What is the child’s fate?”
For the first time, the Philosopher met the Commandant’s eyes and spoke clearly. “The child has no fate.”
The Philosopher looked to that one coin, still spinning in the center of the star-map, the bronze ringing against the iron platform. The Commandant followed his gaze.
The Commandant grabbed the gaunt young man and shook him. The Philosopher would not meet his gaze, could not tear it from the coin.
“Cast them again,” ordered the Commandant. The wind picked up, the coin spinning faster, ringing louder. “Cast them again!”
The Philosopher shook his head, pulling away, finally tugging himself free and fleeing from the tower.
Somewhere far below, amidst the ringing of the coin, a newborn child began to wail.
The Commandant wrote the report himself, registering the new child with the Emperor’s Minister of Heralds. The messenger went out that very night on a swift horse of silver.
Then the lord of Iron Tower went down to the smithy, where a man with skin as burnished as the metal he worked forged and stenciled a tiny bar of bronze. The Commandant watched as he did so, barely allowing the metal to cool before snatching it away.
Only then did he go to the child, wailing in the arms of a nursemaid.
The Commandant looked questioningly toward the birthing chamber, its door closed and silent within. The nursemaid shook her head then held the child out to her lord, nodding encouragingly.
The Commandant stepped back and did not take the child, but placed the bronze pendant on a thong and held it out before the child in the ritual of naming. If the nursemaid was shocked by this break with tradition, this bestowing of a name so early, she too was of iron, and ensured her face betrayed nothing before her lord.
“If you are to live, you will have a hard life,” said the Commandant. “You will be as a sparrow among falcons, surviving by the speed of your wit alone… or dying quickly and mercifully in the talons of your betters. Prove to me you are worthy of life, and I will grant you my kingdom. Fail me, and we may all come to wish I had heeded the Philosopher’s warning.”
With that, he placed the bronze bar around the babe’s neck, and turned it to face the light. It read:
SPARROW
Rank 1: Peasant | Worth: 50 dan
Clan: Silver Falcon | Star: Black | Fate: None | Mandate: None
As he turned his back on the city, it might have been the Philosopher's imagination or it might have been the creaking of the tower in the wind, but somewhere far above, he thought he could hear a humming, humming, ringing, spinning, just beyond the reach of his senses, like a coin waiting to fall.
