Esme the Dancer

The Dust Spirals are a Krokhan Nomad Clan who believe that one can learn the future and receive life guidance from patterns in sandstorms. It was Esme who saw, in billowing sands and furious gusts, a great city. At its centre was a huge building of white stone dedicated to the worship of Lumaya. She felt a deep yearning to travel there, one that haunted her every waking moment and deepest sleep. Why? She had no idea. Had Esme not been a daughter of the Dust Spirals’ chief priestess she could not have persuaded her Clan to leave its ancestral wandering lands. Her mother was moved by her impassioned insistence they go. Surely, she reasoned, if the sand-winds had such an impact on her daughter, they should listen? It was rare indeed for such a stark impact to be felt by anyone reading the dust storms. And so the Clan traveled. It was a long and arduous journey. All Esme had to guide them was her drawings of the white stone building. They headed west, for such a construct they knew was not something from the Sorrowlakes to the north, or Velyzar to the south. It must have been from the continent of Anhelt. After many months, the Dust Spirals came to the city of Lutetia in Kaerok. There, at its center, was the huge building of white stone, its towers reaching hundreds of feet into the sky. The Nomads could not believe their eyes. A ‘cathedral’ the locals called it, dedicated to the worship of Lumaya. The Clan hailed Esme as ‘chosen of the sand—winds’ for receiving a vision that came to be so literally true. But what were they to do now? There were no sand storms here to give further guidance. All they could do was wait. They camped outside the city, Esme and others entering each day. To sustain themselves, they danced, living off the silver passers-by tossed to them. Esme always performed outside the cathedral. She was talented enough to have danced as part of Armanz the Magnificent’s performances in the past. Lithe, graceful, beautiful, her movements were enchanting to the point of distraction. Many of the inhabitants came to see her as a ‘foreign-born harlot’ and ‘heretic’, for performing as she did outside a sacred place. She was not afraid, even when the crowd became hostile, for she was a skilled fighter and knew in her heart she had to be there. One day, the crowd’s hostility turned to violence. Unbeknownst to her, one member of Esme’s audience felt not hatred for her, but affection. The Ogryn Modo of the Peal, the cathedral’s belltoller who was a myth to most of Lutetia’s people, had watched her each day. Though he had spent much of his life in the bell tower, he rappelled down when the crowd became its most ugly. He barreled his way through the mob, knocking dozens to the ground with his sheer bulk. Chaos ensued. The Ogryn’s sudden appearance horrified the people, few of whom were sympathetic to his kind. They were enraged, many calling for Modo and Esme’s blood. They had to fight their way free of Lutetia, Modo using pure brawn, Esme with light and darting movements to evade punches and kicks as well as precisely land her own. The unlikely pair made for the Dust Spirals’ encampment. There, Esme thanked Modo profusely. She told him all about her visions that had brought her and her people to this city. She believed that meeting him, this being willing to fight to protect a stranger in the face of a crowd’s ‘baseless wrath’, to give him the opportunity to show the world his kindness and escape his prison, was why she had to come to Lutetia. Esme said he should come back with the Clan to the Krokhan Desert. They could not stay. The mob hadn’t pursued them beyond the city walls but surely would eventually. The Ogryn was unwilling, claiming that Lutetia was his home — that he was the belltoller. Esme pleaded with him, saying that after everything that happened he could not return, he was not the belltoller any more. Things would never be as they had been before. He was still uncertain. Hours passed. Esme would not leave without him. Nor would Modo leave with her, torn between recognizing that Esme was right and his feeling he should remain. It was then that a man rode to the Dust Spirals’ camp. It was Vadalk, Modo’s guardian at the cathedral. Without dismounting, he declared that he was the only reason the people had not already come to the camp, and that Modo was no longer welcome in Lutetia. He then turned and left just as quickly. The Ogryn’s decision was made for him, and Esme was delighted.