Is anyone interested in doing a thread somewhere?

<big>Violent attacks claim hundreds of lives</big>

<small>Al-Jazeera LIVE</small>

Good evening from Dubai, I'm Samir Abdukhaliq, and here are your headlines at the top of the hour:

Hundreds are dead today after multiple apparent terrorist attacks hit several cities in Dominance V, a sudden and unexpected wave of violence that left horror and carnage in its wake.

Around approximately 5 p.m. local time, a large car bomb exploded outside the Imam Hussein mosque in Karbala, where Shia faithful have continued to gather in crowds weeks after a supposed miracle was performed by Muhammad Al-Hasan, who recently declared himself to be the Mahdi. One hundred and thirty-six are confirmed dead and hundreds more injured, and minor damage was done to the mosque.

This attack was only the first of at least four confirmed attacks that have occurred this evening. Around the same time, a bus convoy departing Kuwait City, bound for Mecca with more than 300 pilgrims expecting to participate in the annual Hajj, was ambushed outside the city by a group of armed gunmen. Survivors reported that there were between twenty to thirty attackers, who attacked the buses with machine guns and shoulder-fired rockets. The attackers reportedly boarded one bus and executed all people on board, but fled before dispatching all witnesses.

Reports have also come in that two more car bombs have been detonated in the city of Medina. Authorities have not confirmed yet the number of deaths and injuries from those attacks.

The targets in these attacks appear to be mostly Shia Muslims attempting to undertake the Hajj to see Muhammad al-Hasan, who has already drawn a large following across both major sects of Islam following his proclamation that he is the Mahdi. This suspicion appears to be confirmed by a group naming themselves the Holy Soldiers of Muhammad who has claimed responsibility for the attack:

(Roll video clip)

MASKED GUNMAN: (translated) This blasphemer and all who follow him have defiled the Grand Mosque and will answer to the wrath of Allah!

(end clip)

A CCD spokesman today issued a statement from Dubai condemning the attacks and urging calm and restraint, promising swift action will be taken to find and bring the perpetrators to justice. CCD officials also say they are assessing further steps to take to provide for security and protect religious practices.

Speaking from the Grand Mosque in Mecca earlier, Muhammad al-Hasan harshly denounced the attacks and promised his followers that the "hand of God" would shelter them:

AL-HASAN: "Do not fear the actions of the unbeliever as they seek to turn you from the true path. Those who have committed these attacks today against fellow Muslims are no true followers of Islam. For the messenger of God has written that God does not love the transgressor. And if your enemies make war with you, or prevent you from worship of God, then fight in the way of God those who fight you, but do not transgress."

A member of al-Hasan's private circle has also said that that al-Hasan was networking with a number of imams throughout the region to provide for increased security to protect worshipers, both those en route to Mecca and those remaining in their respective homes.

Al-Jazeera will continue to provide updates as they come on this developing story.

<big>BREAKING NEWS
ATTACK UNDERWAY AT GRAND MOSQUE</big>

This just in: I'm Samir Abdukhaliq with Al-Jazeera Live in Dubai bringing you Breaking News from the Grand Mosque in Mecca, where it appears an attack is underway near the site of the Kabbah. We have correspondent Bashir Kalid Abdullah reporting live from the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Bashir?

BASHIR: (over crackling of gunfire end explosions) Samir? I've taken cover by a far wall on the middle level of the Grand Mosque and there is much confusion and panic right now, but it appears that gunmen have stormed the Grand Mosque and are firing on worshipers who are out in the open around the Kabbah. I have the camera up, are you getting the feed?

SAMIR: Audience, we are indeed getting the video but it has been deemed too graphic to show on live broadcast. Bashir, where is CDPS? How did the attackers gain access?

BASHIR: I don't know Samir, Custody security on site must have been overpowered, that's all I can tell you because there's absolutely no resistance to be seen inside the Grand Mosque complex.

SAMIR: Can you tell us anything about the identity of the attackers?

BASHIR: Not really, they're -- &lt;ping&gt; Oh, God that was close. Um, there seems to be about fifty of them inside the Grand Mosque, maybe more, they're all covered in black and have taken positions on the third and fourth levels -- they seem to just be laying into the crowd... (gasps) The horror...they're just getting cut down...there's got to be thousands and thousands down there and they're all panicking...it's going to start a stampede...

*Loud boom*

SAMIR: Was that another explosion there?

BASHIR: What? My ears are ringing...I don't know what that was, I'm going to look...there's movement in the crowd. All the gunfire has stopped it seems and nobody's trampling each other, they're all stunned by whatever that noise was...

*Loud booming voice*

SAMIR: What was that? Was that the Quran being quoted?

BASHIR: I don't know where that voice came from. Honestly I'm really confused. But yes, the voice -- There must be some hidden loudspeakers and a microphone, though I've never seen a system that sounds like that -- just said "Do not fight your enemies in the Grand Mosque until they fight you there. But if they fight you, then kill them. For that is the recompense of unbelievers." Yes, that is a Quranic verse.

*Loud cracks*

SAMIR: What can you describe is happening now, Bashir?

BASHIR: .... It's... &lt;muffled noise&gt; I'm adjusting the camera. Can you see that?

SAMIR:...Yes -- Lightning, it appears to be striking...individual gunmen? Is that what you're seeing over there, Bashir?

BASHIR: Indeed, that's exactly what I'm seeing. Fifteen -- sixteen strikes now, as if the lightning is seeking out the attackers! The aggressors appear to be behaving in confusion -- some of them are jumping -- oh that's just sickening. But it appears the attack has been somehow broken off.

SAMIR: Thank you, Bashir. Audience, we'll be sure to bring you more of this story as it develops -- and as soon as we can...make sense of any of it.

Copyright Al-Jazeera News, 2045 Dubai, D.V.


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Continued from: A New Start

Michael closed the door as soon as Giovanni entered the house, the plain but spacious main room was vacant, as it usually was these days. The couch was free and the TV off.

The man's suspicious nature fanned his own cautious streak. Even before he had a chance to ask Giovanni about the Atharim, he had taught Michael something already.

The constant tension was taxing. Perhaps he needed a break before he snapped. He thought he had reigned his emotions in, but the lingering memory of the Rougarou was enough to cause doubt.

However, that was for another day. For now, he had a promise to fuilfill; and without Tony, it was going to be difficult. He was probably a worse teacher than he was a student on THIS particular topic.

He turned to Giovanni. "I'm afraid you'll have to stay downstairs."
Michael pointed to the door to the basement adjacent to the kitchen. "The couch in here is taken. Don't worry, he is the same as us."


The thought was wearying. He had not intended to live like this, hiding fugitives and using his house as some kind of orphanage for the hunted, but neither could he sit by and do nothing.

How many strays will I pick up before someone decides to simply set the house alight?

It would not be that easy to kill him, of course. However, there were far worse things than fire that could be used.

Another day...

Michael took a hold of his straying thoughts and crushed them under heel, drawing in the Power to feel life itself rushing through his veins. He sat down on the right side of the three seater couch and gestured for Giovanni to sit on the left. "This may take some time. It will be far harder to learn since you have already developed a mental barrier against the power.
" He hesitated, wondering if Giovanni already knew about it, but decided to continue. The man would have to make do. "You said you can only use the power when you are scared. That is a hindrance, one that may cost your life. Breaking down this barrier is hard, and often painful,"
Michael knew that all too well, painful and cold. "You have to open your mind, which means reliving the past and moving forward. So tell me about the first time you used the power. Not just what happened, but what you felt, everything."


It had taken Michael months to break down his own barriers, but Tony had been soft, only resorting to extreme measures at the very last. Giovanni would not be indulged in the same fashion. The stakes were far too high

When the alarm beeped, Jensen groggily forgot where he'd crashed those short hours beforehand. He rolled like usual to slap the sound to silence, but rather than slapping the bedside table, his arm, shortly followed by the rest of him, swatted through empty air.

The impact of landing on the floor shocked a pained grunt out of him. Sometime in the blur of the next few moments, Jensen remembered crashing on the couch rather than pulling out the bed. He also remembered why in the form of a throbbing headache, cricked neck and foul mood. Then again, falling off the couch might have had something to do with that latter observation.

Rubbing the temptation from his eyes to go back to sleep right there on the rug, he finally managed to shove to his feet. Only to stumble about until the alarm was silenced, coffee was microwaved, and the shower was started. The electricity was still on the fritz, so he silently willed both water heater and microwave to function for a few short minutes then they could both go cold again. The more important of those two devices being the microwave; his hyperdrive gas tank was running on fumes.

Before heading out, Jensen decided it was worth a change of clothes to meet John Smith. The man was a theological legend. Not only for his knowledge of the Bible, but as a resource cited by everyone to pass through seminary or divinity school in the last ten years. Which included Jensen before being recruited to the senior pastor position he'd held until recently.

Not that recently, he thought upon glancing at his image in the mirror. His hair was longer than he ever kept it before, but rather than curling around his eyes, he'd slicked it back, straight and flat. Wisps of a beard curled from his jaw and chin when he'd always been smooth-shaven before. Then, of course, there was the anorexic gaze of a formerly passionate man that barely recognized himself. Why in the world was he doing this? If John recognized who he was, it would be like pouring salt on the shallow wounds given him that morning when the young American lady pieced him together.

With a sigh, Jensen unclenched his jaw, buttoned his jacket, and took off. He was going because he was human, and there were some temptations that were too much to resist.

It was late-afternoon when he arrived at Smith's building across town. It was an upscale building in a beautiful neighborhood. In fact, there was a peaceful park within walking distance that Jensen could imagine himself enjoying on a daily basis. Surprisingly, Moscow was dotted with many such havens of serenity. There were suppose to be more parks in this city than any other in the world. Something has to even out the eye sores, the satirical thought arose. The Ascendancy had good taste. Moscow was almost unrecognizable today compared to its turn of the century version in areas such as this. The CCD was extremely proud of its capital, and they should be. Anyone with an appreciation of history found the city fascinating, including Jensen. Maybe that was part of why he came here in the first place. That, and, the city was as infamous for those wanting to hide as those seeking celebrity.

Jensen was expected, and the doorman escorted him on the elevator to the building's top floor where Smith's loft was located. Jensen thanked the man with a CCD bill without so much as thinking about whether or not it was expected to tip, steadied his nerves, and carried himself to Smith's door. Where he knocked soundly.

<big>Mahdi proclamation sparks mass pilgrimage</big>
<small>Al-Jazeera/Bashir Kalid Abdullah</small>

MECCA, D.V. -- Although the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage of the Muslim faithful to the Grand Mosque and the site of the Kabbah, is not due to start until next week, millions of Muslims have already descended upon the holy city and the shrine of the Kabbah to show their support for a man believed to be the prophesied redeemer of Islam and ruler in the last days before the final judgment.

According to Islamic doctrine and recorded statements from the prophet Muhammad, in the final days God is to send Muhammad' successor known as the Mahdi to rule the world and establish righteousness. Twelver Shia tradition holds that the twelfth Imam to succeed Muhammad was in fact the Mahdi and disappeared in AD 941 at the age of five, and has since been in occultation, a state of suspended living while hidden from the world.

The man who has recently claimed to be the Mahdi is in fact a Shia Muslim who claims the same name as the 12th Imam: Muhammad al-Hasan Al-Mahdi. Al-Jazeera News has learned that al-Hasan has been found to hail from the Saudi city of Medina where he was raised by schoolmasters since being found as an abandoned child with no birth certificate or any supporting documentation about his ancestry or lineage. It is not known who gave him the name Muhammad al-Hasan, in itself a relatively common name essentially meaning "Muhammad the Good" or "Muhammad the Handsome." His use of the name "al-Mahdi" appears to have begun sometime within the past three years as a means citizens of Medina began to use to address al-Hasan.

Shortly prior to al-Hasan's revelation in Mecca, he is said to have been present at two major demonstrations, though veiled and heavily guarded by attendants who refused to give interviews. The first gathering was at the Shrine of Imam Husayn in Karbala, the third holiest site in the world to Shia Muslims, and the second was only two days before his appearance in Mecca, at the Great Mosque of Sana'a in Yemen. In both locations it was said al-Hasan appeared before the gathered crowds and performed a feat of vanishing.

"It was a miracle unlike anything I have seen before," described Masoud al-Anwar, a witness to the demonstration in Karbala who has since made his way to Mecca. "He was just gone. And then I felt something move through all of us gathered, some presence, pulling me. Bringing me here. As if the hand of God was moving me."

Al-Anwar wiped a tear from his eye, hand shaking. "It is a miracle. Allah has blessed us by sending us a leader to show us the true path!"

Similar descriptions were given by other witnesses from both the Karbala and the Yemen appearances.

Supporters of al-Hasan continue to pour into the holy city. Those arriving are seen in increasing numbers bearing flags: arrivals from the west predominantly arrive with the Flag of the Caliphate, a white flag bearing the Shahada -- the holy phrase "There is no god but God and Muhammad is his Messenger" -- in black. Arrivals from the east appear to carry the Black Flag of Khorasan, also often referred to as the Flag of Jihad: a black standard with the Shahada written in white.

The significance of these flags are a part of a Mahdi prophecy, according to Islamic scholar Achmed Karoum, professor of theology at the Center for Islamic Studies in Dubai.

"Post-Quranic writings given by, in some accounts, the 12th Imam himself while he was said to be in occultation, claim that his appearance will be heralded by riders coming from Karbala with the black flag and riders coming from Yemen with the white flag," Karoum said. "However, these writings or prophecies if you will are predominantly considered to be Twelver Shia beliefs and do not hold any particular significance among the world Muslim population by a long shot."

A straw poll conducted by Al-Jazeera among believers of the Mahdi's reappearance show that approximately 70% of those who have gathered identify themselves as Shia Muslims, and about 25 percent self-identify as Sunnis. A final five percent identify as either a different sect, declined to state or identified themselves as "non-Muslim."

When shown this, Karoum, a self-identified "secular Sunni," said that the statistically significant portion of believers who identified themselves as Sunni - even though al-Hasan was Shia and the belief in the 12th Imam's return was a Shiite prophecy -- was not surprising. "There have people proclaiming themselves the Mahdi from every branch of Islam imaginable, and drawing support from them," he said. "More people have claimed to be the Mahdi throughout history than I have hairs on my head."

And Karoum's thoughts to al-Hasan's disappearing act? "If you want my opinion, that's all it was: an act. I'm sure any second-rate illusionist in the world could do just as well."

Al-Hasan has not at this time responded to any requests for interviews or comments.

Second coming or charlatan? Likely history will be the judge of that. But in the meantime, believers continue to come in droves.

Copyright Al-Jazeera News, 2045 Dubai, D.V.

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Muhammad al-Hasan al-Mahdi



Autumn 2045

Karbala, Iraq

The minarets sounded the sacred call to midday prayer across the sand-blown city. The sunlight glinted off the golden dome of the Mosque of Imam Husayn, and the roars of the people nearly drowned out the call to prayer. Hundreds of thousands gathered, and they continued to pour into the city with every passing day, riding cars, bikes and motorcycles – even camels and horses. Black flags floated atop shouting heads. The Black Flags of Khorosan. CDPS didn't know what to make of the surge of people into the city or their strange behavior, as if drawn like filings to a magnet.

Hasan watched from the steps of the mosque. He kept himself fully shrouded in white cloth, all veiled but his very eyes. He did not say a word. He didn't need to. They just kept coming. This was the final sign he'd needed to know that the time of his announcement was nigh, when he could finally reveal who he was and lead the faithful. The last days were coming – this was what the followers of the last true prophet of God had been waiting for.

Hasan stood and raised his hands. Suddenly silence spread across the peoples like a rippling tidal wave. There is no god but God, and Muhammed is his messenger. Allah show me the way.

In silence he motioned for his four attendants. They approached, bearing four black blankets, and held them up at four separate corners, creating a partition between Hasan and the world outside. Allah answered his prayer and power sprang to his fingertips. Seen only to himself, weaves sprung out and enshrouded him. He knew now that none could see him, even if he moved among them.

When Hasan's attendants dropped the veil, he was gone. The crowd was so stunned at what they'd witnessed that for several seconds there was nothing but silence. Even his attendants bore bewildered expressions.

Hasan stepped down and made his way down the street, straight through the crowd. Southwest. He noticed the people as they began to turn, as if they were looking through him and knew he was there, though they could not see him. It was just as Umm Salama, wife of the Prophet, had said: “The Mahdi would call the whole world from where he is, with no postman, and they will hear him, and even see him.”

One day soon, he would figure out the puzzle of the Tay-al-Arz and make it work for him, if Allah willed it, and then Muslim brother would be able to see Muslim brother no matter how far apart they were separated, as had been prophesied.

His unseen passage captured the gathered faithful's attention as he drew it southwest. Straight toward Mecca. Almost as if they could feel the pull again coming from their holiest of places.

Whispers and murmurs broke out again. There was no denying what they'd seen, and what they'd felt. The Shia faithful had been called, and must obey. A surprisingly large number of Sunni had also come, signifying there were plenty of believers in the impending return of the Mahdi among Islam's dominant sect.

After suffering centuries of misrule by godless infidels, demagogues, and false witnesses, Allah had finally sent his last imam to deliver the holy prophet Muhammad's final message and lead them forth once more.

After one thousand, one hundred and four years, the Major Occultation had come to an end. The Mahdi had returned to the earth to rid the world of injustice and oppression.



Nine years ago

Medina, Saudi Arabia

The Shahadah rang through Muhammad al-Hasan's head, as it always did. There is no god but God, and Muhammad is his messenger. Hasan clung to this and repeated it in his mind as his lips struggled to move, too weak to speak the words. This was the third time he'd been laid out in bed, wracked with fevers, chills, strange hallucinations and other ailments. What was this sickness that plagued him? Was it the will of Allah that he die a horrible, painful death, or was some demon tormenting him?

A woman came in, veiled from head to toe in a proper black hijab. Only her eyes showed. Amira – the trained nurse at the madrassa. Behind her followed a man – her cousin, one of the teachers. Even though Hasan lay wasting away and Amira was only here to tend to his illness, it still was improper for Amira and Hasan to be in the same room together as he was not one of her relatives. Or he probably wasn't. Hasan didn't know where his family came from, having been abandoned at the madrassa doorstep as a young child and raised by the schoolmasters.

It was only the proper thing for the schoolmasters at the madrassa to do to bring him in, in accordance with the Zakat, the fourth pillar of Islam. The orphans and needy must always be cared for. But knowing this had not stopped Hasan's heritage from shaming him deeply – surely his parents had been horrible sinners to abandon their child that way. Perhaps he still shared the stain of their sin, and this was why he was suffering.

Amira took a damp rag and wet down Hasan's forehead. “Allah will reward your faithfulness with health – you must stay strong,” she said.

Amira's cousin glanced at her and shook his head. “This is happening to us because we let the infidels enter our land and establish their own laws. We allowed ourselves to live under godless law that does not follow the true way of Allah's will, and he punishes us by tormenting the most promising and faithful man Allah has ever sent us.”

Amira turned away from Hasan. “This is not the doing of Allah, Bashir.”

Her cousin, Bashir, sneered at her. “You do not understand. All things are the will of Allah, except for the actions of the infidel who has rejected the true way. No one can say this of Hasan, and no infidel is causing his suffering, therefore it must be the doing of Allah.”

Hasan heard the reasoning and found he agreed with it. Yes, it must be the will of God that he suffer. With nothing to do but work and prove himself and learn, he'd always been the model student at the madrassa, though it was not proper to point it out. Humility was the proper way. At age six he'd already memorized the entirety of the Koran, and by age nine he was already years advanced in his various studies.

By the time he was a teen most local sheikhs had clamped down on the stricter religious madrassas, and had driven ones like this underground. A Dominance that attempted to govern Sunni and Shia alike, amid the likes of Arab Christians, secularists, and – the Jews in Israel – could hardly succeed in pleasing all, and there was no place in the law of the Koran in such a dominance governed by a patron trying to keep all happy while answering to a godless European, with lapdog sheikhs running around doing what they thought would please him. Allah was the supreme law, not the Ascendancy.

They'd claimed the schools were radicalizing the students and preparing them for violent and rebellious behavior. The Wahhabi schools had been the hardest hit, but institutions that clung to the Shia way such as Hasan's, a minority though they might have been even in pre-Dominance Saudi Arabia – suffered as well. How was it pleasing to Allah to merely believe in the proper way of law and living, but no longer have the ability to enforce it save through the whims of a Patron who sought different goals?

The answer was easy to Hasan. It was clear through his studies that practice of faith did not mean merely espousing it. It meant seeing Allah's will done and that meant a society where His law was supreme. Not some Patron beholden to a mere man, not to mention the privilege who had the ear of the Ascendancy – A Sunni, of course, and one who accepted the persistence of Israel and tried to sweep certain aspects of Sharia law from the landscape.

Hasan sometimes wondered if he was alone in this belief. So many of the Muslim countries had simply rolled over and begged to be taken in. Would the Dominance really be so eagerly accepted? No, it could not be. There must be those who wanted a return to a proper rule – in accordance with the law of the Prophet. The loss of the last Caliphate and balkanization of the Middle East in the last century had been hard, especially to people who still bore grudges over the Crusades. Loss of autonomy – even with freedom to worship being afforded them, just wasn't going to ever sit well. Would the westerners never learn that true freedom was living in a world perfectly aligned with the will of Allah?

No. Time dulled the sting of old injustices, but it would never put out the flame of the faithful. After millennium of war over who would inherit the holy land and the right to speak in the Holy Prophet's name, it seemed to Hasan that perhaps the arrival of the Ascendancy might finally be the catalyst that brought Sunni and Shia together.

There would come a day of reckoning. Hasan was sure of it. It had been prophecised in the Koran and passed on among those who proclaimed themselves followers of the Shia tradition. They were still in the period of the Major Occultation. Some day, possibly some day soon, the occultation would conclude and the Mahdi – the Twelfth Imam, the twelfth heir to the voice of the Prophet – would return, and would restore the world to its proper alignment in the eyes of Allah.

These thoughts came and went as Hasan lay in bed, tormented. As he struggled to breathe, he found his mind pondering recent events in his own life. Things had been happening that Hasan couldn't explain, aside from the sickness. He seemed lucky all of a sudden. Six days ago, while he'd been helping restore the brick facing on the minaret, a chunk of stone had fallen from directly above, but had inexplicably tumbled to one side, missing him. Other things like this had happened. And they always happened along with the bouts of illness. It seemed on the one side he was favored by Allah but then punished.

Or perhaps Allah was trying to show him something through this sickness. Hasan resolved to look down that path as soon as he was able – if he survived this time.

There is no god but God and Muhammad is his messenger.

Kicking off another fun filled thread -- you're welcome by the way *grin -- if this were the 3rd Age (set during the wot books) what would your character be? (assume the taint's still around).

Jaxen? Though he'd rock the death-walking all black asha'man look like nobody else, organized servitude is not his style, and if it were... *ponders... actually, the idea does have some merit.

In the meantime, he'd be every thief-catcher's nightmare. And probably have a thing for Taraboni women. It's the veils.

By all means, I urge you to limit being in more than one thread at a time. However, it's come to my attention that this has become something of a stressful issue for some players.

By all means, the urging is not meant to be a hard and fast rule. This is meant to avoid being in simultaneous places at once, confusing the progress of time, and potential contradictions in things your characters may have done, said, met, or experienced. Similarly, this is meant to avoid play in 5, 6, 7, or 12 places at once, which would be absolute chaos.

If you feel one thread is running for an extended period of time, don't jump ship on it just so you can move on elsewhere. Stay and finish the thread, don't break character and force yourself to leave when your character otherwise wouldn't. Likewise, if some players are MIA and you're left bored and waiting, use your discretion about whether its okay to participate in another thread elsewhere.

If you're really unsure what to do, send me a message and I will be more than happy to advise you. This 'rule' is meant to help the site run smoothly, not be a hindrance.

-A

It was an odd feeling being in regular clothes and freshly bathed. The entire ensemble was rather plain consisting of slacks, a sleeved shirt and pair of boots. It had been exactly two days since his meeting with Nikolai Brandon, the man that he sworn allegiance to when he signed his contract with Dominance VII’s military. During that time he was treated with a lighter touch than he recalled during his stay or at least that which he could recall. Still he was grateful that the clarity that has replaced the haze that clung to him during the recent past.

The room he currently occupied was one similar to the interrogation ones that he used back in D6. A square white room, with a serviable table bolted to the floor. His chair sat between two bars, again bolted, to the floor on either side obviously used to secure chains to. The chair itself was a plain thing set in a small groove to allow for movement back and forth. Cameras in each corner of the room near the ceiling watched every angle of the room though the table and it’s offending occupant were the focus.

Alric’s lack of being restrained wasn’t ill received. On the table laid the remnants of an actual meal. The heat of the hearty stew filled his body with satisfying warmth. The medical team kept his body full of the essential vitamins and proteins during his indentured stay to maintain most of his mass but for his first actual meal in days he couldn’t think of a more satisfying choice.

The most demanding thought in his mind was that of the impending meeting. Today was the day that the Amulet of Man stated that he would tell Alric what he was. The implications of that statement was jarring. He couldn’t put together a thought that didn’t demand the suspension of reality. I cannot believe that the Ascendancy himself would be directly involved. What is this madness of ‘what’ I am? Smooth logic tempered irrationality when it threatened to rattle the control that it had over finally retook. Patience would win the day and if their first encounter were any ruler to measure by he would need to hold steady in the presence of greatest ruler since the Mongolian empire.

Thalia’s studio lay in the heart of Arbatskaya, its rent – and in such a prime location, it must have cost a small fortune – covered by an anonymous patron. It was far better than her previous; the lighting was fantastic, thanks to its perfect placement of north facing windows slanting up to the pitched ceiling. Cabinets containing paint and other equipment didn’t compromise the room for a generous easel and desk arrangement; she’d never had so much space. Canvasses, a mixture of primed and stretched as well as finished pieces, lined in neat piles. None of them decorated the walls, which were plain. Books lay in odd corners, some splayed open with faint rainbow fingerprints thumbed at the corners. Other pages had been torn out completely and pinned to a board against one wall. There were photos on there too, both people and landscapes; postcards, printed quotes and brief sections of prose. A thousand memories, thoughts and ideas, layered so deeply the board itself was utterly lost beneath the clutter. When she had need of references, she generally used a screen, else projected an image from her Wallet, but she liked the chaotic tumult of all those pieces of paper.

Her main project of the moment, though it was still in its earliest stages of colour and line, dominated her workspace. Its size and scope was massive, its colours vibrant and powerful, though in her mind it tasted like shadows and smoke and change. She still had no idea what it was going to turn into, but it nonetheless curled persistent little hooks in her thoughts, like the image was desperate to resolve itself in blood, sweat and acrylic faster than her mortal fingers could work. And maybe at the expense of a little sanity. Thalia didn’t work on it now; if she did she was liable to become immersed and never hear her Wallet beep. She’d sent a message to Rune, detailing the studio’s address or offering to meet her somewhere of her choosing. Whichever was more convenient. So for now she waited, Rune’s artwork in a folder beside her on the couch, legs tucked up underneath her while she doodled faces in an old sketchpad and refused to look at the behemoth in the corner of her vision.