The Strangers Out Of The Wastes

Five men and five women road out of the heat haze of the salt flats, each borne aloft on a Daylicar. One was indeed Renault who had headed into the Southern wastes with his sister Clara. He looked quite different now: His beard, (which, like most body hair, the people of Blushing shaved off,) was now over six inches long, a wild tangle of long dark hairs. His the hair of his head too had grown, lustrous, black and hanging to his shoulders, all save on the crown of his head, which remained shaved in a 'tonsure', and around his face and ears where it was cut off in a gently sloping arch. Beneath that and the black and gold robes of an Arch-Deacon of the Ecleisarchy he looked much the same, his eyes a dark brown, his skin scorched black as pitch through ten thousand years of ancestral exposure to the hard and harsh sun of Bandera. His facial structure resembled what you and I would call 'Hispanic' or perhaps 'Arabic', a prominent nose, deep set eyes, sharply angled features, but with a thin layer of fat that softened them somewhat. The fat had not been there when he left Blushing over a year ago...

They had been sent on a **** march Renault and Clara knew that from the beginning. Blushing had never had a southern trade partener, none of the people sent in search of one had ever returned, but the mysteries were clear, one pair had to march out in search of new trade partners to each of the compass points...

They had been sparing with their water stores, but by three months, even in still suits, it was gone. They walked on for three days. At last, alone amidst blinding white desolation, dehydrated far beyond speech, by mutual accord they lay down to die.

Luck was with them however, at that exact moment a group of people from beyond the arc of Bandera's azure skies came flying across the plane in a great metallic bird, and spotted the half dead pair with their advanced sensors. The bird/vehicle/dragon/thing landed, and a woman in a strange set of red robes had two monsters made half of metal and half of human flash carry them away, which they were far too weak to resist...

Renault and Clara awoke in a place called "The Med Deck", alive beyond all hope or reason.

They soon learned that they were prisoners of a group of people from beyond the sky: agents of the Star Gods sent to rescue their people from the disaster brought down on their planet when the Son of the Sun and Daughter of the Moon married so many years ago. The last heir to that blasphemous union was now dead, and the punishment of the planet could cease.

The sky people told them of the God-Emperor, and his servants, The Trinity: the Ebon Empress, the Argent Emperor, and the Scarlet Empress. They told them of their eternal quest to reunite all the lost worlds of humanity, and of Renault and Clara's duty to aid them in fulfilling this mission.

Renault was easily swayed to their thinking, but Clara took more convincing. However, when at last they promised to help her fulfill the mission on which Blushing's Mayor had sent them she at last caved in and converted to the faith of the sky people. They were baptized in a square lake of pure water, more than either of them had ever seen in one place in their lives. Then their foreheads were anointed with a triangle of blood and ashes to mark them as the God-Emperor's chosen tools for converting their world...

Renault and Clara were taken to a city thousands of leagues south of Blushing, which they could never have reached on foot. Even with a beast of burden to carry them, one, (like the Daylicar,) supremely adapted to the wastes, they would have died in the attempt.

Along with another four groups of people from their own world and several "Missionaries" from the "Imperium" they convinced the people there to join in the re-conquest of Bandera by the sky people. They would convert where they could, conquer where they must, and kill only if no other options were viable, but they were determined that the planet would be reclaimed and it's environment restored. At first the people were skeptical, but when they began to hand out bottles of water at each prayer meeting, (Tiny to you and I, but unimaginable largess to the people of Bandera.) with no end to the wealth of water they could just give away the people of New Avalon were swayed.

Clara stayed behind in New Avalon, married to a young warrior of that city and already 'with child'. While Renault came here, to the South Gates of Blushing and the fulfillment of his duty. He too was married, but not to a woman of New Avalon. Rather his bride was among the Sky People.

The nine others with him were a very mixed group, and thier sole purpose in visiting Blushing was to Convince it's people to join the Re-Conquest and rebuilding of Bandera. Renault would be key to that: if nothing went wrong with his return. There were an even number of men and women in their party, a taste of what the sky people could bring: trade deals undreamed of! Now they had to do their jobs well, while converting the locals to a new religion and avoiding the pitfalls of the welcome celebration...