Lexicon/OrianGlax
Orian Glax
Paradise Cloud, Immaculate Scribe and Scholar of Ancient Mystery, writes:
Two sources alone speak to us of the Unraveller, Orian Glax. The first may well be familiar, for it is still sung by children in parts of the North-Western Threshold. It runs thus:
Who was Orian Glax the man?
A man of lies and secrecy.
Did secrets rule his natural span?
They spanned his thoughts
Though none could see.
How did Orian Glax depart?
He parted unloved and alone.
Did seeking alone destroy his heart?
That and kept secrets
meant to be shown.
Why did Orian Glax then die?
He died to mend a broken heart.
To mend his heart where did he pry?
He pried the Stone
and it tore him apart.
The second source is perhaps more revealing of fact. The Annals of The Falling Sun mentions Glax following one of the trials faced by King Amirrutzes in his Ten Trials of Championship. As Ammirutzes descends the "scented haven" of Vellanuthians' Column he is greeted by a "wry and wrinkled satyr of a man, his eyes asparkle with secrets and promise", who, nervously dancing forward, speaks the following lines:
"O Ammirutzes, most potent of all Exalts, I am the Orian Glax the Unraveller and I come to beg of you exchange. Throughout Creation is reknowned your vigour, verve and manly virtue, Great King, and I come before you, as supplicant comes to priest in hour of need, to beg a boon. But what can such as I exchange? Just as a supplicant offers prayers, I offer you secrets. Consider the trials that lie ahead. Tomorrow will fall the Featherdown Witches to shriek and haggle away your scalp. Following them, Old Fishbone will challenge your wiles and wits with the twisting of his twelve-foot tongue. And forget not Xavions and Penegrons - neither more fierce than the other - both more terrifying than any Behemoth. And defeating them, you still must face the greatest test of all - the Gordian Coil, mind-breaking puzzle of the Primordials, whose solution is inconceivable to earthly thought. All this lies ahead, and I shall tell you the secret weaknesses of each, if you, with your knowledge of love, will tell me but a single thing - the secret to mend a broken heart."
Whereupon, Ammirutzes scolds the "besagged and pockmarked trickster" with a cry that "none so ugly shall barter with this king, nor shall he ever need seek advice from peregrine-faced know-nothings", and sends him on his way with a warning that Glax will spend eternity within the Kerning Stone if his "impudence outshines his ugliness" again.
From which we can only assume Orian Glax was given the idea to go to the Kerning Stone himself and ask it for advice - advice the stone was, by all accounts, less than willing to provide. For he is said to be one of the poor souls trapped still within.
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