“This doesn’t have to be awkward,
you know,” Ara murmured.
The warmage’s only reply was a deep harrumph. He tugged his tunic over his head and looked
around for his sword-belt. He normally
folded his attire before retiring, but had somehow forgotten to do so the
previous night. There were garments
scattered everywhere. It didn’t help
that his judgement was clouded; the room was full of Amorda’s perfume, and he
thought he might have detected some alchemical component that magnified her
natural scent to the point that it was difficult to think of anyone else.
Thanos was beginning to wonder whether he ought to
leave off being annoyed with Breygon, and start pitying him. He wasn’t the only one in the party who had a
dragon by the tail.
“On the chair,” the elf-woman said
helpfully.
Thanos glanced around, spotted the
belt, and began searching for his boots and stockings. They were scattered to the four corners of
the chamber, but at least they were visible.
Ara watched him bustle busily around
the boudoir, a peculiar look in her emerald eyes. “Are you in a hurry?”
“You heard Tua,” he grunted. “Svardargenta’s here, and he wants to talk to
us. I’ve been dying to speak with him
for months. There’s no time to
waste.” He tugged his right boot on,
wiggled his toes, and looked for his sword.
As an afterthought, he threw the woman a narrow glance. “He’ll probably want to speak with you,
too. You might want to get dressed.”
Ara didn’t move.
She sat up on the sofa, covering herself demurely with the blanket they
had borrowed. “Last night was most
enjoyable,” she murmured. “You are a
skilled lover.”
The warmage’s lip twitched
involuntarily. “Practice,” he replied
with a grudging smile. "You're not so bad
yourself.” He found his sword, and slid
the scabbard into the hangers.
“Thank you,” she replied with a
nod. She glanced down at her flawless
form with a snort of what he could only interpret as amusement. “It was a novel experience. I never imagined that my first mating would
be in this shape.”
Thanos froze. “ ‘First mating’?” he asked, stunned. “Do you mean that you never…that this was the
first time you…”
“Engaged in the coniuncto? Yes,” Ara nodded. “Among we kultaii, mating of any kind is most uncommon before full maturity is reached.” She frowned, looking thoughtful. “That might be one reason why the hopea spend so much time in your
company. The act itself is pleasurable,
and your kind seem to join at an earlier age, and with significantly greater frequently, than mine do.”
Thanos held up his hands. “Just…let’s take a pace back, shall we?” he
insisted, swallowing heavily. “Are you
saying that I was your…um…first?”
“Yes.”
“Not just first…you know, Kindred, but
first…anything?”
“Yes.” She
cocked her head. “This appears to bother
you.”
“Well, I wish you’d told me last
night!” he replied stiffly.
“Why? Would you have made a greater effort?” she
asked reasonably.
Thanos goggled at her for a long
moment. Then, realizing how undignified
he looked with one boot on, one boot off, and his mouth hanging open, he bent
to his task, struggling to simultaneously cram his heel into place and organize
his thoughts. “Did our experiment…did
you at least obtain the result you sought?” he asked in desperation.
“I believe so,” she nodded. “I think I now have a better understanding of
the attraction that the hopea feel towards
your kind.” Suddenly, she dimpled. “Although the validity of experimental results, as I am certain you are aware, lies in their repeatability." When Thanos said nothing, she sighed and went on, "Moreover, as a kulta, I am perhaps not aware of any
special compatibility that may exist between the silvers and the Kindred. The hopea are made differently from us, and as
such could experience such liaisons in a different way.”
“That’s a tough circle to square,”
Thanos frowned. He sat down in the chair
and put his hands on his knees, where they would at least be safe. “Seems to me that the only way to eliminate
that uncertainty would be to revisit the experiment from a silver’s
perspective, and consider our little…er, tryst…as the control.
“Of course,” he went on clinically,
“to manage that, you’d have to be
able to execute the true shape-change, and actually become a silver, in order to
ensure your data were trustworthy.”
“I lack that degree of skill,” the
elf-woman shrugged. She dimpled again. “Perhaps we could repeat the
trial once I am able to cast that spell.”
“And when will that be?” Thanos
asked, cocking an eyebrow.
“In the normal course of
growth? I should be able to access that
degree of arcane power in another four centuries or so.”
The warmage burst out laughing. “Outstanding!” he sputtered. “I’ll make sure to put it in my will that my
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson has to hold
himself ready to mate with you.”
She looked surprised. “You would do that for me?”
“No.”
“Ah.” Ara looked vastly disappointed. “Then I am afraid the experiment is a
failure. I enjoyed gathering data with
you, sir; but without a control as a point of reference, it is
valueless.”
“Hardly that!” The warmage said
as gallantly as he could, under the circumstances. Standing, he bowed. “My lady,
I take my leave of you, and I thank you for your favour. May Vara keep you, and see you fare
well.” He turned to go.
The elf-woman raised a hand. “Wait!”
Thanos halted. “Yes?” he sighed.
“I propose an alternative!” she said
excitedly. “Your access to the flux is
already far superior to my own – that much I can feel in my bones!”
“I suppose it is,” the warmage
allowed. “So?”
“So, instead of me executing the true change, you
could do it!”
Thanos frowned. “That spell is not within my repertoire.”
“But you could arrange to obtain it,
no? Perhaps from a mage at the College? And then, cast it? Couldn’t you?” she pressed.
He scratched an ear, thinking. “I suppose I could,” he said at last. “But to what end?”
“Well,” she said reasonably, “then,
instead of me taking a kindred shape, you
could become a dragon, and we could try the experiment again.”
Thanos blinked. “Well,” he said
hesitantly, “I guess we could give it a try…no, wait.” He shook his head emphatically. “Wouldn’t work. I keep forgetting that in your natural form,
you’re really male.”
“I see no difficulty with that,” Ara
replied, looking puzzled. “Through magic, you could
simply assume the form of a female dragon, and we could –”
The door slammed, cutting her off. Beyond it, she could hear the warcaster's boots thundering down the hall. ra stared at the dark, carved wood
of the portal, perplexed beyond words.
Finally, she shook her head, slid from the sofa to the floor, and began
looking for her clothes.
“Honestly!” she muttered to
herself. “I simply cannot understand
what the silvers see in these
people!”
♦♦♦
Svardargenta's Tale: The
Mountains of Miros, Dracosedes, ten months ago
The soft, diffuse noon-day light bleeding through the
heavy clouds glinted sharply off silver wings as the great dragon spiralled out
of the sky. A whirl of snowflakes followed him down, twisted by the
vortex of his passage into a narrow, helical cyclone. When he struck the
ground, a tremor blasted snowdrifts into the air, and the wind wailing off the
Evermount whipped the cascade of flakes into a sudden blizzard of white.
The dragon shook his wings vigorously, dislodging
shards of ice that had built up over the long flight from Silverstair, then
tucked them away into neat folds across his broad back. He looked
around. Rainbow sparkles reflected by the deeply-burnished, almost
metallic sheen of his cranial plates played over the snow, giving him an almost
comical aspect, in stark contrast to the grimly majestic attitude suggested by
the thick, beardlike hornules projecting from his lower jaw. His eyes,
carefully searching the snow, were an odd, milky white – at least until, with a
pronounced click, he slid the nictitating membranes back, revealing whirling
quicksilver orbs. The glimmering spheres saw everything and revealed
nothing.
Well, he
amended mentally, they see everything except what I’m looking for.
“Hiding,” the enormous beast rumbled to himself. Shaking his head in mild
annoyance, he muttered, “Todenperäinen Näkeminen.” The silvery
orbs gleamed suddenly…and a vast, square-topped mountain of ice swam into view,
revealed all at once by the power of his incantation.
“But not hiding
too hard,” he murmured contentedly. That was fortunate. The Oracle
was known to be grimly fanatical about her privacy. Had she taken serious
steps to remain unseen, even his potent magic might not have sufficed to
penetrate her theurgy.
Focusing his concentration inward, the dragon stepped
carefully forward, flowing sinuously and without hesitation into the shape of a
man. Ekhani, by all outward appearances, if conspicuously ill-attired for
the weather. As was his wont, his adopted shape sported heavy,
battle-scarred plate armour and a long woollen cloak, grey and trimmed in white
fox-fur. A robust walking stick of gnarled, knotty oak appeared in his
hand. He would need it, he thought, if only for footing and balance.
All things considered, he would have preferred to
retain his true form; the Mountains of Miros were not a hostile place (at
least, not by the standards to which a lifetime of hardship, danger and battle
had accustomed him), but they were a wild and untamed environment, and his
natural shape was better suited to discouraging hungry predators. And
four massive, clawed feet were infinitely superior to two thin-soled boots on
the craggy ice of the mountainside.
But he had little choice. The Oracle had not
designed her glacial refuge with dragons in mind. He had many powers at
his disposal, but none of them would enable him to fit through a man-sized
doorway without first becoming man-sized.
A few moments later he stood in the shelter of the
enormous, cave-like entrance. Close-up, the ice fortress was immense,
easily as large as his own lofty keep in Cloudspire, back in the mortal realm
of Anuru. It was oddly beautiful, too; the outline recalled human
structures, and featured soaring towers, graceful minarets and even glinting,
blue-white battlements. But it was all illusory; the Oracle’s home was a
part of the glacier upon which it stood, a protruberance of the aquaplane of
Vandilori into the celestial aether of Dracosedes; a world-within-a-world that
had been hollowed out for use by Tushára Devárshi and her
servants. Mortal comforts and conceits could be of little interest to one
of her nature and might.
But it was impressive nonetheless. And she could
not have chosen a better location; on a rare, clear day, he would have been
able to see the windswept peak
of Evermount
Shaking the snow from his cloak, he strode into the
soaring expanse of the entryway, walking with caution, as he always did after
taking human form. The floor was glistening blue ice, slick to the touch,
flowing smoothly and seamlessly into the walls, which merged in turn with the
lofty ceiling far overhead. “Should’ve brought some crampons,” he
muttered, taking care to plant the iron ferule of his walking stick firmly
before every step. Like all of his kin, he was strong, as strong as stone
roots of the mountains – but none too nimble. He had no desire to suffer
an ignominious fall before his mission was accomplished.
♦♦♦
Only a short way inside the ice castle, the level of
illumination dropped off considerably to a diffuse, muted indigo. His
eyes were accustomed to it, of course (he would have been able to see even if
it were completely dark, or for that matter, even if he had been blindfolded),
but it lent an eerie, otherworldly aspect to the Oracle’s lair. He
wondered whether it was deliberate, intended to overawe supplicants, or whether
it was merely a natural artefact of using ice as a construction material.
Probably an unintended consequence, he decided. The Oracle wasn’t
mortal, after all, or even a denizen of one of the outer planes; she likely
wasn’t overly concerned with the artistic impression her dwelling left on those
who sought her advice.
And if her intent was to overawe visitors, the
fortress itself would certainly accomplish that, without any additional
embellishments.
Tchaixi. A
deep, brittle voice reverberated through the blue shadows of the corridor.
As would these fellows, he mused, continuing along his previous line of
thought. He stopped walking.
With a rumbling crackle, three immense, roughly
man-shaped figures detached themselves from the inner wall of the
passage. Shards of shattered ice tinkled to the floor. Each was at
least four times his own height, and looked to be sculpted entirely from blue
glass. Glowing, runic inscriptions, in no language or alphabet that he
knew, swirled and cavorted across their bodies, which appeared to be
translucent. Glancing up, he saw that the ceiling of the massive entry
hall towered over their ‘heads’. I could’ve fit through here, he
grumped.
The three colossal figures stomped slowly towards him,
their steps crunching deep into the icy floor, and stopped a few arms’-lengths
away. He had to crane his neck to see them.
Suxiqivich?
He sighed. Probably the Oracle’s native tongue,
he thought. He considered bending the flux to enable him to understand
the creature’s speech, then remembered that the spell required that he touch
the being whose speech he wished to comprehend. Probably not a good
idea, he thought. “Käsittää Kaikenlainen Kielita,” he muttered
instead, feeling a slight warming sensation tickle the back of his neck.
It was a more complicated working, but he had the power to spare.
I’ve really got to make that one permanent, one of
these days, he thought absently.
“Please repeat
your question,” he said clearly, looking up at the towering ice-figures
clustered around him. He heard thick, liquid syllables tumble from his
tongue: Quyaruq uqaqtuq apiqsruunlgit.
Suxiqivich? the
monstrous creature repeated. What he heard was, What is your business
here?
“I seek an
audience with the Oracle of Evermount,” he replied, half-shouting. His
own voice sounded high and sprightly compared to that of the gigantic
ice-things.
The Oracle does not welcome unsought visitors, it rumbled.
“I am neither unsought nor unexpected,” he
called. “I seek repayment of a debt owed my father.”
There was a long pause. He would not have been
surprised to see the three creatures glance at each other; but they stood
immobile, and he knew that they were seeking instructions elsewhere.
One minute. Two minutes. Standing inactive
in the frigid corridor, he began to miss his true shape. His kind
retained their invulnerability to cold even when wearing a Kindred body, but
human clothing always seemed thin and insubstantial, especially in the eternal
snows of the Mountains of the Mistress. He wasn’t cold, but he felt
cold.
“Idiocy,” he
muttered to himself, stamping his feet impatiently. He considered
igniting his staff, but decided against it. The Oracle probably wouldn’t
take kindly to anyone bringing arcane fire into her demesne.
At length, one of the ice-creatures leaned towards
him. Its body crackled, and tiny shards of ice rattled down. What
is your name?
“I am
Svardargenta of Cloudspire,” he replied, shivering unconsciously, “the only
living son of Venastargenta, Lord of Silverstair. It is to him that the
debt is owed.”
Then it is he that must come to seek repayment, the creature replied. Svarda noticed a subtle
transformation in the tone and rhythm of its speech, and realized that a
different consciousness was now addressing him. He guessed immediately
who it was.
“My father’s
time is at an end,” he replied, hugging his cloak around his shoulders.
“The Twilight has come, and he is preparing to Depart. The debts and the
tributes owed him cannot follow him into the world beyond the world, and thus
they fall to me.” He cocked his head slightly and decided to play his
hand a little more aggressively. “I have urgent need of your aid,
mistress. In return, I would release you from your debt to my family.”
The palace corridors were silent for a moment.
Then, the three ice-creatures seemed to nod slightly. Each backed away
from Svarda carefully, their steps grinding harshly on the floor; and, moving
slowly, merged into the ice walls of the cavern. Despite himself, he
grinned, impressed at the power and control exhibited.
A patch of the icy floor immediately before him
shimmered suddenly, then melted into an undulating pool of liquid water.
A viscid, fluctuating column sprang up from it, like a gelid waterspout,
undulating and splashing slowly in the frigid air. With incredible grace,
it poured itself into a shape roughly approximating his own – except that,
where he had legs, it looked like a constantly flowing torso perched atop a
pillar of water.
A new voice – lower, more fluid and sibilant than
those of the ice guardians – echoed through the castle’s corridors. Follow
me.
The ambulatory water-pillar flowed towards one of the
cavern walls. The wall melted away, revealing a high, narrow tunnel
through the ice. Svarda nodded, content that his choice of shape had been
justified. He wouldn’t have fit through there in his true form.
Clutching his cloak tightly around his shoulders, he
followed.
♦♦♦
The Fortress of the Oracle was far larger and more
extensive than it appeared from outside. The interior plan, Svarda
quickly realized, was something of a spiral, twisting in upon itself, and
leading the visitor ever upwards, higher and higher through the massive corpus
of the glacier. He understood intuitively that this was intended to evoke
the endless maelstroms of the Oracle’s native plane, and he approved, even as
he found it somewhat disorienting.
The undulating water-being he followed led him through
vast chambers carved out of the ice – not by tools, but rather by some
mysterious process that left the floor, ceiling and walls lustrous and
shimmering, with a mirror-like finish that amplified many-fold the small
amounts of sunlight that managed to creep through the translucent
material. Ripples and runnels in the ice reminded him of tunnels carved
through glaciers by fast-flowing mountain rivers, except that there was no
running water here; only the heavy silence of the mountains. Unlike the
light, the whistling wind did not penetrate here; even when he passed a series
of what were obviously guest chambers, he could see that the wide ‘windows’
were covered by thick panes of translucent ice.
There was no sense of plan or structure to the
Oracle’s lair; chambers were small and large, multifaceted or smooth-flowing;
tunnels were high and narrow or low and broad, forcing him to stoop here, or
ease himself sideways there. The route was confusing, too; it was easy to
imagine becoming lost among the myriad chambers and passageways. He
though again of his own citadel at Cloudspire, and wondered whether these
peculiarities were defensive in nature; but then he dismissed the
thought. How many beings, other than the Powers themselves, had the might
to challenge the Oracle? And even if someone did decide to assault her
fortress, who would dare to do so in Dracosedes, under the very eye of
Miros herself?
On the other hand, he mused, only one of the Powers of
Darkness themselves would be mighty enough to invade Dracosedes and
disdain Miros. And such a one would be sufficiently powerful to crush the
Oracle and her fortress like an anthill. These could not be defences;
they had to be affectations.
He smiled to himself. He was unused to
travelling the Outer Planes. Everything was so different
here. No wonder Father was odd to talk to, betimes; he had been here,
lost to the mortal world, the ancient Master of Silverstair, for more than two
thousand years.
As he wandered the hallways and caverns of the
Oracle’s domain, Svarda lost count of time. He was surprised when, at
last, the water-sprite guiding him suddenly dissolved, melting away into a
puddle that froze almost instantly, becoming a part of the floor. “Thank
you,” he murmured awkwardly.
He looked around. He was standing in a
non-descript chamber, no different from any of the others he had seen, perhaps
twenty paces across, with a domed ceiling half as high.
Then he gasped. Opposite the passage by which he
had entered, the wall melted away, revealing an enormous cavern, easily a
hundred times as large as the one in which he stood. The floor dropped
away into a pit at least fifty paces deep, and the ceiling, most of which was
lost in the subtle azure half-light of the interior, was at least twice as
high. A persistent, grinding roar filled the air.
He walked carefully to the edge of the chamber, where
the floor dropped away and the walls opened into the vast emptiness before him,
and looked down. Far below, at the bottom of the pit lay a churning mass
of water: a vast, inky-blue maelstrom that whirled about and about, scouring
the walls. Enormous chunks of ice, like small bergs, rotated around the
centre of the gigantic whirlpool, clashing and grinding together, crumbling
into razor shards, and refreezing almost instantly. Nothing that fell
into such a vortex could long survive.
He took a long, careful look around the vast
cavern. Even the walls seemed fluid and unfixed; here the ice melted,
running away towards the churning fury below; there, it reformed, recreating
anew the structure of the Oracle’s citadel. This was the center of it
all; the focus of all her power, and her link to her home in distant Vandilori,
the domain of the water beings, sailing the eternal Aether. And locked
forever beneath the Dome.
He put his hands to his lips, forming a trumpet.
“Hello?” he called. For a moment, he thought that his voice might echo
across the enormous space; but his words were lost in the cacophony of icy
splintering.
But the Oracle’s voice overwhelmed it easily. Welcome,
Svardargenta. Only son of Venastargenta. Master of Cloudspire.
The words came from all around him, and the ice walls of the cavern trembled.
As he watched, mesmerized, an enormous waterspout,
like the one that had generated his guide (only larger; infinitely larger)
burst out of the centre of the gelid maelstrom. It climbed higher and
higher, mounting towards the distant ceiling of the cavern; and as it rose, the
oceans of water cascading away from its centre froze into thick pillars of
bluish-white ice, hardening instantly in the very act of tumbling back towards
the water far below. The fierce fury of the maelstrom tore the frigid
pillar to fragments as it circled and howled, but the ice reformed as fast as
it could be destroyed.
In the space of three breaths, the pillar, like a
colossal stalagmite, had reached the level of the ledge upon which he
stood. From its peak, knifelike shards of ice grew, rose up, and twisted
themselves into the shape of a glistening throne. Razor-like blades of
ice sprouted from its back, twisting and twining in all directions, like earthly
ivy. The arms of the throne bulged, and each grew into a dragon’s
snarling visage. He smiled.
A sudden grinding at his feet caused him to glance
down. A tongue of ice was growing from the ledge before him, stretching
towards the pillar at the centre of the maelstrom. He looked up, and saw
a similar tongue growing from the pillar. A moment later, they had met
and merged, forming a slender span that arced across the vast, deadly pool.
Obviously, he was intended to cross. The bridge
was, at best, two feet wide. He took a deep breath, glanced down at the
whirling vortex of icy death grinding a hundred paces below, and put his foot
on the icy span. It was rougher than it looked, and he crossed slowly and
gingerly, taking his time, all the while repeating the word, “kynäleta… kynäleta…
kynäleta…” over and over under his breath.
Then he smiled; after all, if he fell, he could
transform back into his true shape in the blink of an eye. What kind
of dragon, he wondered wryly, has a fear of heights?
When he reached the icy pillar he sighed deeply, and
looked around. The frozen platform on which he stood felt odd; the
continual formation and destruction of the pillar by the freezing waterspout
beneath him gave it an oddly impermanent feel, lending a subtle quivering to
the structure that his strained senses could easily detect. It was
unnerving.
He took a few more steps, until he stood before the
empty throne of ice. Raising his voice to ensure he could be heard over
the roar of grinding ice, he called out: “I am here.”
The ice of the throne rippled and flowed; and in less
than a heartbeat, a figure emerged from the deep, crystalline blue. It
was a woman; by all accounts, a human, but of immense stature, easily ten or
more feet tall, with flesh of azure, like the ice from which she had
sprung. She was clad (rather scantily, Svarda noticed) only in scraps and
flows of bluish ice, and bore upon her head a towering crown formed of
razor-edged shards of the same rigid azure substance.
Welcome, Svardargenta, the voice repeated – now a loud, thundering rumble,
echoing against the background of grinding ice like a horn in the
mountains. Svarda watched closely, but the ice-woman’s lips did not move,
and he suspected that he heard her voice only in his own mind.
“I thank you,”
he shouted. And then he blinked; by the time the short sentence was
finished, the clangour of whirling, grinding ice had ceased, and the vast
cavern was as silent as a tomb.
Is this silence preferable? the ice-woman inquired.
Infinitely,” he replied with a bow. “Again, I
thank you.” Thinking rapidly, he added, “May I inquire…?”
Ask.
“This is not
your true form.” It was not a question.
It is not, the
voice replied. I have assumed this manu for your benefit.
Within the waters of my homeland of Vandilori, she said, as it is
called by outsiders – I am formless and free; one with my kindred, mingled and
indistinct. Beings of solid, differentiated flesh do not comprehend this
manner of existence, and so I mimic them, to set them at ease.
“You are
courteous,” he said, smiling.
I am practical,
she replied, mimicking his expression. Svarda found her smile artificial
and eerily unnerving. Those who seek me out are looking for answers,
not more questions.
“I have
questions,” he replied, changing the subject.
I know.
“Do you know what they are?” he asked, only a little surprised.
Yes.
He nodded. “Well, then,” he said, gratified. “Do you know the
answers?”
Not until you ask them, the
Oracle replied evenly. But even then,
dragon, take care how you ask. For there
are some things that I am not given to know.
I fear that I am fated to be denied the wisdom you seek.
Svarda stood still and silent, slightly
dumbfounded. “But…but you are the Oracle,”
he said at last, stunned. “It is said that you are eternal and
omniscient; that you know all that is, and can answer any question about
anything within the Universe.”
The icy figure perched atop the throne tilted its head
towards him, and its eyes took on a silvery sheen. Yes, it
replied. All of the knowledge, lost and found, past and present and
future, that has ever been, or will ever be known, within the walls of
Evertime; all of it is mine to know.
Only when asked; and only once.
That is my blessing, and my curse.
But the answers that you seek, the voice continued with calm
implacableness, lie outside of my wisdom.
I am a creation of the Powers, dragon, and my scope is the World
Made. Your questions pertain to what
lies beyond it.
“But…but…” He stopped and took a deep
breath. “Mistress, the fate of many is at stake. The fate of all, perhaps. I must have
answers! What am I to do?”
Ask different questions.
Svarda blinked several times in rapid
succession. Then he took a deep breath, and made a conscious effort to
still the hammering of his heart.
But ask carefully, the voice continued. The ice-woman leaned forward and fixed him
with her unblinking stare. My debt to your father is ancient and
indisputable, and I will honour it. But repayment extends only to three
questions, and three answers. No more.
“Very well,” he
replied. He thought carefully, and then said, “My first question, then,
is this: what is the cause of the aberrant incursions taking place upon Anuru?”
The Law of Evertime is failing, the Oracle replied instantly. Those who
crafted it were once omnipotent and all-knowing; but no more. They have become distant, unknowing,
forgetful. In the absence of the makers, those who were formed to maintain the
walls of the Universe, the dark and the light, have failed in their task. They have fallen into bitter squabbling,
their noble task – the Balance – forgotten in petty squabbles for transitory
advantage. And so the ancient consensus is breaking. Cracks are forming in the Walls. The World Unmade, shut out for so long, is
making inroads, and threatens to reclaim for the Void all that was hived off and
stolen from it so long ago. By Anā and Ūru.
The incursions of which you speak, the Oracle said with
terrible calm, are only the first manifestation of eventual and inevitable
collapse. This end has been long in coming, but it has come at last; and
when it is here, all that is, and all that has ever been, will be undone in the
Great Unmaking.
Svarda gaped, struggling to commit the ice-woman’s
answer to memory. “I thank you,” he said weakly. “My second
question: why is this happening now?”
The walls were already failing, the voice rumbled into the still silence of the
cavern. But that failure has been hastened by mortal magic. The
Powers do not have the might to overturn the labours of Anā and Ūru, because
they are the offspring of the forces of Light and Dark, and so are bound by the
limitations of the Powers, and thus of Anā and Ūru themselves. But mortals know no such limits. It is
Kindred magic that threatens the Law, and with it, the walls. For in
granting her children free will – by forming for them spirits forged in part of
the unconstrained and unbiddable might of the void - the Lightbringer
unwittingly freed them of the constraints that bind the Powers. The
Kindred, and only the Kindred, among all the beings made since the birth of time
itself, have the capacity to grow beyond the strictures of their makers. The Holy Mother hoped that they would grow
beyond her limitations, and achieve the transcendence that the Powers could
not. Perhaps she did not dream that, in
doing so, they would achieve also the might to unmake all.
His mind whirling with the implications of this new
information, Svarda put his hands to his head. The Kindred!
Frailest, weakest, most pathetic of Bræa’s creatures, they were born, lived
their lives, and died more rapidly than a botfly. Endlessly inventive, endlessly fascinating…They
did this? How in all the wide world…!
He shook his head to clear it. “Third question,
and last,” he said tersely. “You say that mortal magic has done
this. Who is to blame?”
The good that mortals do dies with them, the Oracle intoned, but their evil deeds may oft
outlast their deaths.
That the world is come to this pass is the work of the
grandson of the Lightbringer, Tîor, called The Mighty; and his own grandson,
Bîardath, the voice replied. But
at the root, it is Tîor’s mastery of the Art Magic, yet to be equalled, that is
to blame.
The Walls of Evertime were created to support the
weight of the Universe; but Tîor crafted magic beyond that of which even the
Powers are capable. He discovered how to
breach the Walls. That magic has worn them down, leaving them weak and
thin Worse, Bîardath, whom mortals name ‘Ill-Born’, in creating a tool
capable of working the darkest and most potent of magicks, dealt the Law a mortal
blow. That tool was broken in ages long past, and its shards have lain,
quiescent and undisturbed, for many a year; but something has awoken it.
Its power is growing, waxing in darkness.
Some, even among the Powers, may seek to possess it,
hoping to tame that which they could not themselves create.
Twice have the Walls been breached by mortals wielding
Tîor’s knowledge. A third such breach, and all shall fail and fall.
But even if that third breach never comes, the Walls have been so weakened by
the conjurer’s craft that they may in time crumble piecemeal. If the Walls
fail, then all the Universe shall fall in fire and dust, consumed by primordial
chaos; swallowed whole and obliterated by the Void that spawned it.
The voice took on a ringing solemnity. The
Ending is upon us, Svardargenta of Cloudspire. That is your answer.
The wheels of the finis inflammari have been set into motion, and they
will turn, and turn, and turn again, until all is ground into dust. And in the
end, not even dust will remain.
“You speak of
Tîor and Bîardath,” Svarda said, confused. “But they are long dead. They went to wind eons ago.”
That is not a question, the voice said calmly. It is a statement, and
it is in error. Neither the grandson of the Lightbringer nor his grandson
has any material grave. None can say whether the Mighty or the Ill-Born
are dead. I have no knowledge of their fate, for they were cast beyond
the Wall of Evertime by their own kin, and neither spirit has ever found its
way to the Long Halls, where Tvalt holds his court in shadow.
But, whether dead or no, that which they wrought in
life lives after them. The folly of Bræa – I, who know all deeds and see
their ends, have the right to name it that – the Lightbringer’s folly gave Tîor
the freedom to transgress the laws of the Art Magic that were written when the
Universe was made. And her folly gave Bîardath the freedom to rise to
challenge the Powers themselves. That same folly protects their works, and
the works of all of the Kindred, from interference by eternal hands. Not
even the Powers themselves can destroy what Bîardath made; it could only be
sundered, and its fragments scattered and concealed. Thus its power was
banked, but not broken.
Those scattered fragments have now awoken,
Svardargenta of Cloudspire. A scion of Bîardath has put his hand upon the
Dragon Ring that once graced the Wizard-King’s ill-born finger; the ring that
was reft from him by his treacherous daughter; and taken in turn by Ekhalra from
Mærglyn’s shattered flesh. That touch woke the Heartstone that once lay
at the centre of the Wand’s power; and the stone, in turn, has waked the other
shards. Each of the shards exerts its own terrible might. One of
them alone has the power to bend the flux further than it was meant to be bent;
to reach beyond the walls, and bring through things that have no place in this
world. Joined together, they have the power to grasp the tendrils that
bind the universe together, and rewrite all that is to suit the pleasure of
their bearer.
Or to tear them asunder, to the ruin of all.
Svarda stood unmoving, unspeaking, appalled by all
that he had heard.
My debt to your father and your family is discharged,
Svardargenta of Cloudspire, the
Oracle added solemnly. The pillar shook
slightly, and the grinding of the ice reasserted itself.
Svarda nodded. “May I ask a final question?” he
shouted over the thunder.
I am not obliged to answer, the Oracle replied evenly.
“I understand,” he agreed. “I simply wanted to
know…mistress, if the Walls fail, what will you do? Where will you go?”
The Oracle was silent for a moment. Then the
great voice spoke again, and its calm, ethereal detachment was tainted by a
hint of wonder and sadness. Where is there to go, dragon? If the
Law of Evertime fails, all that is or ever was will be undone. The very essence of being will be unbound, to return to the
vast, seething maw of the elemental chaos that has lain, churning, eternal, and
hungry, beyond the Walls since the Universe was made.
I know not whether Anā and Ūru will survive the
ending; they may, for they came out of the Void before all else, and forged the
pocket of reality within which we, all of us, exist. But the Powers…they
were formed within this reality. Even they, for all their might and
glory, have no magic to preserve themselves against that final ending. If
they did, I, too, would know of it.
They will be unmade when it is undone. And as I
am but a minion of those self-same powers, I must share their fate.
“You offer answers, but no hope!” Svardargenta shouted
over the grinding roar of the ice. “If the Powers themselves are helpless
in the face of this peril, where then am I to turn, if I am to learn how to
avert the end you have foretold?”
The great head, crowned with ice, tilted toward him,
and the Oracle’s eyes took on a bright, azure sheen. Perhaps you
should seek out the counsel of the Kindred, she mused. They may
hold the key to this doom.
I tell you this now, dragon, to put you and all your
line in my
debt. In the eye of my curse, I see nine
mortals, sons and daughters of Bræa, whose names stand before all others. They are the nine who hold the fate of all in
their frail hands; the apotheosis of the Holy Mother’s great gamble, the
culmination of long lines of descent, that bear within them the power of choice
granted by the splinters of the Unmaking set within them by Bræa herself.
In the great whorl of knowing, they are called Vedon Yhdeksän –
the Wager of Nine. They stand forth as
three, three and three – three Servants of the Powers, three Masters of the
Hand, and three Wielders of the Flux.
Their names are the Servant of Skyfire, the Bearer of Fate, and the
Warden of the Green; the Pillar, the Jester, and the Joyful Trickster; and
lastly, the Mage of Light, the Mage of Darkness, and the Banisher of Shadows.
“Such obscure names will do
little to aid me in the mortal realm,” Svarda observed wryly. “Can you not be more specific?”
I cannot, the Oracle replied. I speak with the voice of prophecy,
recounting only the knowledge vouchsafed me by my curse. You must be content with what I am given to
know.
“And you counsel me to seek
them out,” Svarda mused aloud. “To try
my questions and search for answers to the end of the world among the Kindred?”
I do, the Oracle confirmed.
After all, she
added darkly, it was they who brought it about.
♦♦♦
