Lexicon/KeepersHand
The Keepers Hand
Paradise Cloud, Historian and Scribe whose pen knows naught but Truth, writes:
In the The Merry Wives of Ammirutzes, we discover that even at the end of the Grand Solar Monarchy, Jubilant Willow was aware of The Keeper's Hand. He is, of course, masquerading as Decia Dakar in this instance, a name which recent research has revealed to be a common pen-name of the time. Here, Ninifet, The Lustrous Unfurling of Orchids and Mistress-Queen of the Perfumed Seraglio, sings out to the moon from her deathbed as she succumbs to a fatal dose of Miasma Poetica:
"Not long the dawn,
The poison shall awake,
Still fading now,
The words my lover spake,
Bring Keeper's Hand,
And from me venom take,
'Fore I forget,
And heart in bosom breaks."
Although Jubilant Willow is hardly the most reliable of sources (nor best of poets), Ninifet's speech seems to verify other fragmentary evidence that indicates The Keeper's Hand to be a restorative artifact of phenomenal power.
The White Words Codex mentions in passing that Night Quill would never have survived the ordeal of her Nine Hundred Entreaties if "the Bearer of the Keeper's Hand" had not "restored her vigour". However, all seven versions of the Braid and Cord Saga neglect to mention this Bearer at all, claiming instead it was the Sun's warmth which envigourated her tired limbs - suspiciously, perhaps, this is the single instance in which they all agree. Likewise, it is hinted in The Book of Helots that Manuman took the title Keeper after a mysterious traveller allowed him to sleep "curled within with the Keeper's Hand" one night on the road to Horizon, where, as we all know, he arrived with his manifold insanities removed. And does not Xanthippe the Gregarious claim that his freedom came "direct from keeper's hand" in his masterwork, Adventures in Ukta Marish?
The only other recorded event during which The Keeper's Hand appears is in the restoration of the Dragon-Kings on the release of the Will of Hesiesh, a matter on which I have already touched and have little more to say. For do the Immaculate Texts not teach us that it is in the nature of imperfection to be jealous of perfection?
The appearance of the Hand is unknown, but close examination of all recorded appearances reveals that it was always delivered by a cloaked and shadowed figure, and always in the vicinity of Rathess. Could it be that the Dragon-kings still seek to shape the world through the application of their panacea? And if so, what ends do they seek to impose upon us?
I cannot say for sure, but if we look at events following the appearance of the Keeper's Hand, it becomes clear that an agenda exists. For was not Jubilant Willow said to have been healed of his licentious ways in the last years of his life, providing sufficient wealth to the Sky Temples that they spread throughout the South? And did not Night Quill later facilitate the foundation of the Sanctorium Solisium by disposing of Tenfold Fears and her Band of Flame? Was not Manuman responsible for the foundation of the Justicars of the Risen Sun? And if Xanthippe had not escaped Ukta Marish, Sun Sang Tzu would still remain unblessed, the Nectarine Rebellion would have been avoided, her father, Eyes-Like-Coral-Dancing, would remain unmarried, and her sister, Xiao Pao Sin, would never have been born. And I'm sure it is clear to any scholar of the age what repercussions that would have had!
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