Lexicon/ZealotofAmethyst
Zealot of Amethyst
Shataina, She Who Sings in Symbols, Lady of Legends, tells the tale:
The first of the legends that refer to the Zealot of Amethyst is confusing, for several reasons; for one, the Zealot, whom most records recognize as male, is here noted as female. In this tale, the Zealot is foolish enough to be in the same area as an enraged god. She calls to one of her own patrons for aid when he brings down his divine wrath, and is turned to quartz by the intervention of her saviour (a fate her patron evidently considers better than whatever the other god had in mind). This quartz is then dyed by the tear-mixed wine of the angry god, moved to pity by the mute statue -- all that is left of the girl.
The legend is relevant because it explains the major power of the fragments of the Zealot's statue that remain -- they protect infallibly against all forms of intoxication, and hold the power to change anger into tranquillity. No other stories of the Zealot provide even a hint of the reason behind these powers. (It is also sometimes cited by scholars who seek reasons for Justicar Crystal Raven's illogical hatred of the gods, for he was supposedly close to the Zealot -- one reason why his Diaries were so eagerly sought after by the Brotherhood of Certain Fates.)
However, the most common stories of the Zealot of Amethyst portray him as male, and there is one other widely-known explanation for his transformation into quartz. In this story, the Zealot, a Sidereal who performed a number of difficult secret missions by dint of seducing the targets, was cursed by an infuriated demoness after she discovered that he had used her. The curse, supposedly intended by the demoness to change only his heart into amethyst (and thus represent his cruelty in a particularly painful and fatal way), had an unexpected effect. Rather than dying immediately, the Zealot was transmuted slowly -- first taking on a faint hardness and glint, and in the end struck through his bones to the violet quartz. Eventually, of course, he did perish, but it is a matter of some dispute as to when; false deaths, after all, are a potent weapon in the hands of a secret agent.
All stories recognize the Zealot of Amethyst as a Sidereal, and Chosen of Endings, and bits of his or her statue are sought after often by those who know its unique properties. Historians are particularly interested in the portions that would identify the Zealot's sex; and there have been several attempts to find all the pieces just to reunify them, a feat which hypothetically might have mystical consequences beyond the mere remaking of the original. At least one of the more famous artifacts still extant in Creation includes a portion of the Zealot, but this important ingredient has been mostly forgotten, and modern scholars believe the calmness emanating from it to be a consequence of properly manipulated Air Essence.
Savants have contested that the great Kaskuri Destruction, a spell of great power which simultaneously undid all the Kaskuri Rites operating at the time, was the cause of the shattering of the statue. Many have drawn their own conclusions from this assumption and the Zealot's earlier accusations concerning the Rite; I myself will confine myself to noting that, had the Zealot truly considered the Rite to be the cause of his own calcification, then he (or she) certainly had easier methods of removing the enchantment than attempting to convince the Deliberative of the Rite's wickedness. Indeed, considering that the aforementioned Diaries of Justicar Crystal Raven make it clear that the Zealot restarted his relationship with the demoness who had cursed him for reasons rather different than the ones he gave his superiors -- well, accepting the testimony presented during that time demonstrates a lack of critical thought, to say the least.
The evident similarities between the tale of the Zealot of Amethyst and that of Wandering Willow and her sister have been noted, but their significance is not my business to discuss.
References:
~ Shataina
See also Shataina's other Lexicon entries
