The old man sat by the river bank, his hand holding the rod and his arms still with patience. He was old, far too old for a God-Imperium. His skin sagged slightly and he was short with his back hunched over in age.

  On his head was an old bamboo hat. It was weathered and brown, having lost its yellow shine and distinctive circular shape a long ways back. His clothes were the same. His green pants were held together by a frayed string and his shoes looked like they had walked a hundred thousand steps. His coat was stained but clean and his eyes were closed, but he missed nothing for them.

  The river was rushing, running, boiling, and chilling all at once. It was still and freezing, large and small, flooding and yet nothing but the smallest of streams. It was all things Yin and Yang.

  He pulled back the reel. The fish had seen it for what it was and they would never bite on bait they knew. He changed the bait to something new, something they’d never seen before, and moved himself a good distance over.

  A good fisherman was a consistent fisherman. He had to accept when the fish were biting and accept when they weren’t.

  He pulled back his rod and cast. A good distance away, the still river rippled with his hook and instantly, he had a bite.

  The fisherman reeled and pulled, yanking the small fish out of the river. The fish remained in the river but was also taken out of it. A piece of its qi was caught on the fisherman’s hook, but that was all he needed.

  That was all he sought. The fish in turn had taken the bait and swam forward against the stream, joyful in its newfound treat.

  A good distance away were three old ladies. To them, the river was an endless ball of string, ever growing and twisting into itself. One of them struggled, parting bits of string from the giant ball of eternal yarn, she pulled and measured and cut. She had a mouth and arms, but no eyes. The other wove the string in a loom, weaving a tapestry for the ages. She had eyes and arms, but no mouth. The last one stared down at the tapestry after it had been weaved, giving meaning to the strange image. She had eyes and a mouth, but no arms.

  One to gather but not to weave, one to weave but not to speak, and one to speak but not to gather.

  “Anything good,” the speaker asked.

  “He caught something?” the gatherer added.

  The weaver looked curiously in tandem.

  The fisherman stared at the fish, and for a moment, the fish stared back. From the river, deep from the river, a dragon looked at the fisherman. The fish was her child, a small carp on its way to jump over the Dragon’s Gate. A God-King attempting Imperium.

  It would fail, everyone knew this except for the fish. The fish, the real fish was rushing now, trying to leap over the waterfall and free itself from the river, while also binding itself to it.

  The Great Dao, the River of Fate, the Expression of Existence. The fish didn’t know that above the waterfall was just another body of water, the spring from which all water arose.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  It clashed with the gate along with many others and not one could clear the gate.

  The dragon below didn’t seem to notice. The piece of the fish that was in the fisherman’s hands turned still. The dragon stared at him with hatred.

  “Do you want it?” The fisherman asked, ignoring the dragon in the water.

  “Yes,” the gatherer replied.

  “Indeed,” the speaker added.

  The weaver looked curiously at the dead thing.

  The gatherer took the fish from him.

  “It’s dead,” she said with a grimace, but the fish now turned to string was handed over to the weaver. The weaver silently weaved and handed over the finished tapestry to the speaker, and the speaker frowned.

  To call them one woman would be a mistake, but to call them three would be a lie.

  They were like him and a few others. A small number of Imperiums who gazed into Fate. Their numbers were few and sacred and most had risen in the early days of existence as few of their kind got this far nowadays.

  The three and one gathered, weaved, and saw.

  Then all three looked towards the dragon, even the one without eyes, and frowned.

  “You would bring death,” they all spoke, even the one without a mouth. “You would bring destruction. You would bring hell and suffering for only this?”

  The dragon roared in indignation. It wasn’t over the matter of its child. It had far too many and cared far too little for its spawn to care about the death of one of them. It was mad over another thing. It was mad over its secrets.

  These beings, these watchers of fate stood above existence and cast their hands to all. And all that took it would be known.

  Mortal, immortal, God-Kings and all. They would offer a trade of greatness for a bit of greatness in turn. Even the children of God-Imperium could accept that trade. That Tome was similar to them, though it sought all knowledge not just fate itself.

  And for that, it saw less of Fate and more of everything else. But these creatures only sought fate. They sent and searched to know the future of existence, to see through the veil of the void and time.

  They knew of all the God-Kings and they knew of a lot of their ends, even if they had yet to happen.

  Her child, her stupid, useless, burden spawn had taken that trade. A bit of his fate for a bit of greatness. A fair trade to him, one that had not made a difference in the end.

  And of course, she had let. She had freed him from all that was her, from her control, her essence, and her eye. She would have tainted the process otherwise.

  And she had told him, commanded him to not take their deals, regardless of their offers, and yet he still did. He had betrayed her, not that she hadn’t expected him to.

  These watchers would have found out eventually but now was too early. Her child, the other child, that monkey.

  Truly, children were bound to disappoint.

  With a snort of disappointment, the dragon sank from the surface and hid herself from the fisherman’s view. She went back down to her home and settled and her rage shook the Hells once more.

  The Fisherman frowned, but only for a moment. Once more, he cast out his reel and the ladies returned back to their weaving.

  “Do you think it will come to pass? I saw only a piece but I do not know the whole tapestry. The thread was far too small weave for that.”

  “You saw it,” the Fisherman replied.

  The Fates for all their fame, were far younger than him. Few knew of him and his nature, and he had outlived most of them. He had lived through this before and he would live through this again.

  The three ladies nodded.

  Too many people hated diviners and soothsayers, though the Fisherman and the Fates were far beyond those terms. The Fates sought to control the river by weaving with the small seeds of mortal things.

  None made pawns, but if a being was nearly bound for greatness and would be just outside of its reach, they might aid them. Or if a being was bound for greatness but did not meet their values, they might snip him down from afar. That was the Fate’s way.

  The Fisherman was similar. He fished for doom, for bound destruction, and he flipped all that luck upon its head.

  He was the Fisher of the Damned, The King of Chance, and Gracious Fate.

  But he had not given luck to his latest catch. No, that was an unworthy creature.

  The Fisherman sighed. Not all fish were worth the time it took to catch them.

  So he sat there and held his pole still.

  is 27 chapters ahead, obligatory plug, and thanks for reading.