Departure and the Moon Magic Fern

Before the Sacred Lake

The craftsman turned to look far behind him, a basket of bone tablets strapped to his back. Buried at its bottom was the Final Chapter, the object that had driven countless men mad.

Stan Tito had borne the Final Chapter away from the Sacred Mountain and God-Servant City. He did not know whether his actions would truly matter. He had simply felt that he ought to act, and so he had.

Even if doing so cost him everything.

Until now, the title of inheritor to the Saint's will had placed him high above other men. He might have climbed higher still and taken charge of the Sky Temple, one of the world's loftiest seats of power.

Now it was all gone, and he was a craftsman once more.

But he did not regret it.

He even felt as though he had broken his shackles and stepped into freedom.

He had spent the first half of his life drifting with the current. Following his father, he became a craftsman. Then sheer good fortune made him Stan Tito, inheritor of the Saint's will.

Not once had he truly asked what he wanted.

This time, however, he had felt the stirrings of his own will, like a life suddenly bursting into light.

Even if it lasted only an instant.

Even so, his own will had leapt within the long river of life. It was the most brilliant moment he would ever know.

"Let's go home!"

Stan Tito decided to return to his hometown, a remote seaside town outside God-Descended City. He would see it once more, then decide what came next.

Perhaps he would become a craftsman again.

He did not seem to know how to do anything else.

Seven or eight days passed. Traveling cautiously and without haste, Stan crossed one town after another until he neared Stone Forest City, once the Star Luo Kingdom's most important city.

None of the pursuers he expected appeared. Even the people he met along the road had not heard that the Child of Fortune Stan Tito had left God-Servant City. They knew only that Henir had become king, the Star Luo Kingdom had ceased to exist, and the Henir Dynasty had risen upon three fallen thrones.

In the end, Henir had become king after all.

Yet he had buried every report about Stan Tito. It was as though none of it had happened simply because the king refused to speak of it.

Stan Tito's priest friend, meanwhile, had been branded an infamous traitor, a spy who had conspired with the Sele Kingdom and betrayed the Queen.

Rumor magnified the smallest trifles from his past into proof of his vile character and betrayal of Her Majesty.

In every town Stan Tito passed through, people traded tales of the man's "evil deeds". They cursed and spat upon everything he had ever done, recounting stories from his youth and early childhood as if they had witnessed them firsthand. Even his boyhood skill as a strong swimmer and a quick, deft hunter of Ancestral Fish became evidence of a bloodthirsty, murderous nature.

Each voice merely echoed the one before it.

A powerful sense of absurdity rose in Stan Tito as he listened.

"The wicked need only lower the butcher's blade, and they are forgiven. The good need only one stain, and they are cast straight into the mire."

"People of Yinsai, why are you so merciful to the wicked, yet so merciless to the good?"

Picking his way through the stone forest's jumbled rocks, he gazed into the distance.

Stone Forest City stood at the edge of his vision, its towering walls rising amid the great broken stones.

He had no intention of entering Stone Forest City. He would skirt around it and continue toward God-Descended City.

Just then, a violent tremor swept through the stone forest. The earth heaved and the hills shook, forcing Stan Tito to brace himself against a rock.

Boom!

The earth split open with a roar. Things that might have been vines or tentacles stretched from the fissure, growing into a plant a hundred meters tall.

Giant vines twisted together into a vast, leafless pillar, with an enormous sphere hanging from its crown.

Stan Tito recognized it at once. "The Moon Magic Fern?"

The vines bowed, slowly lowering the Moon Magic Fern's sphere until it came to rest before Stan Tito.

The sphere opened to reveal a young trilobite woman gazing out at the Child of Fortune.

The great sphere swayed like a hanging basket as she sat inside with her legs crossed.

"I hear Stan Tito, descendant of the great poet and the legendary Child of Fortune, quarreled with King Henir and left God-Servant City."

"You wouldn't happen to be Stan Tito, would you?"

Her teasing tone told Stan Tito that she already knew him. "One rumor, and that's enough for you to guess it's me?"

The young woman laughed. "All right!"

"I have seen you through the eyes of the Moon Magic Fern, descendant of the great poet, Child of Fortune."

Stan Tito looked up at her. "Who are you?"

He had already guessed that she came from the Samo Kingdom, but he had no idea who she was.

The young woman answered, "I am Princess Saliman of the Samo Kingdom, first in line to the throne."

"I have come to negotiate with King Henir. The Samo Kingdom intends to sign a non-aggression pact with him. I did not expect to encounter you here."

That was her claim, but she had plainly come for more. She had also been charged with surveying the Henir Dynasty from within.

If she sensed weakness in King Henir and found the foundations of his rule unstable, the Samo Kingdom would stop at nothing to wage war against him.

Princess Saliman studied Stan Tito with open interest. "We have heard your story. They say you are lucky and unassuming."

"No one expected you to find the courage to challenge King Henir."

Stan Tito met her gaze. "You can say it plainly. I'm an ordinary, useless man with nothing to recommend him but luck."

Princess Saliman shook her head. "No, no, no, Child of Fortune."

"To enjoy the favor of fortune and the divine being is itself the greatest power and gift."

"And the blood of Saint Tito runs in your veins."

"If the Henir Dynasty has no place for you, why not come to the Samo Kingdom?"

Stan Tito refused, "You are not inviting me. You are inviting Saint Tito's descendant, the figure called the Child of Fortune."

"If I went with you, I would become a puppet in your hands, a pretext and a proclamation for war."

"I am only an ordinary man. I have no wish to become your banner in the name of God."

Stan Tito might have been born a commoner, but he understood himself clearly.

"Very well!"

"Even so, I believe you will come to the Samo Kingdom one day."

The young woman turned the Moon Magic Fern away and departed. Before coming, she had heard that the Child of Fortune had left God-Servant City. Yet Henir had neither issued a warrant for him nor stripped Stan Tito of his status.

Henir had suppressed every report about Stan Tito, as though none of it had ever happened.

She did not know that Stan Tito had left with the great poet Tito's Final Chapter. At that very moment, the holy relic lay hidden in the basket on his back.

She had not taken the Child of Fortune by force because doing so might give Henir a pretext to blame the Samo dynasty.

Nor did she send Stan Tito back to God-Servant City. She believed he would bring Henir trouble.