Samjok-o, the Three-legged Crow, who had spent the majority of his existence drifting in a formless, shining void, aggregating possibilities and accreting layer after layer of potential like the pearl of an oyster, sucked in a metaphysical breath and concentrated. Around him the void collapsed with a pop into an art gallery.

It was a nice art gallery, one of the modern ones, all soft white spaces and tasteful lighting. Crow was not a huge fan of taking corporeal form—there was all that business with the fluids (ew), and breathing, and aging, and dying—but there were times when he found it useful and this was shaping up to be one of them.

Maybe he'd have a bit of fun while he was at it and dress for the occasion.

A floor-length mirror shimmered into existence on one wall of the gallery. Crow, who’d be the first to tell you was just a little bit vain, watched the mirror as he built his human skin from the same shimmery stuff as the gallery, pulling bone and blood and breath out of the void and shaping it to his will. He paused to inspect his progress.

Tall, lean, and tightly muscled, eyes black as his namesake, brows upswept like the wings of birds, Crow caused his thick, jet hair to pull up neatly into a knot at the top of his head in the style of the ancient Gojoseon kingdom before cascading down the plane of his strong back like a fall of dark water. He crafted robes to cover his new skin, heavy silk, the color of a raven in the sun; a living black so dark it sucked the light from the room, with hints of emerald and foxfire blue and a purple so mysterious and intense that a human would have gone insane merely by catching a glimpse of it.

A swarm of silken threads materialized, embroidering the robes with quick, sure strokes—clouds in pale azure, golden rays of the sun cunningly intertwined with the shining blue-black of birds in flight. Over this Crow caused armour, stout leather and bronze, edged with gold, and over this a vast, heavy cloak, blue-black as midnight, with a massive crest of inky feathers across his broad back, framing his shoulders and neck.

Crow took a dramatic step toward the mirror and twirled the cloak around him, relishing the whisper of the hem against the mirror-bright travertine floor. The precise click of the heel of his pointed boot pierced the silence of the gallery with a satisfying corporality. Crow smiled at his reflection in the mirror, waggled one eyebrow saucily, and turned away.

He waved a hand and a beautifully carved table spiraled up out of the floor. Atop it was a delicate porcelain tea set in pale green. The aroma of tea seeped into the wide space of the gallery, a full cup already poured and waiting. Crow picked up the eggshell-thin cup, took an appreciative sip and began to walk.

Around him paintings emerged into existence from the walls, framed in gilt, generously spaced. They showed panoramas of the world outside the unimaginably vast passage within the earth that began and ended at the Navel of Rome. They showed scenes of the past; of a succession of Millennium Wars and carnage and struggle. They showed scenes of the near present; a chronicle of the destruction of the earth's stable climate, the unchecked spread of humankind, the ruin of the sky. They showed scenes of the present; rich portraits of humanity's new masters, the ancient vampire clans now risen into the light.

Crow sipped at his tea as he strolled from gallery to gallery, catching up on millennia of human history, the precise, echoing tick of his heels the only sound.

He stopped in front of a huge painting that occupied almost the entirety of a gallery wall. It showed a bright and shining modern city; bold skyscrapers, a dizzying sprawl of shops and habitations, a bustling transit grid, the lush network of parks and promenades. And all of it nestled under a vast glittering dome of translucent energy, softly opalescent against the smog-choked sky.

Vehicles and people moved within the painting, the hum and throb of mortal life, less like a video and more like the same scene being painted over and over again.

The city was Sabara. It had a long ancient history as one of the primary ports of the maritime silk trade, that vibrant conduit of harbours that transversed the old world from China to Europe like beads on a string. Over millennia Sabara had been known by many names: Pu Lo Jong from Malay Pulau Ujong “the Island at the End,” Ma’it by Arab traders, Long Ya Men somewhat later, the “Dragon’s Teeth Gate,” and later still, Temasek “Sea Town.” Marco Polo called it Chiamassie, and for a long time it was Singapura, the “Lion City.” During some of its darkest days in World War II, it was Syonan-to “the Light of the South” in the language of its conquerors. And then finally, at last, it was Singapore.

But it had always been called by the Romans, Sabara. And now, in 2020CE, 20 years after the last Millennium War, it was Sabara once again.

A door at the far end of the gallery cracked into being, a precise line zipping up from the floor, fissuring across and down again and then opened, spilling a long golden rectangle of light into the gallery. Silhouetted against the radiance, a tall figure marched through the door, the aggressive tread of her boots thunderous in the silence.

The Gorgon came to a halt before Crow, planted her heels and growled, “You sent for me?”