Malak Courtly Wing [An Otherworldly Adventure]

[Arcanus Dicere]

Character Sheet

 

[Arcanus Dicere]

Malak Uban has been a messenger all his life.


Born in the city of Riqueza, a protectorate of the Varang Confederacy, he came into the world with every advantage a parent could hope for her child. His family practically owned the city, both his parents’ castes helping carve them a place among the aristocratic elite. Affluence, however, matters nothing in Varang next to the dictates of fate. Malak’s birth time decreed that he be a courier: a noble, though entirely mundane, calling. The Uban line’s elevated status ensured that he received only the best training and a respectable position.


As a boy, Malak served under Riqueza’s mayor, who took a liking to him and brought him on as his personal go-between to the other local leaders. He saw through the bureaucracy of the matter, straight to his family’s influence, but he remained grateful nonetheless. For the most part, his duties proved rather boring. Most of the correspondences were either invitations to formal events or requests for meetings about personal business. His most dangerous task involved delivering a notice of eviction to the tenants of a building the mayor had rented out. A few traded insults and a short sword duel later, and the matter was settled in the Riquezan’s favor.


At nineteen, Malak met Cathak Selador, a Dynast stationed to maintain Varang’s continued tribute to the Realm, on one of his deliveries. After a few well-placed bribes, the Dragon-Blood hired him on as his herald for diplomatic missions. He was to ride out ahead and announce the Exalted’s coming and lay the ground work among the required parties (usually governors and the like) for when his employer came to collect from the people. On several such assignments, he was afforded the opportunity to meet several dignitaries and townsfolk. Well-versed in such interactions after man years delivering his masters’ words, he found his personal magnetism and straight-forwardness a benefit in dealing with others. After Selador arrived, those whom Malak had “worked†often seemed more willing to put forth their taxes and let the Exalt pass.


Three years passed since Malak took up his post under Selador. In the fourth year, he received the order to travel northeast and meet up with a Guild caravan delivering goods to the Varang capital of Yane. They were to be warned of sightings of a nearby Anathema targeting slavers. When he reached his destination, he found it totally in ruins. The carriages were overturned, bodies lied strewn all across the ground, and a series of unnaturally large footprints dotted the soil. Malak, still horrified by what he saw, followed them further east, toward the mountains. He knew that if the monster that had rained such carnage down upon innocents continued on, it would leave an unimaginable path of destruction.


And so Malak rode east. He followed the footprints of the beast as far as they went, then used what other clues he could find to pursue the Anathema. Quick and silent as the wind, he tracked the creature all the way to Mt. Opal. The Riquezan knew that there existed a range of settlements toward the top of the mountain, ones in negotiation to join the Varang Confederacy, but that didn’t want to pay the Realm its demanding tribute. Since coming upon the destroyed Guild caravan, he’d set out not to hunt down the Anathema, but to get ahead of him, to warn those it might attack next.


Forced to leave his horse due to the steepness of the mountain’s foothills, he traveled up Mt. Opal alone. Though he’d held little aptitude for mountain climbing, having not lived anywhere near one in his whole life, he steadily made his way higher without incident. Two days passed, and on the second he finally reached the plateau upon which the towns rested. Malak staggered toward the nearest building, but stopped dead in his tracks and leapt aside to hide when he saw what lie ahead: the Anathema. He peeked around the corner to see the monster toss aside an Immaculate monk as if he were nothing. The beast was massive and ferocious; Malak dared not get any closer. Then he saw something remarkable: two men crawled up over the edge of the mountain and, assisted by the Anathema, were led toward the town. The creature showed no ill intent toward these civilized lands, and he conversed as though he were naught but a human being.


“Amazing, isn’t it?†someone said from behind Malak, causing him to jump. He turned around to find a beautiful woman, absolutely glowing in her resplendence, standing there. She smiled at him. “I’ve been watching that one for some time, I have,†she said. “He’s a much gentler soul than he lets on. And you’re a much tougher one. You braved lands you did not know, and you survived. You sought to save these people from a threat more than your match. You never once entertained the notion of giving up, or that you might die. All for complete strangers, whose ways remain foreign to you.â€


It took Malak a moment to realize the woman was pregnant.


“Who are you?†he asked simply.


“I am your mother, and this†– she patted her belly – “is you. You’ve yet to be born, Malak Uban. You gestate and you grow, yet you remain unwhole. I can grant you completion. I can grant you the fluidity to find your true self, your soul’s inner shape. So I shall.â€


Malak barely had time to react when the pregnant woman closed her eyes and breathed the heavy air of a laborious push. Inside himself, he could feel something being drawn in. She pushed once more. Again, it took him a moment to put together that she was giving birth. The errant thought ran through his mind that, had he been born among the physicians caste, he might be able to help, but the overwhelming sense of absorption and change ceased all his thought processes. He dropped to his knees, and as the woman gave one last push, he felt the onrush of Exaltation take over him. He cried out a deep, melodious squawk before collapsing, unconscious.


When he awoke, he found himself in a sweltering forest surrounded by a group of tribesmen and tribeswomen. They stood around him, staring. He got to his feet and went for his sword, which he realized had gone missing. When he turned around and got his bearings, he was confronted by Timidia of the Branches, a No Moon Lunar who remained in constant war form, her hybrid orangutan shape shamelessly bare naked at all times. She explained to the still confused Malak that he’d been carried here by the Anathema whom he’d tracked down to the Opal towns. It took very little to know that Malak now, too, had Exalted as an Anathema. He wondered aloud how someone who could do so right a deed as trying to save a town could be made into a monster.


This time, it didn’t take long for Malak to understand.


For the next several months, he lived among the Falling Leaf Tribe, learning their ways and ingratiating himself with them. When Timidia received a message by pigeon, a method Malak himself had never seen before, he discovered the shape of his inner soul. Afterward, he studied and honed his shapeshifting with Timidia, who performed his initiation rites, at which he took on the Changing Moon Caste. Charismatic and graceful, Malak made use of himself forging alliances and non-aggression agreements with local spirits and other nearby tribes. He met countless new faces, and to each of them he came to be known as a bringer of peace and unity, and to some even a friend. When the Silver Pact discovered his potential, they offered him a post that was all too familiar, yet wholly more exciting than the one he’d held in mortal life.


Ever since, Malak Courtly Wing (as he came to be known) has served as both scout and diplomat for the Winding Path faction of the Silver Pact. He flies out and studies different cultures, using his genial manner to charm the local populace. If a particular town or tribe seems suitable for the Winding Path’s goals, he reports back. Otherwise, he moves on until he finds a more satisfying locale in which the faction can begin instituting a Thousand Streams River project. So far, Malak has had two major successes: the fishing village of Aderlai at the end of the Meander River has become a prosperous expansionist culture since Walking Sturgeon culled his influence among its people, and the Iron Blood Tribe (once one of the most primitive tribes in all Creation) now finds itself one of the most technologically advanced tribes stalking the Eastern forests today.


Someday soon, Malak hopes to gain the Silver Pact’s blessing to establish his own Thousand Streams River project. Until then, he travels from place to place, observing and befriending those who cross his path.